While they recited I looked about. The room was large, light, and superheated by a small, black, iron stove fiercely burning. On the wall were maps of the Old World, and, I had almost said, of the world to come, for new divisions of countries were indicated. Among the many posters and in the place of honor was a big colored text, which I afterward saw in every room, with the head-line, “_Pourquoi on ne peut pas conclure une paix fondée sur la parole de l’Allemagne_” (“Why one cannot make a peace founded on the word of Germany”). The children were literally as good as gold. No scuffling of feet nor restless rubbing about on the seats. I remarked this as we left the room after listening to “_Le Loup et l’Agneau_” recited in those shrill, thin voices, and Lieutenant Fress said, with a smile: “What remains of the Boche discipline makes them docile and attentive scholars; they are often several hours in class without needing to be reprimanded for chattering or lack of attention.” Later I delicately inquired about ink-throwing or “spitballs,” but it appeared they’re unknown. We then betook ourselves upstairs to a class of older girls, from ten to thirteen or thereabouts, to whom Lieutenant Fress, with the greatest confidence, put the most difficult questions. It was a class of French history, and he began boldly with the Druids and finished with the war of 1914. He has a gift for teaching, and was so easy with those children, whom I should have been embarrassed, not to say terrified, to approach, that the answers came pleasantly and quickly. When at a certain moment, however, there was a delay, I got anxious, thinking to myself, suppose the Sister or Lieutenant Fress were to say to the class: “You don’t know? Then we must ask this _aimable_ lady who has come across the ocean to visit you. _She_ will tell us.” And of Charles the Fat, then engaging our attention, I only remembered vaguely that he had had a saintly wife of whom he grew tired. There were other questions, too, about Louis of Aquitaine, which awakened only the faintest echoes in memory, but which to my relief were answered to complete satisfaction by a determined, dark-eyed, round-faced girl of twelve or thereabouts. Lieutenant Fress then asked who could recite “_La Laitière et le Pot au Lait_.” All hands shot up, and the recitation proceeded with much _brio_. “What does this teach us?” he boldly asked at the end. At this a heavy-jawed, but very bright, near-together-eyed girl raised her hand without a second’s hesitation, and equally without a second’s hesitation answered: “To think only of the present.” As is elegantly expressed in the enemies’ tongue, that girl wasn’t one of whom it would be said she would be “left hanging,” except of course as regards the imponderabilities. Lieutenant Fress: “But is it well to think only of the present? What of imagination, and things that may happen in the future?” A small, undersized girl with a deep-blue eye somewhat nervously answered: