In the city of Omaha ... the State organizer of the Nebraska federation of German societies visited the schools recently and was more than pleased with what he found: the children were acquiring a typically Berlin accent, sung a number of German songs to his entire approval, and finally ended by rendering “Die Wacht am Rhein” with an enthusiasm and a gusto which could not be excelled among children of the fatherland. Four years ago Nebraska had only 90 high schools which offered instruction in German. To-day, so the Alliance reports, German is taught in 222 high schools and in the grade schools of nine cities. Omaha alone has 3,500 pupils taking German instruction. In addition to this, the State federation has been successful in obtaining an appropriation for the purchase of German books for the State circulating library. Germans have been urged to call for such books, in order to convince the State librarian that there is a popular demand and to induce further progress in this direction. These conditions have, of course, passed, and it is for those of us who would guard jealously our rights, and honestly fulfil our obligations, as American citizens to see to it that they do not recur. The Alliance announced its voluntary dissolution some time before its charter was annulled, but the testimony before the King committee, which the government has published, will be an important source of material for the historian of the war. German propaganda and activity in the Middle West did little for the Kaiser but to make the word “German” an odious term. “German” in business titles and in club names has disappeared and German language newspapers have in many instances changed their names or gone out of business. I question whether the end of the war will witness any manifestations of magnanimity that will make possible a restoration of the teaching of German in primary and high schools. We of the Middle West, who had thought ourselves the especial guardians of American democracy, found with dismay that the mailed fist of Berlin was clutching our public schools. In Chicago, where so much time, money, and thought are expended in the attempt to Americanize the foreign accretions, the spelling-book used in the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grades consisted wholly of word-lists, with the exception of two exercises--one of ten lines, describing the aptness of the natives of Central Australia in identifying the tracks of birds and animals, and another which is here reproduced: THE KAISER IN THE MAKING In the _gymnasium_ at Cassel the German _Kaiser_ spent three years of his boyhood, a _diligent_ but not a _brilliant_ pupil, ranking tenth among _seventeen candidates_ for the _university_. Many tales are told of this _period_ of his life, and one of them, at least, is _illuminating_.