The first and most obvious thing to be said of the twelvemonth during which the Ship of State has sailed with no Bismarck at the helm, is that the course has been one of novel smoothness. Since the foundation of the Empire Germany has not known such another tranquil and comfortable period. Nothing has arisen calculated to make men regret the ex-Chancellor’s retirement. Almost every month has contributed some new warrant for the now practically unanimous sense of satisfaction in his being out of office. When astounded Germany first grasped the fact of his downfall, even those whose hatred of him was most implacable could not dissemble their nervousness lest Germany should be the sufferer in some way by it. He had so persistently kept before the mind of the nation that they were surrounded by vindictive armed enemies; he had year after year so industriously beaten the war drum and predicted the speedy breaking of the storm-clouds if his own way were denied him; he had so accustomed everybody to the idea that he was personally responsible for the continued existence from day to day of the German Empire, the peace of Europe, and almost every other desirable thing, that the mere thought of what would happen now he was actually gone dazed and terrified the public mind.

But lo! nothing whatever happened. The world continued its placid sweep through space without the sign of an interruption. The spring sun rose in the marshes of the Vistula and set behind the fir-clad ridges of the Vosges, just the same as ever. When Germany recovered her breath after the shock, it was to discover that respiration was an easier matter than it had formerly been. It was really a weight which had been lifted from the national breast. The sensation gradually took form as one of great relief, akin to that of filling the lungs to their utmost with the cool morning air after a night of confinement, unrest, and a tainted atmosphere. It is too much to say that apprehension fled at once; the anxious habit of mind still exists in Germany, and, indeed, must continue to exist so long as France and Russia stand on the map where they do. But a very short space of time served to make clear that Germany was in adroit and capable hands, and that the old-time notion of the impossibility of supporting national life without Bismarck had been the most childish of chimeras. Then little by little the new civility, freedom, and absence of friction which began to mark Parliamentary debates and official administration, attracted notice. The spectacle of a Chancellor who actually assumed the patriotism and personal honour of his political opponents in the Reichstag, who spoke to them like reasonable beings, and who said their views and criticisms would always receive his-respectful consideration, was not lost upon the German brain. People found themselves, before long, actively liking the new régime.

In reaching this attitude they were greatly helped by Bismarck’s own behaviour, after he retired to Friedrichsruh. It does not fall within the purpose of this work to dwell upon the unhappy way in which, during the year, this statesman who was so great has laboured to belittle himself in the eyes of the world. Allusion to it is made here only to append the note that the Kaiser, under extreme provocation, has steadfastly declined to sanction the slightest movement toward reprisals. Although Bismarck has permitted himself to affront authority much more openly and seriously than Count Harry von Arnim ever did, his threats, his revelations, and his incitements to schism have all been treated with serene indifference. And so, too, we may pass them by, and push on to greater matters.

On May 6th the new Reichstag was opened by a speech from the throne, almost exclusively reflecting the Emperor’s absorption in schemes of social reform and progress, and the new Chancellor, Caprivi, laid before Parliament a Trades Law Amendment Act, as a first attempt at embodying these schemes. After a year of deliberation this measure has just been passed, and, unless the Federal Council interposes some wholly unlooked-for obstacles, will come into effect on April 1, 1892. By this law Sunday labour is absolutely forbidden in all industries, save a selected few connected with entertainment and travelling, and the integrity of the great Church festival holidays is also secured. The Federal Council is given the power to supervise and control the maximum hours of labour in such trades as endanger the health of workmen by overwork. Both journeymen and apprentices are to be able to bring suit against their employers for wrongful dismissal. Female labour is forbidden at night, and is given at all times a maximum of eleven hours. Careful restrictions are also placed upon juvenile labour, and after April of 1894 children under the age of thirteen are not to be employed at all in factories. These reforms, which practically embody the recommendations of the Labour Conference, do little more than bring Germany abreast of England and America. A more extended programme of social reform is promised when the Reichstag meets again next November.

