for boys in England, and our own private schools for boys, like Saint
Paul's, Groton, Saint Mark's, and others, where the training of
character and physique are emphasized. Here again I admit my prejudice
in favor of such education. I should be made pulp, indeed, did I try
to run through the boys of a fifth or sixth form at home, but, from
the look of them, I would have undertaken it for a wager in Germany.
It is not their fault, poor boys. Practically the whole emphasis is
laid upon drilling the mind. Moral and physical matters are left to
the home, and in the home there are no fathers and brothers interested
in games or sport, and in this busy, competitive strife, and with the
small means at the disposal of the majority, there is no time and no
opportunity. Boys and girls seldom leave home for distant boarding-schools.
They go from home to school and from school home every day,
and have none of the advantages to be gained from intercourse with men
outside their own circles. It shows itself in a deplorable lack of
orientation as compared with our lads of the same relative standing.
In dress and bearing, in at-homeness in the world, in ability to take
care of themselves under strange conditions or in an emergency, and in
domestic hygiene they are inferior, and yet they are so competent to
push the national military, industrial, and commercial ball along as
men, that one wonders whether Bagehot's gibe at certain well-to-do
classes of the Saxons, that "they spend half their time washing their
whole persons," may not have a grain of truth in it.
Another feature
of the school life which is prominent, especially in Prussia, is the
incessant and insistent emphasis laid upon patriotism. In every
school, almost in every class-room, is a picture of the Emperor; in
many, pictures also of his father and grandfather. Even in a municipal
lodging-house, where I found some tiny waifs and strays being taught,
there were pictures of the sovereign, and brightly colored pictures of
the war of 1870-71, generally with German personalities on horseback,
and the French as prisoners with bandages and dishevelled clothing.
This war, which began with the first movement of the German army on
August 4, and on the 2d of September next Napoleon was a prisoner;
this war, in which the German army at the beginning of operations
consisted of 384,000 officers and men and which had grown during the
truce to 630,000 on March 1; lost in killed and those who died from
wounds 28,278, of whom 1,871 were officers; this war is flaunted at
the population of Germany continually, and from every possible angle.
We hear very little of our war of 1861-1865, that cost us
$8,000,000,000 with killed and wounded numbering some 700,000. We do
not find it necessary to feed our patriotism with a nursing-bottle.
At a kindergarten two tots, a boy and a girl, stood at the top of some
steps while the rest marched by and saluted; they later descended and
went through the motions of reviewing the others. They were playing
they were Kaiser and Kaiserin!
Two small boys in a school-yard discussing their relative prowess as
jumpers end the discussion when one says as a final word: "Oh, I can
jump as high as the Kaiser!"
We have noted in another article how even police sergeants must be
familiar with the history of the House of Hohenzollern.
I am an admirer of Germany and her Emperor, with a distinct love of
discipline and a bias in favor of military training, and with an
experience of actual warfare such as only a score or so of German
officers of my generation have had; but I am bound to say I found this
pounding in of patriotism on every side distinctly nauseating. Boys
and girls, and men and women, ought not to need to be pestered with
patriotism. We had a controversy in America some ten years before the
Franco-German War, where in one battle more men were killed and
wounded than in all the battles Prussia, and later Germany, has fought
since 1860.
In the South, at any rate, we bear the scars and the
mourning of those days still, but nobody would be thanked for
pummelling us with patriotism. In the skirmish with Spain our military
authorities were pestered with candidates for the front. Germany
itself is not more a nation in arms than America would be at the
smallest threat of insult or aggression. But we take those things for
granted. If we have the honor to possess a medal or a decoration, the
gentlemen among us wear it only when asked to do so, or perhaps on the
Fourth of July.
Germany is even now somewhat loosely cemented together. Their leaders
may feel that it is necessary to keep ever in the minds even of the
children, that Germany is a nation with an Emperor and a victory over
France, France in political rags and patches at the time, behind them.
