The Evening Missourian. [volume] (Columbia, Mo.) 1917-1920, 1918-01-27
GERMANY'S SCHOOLS
PREPARED FOR WAR
President Hill Tells How
Its Educational Institutions
Spread Untruths.
TALKS IN ST. JOSEPH
Gives the Various Methods
Employed and Describes
Textbooks Used.

THE center of culture in the middle
part of the United States in St. Louis,
which has a German population and
lies in Indiana"
This is a sample Of the sort of mis-
information that has been taught in
the schools of Germany for years. ac-
cording to DR.. A Ross Hill, president
OF the University of Missouri, who
spoke wednesday at the weekly
luncheon of the Commerce club in St.
Joseph, says the St Joseph Gazette.
Doctor Hills two daughters were in
school in Germany up TO the outbreak
of the war, and these statements were
included in textbooks used in the
school they attended.
Missouri. according to the same
text. is peopled by MeXicans.
Doctor Hill pointed out that the
Germans used the schools in prepar-
ing fer this war. the following being
the four methods of indoctrinatiOn:
Fear OF Invasion.
l. BY appealing to and keeping
alive the fear of foreign invasion in
herited from the period when the
separate German states were, before
their union. subject to grievous
wrongs on the part of their neighbors,
especially in the days of Napoleon.
Through a highly centralized school
system first France, then England,
then Russia was made to appear the
great menace to German peace in the
minds of the youth.
2. Through the same centralized
school system it was easy to develop
pride IN German industrial and scien-
tific achievements since the Franco
Prussian War and in German arms
throughCut history. School children,
for instance. were taught that We'll
fngtOn's soldiers ran away from the
Battle of Waterloo and it was left to
Blucher and his Prussian army 10
save Europe from Napoleon. The
German youth has thus come to be-
lieve that the German is a superior
human being in a world lacking in
culture and efficiency, and that Ger
many is destined to world dOmina-
tion.
Fine Vocational Schools.
3. Lower and higher schools of
vocational training have been devel-
oped to the highest efficiency. In the
fall of 1913 | found more young men
between IA and 20 years of age get
ting some fern of trade education in
the city of Munich alone, smaller than
St Louis, than in all the large cities
of the United States combined with
their combined populations of 12,00O,-
600. With this universal training Of
workers in the various trades and
thorough military training for the
entire male population, Germany had
made an educational preparation for
war SURPRISING anything ever dream
ed of by other countries.
4. AS Prussia had established and
developed strong universities in the
early years of the nineteenth century
as a means of rehabilitating the cOun-
try after the devastating effects of
the NapoleOnic wars, so in the reign
of Emperor William the Second these
have been used TO pro-
mote war propaganda. A school Of
political philosophy had developed
that taught the state is everything and
the individual nothing in political
life, and that therefore what the state
needs done for its promotion is al
ways right. Thus the sinking of the
Lusitania, the rape of Belgium, and
the enslavements Of Belgian and
French civilians are justified if politi-
cal eXigencies require
Different in America.
In America" said DR. Hill. "Our |
schools and universities have taught |
the ideals of peace and democracy |
and encouraged an extreme form of
Only our state univer- !
stiles that had agricultural colleges |
gave instruction in military |
science and tactics. This has been
our only form of prepar-
edness through education. but this is
proving Of some significance to the
nation.
AT the University of Missouri we
have given instruction in military sci
ance and tactics since 1870 and for
he last ten years all physically fit
male students have had from one to
our years of military training. AS
4 result over loo of her sons are al
ready in the national service, many of
hem officers; one graduate. General
'rowder, is in charge Cf the selective
lraft for the Nation. and three of the
our leading assistants of that Mis-
souri, leader in Europe, Gen. PERISH
ng, are former students of the Uni
'ersity of MissOuri-Brigadier Cen
,ral Russell. Lieutenant-ColOnel
and Lieutenant-Colonel
iordon.
I'm our cities and towns we have
hardly scratched the surface in voca-
iOnal training and today the War De
)artment is calling on the tech
Iical schools of the country TO train
Turing the coming summer an army
4 workers behind the line in Europe
hat should have been trained and in
ervice in the various trades of the
!. |