132 THE SCIENCE OF POWER 



the idealization of the part played in each by the 

 House of Hohenzollern occupied a prominent place. 

 The spirit of this speech and of the measures which 

 followed it was carried afterwards into every detail 

 of education by the whole organized power of the 

 State in Germany. 



The effect on the rising generation in Germany of 

 this auswdrtige Kulturpolitik, which may be trans- 

 lated to mean in practice the continuous presenta- 

 tion of national conceptions to the young mind of 

 Germany under the influence of the emotion of 

 the ideal, was profound. It is necessary to try 

 to imagine, however imperfectly, what actually 

 took place. The ideals which were set up were 

 continuously impressed by teachers on the mind 

 of the young of a whole people from the earliest 

 age. We must get rid of the common and super- 

 ficial notion that these ideals of German nationality 

 could be visible to outsiders of other nations as they 

 were visible to the German people. For the power 

 of the whole experiment lay in this. The German 

 system touched the springs of mind at its deepest 

 psychological centres in always presenting the 

 national aims closely associated with that con- 

 ception of sacrifice and duty to which the emotion 

 of the ideal is inseparably allied in the mind of the 

 young. 