They even carry this teaching of patriotism beyond the boundaries of
Germany. The Allgemeiner Deutscher Schulverein zur Erhaltung des
Deutschtums im Auslande, is a society with headquarters in Berlin
devoting itself to the advancement of German education all over the
world. The society was started privately in 1886, and is now partly
supported by the state. It controls some sixteen hundred centres for
the teaching of German and German patriotism, and German learning.
There are such centres in China, South America, the United States,
Spain, and elsewhere. They number 90 in Europe, 25 in Asia, 20 in
Africa, 70 in Brazil, 40 in Argentina, and 100 in Australia and
Canada. The society is instrumental in having German taught in 5,000
schools and academies in the United States to 600,000 pupils. The work
is not advertised, rather it is concealed so far as possible, but it
is looked upon as a valuable force for the advancement of German
interests throughout the world.
In the schools, too, there is an enemy
of which we know nothing, and that is the active propagandism of
socialism, which is anti-military, anti-monarchical, and anti-status
quo. Leaflets and books and pamphlets are widely distributed among the
school children; many of the teachers are in sympathy with these
obstructionist methods; and the authorities may feel that they must do
what they can to combat this teaching. In Prussia, on every side, and
in the industrial towns of Saxony, one sees the evidence of this
impotent discontent expressing itself either openly or in surly malice
of speech and manner. The streets of Berlin, and of the industrial
towns, show this condition at every turn, and when the Reichstag
closes with cheers for the Emperor, the Socialist members leave in a
body before that loyal ceremony takes place.
We in America are brought up to believe that the best cure for such
maladies is to open the wound, to give freedom of speech, to let every
boy and girl and man and woman find out for himself his citizen's path
to walk in. We have no policemen on our public platforms, no gags in
the mouths of our professors or preachers, no lurid pictures of
battles, no plastering of the walls of our schools and seminaries with
pictures of our rulers, and withal our German immigrants are perhaps
our best and most patriotic citizens. In America they think less and
do more, and for most men this is the better way. It makes life very
complicated to think too much about it.
Self-consciousness is the prince of mental and social diseases, as
vanity is the princess, and even self-conscious patriotism seems a
little unwholesome, not quite manly, and often even grotesque. It is
easy to say: "Dic mihi si fueris tu leo, qualis eris?" and if one is a
person of no great importance, it is an embarrassing question to
answer. In this connection I can only say that I should assume that my
lionhood was taken for granted without so much roaring, bristling of
the mane, and switching of the tail. It irritates those who are
discontented, it positively infuriates the redder democrats, and it
bores the children, and, worst of all, proclaims to everybody that the
lion is not quite comfortable and at his ease. The German lion is a
fine, big fellow now, with fangs, and teeth, and claws as serviceable
as need be, and it only makes him appear undignified to be forever
looking at himself in the looking-glass.
Whatever may be the right or wrong of these comparative methods of
training, Germans trained in the investigation of such matters agree
in telling me that the boys who come up to the universities,
especially in the large cities and towns, are somewhat lax in their
moral standards as regards matters upon which the puritan still lays
great stress.
In Berlin particularly, where there are some thirty-five hundred
registered and nearly fifty thousand unregistered women devoting
themselves to the seemingly incompatible ends of rapidly accumulating
gold while frantically pursuing pleasure, there is an amount of
immorality unequalled in any capital in Europe. In the whole German
Empire the average of illegitimacy is ten per cent. but in Berlin the
average for the last few years is twenty per cent. Out of every five
children born in Berlin each year one is illegitimate! It is
questionable whether the increasing demands of the army and navy
require such laxity of moral methods in providing therefor.
There is,
however, a state church in Germany with its head in Berlin, and no
doubt we may safely leave this matter in these better hands than ours.
I beg to say that in mentioning this subject I am quoting unprejudiced
scientific investigators, who, I may say, agree, without a dissenting
voice of importance, that Berlin has become the classical problem
along such lines. In the endeavor to compete with the gayeties
elsewhere, a laxity has been encouraged and permitted that has won for
Berlin in the last ten years, an unrivalled position as a purveyor of
after-dark pleasures. Berlin not only produces a disproportionate
number of such people as Diotrephes, in manners, but also a veritable
horde of those who are like unto the son of Bosor.
