Much as Germany has done for the development of the intellectual life of the world, she has suffered not a little from the superficial belief still widely held that instruction, that learning, are culture. Their Great Elector, their Frederick the Great, and their Bismarck, should have taught them the contrary by now. The newly crowned German Emperor left Versailles on March 7th for Berlin, and on March 21st the first Diet of the new empire was opened, and began the task of adapting the constitution to the altered circumstances of the new empire. The German Empire now consists of four kingdoms: Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Wuertemberg; of six grand duchies: Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Saxe-Weimar, Oldenburg, Meeklenburg-Strelitz, and Mecklenburg-Schwerin; of five duchies: Saxe-Meinigen, Saxe-Altenburg Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Brunswick, and Anhalt; of seven principalities: Schwartzburg-Sondershausen, Schwartzburg-Rudolstadt, Waldeck, Reuss (older line), Reuss (younger line), Lippe, and Schaumburg-Lippe; of three free towns: Hamburg, Bremen, and Luebeck; and of one imperial province: Alsace Lorraine. The new empire is in a sense a continuation of the North German Confederation. There are 25 states, the largest, Prussia, with a population of over 40,000,000; the smallest, Schaumburg-Lippe, with a population of a little more than 46,000 and an area of 131 square miles. The central or federal authority controls the army, navy, foreign relations, railways, main roads, canals, post and telegraph, coinage, weights and measures, copyrights, patents, and legislation over nearly the whole field of civil and criminal law, regulation of press and associations, imperial finance and customs tariffs, which are now the same throughout Germany. Bavaria still manages her own railways, and Saxony and Wuertemberg have certain privileges and exemptions. Administration is still almost entirely in the hands of the separate states. The law is imperial, but the judges are appointed by the states, and are under its authority. The supreme court of appeal (Reichsgericht) sits at Leipsic.