Germany. It was necessary to organize in the free city of Hamburg,
because women were not allowed either to form or to join political
unions in Prussia! It is only within a very few years that the girls'
higher schools have been increased and cared for in due proportion to
the schools provided for the higher education of the boys. The first
girls' rowing club was organized at Cassel in 1911. Even now as I
write there are protests and petitions from the male masters against
women teachers in the higher positions of even these schools. In the
discussions as to the proper subjects to be taught to the girls, who
in 1912 began attending the newly constituted continuation schools for
girls in Berlin, there is a strong party who argue that all of them
should be taught only house-keeping and the duties pertaining thereto.
To the great majority of German men, children and the kitchen are and
ought to be the sole preoccupations of women, with occasional church
attendance thrown in.
There have been enormous changes in the place women hold in the German
world in the last thirty years. The Red Cross organization of the
women throughout Germany is admirable and as complete and efficient as
the army that it is intended to help; one can hardly say more. There
are many private charities in Berlin and other cities, managed
entirely by women, and doing excellent and sensible work; such as the
kindergartens, the Pestalozzi-Froebelhaus for example, where four
hundred children are taken care of daily and fifteen thousand ten-pfennig
meals provided, besides classes for the young women students
under the supervision of the Berliner Verein fuer Volkserziehung, with
courses in the elements of law and politics and other matters likely
to concern them in their activities as teachers, nurses, or charity
helpers; the invalid-kitchens; the societies for looking after young
girls; the work in the Temperance League; the Lette-Verein, one of the
most sane and sensible institutions in the world for the training of
girls and young women, where they turn out some two thousand girls a
year trained in house-wifely economy; the wonderful and pitiful colony
at Bielefeld, founded by one of Germany's greatest organizers and
saints, Pastor Bodelschwing, and now carried on by his equally able
son, and aided largely by the sympathy and resources of women. Only
another Saint Francis could have imagined, and produced, and loved
into usefulness such an institution.
The summer colonies, called gartenlauben colonies, where the outlying
and unused land on the outskirts of the cities is divided up into
small parcels and rented for a nominal sum to the poorer working
people of the city, constitute a most sensible form of philanthropy.
You see them, each named by its proprietor, with a flag flying, with
the light barriers dividing them, and with the small huts erected as a
shelter, where flowers and fruits and vegetables are grown, often
adding no small amount to income, and in every case offering the
soundest kind of work and recreation. These colonies were started by a
woman in France, and the idea worked its way through Belgium to
Germany, and they are now supported and helped by the direct interest
of the Empress. The woman who put this scheme into operation ought to
have a monument! At Charlottenburg, a suburb of Berlin, on a plot lent
by the city, there are thirteen of these colonies divided into over a
thousand plots.
There are three-quarters of a million women in Germany who are
independent owners and heads of establishments of different kinds, and
some ten million who are bread-winners. Of the increase in the number
of women students I have written in another chapter, and of their
increasing participation in the political, economical, literary, and
scholarly life of the nation there are many examples. Once or twice I
have even heard them speak in public, and speak well, while if my
memory serves me, this was practically unknown in my university days
here. The problem of domestic apprenticeship is also being worked out
by the women of Germany. In Munich, in Frankfurt-am-Main and elsewhere
this most difficult and delicate question is being partially answered
at least. Girls are apprenticed to families needing them, under the
supervision of a committee of women. The girls and their families
agree to certain terms, and the families agree also to teach them
household duties, give them proper food, eight hours' sleep, their
Sunday out, and so on. The German women's societies who have thus
boldly tackled this problem are plucky indeed, and prove easily enough
that there is a large and growing body of women in Germany, who have
minds and wills of their own and great executive ability.
Let me suggest to some of our idle women that they pay a visit to the
Hausfrauenbund at Frankfort and the Frauenverein-Arbeitererinnenheim
at Munich, before they pass judgment upon this chapter. For I should
be sorry to leave the impression that all the women of Germany are
listless, oppressed, and without any feeling of civic responsibility.
