A _Turnfest_ or athletic festival, generally held on a Sunday, is a great affair, often the event of the year in a small provincial town. There is a wonderful display of flags everywhere; and in the afternoon, a procession of the competitors and visitors with bands and banners and every variety of costume, the medals, badges, and ribbons of former contests being worn with great ostentation. The most is made of everything; and shouting and singing and cheering, and dust and noise, seem to be the order of the day. Rowing-matches provoke immense enthusiasm, and a regatta is an affair that induces the keenest interest. A people with so much love for the wonderful and so much regard for themselves, cannot help throwing into such occasions an amount of enthusiasm and national pride as would do credit to the Oxford and Cambridge boatrace itself. The members of the Boat Club are the heroes of the hour, and their costumes the object of great admiration. Though not so peculiar as the French in this respect, our German neighbours are nevertheless great in their ‘get-up’ for every particular sort of occupation or sport that they engage in. If a man brings down only one snipe in a day, he looks tremendously cut out for business notwithstanding, and appears every inch of him a sportsman when going to or returning from the ‘hunt,’ as he calls it. The exercise of riding cannot be properly accomplished without a complete and appropriate rig-out, so that even when he is not actually on his horse, the equestrian gives to all the world the assurance of a man at home in the saddle. If spurs and jack-boots do not make a rider, they at anyrate look very much in earnest. Never did a be-uniformed people more thoroughly believe in the dignity of dress and the necessity for effect than the Germans. However we may smile at the eccentricities and oddities of the Germans, we must admit that they beat us in the provision of cheap music for the people, most of whom understand and appreciate it. Every school-teacher is bound to be a musician and to pass in music, so that the people have a chance of learning from childhood.