The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-03-28
GERMANY VERSUS AMERICA
WHERE THE TEUTONS SUR-
 PASS US.
A Bill of Particulars by Writer
 Acquainted With Both Nations.

rapidly acquiring one of the best naVles,
 have long had the best universities, and,
 for the rest, worry along under the
 reign of an emperor who must be more
 Interesting to read about than easy to
 put up with That is about the stock of
 their views. An advance has been made
 in one respect. The old temper of inn
 patience over the mere suggestion
 that "Dutchmen" may be capable of
 bringing forward some thing practical,
 worthy of regard, is gone, not that they
 believe even now that Germans can
 give a Yankee many points. But they
 are willing to listen. I can only hint at ! what I consider the good things among
 German arrangements, while American
 readers can search their hearts to test
 whether they possess neutrality enough to reflect on them.
 Let us see first what is to be said of
 public institutions of all kinds. The
 church and pretty nearly all that con-
 cerns it. relinquish boasting of at the
 start. The German church is a back
 ward institution, as herarchical as the
 English Establishment, besides being
 coarser and poorer Fashion patronizes
 it without seeing much of it. It is mid-
 dle class. The poor honor it as they
 they do the king. The throne and the
 altar are alike to their minds, inasmuch
 as they have to pay taxes and reverence
 to them both.
 Secondly, the school Here you will
 be amazed probably. For, in contra
 diction to what Americans have been
 told so long that they have finally ac-
 cuioenaI ip be tr,1tb of tbo St at
 not being in the position to judge for
 Themselves, I assert that German
 schooling, too, is inferior to the Ameri-
 can Twenty years ago matters were
 different. The Yankee pedagogs who
 then told their countrymen how much
 better they had discovered German
 schools to be were right Since then, however, American schools have been graded and the standard for instructors raised. By these reforms Americans have adopted what German educational institution could offer. It is now for Germany to adopt from America the following: 1 Shorter lesson recitation periods ?. More advanced age for be- ginning of compulsory school discipline. 3. The effort to render learnie a pleas ure. Look al the difference in Ameri- can and German school children. The American boys and girls are straight as arrows, fresh complexion, alive with en- ergy. The German girls and boys spec tacled, pale bent, devoid of energy. They are overtrained by lessons too long in duration, presented too duly. School is an ogre in the lives of most German children whose homes are not wretched. There is mistake about it, therefore. It lies in the treating of rthildren after the military system. re- gardless of difference ill temperament, health, capacity and taste. Score one, again, therfore, in favor of American schools, not overlooking the fact that l say schools, without including univer- sities and colleges.
 Thirdly, the police. We will go di- rectly into this subject How do Ger man police compare with the American? If we are going to be fair and square and forget personal annoyance, we shall have to give the Germans the palm. Nobody hates to more than I. Haven't the police fined my husband because a | man servant fired pistol at a squirrel in our park? And me, for setting a flower pot on my window sill? And my
 
 in the public gardens (over mind you, not even on the grass, which of course is a terrible erime)? And have I not been yelled at, till I nearly fell off from | the shock, for bicycling round corner in the middle of the street instead of | the right hand, for ridng on some | instead of others, fer going | certain railway station gates Instead of certain others? Have we | not had to pay for harboring guests we | forgot to notify the police were arrived, | and pay for forgetting to say they were | gone? Did not my American nieces | start out to gather experiences, and | run against g things forbidden by the police, in respect of riding on street | cars, which they inscribed duly in a note book. and read aloud at dinner with imperfect earnestness, so that I | sat on thorns, lest my German husband should suspect a criticism was being ex- pressed on an institution of his country? | Oh indeed what the police have made | me suffer, indirectly or directly, is enough to prejudice mel But it is be- cause being an American I was born free, under a government that says "The sooner the fools are eliminated from the poulation, the bet ter. Let them. therfore, put their heads out of the windows of passing trains; let them ride in the portion of tho street by ordinance for traffic in the opposing direction" and so forth Be- sides when you have complained that the multitude and pettness of regula- tions wear your life out you have said the worst. It is certain that your prop erty rights are secure against black mailing and arbitrariness. There is no of police forces in Germany worth speaking of; nor, for that matter, of any sort of officials. From an official point of view, therefore, one must be scored for the Germans. Their police beat Tammany's.
 I come fourthly to city administra- lion. building and cleanliness, in which the best that America can show is sur passed by what Germany presents, chiefly again because the laws that are enacted are carried out in every in- stance to the last letter by the police, without favor or exception.
 Then take the post! We must con- ,ede I think, that Germany beats us In this, too. It is a small per cent cafer