All these things have been accomplished by women in Germany with far
less sympathy from the men than they receive in America or in England.
Cato wrote of women's suffrage: "Pray what will they not assail, if
they carry their point? Call to mind all the principles governing them
by which your ancestors have held the presumption of women in check,
and made them subject to their husbands. ... As soon as they have begun
to be your equals they will be your superiors." It is an older story
than the unread realize, this of the rights of women. The bulk of
Germany's male population still hold to Cato's view. It is not so much
that they are antagonistic, except in the case of the teachers, where
the women have become active competitors; they are in their patient
way impervious. Nor can it be said that any very large number of the
women themselves are eager for more rights; rather are they becoming
restless because they receive so little consideration.
Their pleasures are simple and restricted, regular attendance at the
theatre, at concerts, an occasional dinner at a restaurant to
celebrate an anniversary, excursions with the whole family to a beer
restaurant of a Sunday, and the endless meeting together for reading,
sewing, and gossip -- no German woman apparently but what belongs to a
verein or circle, meeting, say, once a week.
The women and the men are gregarious. Vae soli is the motto of the
race. They love to take their pleasures in crowds, and I am not sure
that this does not dull the enthusiasm for personal rights and
gratifications, and for individual supremacy and dignity. It is rare
to find a German who would subscribe to Andrew Marvell's misogynist
lines:
"Two paradises are in one
To live in Paradise alone."
It is typical of this love of being together that an independent
member of the Reichstag, owing allegiance to no party, is called a
Wilde, and this same word Wilde, or wild man, is applied to the
student at the university who belongs to no corps or association of
students. This love of being together, of touching elbows on all
occasions, makes them more easily led and ruled. They hate the
isolation necessary for independence and revolt.
Of the relations between men and women I long ago came to the
conclusion that this is a subject best left to the scientific
explorer. It is, however, open to the casual observer to comment upon
the monstrous percentage of illegitimacy in Berlin, 20 per cent. or
one child out of every five, born out of wedlock; 14 per cent. in
Bavaria; and 10 per cent. for the whole empire. This alone tells a sad
tale of the attitude of the men and women toward one another. There is
a long journey ahead of the women who propose to lift their sisters on
to a plane above the animals in this respect. In the matter of divorce
Prussia comes fourth in the list of European nations. Norway, with the
cheapest and easiest, and at the same time the wisest, divorce law in
the world, has almost the lowest percentage of divorce. In 1910 there
were 390 divorces out of 400,000 existing marriages, of which 14,600
had taken place that year. The percentage is thus only about 2 1/2 per
year. The total per 100,000 of the population in Switzerland is 43; in
France 33; in Denmark 27; and in Prussia 21. In industrial Saxony
there are 32 and in Catholic Bavaria 13. The number of married people
in Germany according to the last census shows an increase, the number
of bachelors and widowed persons a decrease. Since 1871 the number of
married persons has increased by 2 per cent. The birth rate shows a
proportional decline. The problem that bothers all social economists
is to the fore in Germany as elsewhere, for the people between sixty
and seventy years of age number 14.65 per cent. of the population,
while the young people under ten number only 11.12, and those between
twenty and thirty 10.93 per cent. The birth rate therefore shows the
same tendency as in France, England, and America. A recent
investigation on a small scale seems to show that bureaucracy has a
certain influence here. Of 300 officials questioned, only 10, or 312
per thousand, had more than two children. It is not an impossible, but
certainly a laughable, outcome of state interference carried too far,
should it result, in the state's becoming an incubator for the unfit,
in a country where the pensions for officers and employees of the
state have risen from 50,000,000 marks in 1900 to 111,000,000 marks in
1911.
Even in higher circles in Germany there is a gushing idealism about
the relations of the sexes. In their songs and sayings, as well as in
their mythology, there is a laudation of love that is overstimulating.
The lines of that inconsequential philosopher, that irresponsible
moralist, that dreamy Puritan, Emerson,
"Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good fame,
Plans, credit and the Muse--
Nothing refuse"
would be warmly praised in Germany.
