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 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.