"Let us begin at home," he says; "when we have learned enough at home, we can go to the museums. But above all we must know our German history. In my time the Grand Elector was a very foggy personage, the Seven Years' War was quite outside consideration, and history ended with the close of the last century, the French Revolution. The War of Liberation, the most important for the young citizen, was not taught thoroughly, and I only learned to know it, thank God, through the very interesting lectures of Dr. Hinzpeter. This, however, is the _punctum saliens_. Why are our young men misled? Why do we find so many unclear, confused world-improvers? Why is our government so cavilled at and criticized, and so often told to look at foreign nations? Because the young men do not know how our conditions have developed, and that the roots of the development lie in the period of the French Revolution. Consequently, I am convinced that if they understood the transition period from the Revolution to the nineteenth century in its fundamental features, they would have a far better understanding of the questions of to-day than they now have. At the universities they can supplement their school knowledge." The Emperor then turned to other points. It was "absolutely necessary" to reduce the hours of work. When he was at school, he said, all German parents were crying out against the evil, and the Government set on foot an inquiry. He and his brother (Henry) had every morning to hand a memorandum to the head master showing how many hours it had taken them to prepare the lessons for the day. In the Emperor's case it took, "honestly," from 5-1/2 to 7 hours' home study. To this was to be added 6 hours in school and 2 hours for eating meals--"How much of the day," the Emperor asks, "was left? If I," he said, "hadn't been able to ride to and from school I wouldn't have known what the world even looked like." The result of this, he continued, was an "over-production of educated people, more than the nation wanted and more than was tolerable for the sufferers themselves. Hence the class Bismarck called the abiturienten-proletariat, all the so-called hunger candidates, especially the Mr. Journalists, who are often broken-down scholars and a danger to us. This surplus, far too large as it is, is like an irrigation field that cannot soak up any more water, and it must be got rid of."