It has already been pointed out that authority was the keynote of the German system. This authority, embodied in school and church, began to mold the plastic mind of the German child as early as the age of six. "The Emperor is the father of his country and loves his children like a father; we owe him the obedience due to a father," taught the school. "Submit yourselves unto authority," said the church, using Paul's words to serve the ends of the state. The child came from school and church to his military service and found authority enthroned there. He had to obey the orders of every _Vorgesetzter_ (superior in authority) from field marshal down to corporal. He found that, in the absence of officers or non-commissioned officers, he must submit himself to the authority of the _Stubenaeltester_, the senior soldier in the same room with him. Insubordination was punished rigorously. Precept, example and punishment were but a part of a system calculated to make discipline and submission to authority advisable and profitable. The penalties prescribed by the German penal and military codes for infractions of the laws were far less severe than the penalties prescribed in the code of any American state, but conviction was followed by a consequence of great moment in Germany: the man who was _vorbestraft_, that is, who had been punished for any transgression, found himself automatically excluded from any opportunity to become a _Beamter_, or government official. The system of punishment had always as its chief purpose the laying of emphasis upon duty, and this was often arrived at in an indirect way. For example, the soldier who failed to keep his valuables in the locker provided for him in his barracks and who lost them by theft, was punished for his own negligence.