e youngster
deserved punishment instead of praise, because it is clear
he did not write his Latin exercise in a proper way; and of
all the Latin exercises we wrote there was not one in a
dozen which was done without cribbing. These exercises were
marked 'good,' but when we wrote an essay on 'Minna von
Barnhelm' (one of Lessing's dramas) we got hardly
'satisfactory.' So I say, away with the Latin exercise, it
only harms us, and robs us of time we might give to German."

The Emperor goes on to recommend the study of the nation's history,
geography, and literature ("Der Sage," poetry, he calls it).

"Let us begin at home," he says; "when we have learned
enough at home, we can go to the museums. But above all we
must know our German history. In my time the Grand Elector
was a very foggy personage, the Seven Years' War was quite
outside consideration, and history ended with the close of
the last century, the French Revolution. The War of
Liberation, the most important for the young citizen, was
not taught thoroughly, and I only learned to know it, thank
God, through the very interesting lectures of Dr. Hinzpeter.
This, however, is the _punctum saliens_. Why are our young
men misled? Why do we find so many unclear, confused
world-improvers? Why is our government so cavilled at and
criticized, and so often told to look at foreign nations?
Because the young men do not know how our conditions have
developed, and that the roots of the development lie in the
period of the French Revolution. Consequently, I am
convinced that if they understood the transition period from
the Revolution to the nineteenth century in its fundamental
features, they would have a far better understanding of the
questions of to-day than they now have. At the universities
they can supplement their school knowledge."

The Emperor then turned to other points. It was "absolutely necessary"
to reduce the hours of work. When he was at school, he said, all
German parents were crying out against the evil, and the Government
set on foot an inquiry. He and his brother (Henry) had every morning
to hand a memorandum to the head master showing how many hours it had
taken them to prepare the lessons for the day. In the Emperor's case
it took, "honestly," from 5-1/2 to 7 hours' home study. To this was to
be added 6 hours in