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قراءة كتاب William of Germany
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
tutor, saying, "I thank you. Be always as true to me and to my son as you have been in this case."
The last anecdote belongs also to the young Prince's private tutor days. At one time a certain Dr. D. was teaching him. Every morning at eleven work was dropped for a quarter of an hour to enable the pair, teacher and pupil, to take what is called in German "second breakfast." The Prince always had a piece of white bread and butter, with an apple, a pear, or other fruit, while the teacher was as regularly provided with something warm—chop, a cutlet, a slice of fish, salmon, perch, trout, or whatever was in season, accompanied by salad and potatoes. The smell of the meat never failed to appeal to the olfactory nerves of the Prince, and he often looked, longingly enough, at the luxuries served to his tutor. The latter noticed it and felt sorry for him; but there was nothing to be done: the royal orders were strict and could not be disobeyed. One day, however, the lesson, one of repetition, had gone so well that in a moment of gratitude the tutor decided to reward his pupil at all hazards. The lunch appeared, steaming "perch-in-butter" for the tutor, and a plate of bread and butter and some grapes for the pupil. The Prince cast a glance at the savoury dish and was then about to attack his frugal fare when the tutor suddenly said, "Prince, I'm very fond of grapes. Can't we for once exchange? You eat my perch and I—" The Prince joyfully agreed, plates were exchanged, and both were heartily enjoying the meal when the Crown Prince walked in. Both pupil and tutor blushed a little, but the Crown Prince said nothing and seemed pleased to hear how well the lesson had gone that day. At noon, however, as the tutor was leaving the palace, a servant stopped him and said, "His Royal Highness the Crown Prince would like to speak with the Herr Doktor."
"Herr Doktor," said the Crown Prince, "tell me how it was that the
Prince to-day was eating the warm breakfast and you the cold."
The tutor tried to make as little of the affair as possible. It was a joke, he said, he had allowed himself, he had been so well pleased with his pupil that morning.
"Well, I will pass it over this time," said the Crown Prince,
"but I must ask you to let the Prince get accustomed to bear the preference shown to his tutor and allow him to be satisfied with the simple food suitable for his age. What will he eat twenty years hence, if he now gets roast meat? Bread and fruit make a wholesome and perfectly satisfactory meal for a lad of his years."
During second breakfast next day, the Prince took care not to look up from his plate of fruit, but when he had finished, murmured as though by way of grace, "After all, a fine bunch of grapes is a splendid lunch, and I really think I prefer it, Herr Doktor, to your nice-smelling perch-in-butter."
The time had now come when the young Prince was to leave the paternal castle and submit to the discipline of school. The parents, one may be sure, held many a conference on the subject. The boy was beginning to have a character of his own, and his parents doubtless often had in mind Goethe's lines:—
"Denn wir können die Kinder nach unserem Willen nicht formen,
So wie Gott sie uns gab, so muss man sie lieben und haben,
Sie erzielen aufs best und jeglichen lassen gewähren."
("We cannot have children according to our will:
as God gave them so must we love and keep them:
bring them up as best we can and leave each to its own
development.")
It had always been Hohenzollern practice to educate the Heir to the Throne privately until he was of an age to go to the university, but the royal parents now decided to make an important departure from it by sending their boy to an ordinary public school in some carefully chosen place. The choice fell on Cassel, a quiet and beautiful spot not far from Wilhelmshohe, near Homburg, where there is a Hohenzollern castle, and which was the scene of Napoleon's temporary detention after the capitulation of Sedan. Here at the Gymnasium, or lycée, founded by Frederick the Great, the boy was to go through the regular school course, sit on the same bench with the sons of ordinary burghers, and in all respects conform to the Gymnasium's regulations. The decision to have the lad taught for a time in this democratic fashion was probably due to the influence of his English mother, who may have had in mind the advantages of an English public school. The experiment proved in every way successful, though it was at the time adversely criticized by some ultra-patriotic writers in the press. To the boy himself it must have been an interesting and agreeable novelty. Hitherto he had been brought up in the company of his brothers and sisters in Berlin or Potsdam, with an occasional "week-end" at the royal farm of Bornstedt near the latter, the only occasions when he was absent from home being sundry visits to the Grand Ducal Court at Karlsruhe, where the Grand Duchess was an aunt on his father's side, and to the Court at Darmstadt, where the Grand Duchess was an aunt on the side of his mother.
An important ceremony, however, had to be performed before his departure for school—his confirmation. It took place at Potsdam on September 1, 1874, amid a brilliant crowd of relatives and friends, and included the following formal declaration by the young Prince:
"I will, in childlike faith, be devoted to God all the days of my life, put my trust in Him and at all times thank Him for His grace. I believe in Jesus Christ, the Saviour and Redeemer. Him who first loved me I will love in return, and will show this love by love to my parents, my dear grandparents, my sisters and brothers and relatives, but also to all men. I know that hard tasks await me in life, but they will brace me up, not overcome me. I will pray to God for strength and develop my bodily powers."
The boy and his brother Henry stayed in Cassel for three years, in the winter occupying a villa near the Gymnasium with Dr. Hinzpeter, and in summer living in the castle of Wilhelmshohe hard by. Besides attending the usual school classes, they were instructed by private tutors in dancing, fencing, and music. Both pupils are represented as having been conscientious, and as moving among their schoolmates without affectation or any special consciousness of their birth or rank. Many years afterwards the Emperor, when revisiting Cassel, thus referred to his schooldays there:
"I do not regret for an instant a time which then seemed so hard to me, and I can truly say that work and the working life have become to me a second nature. For this I owe thanks to Cassel soil;"
and later in the same speech:
"I am pleased to be on the ground where, directed by expert hands, I learned that work exists not only for its own sake, but that man in work shall find his entire joy."
This is the right spirit; but if he had said "greatest joy" and "can find," he would have said something more completely true.
The life at Cassel was simple, and the day strictly divided. The future Emperor rose at six, winter and summer, and after a breakfast of coffee and rolls refreshed his memory of the home repetition-work learned the previous evening. He then went to the Gymnasium, and when his lessons there were over, took a walk with his tutor before lunch. Home tasks followed, and on certain days private instruction was received in English,