The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War | Page 9

lectures for adults and night improvement
schools.
It is significant that all the schools built between 1911 and 1914 were
so arranged, not only in Germany, but throughout Austria, that they
could be turned into hospitals with hardly any alteration. For this
purpose, temporary partitions divided portions of the buildings, and an
unusually large supply of water was laid on. Special entrances for
ambulances were already in existence, baths had already been fitted in
the wounded reception rooms, and in many cases sterilising sheds were
already installed. The walls were made of a material that could he
quickly whitewashed for the extermination of germs. If this obvious
preparation for war is named to the average German, his reply is, "The
growing jealousy of German culture and commerce throughout the
world rendered necessary protective measures."
A total lack of sense of humour and sense of proportion among the
Germans can be gathered from the fact that Mr. Haselden's famous
cartoons of Big and Little Willie, which have a vogue among
Americana and other neutrals in Germany, and are by no means unkind,
are regarded by Germans as a sort of sacrilege. These same people do
not hesitate to circulate the most horrible and indecent pictures of
President Wilson, King George, President Poincare, and especially of
Viscount Grey of Falloden. The Tsar is usually depicted covered with

vermin. The King of Italy as an evil-looking dwarf with a dagger in his
hand. Only those who have seen the virulence of the caricatures,
circulated by picture postcard, can have any idea of the horrible
material on which the German child is fed. The only protest I ever
heard came from the Artists' Society of Munich, who objected to these
loathsome educational efforts as being injurious to the reputation of
artistic Germany and calculated to produce permanent damage to the
juvenile mind.
The atmosphere of the German home is so different from that in which
I have been brought up in the United States, and have seen in England,
that the Germans are not at all shocked by topics of conversation never
referred to in other countries. Subjects are discussed before German
girls of eleven and twelve, and German boys of the same age, that make
an Anglo-Saxon anxious to get out of the room. I do not know whether
it is this or the over-education that leads to the notorious child suicides
of Germany, upon which so many learned treatises have been written.
Just before the war it looked as though the German young man and
woman were going to improve. Lawn tennis was spreading, despite
old-fashioned prejudice. Football was coming in. Rowing was making
some progress, as you may have learned at Henley. It was not the
spontaneous sport of Anglo-Saxon countries, but a more concentrated
effort to imitate and to excel.
Running races had become lately a German school amusement, but the
results, as a rule, were that if there were five competitors, the four
losers entered a protest against the winner. In any case, each of the four
produced excellent excuses why he had lost, other than the fact that he
had been properly beaten.
A learned American "exchange professor," who had returned from a
German university, whom I met in Boston last year on my way from
England to Germany, truly summed up the situation of athletics in
German schools by saying, "German boys are bad-tempered losers and
boastful winners."
Upon what kinds of history is the German child being brought up? The

basis of it is the history of the House of Hohenzollern, with volumes
devoted to the Danish and Austrian campaigns and minute descriptions
of every phase of all the battles with France in 1870, written in a
curious hysterical fashion.
The admixture of Biblical references and German boasting are typical
of the lessons taught at German Sunday Schools, which play a great
role in war propaganda. The schoolmaster having done his work for six
days of the week, the pastor gives an extra virulent dose on the Sabbath.
Sedan Day, which before the war was the culmination of hate lessons,
often formed the occasion of Sunday School picnics, at which the
children sang new anti-French songs.
There are some traits in German children most likeable. There are, for
example, the respect for, and courtesy and kindness towards, anybody
older than themselves. There are admiration for learning and ambition
to excel in any particular task. There is a genuine love of music. On the
other hand, there is much dishonesty, as may be witnessed by the
proceedings in the German police courts, and has been proved in the
gold and other collections.
The elimination of real religion in the education of children and the
substitution of worship of the State is, in the minds of many impartial
observers, something