"I could not love thee, dear, so much
Loved I not honour more"
are lines more to our taste. Even love should have a deal of toughness
of fibre in it to be worth much.
I must leave it to my readers to guess what I think of the German
woman; indeed, it is of little consequence what any individual opinion
is, if matter is given for the formation of an opinion by others.
Truth cannot afford to be either gallant or merciless. There are women
in Germany whom no man can know without respect, without admiration,
without affection. There are the blue eyes, sunny hair, peach-bloom
complexions of the north; there are the dark-eyed, black-haired,
heavy-browed women of the Black Forest; there is often a Quakerish
elegance of figure and apparel to be seen on the streets of the
cities, and from time to time one sees a real Germania, big of frame,
bold of brow, fearless of glance -- patet dea!
But we can none of us be quite sure of the impartiality of our taste
in such matters. Our baby fingers and our baby lips were taught to
love a certain type of beauty. Our mothers wove a web of admiration
and devotion from which no real man ever escapes; our maturer passions
lashed themselves to an image from which we can never wholly break
away; our sins and sorrows and adventures have been drenched in the
tears of eyes that are like no other eyes; and consequently the man
who could pretend to cold neutrality would be a reprobate.
The German looks to Germany, the Englishman to England, the Frenchman
to France, as do you and I to America, for
"The face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers
of Ilium."
VIII "OHNE ARMEE KEIN DEUTSCHLAND"
Of every one hundred inhabitants of Germany, including men, women, and
children, one is a soldier. There are, roughly, 65,000,000 inhabitants
and 650,000 soldiers.
The American army is about equal in numbers to the corps of officers
of Germany's army and navy. To the American, as to almost every other
foreigner, the German army means only one thing: war. We all hear one
thing:
"And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war."
I believe this is a half-truth, and dangerous accordingly. This army
has been in existence for over forty years, and has done far more to
keep the peace than any other one factor in Europe, except, perhaps,
the British navy.
The German army protects the German people not only from external
foes, but from internal diseases. It is the greatest school of hygiene
in the world, on account of its sound teaching, the devotion, skill,
and industry of its officers, the number of its pupils, and its widely
distributed lessons and influence.
Culture taken by itself is livery business, and when combined with
much beer and wine drinking, irregular eating and a disinclination for
regular exercise, culture becomes a positive menace to health. Of this
danger to the German, their own great man Bismarck spoke in the
Abgeordnetenhaus in 1881: "Bei uns Deutschen wird mit wenigem so viel
Zeit totgeschlagen wie mit Biertrinken. Wer beim Fruehschoppen sitzt
oder beim Abendschoppen und gar noch dazu raucht und Zeitungen liest,
haelt sich voll ausreichend beschaeftigt und geht mit gutem Gewissen
nach Haus in dem Bewusstsein, das Seinige geleistet zu haben."
("The Germans waste more time drinking beer than in any other way. The
man who sits with his morning or his afternoon glass of beer beside
him, and who, in addition, smokes and reads the newspapers, considers
that he is much occupied, and goes home with a good conscience,
feeling that he has fully done his duty.")
"Jeden Feind besiegt der Deutsche:
Nur den Durst besiegt er nicht."
Which I permit myself to translate into these two lines:
"The German conquers every foe,
Except his thirst, that lays him low."
Even if the German army were not necessary as a policeman, it could
not be spared as a physician by the German people. It is to be forever
kept in mind that the German is brought up on rules; the American and
the Englishman on emergencies. Emergencies provide a certain
discipline of themselves, and our philosophy of civilization leaves it
to the individual to get his own discipline from his own emergencies.
We call it the formation of character. The German thinks this method a
hap-hazard method, and burdens men with rules, and the army is
Germany's greatest school-master along those lines. We are inclined to
think that it results in a machine-made citizen.
