The nations are being educated amain, let us hope. Germany has prided
herself on her education, her learning, and on her Kultur. To-day she
is beyond the calculation of all that foresight which has been her
boast, and foible. Human nature, other than German, has not been on the
national curriculum, and, as in other departments of study, what has
not been reduced to rule and line is beyond the ken and apprehension.
How stupendously wrong a Power which could count, and into a European
War! on insurrection in India, the Cape, and other parts of the British
Empire! and how naively did Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg disclose the
_Zeitgeist_ of German rulers when with passion he declared Britain to
be going to war for “a scrap of paper”! A purpose to serve, a treaty
becomes “a scrap”--in German courtly hands.
The artist depicts a scene, with masterly pencil, where von
Bethmann-Hollweg himself is charged by the All-Highest to be
schoolmaster. It is a grim department of the training. Think of the
unseen as well as that shown. What you do see is the lordly, truculent
Kaiser, raising that menacing finger again. In spacious chair, he sits
defiant, aggressive, as a ferocious captain; and there opposite is the
“great Chancellor,” bent, submissive, apprehensive, tablet and pencil
ready to take down the very word of Kaiserly wisdom and will. What is
it? The day’s fare for a week! reaching a climax of “No dinner” on
Saturday, and “Hate” on Sunday! Educative! of course it will be.
Some day, not so far, even the German people will not regard the
orders of the Army and Navy Staff, the cruel mercies of the Junkers,
as a revelation of Heaven’s will. Three pounds of sugar for a family’s
monthly supply will educate, even when the gospel of force has been
preached for fifty years to a docile people. Many of us are in “a
strait betwixt two” as we see how thousands of inoffensive old men,
women, and children are made to suffer, are placed by the All-Highest
in this Copper and Hate School. It is not this, that, and the other
that causes this, but the Director of the School, who does not, while
the miserable scholars do, know what it is to endure “No dinner,” not
only on Saturdays, but many other days. And all to gratify the mad
projectors imposing Kultur on an unwilling world!