The Hohenzollern prince who really founded the greatness of his house was Frederick William, who began to reign in the year 1640. He is known as the "Great Elector."[29] If I were to show you a coloured map of Germany as it was when this prince began to reign, you would say that it looked like a patchwork quilt of many colours. From the Baltic Sea to the Alps there were no fewer than three hundred states of all sorts and sizes, the smallest of them consisting only of a single town or village. Frederick William was a very able man, and so well did he fight, and so skilfully did he plot and plan during what is known as the Thirty Years' War, that he added several of these small states to his own, and thus became master of the largest state in all Germany. Brandenburg under his rule spread out a little to the west, but a great deal to the north-east, and included a stretch of coast-line on the Baltic Sea. The present Kaiser has always revered the memory of the Great Elector. He once said: "Of all my predecessors, he is the one for whom I feel the greatest enthusiasm, and who from of old has stood before me as the example of my youth." When the Great Elector died he was succeeded by his son Frederick, who was very eager to be called king. He attained this great object of his life in the year 1700; but, because he was a spendthrift and a lover of empty display, he did nothing to advance the interests of his country. After him reigned another Frederick William, who had some talents and did the business of his state very well, but was a thoroughly wicked fellow, and was, indeed, next door to a madman. Nevertheless he was the first Prussian king to set himself the task of making his kingdom strong enough to take its place among the European Powers. Carlyle calls him the "drill-sergeant of the Prussian nation." [Illustration: Statue of the Great Elector in Berlin. The present Kaiser is devoted to the memory of his ancestors, and does everything in his power to make the Prussians believe that they owe everything to the Hohenzollern sovereigns. Berlin is full of statues to these princes. In one of the avenues of the chief park there is a row of statues to all the rulers of Prussia. Of the Great Elector, who was the real founder of Prussia, and whose statue is shown above, the Kaiser has said, "He has stood before me as the example of my youth." He is also a great admirer of Frederick the Great, and has imitated some of the worst features of that monarch. _Photo, Exclusive News Agency._]