t rivals of ours; but its disadvantages
are not to be concealed, and are perhaps doing an undermining work
that will be more apparent in the future than now it is. The very fact
that an alien, an oriental race, the Jews, have taken so
disproportionate a share of the cream of German prosperity, and have
turned this technical prowess to purposes of their own, is, in and of
itself, a sure sign that there may be an educated proletariat working
slavishly for masters whom, with all their learning and all their
mental discipline, they cannot force to abdicate.

Strange to say, the
federal constitution of 1871, which gave Germany its emperor, did not
include the schools, and each state has its own school system, but in
1875 an imperial school commission was formed which has done much to
make the system of all the states uniform.

The three classes of
schools recognized as leading later to a university career are the
Gymnasium, in which Latin and Greek are still the fundamental
requirements; the Realgymnasium, in which Latin but no Greek is
required; the Oberrealschule, in which the classics are not taught at
all, but emphasis is laid upon modern languages and natural science.
In addition to these there are the so-called Reformschulen, of very
recent growth, which are an attempt to put less emphasis upon the
classics, but without excluding them entirely from the course, and to
pay more attention proportionately to modern languages, French in
particular. There are in addition some four hundred public and one
thousand or more private higher girls' schools, with an attendance of
a quarter of a million, all subject to state supervision.

If one were to make a genealogical tree of the German schools which
educate the children from the age of six up to the age of entrance to
the university, it might be described as follows: First are the
Volkschulen, which every child must attend from six to fourteen. In
the smaller country schools the children of all ages may be in one
school-room and under one teacher; in another, divided into two
classes; in another, into three or four classes; up to the large city
schools, in which they are divided on account of their number into as
many as eight classes. Next would come the Mittelschulen, where the
pupils are carried on a year farther, and where the last year
corresponds to the first year of the so-called Lehrerbildungsanstalten,
or training schools for teachers. These again are divided into