"She puts it out among poor farm people and pays a little for its keep. As the mother usually works about in different localities--sometimes being taken far away by her employers--the farmer often adopts the baby as it grows up. He can always use more help. If it's a girl, she is good for the farm as well as the house. If it's a boy, he becomes a soldier. A boy of this kind makes the best soldier because he has no parental and no home attachments. He only knows the barracks and has the officers to obey. He does not learn who his father is, and the mother becomes practically a stranger to him as she moves about in the city or country. He is ready to serve in the colonies or go anywhere or do anything, having no personal ties to hold him." "Does not your large army badly demoralize these social conditions?" "You know, we housewives don't like it much when a new regiment moves into the vicinity. It makes mothers among our domestics and we have to change about. Of course, you see, we have more women than men in Germany and we must have children growing up for the barracks and the cheap labor market. There seems to be no other way, but it is often a great nuisance for us housekeepers. Yet there is this to say: The girls rarely have more than one child by the same man. For another regiment comes along and there are new relations. The army is necessarily a floating population and not very responsible for what it does among us civilians because it _protects_ us." Kirtley concluded that this accounted for the large number of detached young men in Germany--in the army and out of it--who appeared to be so entirely footloose, ready for any mission or task in any part of the globe. As the two sat there talking about the question of lovelessness in these relations, Herr Bucher strolled up from his flower beds and joined them in his Tyrolean jacket of the chase and big army boots. Gard said, "We were speaking of affection, Herr Bucher. Why do the Germans have the ideal of hate when other races are holding up the ideal of love?" "Because it is good to hate!" exclaimed the host with rugged forcefulness as he squatted in a seat. "To hate is strong, manly. It makes the blood flow. It makes one alert. It is necessary for keeping up the fighting instinct. To love is a feebleness. It enervates. You see all the nations that talk of love as the keynote of life are weak, degenerate. Germany is the most powerful nation in the world because she hates. When you hate, you eat well, sleep well, work well, fight well. It is best for the health. When you love, it is like a sickness and disorganizes and debilitates." "How do you reconcile that with Christ and His mission of love?" pursued Gard.