[Illustration: THE LAST OF THE RACE
VON TIRPITZ: No, my dears, I'm not sending any more of you to those
wicked English; the survivors shall go to the Zoo."]
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THE CURRICULUM
The nations are being educated amain, let us hope. Germany has prided
herself on her education, her learning, and on her Kultur. To-day she is
beyond the calculation of all that foresight which has been her boast,
and foible. Human nature, other than German, has not been on the
national curriculum, and, as in other departments of study, what has not
been reduced to rule and line is beyond the ken and apprehension. How
stupendously wrong a Power which could count, and into a European War!
on insurrection in India, the Cape, and other parts of the British
Empire! and how naively did Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg disclose the
_Zeitgeist_ of German rulers when with passion he declared Britain to be
going to war for "a scrap of paper!" A purpose to serve, a treaty
becomes "a scrap"--in German courtly hands.
The artist depicts a scene, with masterly pencil, where Von
Bethmann-Hollweg himself is charged by the All-Highest to be
schoolmaster. It is a grim department of the training. Think of the
unseen as well as that shown. What you do see is the lordly, truculent
Kaiser, raising that menacing finger again. In spacious chair, he sits
defiant, aggressive, as a ferocious captain; and there opposite is the
"great Chancellor," bent, submissive, apprehensive, tablet and pencil
ready to take down the very word of Kaiserly wisdom and will.
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