But putting aside
comic journalists and lady novelists, for whom it is a business
necessity, this smattering of French which we are so proud to possess
only serves to render us ridiculous.

In the German school the method is somewhat different. One hour every
day is devoted to the same language. The idea is not to give the lad
time between each lesson to forget what he learned at the last; the idea
is for him to get on. There is no comic foreigner provided for his
amusement. The desired language is taught by a German school-master who
knows it inside and out as thoroughly as he knows his own. Maybe this
system does not provide the German youth with that perfection of foreign
accent for which the British tourist is in every land remarkable, but it
has other advantages. The boy does not call his master "froggy," or
"sausage," nor prepare for the French or English hour any exhibition of
homely wit whatever. He just sits there, and for his own sake tries to
learn that foreign tongue with as little trouble to everybody concerned
as possible. When he has left school he can talk, not about penknives
and gardeners and aunts merely, but about European politics, history,
Shakespeare, or the musical glasses, according to the turn the
conversation may take.

Viewing the German people from an Anglo-Saxon standpoint, it may be that
in this book I shall find occasion to criticise them: but on the other
hand there is much that we might learn from them; and in the matter of
common sense, as applied to education, they can give us ninety-nine in a
hundred and beat us with one hand.

The beautiful wood of the Eilenriede bounds Hanover on the south and
west, and here occurred a sad drama in which Harris took a prominent
part.

We were riding our machines through this wood on the Monday afternoon in
the company of many other cyclists, for it is a favourite resort with the
Hanoverians on a sunny afternoon, and its shady pathways are then filled
with happy, thoughtless folk. Among them rode a young and beautiful girl
on a machine that was new. She was evidently a novice on the bicycle.
One felt instinctively that there would come a moment when she would
require help, and Harris, with his accustomed chivalry, suggested we
should keep near her. Harris, as he occasionally explains to George and
to myself, has daughters of his own, or, to speak more correctly, a
daughter, who as the years progress will no doubt cease practising
cat