William of Germany

by Stanley Shaw

"And these all, for a lord
Eat not the fruit of their own hands;
Which is the heaviest of all plagues
To that man's mind, who understands."

But whatever its causes, Social Democracy is one of the most curious and anomalous societies extant. In a country which worships order, it calls for absolute disorder. A revolutionary movement, it anxiously avoids revolution. It is a magnificent organization for no apparent practical, direct, or immediate purpose. Proclaiming the protection of the law and enjoying the blessing of efficient government, it yet refuses to vote the budget to pay for them. It supports a large parliamentary party without any clear or consistent parliamentary policy in internal or external affairs, unless to be "agin the Government" is a policy. And lastly, if some of its economic demands are justifiable, and have in several respects been satisfied by modern legislation, its fundamental doctrine, the basis of the entire edifice, is a wild hallucination, sickening to common sense, and completely out of harmony with the progressive economic development of all nations, including its own.

In conclusion, it may be added that the social side of the Social Democracy is perhaps too often unrecognized or ignored by the foreign observer. Life for the poorer classes in Germany is apt to be more monotonous and dull than for the poorer classes of any country which nature has blessed with more fertility, more sunshine, more diversity of hill and dale, and where people are more mutually sociable and accommodating. Social Democracy offers something by way of remedy to this: a field of interest in which the workers can organize and make processions and public demonstrations and can talk and theorize and dispute, and in which the woman can share the interest with the man; or a club, a social club with the largest membership in the world except freemasonry.

We must return, however, to the Emperor. During this period, in December, 1890, he, like every one else with his own ideas on education as well as on art and religion, delivered his views on popular instruction. At this time—he was then thirty—he called together forty-five of the ablest educational experts of the country and addressed them on the subject of high-school education. His Minister of Education, Dr. von Grossler, had drawn up a programme of fourteen points for discussion, and the Emperor added to these a few others he wished to have considered.

German high-school education, be it remarked, is a different thing from English public-school education, and ought rather to be spoken of as German information than as German education. We have seen that the spirit of the German university differs largely from that of the English university, in that it is not concerned with the formation of character or the inculcation of manners. The same may be said of the German gymnasium, or high school, the institution from which the German youth, as a rule, goes to college. No teaching institution, English or German, be it further said on our own account, makes any serious attempt to teach what will prepare youth for intercourse with the extremely complicated world of to-day, to give him, to take but one example, the faintest notion of contract, which, if he possessed it, would save him from many a foolish undertaking and protect him from many a business betrayal, Far from it. All the disagreeable, and many of the painful incidents of his subsequent life, all equally avoidable if knowledge regarding them had been instilled into him in his early years, he must buy with money and suffering and disgust in after-years.

But the Emperor is waiting to be heard. His entire speech need not be quoted, but only its chief contentions. In introducing his remarks he claimed to speak with knowledge as having himself sat on a public-school bench at Cassel.

The Social Democracy being to the Emperor what King Charles's head was to Mr. Dick, it is not surprising to find almost his first statement being to the effect that if boys had been properly taught up to then, there would be no Social Democracy. Up to 1870, he said, the great subject of instruction for youth was the necessity for German unity. Unity had been achieved, the Empire was now founded, and there the matter rested. "Now," said the Emperor, "we must recognize that the school is for the purpose of teaching how the Empire is to be maintained. I see nothing of such teaching, and I ought to know, for I am at the head of the Empire, and all such questions come under my observation. What," he continues,

"is lacking in the education of our youth? The chief fault is that since 1870 the philologists have sat in the high schools as beati possidentes and laid chief stress upon the knowledge to be acquired and not on the formation of character and the demands of the present time. Emphasis has been put on the ability to know, not on the ability to do—the pupil is expected to know, that is the main thing, and whether what he knows is suitable for the conduct of life or not is considered a secondary matter. I am told the school has only to do with the gymnastics of the mind, and that a young man, well trained in these gymnastics, is equipped for the needs of life. This is all wrong and can't go on."

Then the Empire-builder speaks—what is wanted above all is a national basis.

"We must make German the foundation for the gymnasium: we must produce patriotic young Germans, not young Greeks and Romans. We must depart from the centuries-old basis, from the old monastic education of the Middle Ages, when Latin was the main thing and a tincture of Greek besides. That is no longer the standard. German must be the standard. The German exercise must be the pivot on which all things turn. When in the exit examination (Abiturientenexamen) a student hands in a German essay, one can judge from it what are the mental acquirements of the young man and decide whether he is fit for anything or not. Of course people will object—the Latin exercise is very important, very good for instructing students in other languages, and so on. Yes, gentlemen, I have been through the mill. How do we get this Latin exercise? I have often seen a young man get, say 4-1/2 marks, for his German exercise—'satisfactory,' it was considered—and 2 for his Latin exercise. The youngster deserved punishment instead of praise, because it is clear he did not write his Latin exercise in a proper way; and of all the Latin exercises we wrote there was not one in a dozen which was done without cribbing. These exercises were marked 'good,' but when we wrote an essay on 'Minna von Barnhelm' (one of Lessing's dramas) we got hardly 'satisfactory.' So I say, away with the Latin exercise, it only harms us, and robs us of time we might give to German."