There are three classes of men who pick up the bill of fare of life
and look it over: Civilization's paralyzed ones, with no appetite, who
can choose what they will without regard to the prices; the cautious,
those with appetite but who are hampered in their choice by the
prices; the bold, those with appetite and audacity, who rely upon
their courage to satisfy the landlord. The Germans are only just
beginning to look over the world's bill of fare in this last lordly
fashion, to which some of us have long been accustomed. I see no
reason why they should not do so, though I see clearly enough the
suspicion and jealousy it creates.
They have been swathed in "Forbidden" so long that their taste for
daring was late in coming. Our colonies, small wars, punitive
expeditions, and control over neighboring territories are not planned
for far ahead; but the exigencies of the situations are met by the
remedies and solutions of men fitted by their training in school, in
sport, in social and political life for just such work, and who are
the more efficient the more they do of it. We are inclined to do
things, and to think them out the day after; while the German thinks
them out the week before, and then sometimes hesitates to do them at
all.
The German goes more slowly, perhaps more successfully, in commercial
and industrial undertakings, but always with a chart in front of him,
a pair of spectacles on his nose, and with no desire to take chances.
In the rough-and-tumble world, the American and the Englishman went
ahead the faster; in a more orderly world, and commerce, industry, and
war are all far more scientific or orderly than of yore, the German
has come into his own and goes ahead very fast. He has not made
friends and supporters as have the other two: first, because he is a
new-comer; and also, I believe, because human nature, even when it is
not adventurous itself, loves adventure, and has a liking for the man
who is a law unto himself. Indeed, the Germans themselves have a
sneaking fondness for such a one. At any rate there is far more
imitation of American and English ways in Germany, than of German
manners, customs, and methods in America or in England.
"Experiment is not sufficient," writes Theophrastus von Hohenheim,
called Paracelsus; "experience must verify what can be accepted or not
accepted; knowledge is experience." For the moment, but it is probably
not for long, we have the advantage in the knowledge bred of
experience.
The German comes from the forest, loves the forest. "Kein Yolk ist so
innig mit seinem Wald erwachsen wie das Deutsche, keines liebt den
Wald so sehr." ("No nation has grown up so at one with its forests as
have the Germans; no other nation loves its forests as do they.") He
walks, and meditates, and sings in the forest, and nowadays goes to
the forest with his skis, his snow-shoes, and his sled. Our great
games are, many of them, personal conflicts, and attended by some
personal risk, and demanding both discipline in preparing for them and
severe discipline in the playing. Our love of the aleatory, of betting
our belongings, our powers, our persons even, against life, is not
commonly alive in Germany. The Germans are only just emerging into
safety and confidence in themselves, and beginning cautiously to agree
with us that
"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all."
From these sombre forests came a race who still find it lonely to be
alone, and they herd together still for safety as of old, and have no
love of physical speculation. They are daring in thought and theory,
but cautious in physical and personal matters. An office stool
followed by a pension contents all too many men in Germany.
"Reden, Handeln, Tun und Wandeln
Zeigt der Menschen Wesen nicht.
Was im Herzen sie im Stillen
Fest verschliessen, stumm verhuellen,
Ist ihr richtigs Angesicht."
An overwhelming majority of Germans believe that this is man's real
portrait; an overwhelming majority of Americans would not even
understand it.
The German army is the antidote to this lack of
physical discipline, this lack of strenuous physical life. The army
takes the place of our West, of our games, of our sports; just as it
takes the place of England's colonies and public schools and games and
sports. When looked at in this way, when its double duty is
recognized, the enormous cost of it is not so material. The expense of
the German army is not greater than our armies, plus what we spend for
games and sport and colonial adventure.
Germany has 4,570 miles of frontier to guard, to begin with, and her
total area is 208,780 square miles, or an area one fourth less than
that of our State of Texas, with a population per square mile of
310.4. Of this population 1,000,000, roughly, are subjects of foreign
powers. Five hundred thousand are from Austria-Hungary, 100,000 each
from Finland and Russia, nearly 100,000 from Italy, some 17,000
Americans, and so on. In 1900 the population speaking German numbered
51,000,000.
