You must remember the nature of the system of which they are the mature, show products. In a German university it is unusual for a student to take a degree. Our own institutions are appalling enough, in all conscience; but there is, at least, a sort of scheduled, educational mediocrity to which even athletic demigods must attain. And there is not the least doubt that, in the intervals of neglecting their work, our college men do, in the mass, enter by subtle ways into the mysterious and honourable art of being gentlemen. In a German university you do not find any uniform, general life on which everybody can draw. The caste system--on which all Prussia is founded--manifests itself very soon. Either you clip off your friends’ ears in duels, keep dogs, abjure learning, and absorb beer for two or three years, or else you set out to be a Herr Doktor. By steadily accumulating notes, and grimly avoiding fresh air, you arrive at the moment when you can order a visiting card with this wizard-title on it. Then, wearing a nimbus of adulation, you pass on to be a _Privat Dozent_, and ultimately a Herr Professor. Everybody’s hat is off to you; you meet with no real criticism or free thrust of thought. Add to this the fact that German is a singularly difficult language in which to tell the truth plainly, even if you should desire to do so. Two or three writers, like Schiller, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, have contrived the miracle; but the general impression inflicted on the Latin mind by German literature is that of inadequately cooked plum-duff. One understands a great Socialist like Otto Effertz turning in his third book from German to French with the observation: “Formerly I wrote in a provincial dialect. I now experiment in a European language.” A brilliant lady of my acquaintance, who suffered fools more or less gladly at Marburg and Bonn, is of opinion that the Prussian reaches his most exquisite moment of lyricism when, at Christmas or Easter, he ties a bow of blue ribbon on a sausage, and presents it to his beloved. This is a disputable view; but it does indicate certain inadequacies in the German apparatus of expression which really exist.