guarded, sheltered from changes in the weather and prevented from over-tiring themselves. Many of them come from poor cramped homes, and to spend the whole summer in the forest more at play than at work makes them most happy. I met Germans who did not approve of the _Waldschule_ who considered it a fantastic extravagant experiment, too heavy for the rate-payers to bear. This is a side of the question that the rate-payers must settle for themselves; but there is no doubt about the results of the venture on the children sent to school in the forest. They get a training that must shape their whole future, moral and physical, a training that changes so many unsound citizens into sound ones every year for the German Empire. If the rate-payers can survive the strain it seems worth while. CHAPTER V THE BACKFISCH The word is untranslatable, though my dictionary translates it. Backfisch, m. fried fish; young girl; says the dictionary. In Germany a woman does not arrive at her own gender till she marries and becomes somebody's _Frau_. Woman in general, girl, and miss are neuter; and the fried-fish girl is masculine. But if one little versed in German wished to tell you that he liked a fried sole, and said _Ich liebe einen Backfisch_, it might lead to misunderstandings. The origin of the word in this application is dubious. Some say it means fish that are baked in the oven because they are too small to fry in pans; but this does not seem a sensible explanation to anyone who has seen white-bait cooked. Others say it means fish the anglers throw back into the water because they are small. At any rate, the word used is to convey an impression of immaturity. A _Backfisch_ is what English and American fashion papers call a "miss." You may see, too, in German shop windows a printed intimation that special attention is given to _Backfisch Moden_. It is a girl who has left school but has not cast off her school-girl manners; and who, according to her nation and her history, will require more or less last touches.