Then the Empire-builder speaks--what is wanted above all is a national basis.
"We must make German the foundation for the gymnasium: we must produce patriotic young Germans, not young Greeks and Romans. We must depart from the centuries-old basis, from the old monastic education of the Middle Ages, when Latin was the main thing and a tincture of Greek besides. That is no longer the standard. German must be the standard. The German exercise must be the pivot on which all things turn. When in the exit examination (_Abiturientenexamen_) a student hands in a German essay, one can judge from it what are the mental acquirements of the young man and decide whether he is fit for anything or not. Of course people will object--the Latin exercise is very important, very good for instructing students in other languages, and so on. Yes, gentlemen, I have been through the mill. How do we get this Latin exercise? I have often seen a young man get, say 4-1/2 marks, for his German exercise--'satisfactory,' it was considered--and 2 for his Latin exercise. The 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."