"Under the Wheel" is the title of a German story by Hermann Hesse, in which he severely criticizes the incompetency of the present school system to fully develop the youth. The characterization of the teachers' profession as Hesse puts it, does not only serve for Germany, but for all modern states in which governments strive to train the young for the purpose of making patient subjects and hurrah-screaming patriots of them. The author says with fine irony of the teacher: "It is his duty and vocation, entrusted to him by the state, to hinder and exterminate the rough forces and passions of nature in the young people and to put in place of them quiet moderation and ideals recognized by the state. Many a one who at present is a contented citizen or an ambitious official, would have become without these endeavors of the school an unmanageable innovator or a hopeless dreamer. There was something in him, something wild, lawless, which first had to be broken, a flame which had to be extinguished. The school must break and forcibly restrict the natural being; it is its duty to make a useful member of society out of him, according to principles approved by the state's authority. The wonderful work is crowned with the careful training in the barracks."
We regret that several of the contributions, while having merits, were not of the form to be used for a magazine.
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