went in one day to the arsenal. The flags which Prussian armies had
taken from almost every nation in Europe were ranged against the
walls by the hundred; shot-shattered rags of silk, white standards of
Austria embroidered with gold, Bavaria's blue checker, above all the
great Napoleonic symbol, the N surrounded by its wreath. This was the
memorable tapestry that hung the walls, and opposite glittered the
waiting barrels and bayonets till one could almost believe them
conscious, and burning to do as much as the flintlocks that won
the standards. There was a needle-gun there or somewhere for every
able-bodied man, and somewhere else uniform and equipments. When I
landed in February on the bank of the Weser, the most prominent
object was the redoubt with the North German flag. When in midsummer
I crossed the Bavarian frontier among a softer people, the last marked
object was the old stronghold of Coburg, battered by siege after siege
for a thousand years. It was the spiked helmet at the entrance and
again at the exit; and from entrance to exit, few places or times were
free from some martial suggestion. It was a nation that had come to
power mainly through war, and been schooled into the belief that its
mailed fists alone could guarantee its life.

I visited a primary school. The little boys of six came with knapsacks
strapped to their backs for their books and dinners, instead of
satchels. At the tap of a bell they formed themselves into column
and marched like little veterans to the schoolroom door. I visited
a school for boys of thirteen or fourteen. Casting my eyes into
the yard, I saw the spiked helmet in the shape of the half-military
manoeuvres of a class which the teacher of gymnastics was training for
the severer drill of five or six years later. I visited the "prima,"
or upper class of a gymnasium, and here was the spiked helmet in a
connection that seemed at first rather irreverent. After all, however,