coming up to expectations, and if any proof were wanting to demonstrate the elemental incapacity of the German for assimilating another race, here it was. The Belgian and the Dutchman both proved their capacity (and at the same time their racial superiority) for assimilating the Germans to the point at which the latter became anti-German—even as is the case with the German-Americans of to-day, who are Americans first and Germans last of all. By the mid-nineties it was hoped that a large nucleus of Germanophile Belgians and Dutch would be preparing for the easy (and perhaps peaceful) conquest of the Low Countries. Bismarck had realised, however, by 1890 that "the German is not by nature or disposition a good coloniser," whatever virtues he may possess as a colonist, and for that reason was opposed to his new Kaiser's ambition to push the frontiers of the Fatherland farther than they had already gone. At all events, the organised system of the Germanising influences proved, to a large extent, a failure in the Low Countries. It is precisely because it had not proved so to the whole extent that Belgium fell so easy a victim to the German aggressive advance, once Liège had fallen, in 1914. For as a result of the system of 1872 and onward, it was hard for Belgians themselves to know who was in 1914 an agent for Germany and who was not. In this connection, and as the analogy holds in some degree, it may be stated that the main objection to the Oxford Scholarships founded by the late Mr Rhodes was based on an argument advanced by observant German professors who had seen Britain's system at work—namely, that the German citizen was too easily assimilable by stronger and superior types to allow of his passing three or four years at the intellectual hub of the British Empire without detriment to his German patriotism.