There were 14,941 books published in Germany in 1880, 18,875 in 1890, 24,792 in 1900, and 31,281 in 1910.
There were 13,470 books published in America in 1910, 9,209 of them by American authors.
There were 10,914 books published in England in 1911, of which 2,384 were new editions. Of this number 2,215, which includes 933 new editions and 40 translations, were fiction; religion, 930; sociology, 725; science, 650; geography, 601; biography, 476; history, 429; technology, 525. In 1820, there were only 26 novels published in England.
Of the 31,281 books published in Germany in 1910, 4,852 dealt with education and juvenile literature; 4,134, belles-lettres; 3,215, law and political economy; 2,510, theology; 2,082, commerce and industry; 1,981, medicine; 1,884, philology and literary history; 1,480, geography, including maps; 667, military science and equestry; 1,030, agriculture and forestry; 1,750, natural science and mathematics; 1,108, engineering and construction; 1,254, history and biography; 981, art; and 668 on philosophy and theosophy.
There were some 9,000 writers of books in America in 1910, or one author in 10,000 of the population, already more than enough; there were some 8,000 in Great Britain, or one author in about 5,500 of the population; while in Germany there are over 31,000 writers, or one author in every 2,097 of the population, including men, women, and children of all ages, an unreasonable and disastrous proportion. If we estimate the number of adult males of Germany at 14,000,000, the number who voted at the last election, then there was one author to every 450, a most unhealthy proportion, and bearing out exactly what has been said of the German temperament and constitutional bias. Furthermore, this accounts for the fact that Germany imports some 700,000 agricultural laborers each year to garner the food harvests, for which she has not sufficient recruits, and who, by the way, take out of the country each year some $35,000,000 in wages. Twenty per cent. of the miners in Westphalia are foreigners, eight per cent. of them Italians, and there are nearly half a million foreigners employed as common laborers in the various industries of Germany.
Wherever one travels now in the world, he finds that most courageous and self-sacrificing of all the pioneers, the missionary: American, British, French, Italian. The best of them, on the plains of North America, in the destructive climate of India, in China, in all the islands of all the seas, are, whatever their creed, soldiers of whom we are all proud; for they fight not only against the overwhelming prejudice of those whom they seek to save, but against the widespread prejudice of their own people, and against the well-founded suspicion and contempt aroused by their own black sheep. I have found them, here a Jesuit, there a Presbyterian, winning my friendship and my admiration, despite fundamental differences of belief about many things. There are few Germans among them! Even in this field Germany produces theological controversialists whom we have all studied, orthodox and destructive, but few pioneers, and practically no Augustines or Loyolas, Wesleys or Booths, Livingstones or Stanleys. Columba, an Irish refugee, founded on the island of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland, a mission station, whence went missionaries and preachers to the conversion not only of England, but of the tribes of Germany. It was only in the sixth century that the Franks, only in the ninth century that the Saxons, and only in the tenth century that the Danes became Christians.
Neither at home nor abroad are her successes those which deal with men by winning their allegiance, their submission, their loyalty, or their respectful regard. She is pre-eminent in the things of the mind, in subjective matters, and in her regimental dealings with, and arrangements for, the inanimate side of life.
As an example on the credit side of her governing is the very complete and successful system of land-banks, introduced by Frederick the Great and since modelled somewhat upon the French methods, which have protected the farmer from usury, insured him money at low rates for improvements, for the purchase of tools, cattle, and fertilizers, and enabled him to do, by sensible co-operation, what would have been impossible for him as an individual. So successful has been this co- operation between the banks and the united farming communities that it were well worth a chapter of description were it not that, through the initiative of President Taft and the able and industrious assistance of our officials in Europe, among whom our ambassador in Paris, Mr. Herrick, may be mentioned as untiring, there will shortly appear a complete exposition and explanation of the scheme, available for those of my countrymen interested in the matter. Or if they will journey to Ireland they may see there what Sir Horace Plunkett has done to revolutionize, and against tremendous odds, agriculture. And, be it noted, it has been done, with emphatic warnings against the modern fallacy of leaning upon state aid. It is estimated that our farmers would be saved between $20,000,000 and $40,000,000 a year in interest alone were we to adopt similar methods of loaning to the land-owners. The Preussische Centralgenossenschaftskasse, or Central Bank of Co-operative Associations, has revolutionized, one may here use the word without exaggeration, agricultural methods, throughout Prussia and Germany.
In Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa there are 5,000,000 acres of land in wheat, which is practically the size of Germany’s wheat acreage, but Germany produces 140,000,000 bushels of wheat off her parcel of land; while the wheat raised on the same area in these three States is only 55,000,000 bushels.
France and Minnesota each plant 16,000,000 acres in wheat, but France produces 324,000,000 bushels and Minnesota 188,000,000 bushels. In round numbers we support 90,000,000 people on 3,000,000 square miles of land, and we could support 150 per square mile just as easily as 30, and even then there would be not even a fraction of the density of population of Denmark, 178; the Netherlands, 470; France, 189; Saxony, 830; England and Wales, 405.6. The average wheat yield of our country is about 14 bushels per acre in good years, it might just as well be 25; the average cotton yield is about four-tenths of a bale per acre, and four times that amount could be raised as easily.