Another thing that struck me, in addition to the one-sidedness of the education in the schools, was the tendency among. youths planning their careers in those days to tun their attention to becoming Gevernment officials, and always to consider the profession of lawyer or Judge the most worthy goal.
This was doubtless due to the fact that the conditions obtaining in the Prussia of olden days still had their effect in the youthful German Empire. As long as the Staite consisted, so to speak, of government and administration, this tendency among German youths in the shaping of their lives was understandable and justified since we were living in a country of officials, the right road for a young man to select was the service of the State. British youths. of that time, self-reliant and made robust by sports, were already talking, to be sure, of colonial conquests, of expeditions to explore new regions of the earth, of extending British commerce; and they were trying, in the guise of pioneers of their country, to make rear Britain still stronger and greater by practical, free action, nob as paid hirelings of the State. But England had long been a world empire when we were still a land of officials; therefore, the youth of Britain could seck more remote and important goals than the German.
Now that Germany had entered into world economies and world politics, however, as a by no means negligible factor, the aspirations of German youth should have undergone a more prompt transformation. For this reason it was that I, during the later years of my reign, to compare, with a heavy heart, the proud young Britons, who had learned much less Latin and Greek than was required among us, with the children of Germany, pale from over-study. To be sure, there were even then enterprising men in Germany—brilliant names can be cited among them—but the conception of serving the Fatherland, not by travelling along a definite, officially certified road, but by independent competition, had not yet become sufficiently generalized. Therefore I held up the English as an example, for it seems to me better to take the good where one finds it, without prejudice, then to go through the world wearing blinders.
With these considerations as a basis I won for my youths the School Reform against desparate opposition from the philologists, inside and outside the Ministry and school circles, Unfortunately, the reform did not take the shape which I hoped, and did not lead to the results which I had expected.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.