The German Emperor has decided to revolutionise German education in
favour of modern ideas. On Thursday, in a remarkable speech to an Educational Conference over which he presided, he told the assembled educational managers of Prussia that the Universities produced "crammed lads but not men," that Latin and the classics must give place to German and history, and that the Professors must no longer sit in their chairs diffusing book-learning instead of making character. They must break with the monkish habit of mumbling much Latin and little Greek, and make German their basis. The Emperor himself had gone through the curriculum, and knew its futility. He had come out of school with the Great Elector still a nebulous personage to his mind. The gymnasia must reform their studies, and reduce the cruel " time-burden," so that boys could grow strong. He did not want a " proletariat of passmen," and would not give his consent to a single new gymnasium. Neither people nor State could bear so many " hunger-candidates," educated men with nothing to do. There is never any mistake as to what this Emperor means, which in an age of hazy talk is a consolation ; but his Majesty seems to forget that the system he so roughly condemns pro- duced, among other things, the thirty thousand officers who defeated Austria and conquered France.
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