After the sheltered home life and the severe discipline of the higher
schools, a German youth is permitted a freedom unknown to us at the
university. There is no record kept of how or where he spends his
time. He matriculates at one or another of the universities, and for
three, four, or, in the case of medical students, five years, he is
free to work or not to work, as he pleases.
There are, however, three
factors that serve as bit and reins to keep him in order. The final
examination is severe, thorough, and cannot be passed successfully by
mere cramming; very few of the students have incomes which permit of a
great range of dissipation; and not to pass the examination is a
terrible defeat in life, which cuts a man off from further progress
and leaves him disgraced.
These are forces that count, and which prevail to keep all but the
least serious within bounds. German life as a whole is so disciplined,
so fitted together, so impossible to break into except through the
recognized channels, that few men have the optimistic elasticity of
mind and spirits, the demonic confidence in themselves, that overrides
such considerations.
We in America suffer from a superabundance of men
of aleatory dispositions, men who love to play cards with the devil,
who rejoice to wager their future, their reputation, their lives,
against the world. I admit a sneaking fondness for them. They are a
great asset, and a new country needs them, but if we have too many,
Germany has too few. They are forever crying out in Germany for
another Bismarck. Whenever in political matters, in foreign affairs,
even in their religious controversies, things go wrong, men lift their
hands and eyes to heaven and say, "How different if Bismarck were
here!" Bismarck and two of his predecessors as nation-builders were
not afraid to throw dice with the world, and what "the land of damned
professors" could not do, they did.
When the young men from the
Gymnasium come into the freedom of university life, they toss their
heads a bit, kick up their heels, laugh long and loud at the
Philistine, but just as every German climax is incomplete without
tears, so they too are soon singing: "Ich weiss nicht was soll es
bedeuten dass ich so traurig bin!" the gloom of the Teutoburger Wald
settles down on them, and they buckle to and work with an enduring
patience such as few other men in the world display, and join the
great army here who, bitted and harnessed, are pulling the Vaterland
to the front.
The British Empire between 1800 and 1910 grew from 1,500,000 square
miles to 11,450,000 square miles, and its trade from $400,000,000 to
$11,020,000,000; not to mention the United States of America, now
considered to be of noticeable importance, though we are universally
sneered at by the Germans, to an extent that no American dreams of who
has not lived among them, as a land of dollars, and, from the point of
view of book-learning, dullards. But it is this, none the less, that
Germany envies, and has set out to rival and if possible to surpass.
No wonder the training must be severe for the athletes who propose to
themselves such a task.
For a semester or two, perhaps for three, the German student gives
himself up to the rollicking freedom of the corps student's life. That
life is so completely misunderstood by the foreigner that it deserves
a few words of explanation.
I am not yet old enough to envy youth, nor sourly sophisticated enough
to deal sarcastically or even lightly with their worship and their
creeds, that once I shared, and with which lately I have been, under
the most hospitable circumstances, invited to renew my acquaintance at
the Commers and the Mensur.
One may be no longer a constant worshipper at the shrine of blue eyes,
pink cheeks, flaxen hair, and the enshrouding mystery of skirts, which
make for curiosity and reverence in youth; one may have learned,
however, the far more valuable lesson that the best women are so much
nobler than the best men, that the best men may still kneel to the
best women; just as the worst women surpass the worst men in
consciencelessness, brutal selfishness, disloyalty, and degradation.
The female bandit in society, or frankly on the war-path outside,
takes her weapons from an armory of foulness and cruelty unknown to
men; just as the heroines and angels among women fortify themselves in
sanctuaries to which few, if any, men have the key.
One returns, therefore, to the playground of one's youth with not less
but with more sympathy and understanding. Far from being "brutalizing
guilds," far from being mere unions for swilling and slashing, the
German corps, by their codes, and discipline, and standards of manners
and honor, are, from the chivalrous point of view, the leaven of
German student life. In these days many of them have club-houses of
their own, where they take their meals in some cases and where they
meet for their beer-drinking ceremonies.
