Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1939, Page 365
J. V. SNELLMAN
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“The common people can never be enlightened as long as the
ianguage of instruction and legal administration is Swedish, and
as a matter of fact, nothing has been done to alleviate the miser-
able state of degradation into which the people have fallen. “The
Finnish people have thus been brought to their grave. One can
discern from the expression on a Finn’s face and from his songs,
that he knows himself to have given up his life. This is quite defi-
nitely based on the following axiom: Nothing can be done for
Finland by violence. Education is her only salvation.”
Late in the autumn of 1842 Snellman returned home after his
i°ng stay abroad. The Swedish friends with whom he had closely
associated and who had begun to appreciate his personality, fore-
saw more clearly than his Finnish acquaintances that Snellman’s
future career was not to be a mediocre one. On his departure Alm-
qvist is known to have said to him: “In Finland you will either
be hanged or become a member of the Senate”. As a matter of
fact, in his native country Snellman was almost denied his daily
bread, all through the 1840’s, and up to the middle of the 1850’s.
Purthermore, he was frequently subjected to the persecutions of
the bureaucracy and certain other circles. When all possibilities
commensurate with Snellman’s ability were barred to him, he
^as forced to earn his living as headmaster of a school in the
heart of Savo, then as an assessor in a marine insurance company,
and finally as a bookkeeper to a tobacco manufacturer. During
this time, economically and mentally strenuous as it was, Snell-
tuan took steps to apply for a professorship of philosophy in
Sweden. He sent his applications to the Universities of Lund and
Upsala, but each time, after an internal struggle, withdrew them.
To one of his Swedish friends who had taken charge of his appli-
cation papers he wrote: “I will die without disgrace. Forgive my
Uresolution. You alone have been aware of it”.
But despite his innumerable difficulties Snellman gradually,
aPart from his work as headmaster of the school, found an op-
Portunity which made it possible for him to begin the national
ayakening of the Finnish people. At lenght he began to devote
his boundless energies to the creative, political work for which he
Was_ born and to which his rich natural gifts were suited. The
Posxtion of journalist and newspaper publisher which Snellman
°btained in the 1840’s cannot be said to have been outwardly a
sP’endid one, but the influence of this work has been remarkably
great. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that this newly-acquired