The Land of Deepening Shadow: Germany-at-WarCurtin, D. Thomas (Daniel Thomas)
History
The Land of Deepening Shadow: Germany-at-War
Curtin, D. Thomas (Daniel Thomas)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Germany; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
Running races had become lately a German school amusement, but the
results, as a rule, were that if there were five competitors, the
four losers entered a protest against the winner. In any case,
each of the four produced excellent excuses why he had lost, other
than the fact that he had been properly beaten.
A learned American "exchange professor," who had returned from a
German university, whom I met in Boston last year on my way from
England to Germany, truly summed up the situation of athletics in
German schools by saying, "German boys are bad-tempered losers and
boastful winners."
Upon what kinds of history is the German child being brought up?
The basis of it is the history of the House of Hohenzollern, with
volumes devoted to the Danish and Austrian campaigns and minute
descriptions of every phase of all the battles with France in 1870,
written in a curious hysterical fashion.
The admixture of Biblical references and German boasting are
typical of the lessons taught at German Sunday Schools, which play
a great role in war propaganda. The schoolmaster having done his
work for six days of the week, the pastor gives an extra virulent
dose on the Sabbath. Sedan Day, which before the war was the
culmination of hate lessons, often formed the occasion of Sunday
School picnics, at which the children sang new anti-French songs.
There are some traits in German children most likeable. There are,
for example, the respect for, and courtesy and kindness towards,
anybody older than themselves. There are admiration for learning
and ambition to excel in any particular task. There is a genuine
love of music. On the other hand, there is much dishonesty, as may
be witnessed by the proceedings in the German police courts, and
has been proved in the gold and other collections.
The elimination of real religion in the education of children and
the substitution of worship of the State is, in the minds of many
impartial observers, something approaching a national catastrophe.
In any other community it would probably be accompanied by anarchy.
It certainly has swelled the calendar of German crime. German
statistics prove that every sort of horror has been greatly on the
increase in the last quarter of a century.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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