"I am sorry to trouble you," said the old lady, on learning I could speak English and read German, "but would you mind telling me what I am and where I have to go?" I inspected her carefully. I came to the conclusion that she was a "grown-up" and a "foot-goer," and pointed out her path. She looked at it, and seemed disappointed. "But I don't want to go down there," she said; "mayn't I go this way?" "Great heavens, no, madam!" I replied. "That path is reserved for children." "But I wouldn't do them any harm," said the old lady, with a smile. She did not look the sort of old lady who would have done them any harm. "Madam," I replied, "if it rested with me, I would trust you down that path, though my own first-born were at the other end; but I can only inform you of the laws of this country. For you, a full-grown woman, to venture down that path is to go to certain fine, if not imprisonment. There is your path, marked plainly--_Nur fur Fussganger_, and if you will follow my advice, you will hasten down it; you are not allowed to stand here and hesitate." "It doesn't lead a bit in the direction I want to go," said the old lady. "It leads in the direction you _ought_ to want to go," I replied, and we parted. In the German parks there are special seats labelled, "Only for grown- ups" (_Nur fur Erwachsene_), and the German small boy, anxious to sit down, and reading that notice, passes by, and hunts for a seat on which children are permitted to rest; and there he seats himself, careful not to touch the woodwork with his muddy boots. Imagine a seat in Regent's or St. James's Park labelled "Only for grown-ups!" Every child for five miles round would be trying to get on that seat, and hauling other children off who were on. As for any "grown-up," he would never be able to get within half a mile of that seat for the crowd. The German small boy, who has accidentally sat down on such without noticing, rises with a start when his error is pointed out to him, and goes away with down-cast head, blushing to the roots of his hair with shame and regret. Not that the German child is neglected by a paternal Government. In German parks and public gardens special places (_Spielplatze_) are provided for him, each one supplied with a heap of sand. There he can play to his heart's content at making mud pies and building sand castles. To the German child a pie made of any other mud than this would appear an immoral pie. It would give to him no satisfaction: his soul would revolt against it. "That pie," he would say to himself, "was not, as it should have been, made of Government mud specially set apart for the purpose; it was nor manufactured in the place planned and maintained by the Government for the making of mud pies. It can bring no real blessing with it; it is a lawless pie." And until his father had paid the proper fine, and he had received his proper licking, his conscience would continue to trouble him.