The Washington times., 1904-01-04
Germany in Africa.
The Tribulations of the German Gov
eminent With It's African Subjects.

eminent With It's African Subjects.
1t Is reported that an Instruction
has broken out In that part of South
west Africa which Is controlled by
Germany, and that the government Is
in some perplexity as to the best
method of suppressing it. Insu1Tec-
lions break out in Africa with about
the frequency of epidemics of measles
III the public schools, and are not, by
the world at large, taken much more
seriously, Africa being very far away.
But they cause much worry of nina
10 the governing powers.
When, in the partition of Africa,
Germany received that large slice of
land in the southwest, it was consid-
cred an acquisition. Since that time
there has been so much difficulty in
keeping the place in that methodical
order dear to the German heart that
IL has come to be regarded as rather
a nuisance.
The fact is that, in colonization. the
German method and the English
method are entirely different. Ger
many has not had as much practice as
England in reducing subject races to
order, and is less inclined to under
take it. Moreover. whatever the Ger
Nan undertakes to do Is done thor
oughly, and it Will take some time to
make thorough Germans out of any
natives of Darkest Africa. The first
step in English colonization is to teach
the native the language, of which he
usually makes pigeon English, but i'm
agine the results of trying to teach a
West Coast native to marshal in prop
er order the nouns, pronouns, ad-
verbs, adjeetives, and other parts of
speech, ending with the verb, which
compose the orthodox German SEN
tencel There is no OIlendorff printed
for kraal use, and if there were, what
could be done with 1t in a land where
half the native dialects are made up
Of clicks and gruntsg
But when the German colonization
in Africa IS a finished job, as it may
be some centuries hence, the people
will be thoroughly revised and, leu
tonized. r They viii have all their fur
niture and clothing made IN Germany,
they will serve three years in the
army, they will eat sauerkraut, pref
gels, and German sweetmeats, and
hold kaffeeklatscheA instead of war
dances. They will have mastered the
German language III all its intricacies,
and forget that they ever knew any
other. That is the way in which
things are done by Germany, from
music and philosophy down to SOU
yenir gimcracks and Christmas-tree
ornaments. There is never any real
reed of the label to tell us that they
are made in Germany" They have
begun this thoroughness of treatment
already, down there in Africa. 1t will
be remembered that the German gov
eminent employed several of the pro-
fessors and graduates of Booker
Washington's school to spend a year
or two on the West Coast experiment
ing in the raising of cotton and teach
ing the natives to raise it scientifically
Science is the thing that wins, and
perhaps that very thoroughness is the
cause of the advance which Germany
has made over England in cornering
the manufactures of the world. Ii
German methods work in colonizinc
Africa, which is not at all improbable
there will be new monument 10 the
German intellect, worthy TO stand
alongside the works of Kant anC
Hegel