AS MINISTER TO GERMANY-1879-18S1 553 



Saxon colleague was the brother of the prime minister of 

 Saxony, I at once went to him. On my presenting the 

 case, he at first expressed amazement at the idea of wo- 

 men being admitted to the lecture-rooms of a German 

 university; but as I showed him sundry letters, espe- 

 cially those from Professors Georg Curtius and Ebers, 

 regarding these fair students, his conservatism melted 

 away and he presently entered heartily into my view, the 

 result being that the decree was modified so that all lady 

 students then in the university were allowed to remain 

 until the close of their studies, but no new ones were to 

 be admitted afterward. Happily, all this has been changed, 

 and to that, as to nearly all other German universities, 

 women are now freely admitted. 



Very amusing at times were exhibitions of gentle sar- 

 casm on the part of sundry old diplomatists. They had 

 lived long, had seen the seamy side of public affairs, and 

 had lost their illusions. One evening, at a ball given by 

 the vice-chancellor of the empire which was extremely 

 splendid and no less tedious, my attention was drawn to 

 two of them. There had been some kind of absurd 

 demonstration that day in one of the principal European 

 parliaments, and coming upon my two colleagues, I 

 alluded to it. 



1 i Yes, ' ' said Baron Jauru of Brazil, ' ' that comes of the 

 greatest lie prevalent in our time the theory that the 

 majority of mankind are wise; now it is an absolute fact 

 which all history teaches, and to-day even more than ever, 

 that all mankind are fools." "What you say is true," 

 replied M. de Quade, the Danish minister, "but it is not 

 the whole truth: constitutional government also goes 

 on the theory that all mankind are good; now it is an ab- 

 solute fact that all mankind are bad, utterly bad." "Yes," 

 said Jauru, "I accept your amendment; mankind are 

 fools and knaves." To this I demurred somewhat, and 

 quoted Mr. Lincoln's remark, "You can fool some of the 

 people all the time, and all of the people some of the time ; 

 but you can't fool all the people all the time." 



