children, and the laws reflect the cruelties of the strong towards
the weak.

As the recent petition of German suffragists to the Reichstag states,
their country stands "in the lowest rank of nations as regards women's
rights." It is a platitude just now worth repeating that the
civilization of a people is indicated by the position accorded to its
women. On that head, then, the Teutonic Kultur stands challenged.

An English friend of mine threw down the gauntlet thirty years ago. She
had married a German officer. After living at army posts all over the
Empire, she declared, "What we foreigners take as simple childlikeness
in the Germans is merely lack of civilization." This keen analysis came
from a woman trained as an investigator, and equipped with perfect
command of the language of her adopted country.

"Lack of civilization,"--perhaps that explains my having seen again and
again officers striking the soldiers they were drilling, and journeys
made torture through witnessing slapping and brow-beating of children by
their parents. The memory of a father's conduct towards his little son
will never be wiped out. He twisted the child's arm, struck him savagely
from time to time, and for no reason but that the child did not sit bolt
upright and keep absolutely motionless. The witnesses of the brutality
smiled approvingly at the man, and scowled at the child. My own protest
being met with amazed silence and in no way regarded, I left the
compartment. I was near Eisenach, and I wished some good fairy would put
in my hand that inkpot which Luther threw at the devil. Severity towards
children is the rule. The child for weal or woe is in the complete
control of its parents, and corporal punishment is allowed in the
schools. The grim saying, "Saure Wochen, frohe Feste," seems to express