In dieser Vergeltungsstunde.

[Over there in the cowardly trenches lies the enemy. We attack
him, and only a dog will say that pardon should be given to-day.
Strike dead everything which prays for mercy. Shoot everything
down like dogs. "More enemies, more enemies," be your prayer in
this hour of retribution.]

The elementary schools, or _Volksschulen_, are free, and attendance
is compulsory from six to fourteen. There are some 61,000 free
public elementary schools with over 10,000,000 pupils, and over 600
private elementary schools, with 42,000 pupils who pay fees.

Germany is a land of civil service; to enter which a certificate
from a secondary school is necessary. Some authorities maintain
that the only way to prevent being flooded with candidates is to
make the examinations crushingly severe. Children are early made
to realise that all hope of succeeding in life rests upon the
passing of these examinations. Thus the despair which often leads
to suicide on the one hand and knowledge without keenness on the
other.

Hardly any class has suffered more heavily in the war than the
masters of the State schools, which are equivalent to English
Council schools and American public schools. The thinning of
their ranks is an eloquent proof of the heaviness of the German
death toll. Their places have been taken by elderly men, but
principally by women. It is a kind of Nemesis that they should
have fallen in the very cause they have been propagating for at
least a generation.