But it is not on specific achievements that the tremendous popularity which William has won for himself during the past year is founded. We are by no means within view of the end of the game, but it is already apparent that his greatest strength lies in the certainty and sureness of touch with which he appeals to the inborn German liking for lofty and noble visions of actions. The possibility—probability if you like—that these visions will never get themselves materialized, is not so important as it seems. Socialism in Germany is far more a matter of imagination than of fact. Mr. Baring-Gould quotes an observer of the election phenomena of 1878, to show that “decorous people, dressed in an unexceptionable manner, and even to some extent wearing kid-gloves,” went to the polls as Socialists then. This has been still more true of later elections. The element of imaginative men who had themselves little or nothing to complain of, but who dreamed of a vague Social Democracy as an idealized refuge from the harsh, dry bureaucracy and brutal militarism of Bismarck’s government, played a large and larger part in each successive augmentation of the Socialists’ voting strength. For want of a better word we may say that William is a dreamer too. In place of their amorphous Utopia, he throws upon the canvas before the Socialists the splendid fantasy of a beneficent absolutism which shall be also a democracy, in which everybody shall be good to everybody else, and all shall sleep soundly every night, rocked in the consciousness that their Kaiser is looking out for them, to see justice done in every corner, and happiness the law of the land.

It is all fantastic, no doubt, but it is generous and elevated and inspiring. Granted the premises of government by dreams, it is a much better dream than any which flames in the weak brains of the miners at Fourmies or in the dwarfed skulls of the Berlin slums. And the Germany which, under the impulse of a chivalrous and ardent young leader, finds itself thrilled now by this apocalyptic picture of ideals realized, and of government by the best that is in men instead of the worst, is certainly a much pleasanter subject for contemplation than that recent Germany which, under Bismarck, sneered at every spiritualizing ambition or thought, and roughly thrust its visionaries into prison or exile.

The chronological record of what remained of 1890 is meagre enough. Caprivi’s first quarter in office was rendered brilliant by the bargain which gave Heligoland to Germany, and discussion over this notable piece of fortune was prolonged until the idleness of the summer solstice withdrew men’s minds from politics. William made visits to Scandinavia, first of all, and then to the south shore of England, to Russia, and to Austria. In November the excitement over Dr. Koch’s alleged specific for tuberculosis was promptly reflected by the Emperor’s interest. He gave personal audience to the eminent microscopist, saying that he felt it his duty to buy the wonderful invention and confer the benefit of it freely upon not only his own people but the world at large. A fortnight later he bestowed upon Dr. Koch the order of the Red Eagle of the first class—a novel innovation upon the rule that there must be regular progression in the inferior degrees of the order.

In the same month William accepted the resignation of Court Chaplain Stoecker, and met Dr. Windhorst in conversation for the first time. The two events are bracketed thus because they have an interesting bearing upon the altered state of the religious question in Germany.

The Kulturkampf had already, as we have seen, dwindled greatly under the parliamentary necessities of Bismarck’s last years in power. But there had been no reconciliation, and the unjust old quarrel still drew a malignant gash of division through the political and social relations of the German people. Anti-Semitism in the same way lingered on, powerless for much overt mischief, but serving to keep alive the miserable race dissensions which have wrought such harm in Germany, and lending the apparent sanction of the Court to Berlin’s, social ostracism of the Jews. William’s broadening perceptions grasped now the necessity of putting an end to both these survivals of intolerance. The blatant Stoecker was given the hint to resign and an enlightened clergyman was installed in his place. At a Parliamentary dinner, given by Caprivi on November 25th, to which, according to the new order of things, the leaders in opposition were invited quite as freely as supporters of the Ministry, the Emperor met Dr. Windhorst, the venerable chief of the Ultramontane party. All present noted the exceptional courtesy and attention which William paid to “the Pearl of Meppen,” and construed it to signify that the days of anti-Catholic bias were dead and gone. This judgment has been so far justified by events that, when Dr. Windhorst died in the succeeding March, it was said of him that of all his aims he left only the readmission of the Jesuits unaccomplished.

William’s speeches during the year marked a distinct advance in the art of oratory, and gave fewer evidences of loose and random thinking after he rose to his feet than were offered by his earlier harangues. At the swearing-in of the recruits for the Berlin garrison, on November 20th, he delivered a curiously theological address, saying that though the situation abroad was peaceful enough, the soldiers must bear their share with other honest Germans in combating an internal foe, who was only to be overcome by the aid of Christianity. No one could be a good soldier without being a good Christian, and therefore the recruits who took an oath of allegiance to their earthly master, should even more resolve to be true to their heavenly Lord and Saviour.

Ten days later William made a speech of a notably different sort in front of the statue of the Great Elector, the 250th anniversary of whose accession to the throne of Brandenburg fell upon the 1st of December. Reference has heretofore been made to the powerful effect produced upon the young man’s mind by reading the story of this ancestor, in preparation for this speech. There was nothing at all in it about loyalty to celestial sovereignties, but it bristled with fervent eulogies of the fighting Hohenzollerns, and was filled with military similes and phraseology. It contained as well the veiled comparison between Schwarzenberg and Bismarck which has been spoken of elsewhere.

