The official arrangements for the control of the discipline consist principally in the system of what are called Censur Classes. This is a peculiar system which requires some explanation. There are five Censur Classes quite independent of the ordinary classes of the school. A boy on entering the Cadet School is always placed in the third of these classes; if he behaves ill, he falls to Class IV. and is under restrictions. Class V. is reserved for serious cases of misconduct, and any one who incurs the penalty of descending to it, is subject to continual superintendence, and is confined to the walls. Class II. gives considerable, and Class I. still more ample privileges. The members of this class (usually only quite the elder boys) are allowed great freedom in the way of going out into the town.
In each of the studying-rooms (the Wohnzimmer) the list of the occupants’ names hangs up on the door inside. One for example was noticed containing twelve names. To each was attached his rank in the Censur Classes, as well as his position in the ordinary classes. At the head stood one Selectaner, who in this instance was in charge of the room; then followed the Primaners; and the list was completed by nine of the Secunda. As at the time of our visit (just after the Easter holidays and the yearly examination) the whole Selecta of the year had just quitted, the room was in the charge of the senior Primaner. The authority exercised by these senior boys appears to be very considerable.
The competition for admission to the Selecta, and for the after selection for immediate promotion, was spoken of as very considerable.
The number who came to the Berlin Cadet House without previously going to one of the junior establishments was said to be only a small per-centage.
The boys both here and at Potsdam were of course all found dressed in a military uniform.
The studies pursued in the Cadet Corps agree nearly with those of the common public schools, but of these there are three different kinds:—
1. The ordinary first-class school, the gymnasium of the Prussian States, is, strictly speaking, a school which prepares for the universities.
2. The second-class schools have the name of Real or Practical Schools; they deal with the actual application to business and work, not with the theory of mathematics or of language, and they may be said to resemble in some degree the schools occasionally attached in English towns to Mechanics’ Institutes, or in the United States, to the Public English High School or the Higher Department of a Union School. Young men who have passed successfully through a gymnasium may be admitted to the army without passing the preliminary or Portepée-fähnrich examination. Those who complete their time at a Real School have not hitherto been allowed the same privilege.
3. There is a third and intermediate class called a Real or Practical Gymnasium, and to this, according to the statements of the official books, the courses of the Cadet Schools have hitherto corresponded. It appears, however, that there is only one specimen of the Real Gymnasium now in existence, the Coëln School in the old town of Berlin. The system here is said to be more practical than the Gymnasium, and less professional or mechanical than the Real School.