Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 2

by Andrew Dickson White

It may be added that in no city of any English-speaking country is Shakspere presented so fully, so well, and to such large and appreciative audiences as in Berlin. All this, and more, the Emperor knows, and he acts upon his knowledge. Interesting was it at various times to see him sitting with his older children at the theater, evidently awakening their interest in dramatic masterpieces; and among these occasions there come back to me, especially, the evenings when he thus sat, evidently discussing with them the thought and action in Shakspere's "Julius Caesar" and "Coriolanus," as presented on the stage before us. I could well imagine his comments on the venom of demagogues, on the despotism of mobs, on the weaknesses of strong men, and on the need, in great emergencies, of a central purpose and firm control. His view of the true character and mission of the theater he has given at various times, and one of his talks with the actors in the Royal Theater, shortly after my arrival, may be noted as typical. In it occur passages like the following: "When I came into the government, ten years ago, . . . I was convinced that this theater, under the guidance of the monarch, should, like the school and the university, have as its mission the development of the rising generation, the promotion of the highest intellectual good in our German fatherland, and the ennobling of our people in mind and character…. I beg of you that you continue to stand by me, each in his own way and place, serving the spirit of idealism, and waging war against materialism and all un-German corruptions of the stage."

After various utterances showing his steady purpose in the same direction, there came out, in one of the later years of my stay, sundry remarks of his showing a new phase of the same thought, as follows: "The theater should not only be an important factor in education and in the promotion of morals, but it should also present incarnations of elegance, of beauty, of the highest conceptions of art; it should not discourage us with sad pictures of the past, with bitter awakenings from illusions, but be purified, elevated, strengthened for presenting the ideal. . . . Our ordinary life gives us every day the most mournful realities, and the modern authors whose pleasure it is to bring these before us upon the stage have accepted an unhealthy mission and accomplish a discouraging work."

In his desire to see the theater aid in developing German ideals and in enriching German life, he has promoted presentations of the great episodes and personages in German history. Some of these, by Wildenbruch and Lauff, permeated with veins of true poetry, are attractive and ennobling. Of course not all were entirely successful. I recall one which glorified especially a great epoch in the history of the house of Hohenzollern, the comical effect of which on one of my diplomatic colleagues I have mentioned elsewhere; but this, so far as my experience goes, was an exception.

There seems much reason for the Emperor's strenuous endeavors in this field. The German theater still remains more wholesome than that of any other country, but I feel bound to say that, since my earlier acquaintance with it, from 1854 to 1856 and from 1879 to 1881, there has come some deterioration, and this is especially shown in various dramas which have been held up as triumphs. In these, an inoculation from the French drama seems to have resulted in destruction of the nobler characteristics of the German stage. One detects the cant of Dumas, fils, but not his genius; and, when this cant is mingled with German pessimism, it becomes at times unspeakably repulsive. The zeal for this new drama seems to me a fad, and rather a slimy fad. With all my heart I wish the Emperor success in his effort to keep the German stage upon the higher planes.

Another subject which came up from time to time was that of archaelogical investigation. Once, in connection with some talk on German railway enterprises in Asia Minor, I touched upon his great opportunities to make his reign illustrious by services to science in that region. He entered into the subject heartily; it was at once evident that he was awake to its possibilities, and he soon showed me much more than I knew before of what had been done and was doing, but pointed out special difficulties in approaching, at present, some most attractive fields of investigation.

Interesting also were his views on education, and more than once the conversation touched this ground. As to his own academic training, there is ample testimony that he appreciated the main classical authors whom he read in the gymnasium at Cassel; but it was refreshing to hear and to read various utterances of his against gerund-grinding and pedantry. He recognizes the fact that the worst enemies of classical instruction in Germany, as, indeed, elsewhere, have been they of its own household, and he has stated this view as vigorously as did Sydney Smith in England and Francis Wayland in America. Whenever he dwelt on this subject the views which he presented at such length to the Educational Commission were wont to come out with force and piquancy.

On one occasion our discussion turned upon physical education, and especially upon the value to students of boating. As an old Yale boating man, a member of the first crew which ever sent a challenge to Harvard, and one who had occasion in the administration of an American university to consider this form of exercise from various standpoints, I may say that his view of its merits and his way of promoting it seemed to me thoroughly sensible.

From time to time some mention from me of city improvements observed during my daily walks led to an interesting discussion. The city of Berlin is wonderfully well governed, and exhibits all those triumphs of modern municipal skill and devotion which are so conspicuously absent, as a rule, from our American cities. While his capital preserves its self-governing powers, it is clear that he purposes to have his full say as to everything within his jurisdiction. There were various examples of this, and one of them especially interested me: the renovation of the Thiergarten. This great park, virtually a gift of the Hohenzollern monarchs, which once lay upon the borders of the city, but is now in the very heart of it, had gradually fallen far short of what it should have been. Even during my earlier stays in Berlin it was understood that some of his predecessors, and especially his father, had desired to change its corpse-like and swampy character and give it more of the features of a stately park, but that popular opposition to any such change had always shown itself too bitter and uncompromising. This seemed a great pity, for while there were some fine trees, a great majority of them were so crowded together that there was no chance of broad, free growth either for trees or for shrubbery. There was nothing of that exquisitely beautiful play, upon expanses of green turf, of light and shade through wide-expanded boughs and broad masses of foliage, which gives such delight in any of the finer English or American parks. Down to about half a dozen years since it had apparently been thought best not to interfere, and even when attention was called to the dark, swampy characteristics of much of the Thiergarten, the answer was that it was best to humor the Berliners; but about the beginning of my recent stay the young Emperor intervened with decision and force, his work was thorough, and as my windows looked out over one corner of this field of his operations, their progress interested me, and they were alluded to from time to time in our conversations. Interesting was it to note that his energy was all-sufficient; the Berliners seemed to regard his activity as Arabs regard a sand-storm,—as predestined and irresistible,—and the universal verdict now justifies his course, both on sanitary and artistic grounds.

The same thing may be said, on the whole, of the influence he has exerted on the great adornments of his capital city. The position and character of various monuments on which he has impressed his ideas, and the laying out and decoration of sundry streets and parks, do credit not merely to his artistic sense, but to his foresight.

This prompt yet wise intervention, actuated by a public spirit not only strong but intelligent, is seen, in various other parts of the empire, in the preservation and restoration of its architectural glories. When he announced to me at Potsdam his intention to present specimens representative of German architecture and sculpture to the Germanic Museum at Harvard, he showed, in enumerating and discussing the restorations at Marienburg and Naumburg, the bas-reliefs at Halberstadt, the masks and statues of Andreas Schluter at Berlin, and the Renaissance and rococo work at Lubeck and Danzig, a knowledge and appreciation worthy of a trained architect and archaeologist.