Within the week the Kaiser delivered another speech, much longer than the other, and of vastly closer human interest. It had evidently been thought out with great care, and may unquestionably be described as the most important public deliverance of his reign. When he ascended the throne no one on earth would have hazarded the guess that, at the expiration of three years, William’s principal speech would remain one upon the subject of middle education!

The occasion was a special conference convened by him to discuss educational reform in Prussia, and the gathering included not only the most distinguished professors and specialists within the kingdom, but representative men from various other German states. A list of the members would present to the reader the names of half the living Germans who are illustrious in literature and the sciences. The session was opened by the Emperor as presiding officer at Berlin, on December 4th.

It was wholly characteristic of the young man that, having tabled a series of inquiries upon the subject, he should start off with a comprehensive and sustained attack upon the whole gymnasium, or higher public school, system of the country. The Conference, having been summoned to examine the possibility of any further improvement upon this system, heard with astonishment its imperial chairman open the proceedings by roundly assailing everything connected with, and typical of, the entire institution.

The importance of the speech can best be grasped by keeping in mind the unique reputation which the Prussian school system has for years enjoyed in the eyes of the world. Its praises have been the burden of whole libraries of books. The amazing succession of victories on the fields of 1870-71 which rendered the Franco-Prussian War so pitifully one-sided a conflict, have been over and over again ascribed to the superior education of the German gymnasia even more than to the needle-gun—and this too by French writers among the rest. The Germans are justifiably proud of their wonderful army, but it is probable that a year ago they had an even loftier pride in their schools. The teachers are in themselves an army, and have traditionally exerted an influence, and commanded a measure of public deference, which the pedagogues of other lands know nothing about. It required, therefore, an abnormal degree of moral courage for even an Emperor to stand up in cold blood and make an attack upon the sacred institution of the gymnasium. It is even more remarkable that what the young man had to say was so fresh and strong and nervously to the point, that it carried conviction to the minds of a great majority of the scholastic greybeards who heard it.

He began by saying that the gymnasia (answering roughly to the Latin schools of England and the grammar-schools or academies of America) had in their time done good service, but no longer answered the requirements of the nation or the necessities of the time. They produced crammed minds, not virile men; wasting on musty Latin and general classical lore the time which should be devoted to inculcating a knowledge of German language and history—knowledge which was of infinitely more value to a German than all the chronicles of an alien antiquity combined. Had these schools done anything to combat the follies and chimeras of Social Democracy? Alas! the answer must be something worse than a negative—and tell not alone of an urgent duty left undone, but of evil wrought on the other side. He himself had sat on the various forms of a gymnasium at Cassel—a very fair sample of that whole class of schools—and he therefore knew all about their ways and methods, and the sooner these were mended the better it would be for every one.

It was undoubtedly true, William went on to admit, that in 1864, 1866, and 1870 the Prussian teachers’ work showed to advantage. They had in those past years done a good deal to inculcate, and thus help to fruition, the idea of national unity—and it was safe to say that during that period every one who completed his gymnasium course went away after the final examination convinced that the German Empire should be reestablished, and crowned by the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine. But with 1871 this practical process of education came abruptly to an end, although as a matter of fact there was more than ever a need of teaching young Germans the importance of preserving their Empire and its political system intact. The consequence was that certain malignant forces had grown up and developed to a threatening degree, and for this the schools were clearly to blame.

Since 1870, he proceeded, there had been in German education a veritable reign of the philologists. They had been sitting there enthroned in the gymnasia, devoting all their attention to stuffing their pupils’ skulls with mere book-learning, without even a thought of striving to form their characters aright, or training them for the real needs and trials of practical life. This evil had gone so far that it could go no farther. He knew that it was the custom to describe him as a fanatical foe to the gymnasium system. This was not true; only he had an open eye for its defects as well as its merits—of which, unfortunately, there seemed a heavy preponderance of the former.

Chief among these defects, to his mind, was a preposterous partiality for the classics. He submitted to his hearers, as patriots no less than professors, that the basis of this public school education should be German, and the aim kept always in view should be to turn out young Germans, not young Greeks and Romans. There must be an end to this folly. They must courageously break away from the mediaeval and monkish habit of mumbling over much Latin and some Greek, and ta............