There is of course a wide range of expenditure by students at the
German universities, whether they are members of the corps or not. At
one of the smaller universities in a country town like Marburg, for
example, a poor student, with a little tutoring and the system of frei
Tisch -- money left for the purpose of giving a free midday meal to
poor students -- may scrape along with an expenditure of as little as
twenty dollars a month. A member of a good corps at this same
university is well content with, and can do himself well on, seventy
dollars a month. I have seen numbers of students' rooms, with bed,
writing-table, and simple furniture, perhaps with a balcony where for
many months in the year one may write and read, which rent for sixty
dollars a year. One may say roughly that at the universities outside
the large towns, and not including the fashionable universities, such
as Bonn or Heidelberg, the student gets on comfortably with fifty
dollars a month. They have their coffee and rolls in the morning,
their midday meal which they take together at a restaurant, and their
supper of cold meats, preserves, cheese, and beer where they will. For
seventy-five cents a day a student can feed himself.
The hours are Aristotelian, for it was Aristotle in his "Economics,"
and not a nursery rhymer, who wrote: "It is likewise well to rise
before daybreak, for this contributes to health, wealth, and wisdom."
"Early to bed and early to rise" is a classic.
At Bonn, a member of one of the three more fashionable corps spends
far more than these sums, and his habits may be less Spartan. The
ridiculous expenditure of some of our mamma-bred undergraduates, who
go to college primarily to cultivate social relations, are unknown
anywhere in Germany, for a student would make himself unpopularly
conspicuous by extravagance. Two to three thousand dollars a year,
even at Bonn, as a member of the best corps, would be amply sufficient
and is considered an extravagant expenditure.
When the Earl of Essex was sent to Cambridge in Queen Elizabeth's
time, he was provided with a deal table covered with baize, a truckle-bed,
half a dozen chairs, and a wash-hand basin. The cost of all this
was about $25. When students from all over Europe tramped to Paris to
hear Abelard lecture, they begged their way. They were given special
licenses as scholars to beg. Learning then, as it is still in Germany,
alone of all the nations, was considered to be a pious profession
deserving well of the world. We do not even know the names of our
scholars in America. How many Americans have heard of Gibbs, the
authority on the fundamental laws regulating the trend of
transformation in chemical and physical processes, or of Hill and his
theory of the moon, or of Hale who explains the mystery of sun spots
and measures the magnetic forces that play around the sun? How many
Frenchmen know Pierron's translation of Aeschylus, or Patin's studies
in Greek tragedies, or Charles Maguin, or Maurice Croiset, or Paul
Magou or Leconte de Lisle? while in England the mass of the people not
only do not know the names of their scholars, but distrust all mental
processes that are super-canine.
The origin of the Landmannschaften, Burschenschaften, and the Corps
among the students dates back to the days when the students aligned
themselves with more rigidity than now, according to the various
German states from which they came. The names of the corps still bear
this suggestion, though nowadays the alignment is rather social than
geographical. The Burschenschaften societies of students had their
origin in political opposition to this separation of the students into
communities from the various states. The originators of the
Burschenschaften movement, for example, were eleven students at Jena.
Sobriety and chastity were conditions of entrance, and "Honor,
Liberty, Fatherland" were their watchwords. It was deemed a point of
honor that a member breaking his vows should confess and retire from
the society.
The societies of the Burschenschaften are still considered to have a
political complexion and the corps proper have no dealings with them.
In any given semester the number of students in one of these corps
varies from as few as ten, to as many as twenty-five, depending, much
as do our Greek-letter societies and college clubs, upon the number of
available men coming up to the university. Certain corps are composed
almost exclusively of noblemen, but none is distinctly a rich man's
club.
An active member of a corps during his first two semesters may do a
certain amount of serious work, but as a rule it is looked upon as a
time "to loaf and invite one's soul," and little attempt is made to do
more. Not a few men whom I have known, have not even entered a class-room
during the two or three semesters of this blossoming period.
