The Arizona sentinel., 1889-03-02
THE GERMAN scHooL-BoY.
He Has Many Good Points. Though he
Differs from Young America.

He Has Many Good Points. Though He
Differs from Young America.
The German school-boy is not much
of boy according to American ideas.
He is very sedate and polite little
chap He has big bump of respect
for his elders. A superficial observer
might easily mistake him for Mark
Twain's good little boy. He gets up
very early in the morning to trudge off
to school as straight as his small bow
legs will carry him. His face and
hands are clean. His tow hair is
combed well back from his shiny red
forehead. His tr1users may be never
so carefully patched, they are never
ragged.
He carries his books in a knapsack
on his back This knapsack is a
great thing, the German small boy
thinks, because the German soldiers
carry znapsacks, too. His favorite
amusement is to get a lot of little white
haired, shiny-faced comrades, with
knapsacks on their backs, in military
line. He marches them up and down
before the school-house during the
recesses, drilling them in the goose
step or teaching them how to salute,
present and wheel This military drill
is as dear to the small German heart
as is scrub, one-old-cat or marbles to
the small American heart. Indian
f. H. Io Oh
for the German school-boy. He would
be afraid of getting kicked in the shins
or of being tumbled over into the dirt.
He never gets tired, however, of try
ing to turn his small pigeon toes out
as he marches his company along the
street after school. He knows all
about the words of command and abuse
which the officers use in drilling the
soldiers, because he has watched the
drills at the barracks every holiday.
Indeed, the height of his school-boy
amb itiOn is to get tiny helmet bear
ing the arms of the fatherlanG and a
red and blue uniform. He longs to be
soldier just as an East Side New
York boy longs to become a cowboy.
The German school-boy is not much
of a fighter. He slaps and scratches
his comrades occasionally, but he never
punches them. Like his father, he
can cut all sorts of capers with his toy
sword, but he doesn't know how to ball
his fists. When another boy slaps him
he becomes very dignifed. He doesn't
say You're another" or III get my
big brother to fix you, Fritzie Open
heimer." He isps but big double
jointed German sentence of disapproval
and goes away to cry.
The German school-boy has much
better manners for his years than the
German student. When only eight or
nine years old he says, ''excuse me. {"
IF you please" and thank you" fifty
times where the American boy would
say them once. He tips his hat to
every one who speaks with him on the
street. He will try patiently for five
minutes to tell tourist where the
castle or library is, and doesn't laugh
when the tourist calls the library 'he"
instead of ''she," or the castle "she"
instead of lit. "
In the school room the German boy
is not the young scrapegrace that
Tenier has painted him. He doesn't
know any thing about chewing and
throwing paper wAds. He doesn't
kick the boy who sits before him, and
he doesn't pull the hair of his neigh
Dor. He doesn't even understand the
utility of crooked pin. His teacher
always maintains such careful watch
over his movements that he has no
time for these side issues. He there
fore learns a vast deal more in the
same length of time than the Ameri-
can boy.
A little chap of twelve or thirteen
years generally knows all about that
bad man, Napoleon. He can tell just
how Napoleon beat the good Prussian
King at jena and then insulted the
beautiful Queen Louise at Berlin. He
knows just how many thousands of the
allied troops put down Napoleon at
Leipsic- If he is a Leipsic school-boy
he will point out reverently the room
in the old Rathhaus where the wicked
Napoleon lived while in Lepsic.
Then. the German school boy can
tell tremendous deal of anecdote,
biography and fable concerning Mar
tin Luther, Frederick the Great. the
Great Kurfurst and other German
heroes. In fact, it is the small Ger
man boys education in the history of
his native land that makes him hot
little patriot at thirteen years, and the
proverbially loyal soldier in after
years. N. Y. Sun.