In the same month William accepted the resignation of Court Chaplain Stoecker, and met Dr. Windhorst in conversation for the first time. The two events are bracketed thus because they have an interesting bearing upon the altered state of the religious question in Germany.
The Kulturkampf had already, as we have seen, dwindled greatly under the parliamentary necessities of Bismarck’s last years in power. But there had been no reconciliation, and the unjust old quarrel still drew a malignant gash of division through the political and social relations of the German people. Anti-Semitism in the same way lingered on, powerless for much overt mischief, but serving to keep alive the miserable race dissensions which have wrought such harm in Germany, and lending the apparent sanction of the Court to Berlin’s, social ostracism of the Jews. William’s broadening perceptions grasped now the necessity of putting an end to both these survivals of intolerance. The blatant Stoecker was given the hint to resign and an enlightened clergyman was installed in his place. At a Parliamentary dinner, given by Caprivi on November 25th, to which, according to the new order of things, the leaders in opposition were invited quite as freely as supporters of the Ministry, the Emperor met Dr. Windhorst, the venerable chief of the Ultramontane party. All present noted the exceptional courtesy and attention which William paid to “the Pearl of Meppen,” and construed it to signify that the days of anti-Catholic bias were dead and gone. This judgment has been so far justified by events that, when Dr. Windhorst died in the succeeding March, it was said of him that of all his aims he left only the readmission of the Jesuits unaccomplished.
William’s speeches during the year marked a distinct advance in the art of oratory, and gave fewer evidences of loose and random thinking after he rose to his feet than were offered by his earlier harangues. At the swearing-in of the recruits for the Berlin garrison, on November 20th, he delivered a curiously theological address, saying that though the situation abroad was peaceful enough, the soldiers must bear their share with other honest Germans in combating an internal foe, who was only to be overcome by the aid of Christianity. No one could be a good soldier without being a good Christian, and therefore the recruits who took an oath of allegiance to their earthly master, should even more resolve to be true to their heavenly Lord and Saviour.
Ten days later William made a speech of a notably different sort in front of the statue of the Great Elector, the 250th anniversary of whose accession to the throne of Brandenburg fell upon the 1st of December. Reference has heretofore been made to the powerful effect produced upon the young man’s mind by reading the story of this ancestor, in preparation for this speech. There was nothing at all in it about loyalty to celestial sovereignties, but it bristled with fervent eulogies of the fighting Hohenzollerns, and was filled with military similes and phraseology. It contained as well the veiled comparison between Schwarzenberg and Bismarck which has been spoken of elsewhere.
Within the week the Kaiser delivered another speech, much longer than the other, and of vastly closer human interest. It had evidently been thought out with great care, and may unquestionably be described as the most important public deliverance of his reign. When he ascended the throne no one on earth would have hazarded the guess that, at the expiration of three years, William’s principal speech would remain one upon the subject of middle education!
The occasion was a special conference convened by him to discuss educational reform in Prussia, and the gathering included not only the most distinguished professors and specialists within the kingdom, but representative men from various other German states. A list of the members would present to the reader the names of half the living Germans who are illustrious in literature and the sciences. The session was opened by the Emperor as presiding officer at Berlin, on December 4th.
It was wholly characteristic of the young man that, having tabled a series of inquiries upon the subject, he should start off with a comprehensive and sustained attack upon the whole gymnasium, or higher public school, system of the country. The Conference, having been summoned to examine the possibility of any further improvement upon this system, heard with astonishment its imperial chairman open the proceedings by roundly assailing everything connected with, and typical of, the entire institution.
The importance of the speech can best be grasped by keeping in mind the unique reputation which the Prussian school system has for years enjoyed in the eyes of the world. Its praises have been the burden of whole libraries of books. The amazing succession of victories on the fields of 1870-71 which rendered the Franco-Prussian War so pitifully one-sided a conflict, have been over and over again ascribed to the superior education of the German gymnasia even more than to the needle-gun—and this too by French writers among the rest. The Germans are justifiably proud of their wonderful army, but it is probable that a year ago they had an even loftier pride in their schools. The teachers are in themselves an army, and have traditionally exerted an influence, and commanded a measure of public deference, which the pedagogues of other lands know nothing about. It required, therefore, an abnormal degree of moral courage for even an Emperor to stand up in cold blood and make an attack upon the sacred institution of the gymnasium. It is even more remarkable that what the young man had to say was so fresh and strong and nervously to the point, that it carried conviction to the minds of a great majority of the scholastic greybeards who heard it.
He began by saying that the gymnasia (answering roughly to the Latin schools of England and the grammar-schools or academies of America) had in their time done good service, but no longer answered the requirements of the nation or the necessities of the time. They produced crammed minds, not virile men; wasting on musty Latin and general classical lore the time which should be devoted to inculcating a knowledge of German language and history—knowledge which was of infinitely more value to a German than all the chronicles of an alien antiquity combined. Had these schools done anything to combat the follies and chimeras of Social Democracy? Alas! the answer must be something worse than a negative—and tell not alone of an urgent duty left undone, but of evil wrought on the other side. He himself had sat on the various forms of a gymnasium at Cassel—a very fair sample of that whole class of schools—and he therefore knew all about their ways and methods, and the sooner these were mended the better it would be for every one.
It was undoubtedly true, William went on to admit, that in 1864, 1866, and 1870 the Prussian teachers’ work showed to advantage. They had in those past years done a good deal to inculcate, and thus help to fruition, the idea of national unity—and it was safe to say that during that period every one who completed his gymnasium course went away after the final examination convinced that the German Empire should be reestablished, and crowned by the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine. But with 1871 this practical process of education came abruptly to an end, although as a matter of fact there was more than ever a need of teaching young Germans the importance of preserving their Empire and its political system intact. The consequence was that certain malignant forces had grown up and developed to a threatening degree, and for this the schools were clearly to blame.