ng where boys and men hustle one another about as
in foot-ball and polo, and very long hours of application, from the
school-boy to the ministers of state, all of which tend to and do
produce a physical lack of alertness, vivacity, and audacity in the
men of practically all classes.

The way to see the people of a country is to stand by the hour in the
large industrial towns and watch them as they go to and from their
work; to watch them flocking in and out of railway stations, and at
work in large numbers in the fields of Saxony, Silesia, and other
parts of Prussia; to spend hours, and I admit that they are tedious
hours, strolling through factories, ship-yards, mines, and offices,
paying no attention to the talk of your guide, but studying the faces
and physique of the men and women. Having done this, an impartial
observer is bound to remark that industrial and commercial Germany is
taking a tremendous toll for the rapid progress she has made. It may
be no worse here than elsewhere, but neither has the problem of a
healthy, happy, toiling population been satisfactorily solved here,
though perhaps better here than elsewhere. I have heard the women and
girls in factories singing at their work, but the bird is no less
caged because it sings.

Men who ought to know better set an example of long hours of
confinement at their work which is quite unnecessary. They tell you
with pride that they are at it from eight or nine in the morning till
seven and often till later at night. That is something that no sane
man ought to be proud of. On investigation you find that in industrial
and commercial circles, and in the offices of the state, men take two
hours for luncheon and then return to work till nightfall. Two hours
in the open air at the end of the day could be managed easily, but
they do not want it. There is no vitality left for a game, for
exercise, for a bath, and a change.

They drug themselves with work, and slip away to the theatre, to a
concert, to a Verein or circle, unwashed, ungroomed, and physically
torpid, and the great mass of the population, high and low alike,
outside the army officers, look it.

The army officer's career is dependent upon his mental and physical
vigor. The cylinder is quickly handed him and the helmet taken away if
he grows too fat and too slow physically and mentally. There is no
nepotism, no favoritism, and on reaching a certain rank he goes, if he
falls below the standard required, an