I have spent many days and nights with these young gentlemen, at
Heidelberg, at Leipsic, at Marburg, at Bonn, and been made one of them
in their jollity and good-fellowship, and I have agreed, and still
agree, that "Wir sind die Koenige der Welt, wir sind's durch unsere
Freude."
They are by no means the swashbuckling, bullying, dissolute companions
painted by those who know nothing about them. They may drink more beer
than we deem necessary for health, or even for comfort; and they may
take their exercise with a form of sword practice that we do not
esteem, they may be proud of the scars of these imitation duels, but
these are all matters of tradition and taste.
When one writes of eating and drinking, it is hardly fair to make
comparisons from a personal stand-point. An adult of average weight
requires each day 125 grams of proteid or building material, 500 grams
of carbohydrates, 50 grams of fat. This equals, in common parlance,
one pound of bread, one-half pound of meat, one-quarter pound of fat,
one pound of potatoes, one-half pint of milk, one-quarter pound of
eggs, assuming that one egg equals two ounces, and one-eighth pound of
cheese. Divided into three meals, this means: for breakfast, two
slices of bread and butter and two eggs; for dinner: one plateful
potato soup, large helping of meat with fat, four moderate-sized
potatoes, one slice bread and butter; for tea: one glass of milk and
two slices of bread and butter; for supper: two slices of bread and
butter and two ounces of cheese.
Plain white bread supplies more caloric, or energy, for the price than
any other one food, and, with one or two exceptions, more proteid, or
building material, than any other one food.
One to one and a half fluid ounces of alcohol is about the amount
which can be completely oxidized in the body in a day. This quantity
is contained in two fluid ounces of brandy or whiskey, five fluid
ounces of port or sherry, ten of claret or champagne or other light
wines, and twenty of bottled beer. All this means that a pint of
claret, or two glasses of champagne, or a bottle of beer, or a glass
of whiskey with some aerated water during the day will not hurt a man,
and adds perhaps to the "agreeableness of life," as Matthew Arnold
phrases it. At any rate, this table of contents is a much safer
standard of comparison, in judging the eating and drinking habits of
other people, than either your habits or mine.
The German student probably drinks too much, and it is said by safe
authorities in Germany that his heart, liver, and kidneys suffer; but
he has been at it a long time, and in certain fields of intellectual
prowess he is still supreme, and as we only drink with him now
occasionally when he is our host, perhaps he had best be left to
settle these questions without our criticism.
In general terms, I have always considered, as a test of myself and
others, that a healthy man is one who lies down at night without fear,
rises in the morning cheerfully, goes to a day's serious work of some
kind rejoicing in the prospect, meets his friends gayly, and loves his
loves better than himself.
It is folly to maintain, that it does not require pluck and courage to
stand up to a swinging Schlaeger, and take your punishment without
flinching, and then to sit without a murmur while your wounds are sewn
up and bandaged. I cannot help my preference for foot-ball, or
baseball, or rowing, or a cross-country run with the hounds, or grouse
or pheasant shooting, or the shooting of bigger game, or the driving of
four horses, or the handling of a boat in a breeze of wind, but the
"world is so full of a number of things" that he has more audacity than
I who proposes to weigh them all in the scales of his personal
experience, and then to mark them with their relative values.
First of all, it is to be remembered that these Schlaeger contests
between students are in no sense duels; a duel being the setting by
one man of his chance of life against another's chance, both with
deadly weapons in their hands. These contests with the Schlaeger at the
German universities, wrongly called duels, are so conducted that there
is no possibility of permanent or even very serious injury to the
combatants. The attendants who put them into their fighting harness,
the doctors who look after them during the contest and who care for
them afterward, are old hands at the game, and no mistakes are made.
There is no feeling of animosity between the swordsmen as a rule. They
are merely candidates for promotion in their own corps who meet
candidates from other corps, and prove their skill and courage auf die
Mensur, or fighting-ground.