heories of
state-craft which the world long since outgrew were proclaimed and
taught, and enforced by every means at command of the government, the
military class, the professors, scientists and theologians of Germany.
Education and religion were state controlled. As a consequence, every
German child from his cradle to his grave was under the influence of
state officials and never allowed to forget reverence for the kaiser,
the glorious military record of Germany, German supremacy in every
department of culture. Such a government was hopelessly behind modern
ideas.

WILLIAM II.

William II was the third emperor of Germany,--also the last. His reign
began, in pomp and ceremony, June 15, 1888, it ended in the darkness and
gloom of night, shortly before the signing of the armistice, November
11, 1918. Other reigns have been longer in duration; none surpassed his
in deeds. When his reign began he said he would lead his people to
"shining days." He did so; but "shining days" ended in despairing night.

Personally, William II was an able man, but he was not well balanced. In
the early days of his reign, Bismarck confided to a friend that it would
some day be necessary for Germany to confine William II in an insane
asylum. We must remember his lineage, his long line of ancestors dating
back to the Robber Knights of the Middle Ages, all used to the exercise
of autocratic power. Medieval conceptions were his by inheritance. He
believed he was divinely commissioned to rule Germany; he said so in his
speeches. He believed he was a man of destiny who was to advance Germany
to the zenith of earthly greatness; he himself, not someone else,
asserted this. He asserted that while Napoleon failed in his great
scheme of conquest, he, by God's help, would succeed. Every prominent
military leader in Germany applauded such beliefs. He said that when he
contemplated the paintings of his ancestors, and the military chiefs of
Germany, who advanced the insignificant Mark of Brandenburg to the rank
of the most powerful state in Europe, they seemed to reproach him for
not being active in similar work. But we now know that he was not idle.

ACTIVITIES IN WHICH HE WAS INTERESTED.

One year after the accession of William II he paid a spectacular visit
to "his friend" (as he called him) Abdul Hamid, Sultan of Turkey, the
head of one of the most cruel, licentious, incompetent, blood-thirsty
governments that ever cursed the world; greeted him w