We must return, however, to the Emperor.  During this period, in December, 1890, he, like every one else with his own ideas on education as well as on art and religion, delivered his views on popular instruction.  At this time—­he was then thirty—­he called together forty-five of the ablest educational experts of the country and addressed them on the subject of high-school education.  His Minister of Education, Dr. von Grossler, had drawn up a programme of fourteen points for discussion, and the Emperor added to these a few others he wished to have considered.

German high-school education, be it remarked, is a different thing from English public-school education, and ought rather to be spoken of as German information than as German education.  We have seen that the spirit of the German university differs largely from that of the English university, in that it is not concerned with the formation of character or the inculcation of manners.  The same may be said of the German gymnasium, or high school, the institution from which the German youth, as a rule, goes to college.  No teaching institution, English or German, be it further said on our own account, makes any serious attempt to teach what will prepare youth for intercourse with the extremely complicated world of to-day, to give him, to take but one example, the faintest notion of contract, which, if he possessed it, would save him from many a foolish undertaking and protect him from many a business betrayal, Far from it.  All the disagreeable, and many of the painful incidents of his subsequent life, all equally avoidable if knowledge regarding them had been instilled into him in his early years, he must buy with money and suffering and disgust in after-years.

But the Emperor is waiting to be heard.  His entire speech need not be quoted, but only its chief contentions.  In introducing his remarks he claimed to speak with knowledge as having himself sat on a public-school bench at Cassel.

The Social Democracy being to the Emperor what King Charles’s head was to Mr. Dick, it is not surprising to find almost his first statement being to the effect that if boys had been properly taught up to then, there would be no Social Democracy.  Up to 1870, he said, the great subject of instruction for youth was the necessity for German unity.  Unity had been achieved, the Empire was now founded, and there the matter rested.  “Now,” said the Emperor, “we must recognize that the school is for the purpose of teaching how the Empire is to be maintained.  I see nothing of such teaching, and I ought to know, for I am at the head of the Empire, and all such questions come under my observation.  What,” he continues,