Here are two German children's school songs, that are being sung daily. Both of them are creations of the war: both written by schoolmasters. The particularly offensive song about King Edward and England is principally sung by girls—the future mothers of Germany:—
O England, O England,
Wie gross sind Deine Lugen!
Ist Dein Verbrechen noch so gross,
Du schwindelst Dich vom Galgen los.
O Eduard, O Eduard, du Muster aller Fursten,
Nichts hattest Du von einem Rex,
Du eitler Schlips—und Westenfex.
[Oh, England, oh, England, how great are thy lies! However great thy crimes, thou cheatest the gallows. Oh, Edward, oh, Edward, thou model Prince! Thou hadst nothing kindly in thee, thou vain fop!]
Da druben, da druben liegt der Feind,
In feigen Schutzengraben,
Wir greifen ihn an, und ein Hund, wer meint,
Heut' wurde Pardon gegeben.
Schlagt alles tot, was um Gnade fleht,
Schiesst alles nieder wie Hunde,
Mehr Feinde, mehr Feinde! sei euer Gebet
In dieser Vergeltungsstunde.
[Over there in the cowardly trenches lies the enemy. We attack him, and only a dog will say that pardon should be given to-day. Strike dead everything which prays for mercy. Shoot everything down like dogs. "More enemies, more enemies," be your prayer in this hour of retribution.]
The elementary schools, or Volksschulen, are free, and attendance is compulsory from six to fourteen. There are some 61,000 free public elementary schools with over 10,000,000 pupils, and over 600 private elementary schools, with 42,000 pupils who pay fees.
Germany is a land of civil service; to enter which a certificate from a secondary school is necessary. Some authorities maintain that the only way to prevent being flooded with candidates is to make the examinations crushingly severe. Children are early made to realise that all hope of succeeding in life rests upon the passing of these examinations. Thus the despair which often leads to suicide on the one hand and knowledge without keenness on the other.
Hardly any class has suffered more heavily in the war than the masters of the State schools, which are equivalent to English Council schools and American public schools. The thinning of their ranks is an eloquent proof of the heaviness of the German death toll. Their places have been taken by elderly men, but principally by women. It is a kind of Nemesis that they should have fallen in the very cause they have been propagating for at least a generation.
Those who knew only the old and pleasant Germany do not realise the speeding up of the hate machine that has taken place in the last decade. The protests against this State creation of hate grow less and less as the war proceeds. To-day only comparatively few members of the Social-Democrat Party raise objection to this horrible contamination of the minds of the coming generation of German men and women. Not much reflection is needed to see on what fruitful soil the great National Liberal Party, with its backing of capitalists, greedy merchants, chemists, bankers, ship and mine owners, is planting its seeds for the future. There is no cure for this evil state of affairs, but the practical proof, inflicted by big cannon, that the world will not tolerate a nation of which the very children are trained to hate the rest of the world, and taught that German Kultur must be spread by bloodshed and terror.
With the change in Germany has come a change in the family life. The good influence of some churches has gone completely. They are part of the great war machine. The position of the mother is not what it was. The old German Hausfrau of the three K's, which I will roughly translate by "Kids, Kitchen, and Kirk," has become even more a servant of the master of the house than she was. The State has taken control of the souls of her children, and she has not even that authority that she had twenty years ago. The father has become even more important than of yore. The natural tendency of a nation of which almost every man is a soldier, is to elevate the man at the expense of the woman, and the German woman has taken to her new position very readily. She plays her wonderful part in the production of munitions, not as in Britain in a spirit of equality, but with a sort of admitted inferiority difficult to describe exactly.