This compact little country is the very heart of Europe, surrounded by
Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Holland,
Denmark, and, across the North Sea, England. In the case of trouble in
Europe, Germany is the centre. Nothing can happen that does not
concern her, that must not indeed concern her vitally. She has fought at
one time or another in the last hundred years with Russia, Austria-
Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and
England, and the various German states among themselves; or her soldiers
have fought against their soldiers, whether or not the various countries
named were geographically and politically then what they are now.
Russia's population in 1910 was 160,748,000, and including the Finnish
provinces, 163,778,800. Since 1897 the population of Russia has
increased at the annual rate of 2,732,000. The boundaries between
Russia and Germany are mere sand dunes, and by rail the Russian
outposts are only a few hours from Berlin. France is only across the
Rhine, and it is no secret that some months ago Great Britain had
worked out a plan by which she could put 150,000 troops on the
frontiers of Germany, at the service of France, in thirteen days.
Germany's ocean commerce must pass through the Straits of Dover, down
the English Channel, within striking distance of Plymouth, Portsmouth,
Dover, Brest, and Cherbourg. France, which has been looked upon as a
somewhat negligible quantity, has taken on a new lease of life. When
Napoleon died, in 1821, he left France swept clean of her fighting
men, whose bones were bleaching all the way from Madrid to Moscow.
France has recuperated and is almost another nation to-day from the
stand-point of virility. She far surpasses Germany in literature, art,
and science, and is taking her old place in the world. She led the way
in motor construction, in field-artillery, in aviation, and now she is
producing a champion middle-weight sparrer, and, marvel of marvels,
has actually beaten Scotland at foot-ball! She has always had brains,
and now her stability and virility are reviving. This has not passed
unnoticed in Germany. No wonder Germany looks upon her navy as
something more than a Winstonchurchillian luxury!
One may understand at once from this situation, and from her past
history, that Germany has the sound good sense not to be influenced by
the latest school of sentimentalists, who pretend to believe that the
world is a polyglot Sunday-school, with converted millionaires as
teachers therein; or, if not that, a counting-house, where all
questions of honor, race, religion, love, pride, all the questions
which bubble their answers in our blood, are to be settled by weighing
their comparative cost in dollars. We do not realize how new is this
word sentimental. John Wesley, writing of this word "sentimental" as
used in Sterne's "Sentimental Journey," says: "Sentimental, what is
that? It is not English, it is not sense, it conveys no determinate
idea. Yet one fool makes many, and this nonsensical word (who would
believe it) is become a fashionable one."
Germany has been taught by bitter experiences, and harsh masters, that
the ultimate power to command must rest with that authority which, if
necessary, can compel people to obey. They recognize, too, the mawkish
mental foolery of any plan of living together which ignores the part
which physical force must necessarily play in any political or social
life which is complete. They agree, too, as does every intelligent man
in Christendom, that the appeal to reason is far preferable to an
appeal to war. But, pray, what is to be done where there is no reason
to appeal to? Are reasonable men to strip themselves of all armor, and
suffer unreason to prevail?
An army or a fleet is no more an incitement to war among reasonable
men, than a policeman is an incentive to burglary or homicide. An army
is not a contemptuous protest against Christianity; it is a sad
commentary on Christianity's failure and inefficiency. An army and a
fleet are merely a reasonable precaution which every nation must take,
while awaiting the conversion of mankind from the predatory to the
polite.
As yet the Germans have not been overtaken by the tepid wave of
feminism, which for the moment is bathing the prosperity-softened
culture of America and England. It is a harsh remedy, but both America
and England would gain something of virility if they were shot over.
We are all apt enough to become womanish, agitated, or acidulous,
according to age and condition, when we are reaping in security the
fields cleared, enriched, and planted by a hardy ancestry of pioneers.
There were no self-conscious peace-makers; no worshippers of those two
epicene idols: a God too much man, and a man too much God; no devotees
of third-sexism, in the days of Waterloo and Gettysburg, when we had
men's tasks to occupy us.