GERMANY 



2472 



GERMANY 



The United States, Great Britain, Russia and 

 Austria-Hungary have been for years the 

 countries with which Germany has carried on 

 the largest trade, Russia ranking first in the 

 amount imported into Germany, and England 

 being the largest receiver of exports. The 

 growth of the trade with the United States has 

 been a significant feature of the past two 

 decades. Cotton, copper, lard and wheat are 

 the most important articles supplied by the 

 United States to Germany, but Russia supplies 

 the larger part of the wheat. What the con- 

 dition will be for years after the war it is im- 

 possible to forecast, but the country may look 

 largely to Russia for supplies. 

 > There has been no customs union since 1871, 

 as the customs rights of the state went over to 

 the empire when it was formed. 



Germany's colonial policy dated from 1884, 

 and was inaugurated by Bismarck. At the 

 opening of the War of the Nations in 1914 the 

 total area of German colonies was 1,140,115 

 square miles, distributed as follows : 



Not a square mile of foreign territory re- 

 mained to Germany at the end of the war. 



Social and Political Conditions 



Education. The very first rank in educa- 

 tional matters is generally conceded to Ger- 

 many, whether reference be had to the devel- 

 opment of the highest arts and sciences, or 

 to the general spread of ordinary education. 

 Different indeed would be the history of edu- 

 cation if the names of German educators were 

 omitted. There are practically no illiterates 

 in Germany, only two out of ten thousand of 

 the military and naval recruits being unable 

 to read and write. The compulsory education 

 law, which provides that every child between 

 the ages of six and fourteen must attend 

 school throughout the whole school year, is 

 rigidly enforced. 



This entire compulsory period may be spent 

 in the "folk schools" as they are called, and 

 these are free. Children who intend to go 

 beyond these primary schools, however, do 

 not take the whole eight-year course in them, 

 but are transferred, after they have learned 

 the rudiments, to higher schools; while those 

 who continue in the folk schools rarely go 

 to any other unless it be the "continuation 

 schools" which fit them for trades. 



Many of the secondary schools have special 

 preparatory schools in connection with them, 

 and in these, as in the secondary schools them- 

 selves, fees are charged. The most famous 

 type of these secondary schools is the gym- 

 nasium, a school which places chief emphasis 

 on the classics. There are also the more mod- 

 ern realschule, which stresses mathematics, 

 science and the modern languages, but includes 

 Latin; and the oberrealschule, which rules out 



the classics altogether; and in recent years 

 there has grown up a combination type which 

 has the advantage of making it unnecessary, as 

 heretofore, to settle upon a boy's career when 

 he is but nine years old. These schools are for 

 'boys only, since until recent years the state 

 has paid little attention to the higher educa- 

 tion of girls, leaving that to private institu- 

 tions. To-day, however, there are three kinds 

 of girls' schools which correspond to the three 

 types described above. 



Of universities Germany has no fewer than 

 twenty-one, some of them among the most 

 famous in the world great schools to which 

 students flock from all over the world to ob- 

 tain those degrees which always bestow more 

 prestige than degrees gained elsewhere. The 

 largest universities are those of Berlin, Munich 

 and Leipzig, but those of Bonn, Gottingen, 

 Freiburg, Halle, Heidelberg, Wiirzburg and 

 Jena are no less celebrated. 



Germany has been a pioneer in the estab- 

 lishment of vocational schools, especially of 

 those which are but part-time schools, open 

 to young people who must spend the greater 

 part of their time at work. There are also 

 commercial schools and famous technical 

 schools where a man may learn to be an engi- 

 neer, a forester, a worker in metals, a ship- 

 builder, an architect almost anything, in fact, 

 toward which he feels a particular inclination. 



The school systems are expected to be under 

 state control, each state acting independently in 

 the matter of management and supply of school 

 funds. 



