school and 2 hours for eating meals--"How much of
the day," the Emperor asks, "was left? If I," he said, "hadn't been
able to ride to and from school I wouldn't have known what the world
even looked like." The result of this, he continued, was an

"over-production of educated people, more than the nation
wanted and more than was tolerable for the sufferers
themselves. Hence the class Bismarck called the
abiturienten-proletariat, all the so-called hunger
candidates, especially the Mr. Journalists, who are often
broken-down scholars and a danger to us. This surplus, far
too large as it is, is like an irrigation field that cannot
soak up any more water, and it must be got rid of."

Another matter touched on by the Emperor was a reduction in the amount
to be learned, so that more time might be had for the formation of
character. This cannot be done now, he remarks, in a class containing
thirty youngsters, who have such a huge amount of subjects to master.
The teacher, too, the Emperor said, must learn that his work is not
over when he has delivered his lecture. "It isn't a matter of
knowledge," he concludes "but a matter of educating the young people
for the practical affairs of life."

The Emperor lastly dealt with the subject of shortsightedness. "I am
looking for soldiers," he said.

"We need a strong and healthy generation, which will also
serve the Fatherland as intellectual leaders and officials.
This mass of shortsightedness is no use, since a man who
can't use his eyes--how can he do anything later?"

and he went on to mention the extraordinary facts that in some of the
primary classes of German schools as many as 74 per cent, were
shortsighted, and that in his class at Cassel, of the twenty-one
pupils, eighteen wore spectacles, while two of them could not see the
desk before them without their glasses.

The Englishman in Germany often attributes German shortsightedness to
the Gothic character of German print. It is more probable that the
long hours of study spent poring over books without fresh-air
exercise, judiciously interposed, is responsible for it.

It has been said that every one, like the Emperor, has his own theory
of education, but there is one passage in the Emperor's speech with
which almost all men will agree--that, namely, in which he urges that
knowledge is not the only--perhaps not the chief--thing, but that
young people must be e