None was noble or connected with good
society. Personally they were rather sympathetic than not, but as
the objects of education they were proofs of nearly all the evils
that a bad system could give. Apparently Adams, in his rigidly
illogical pursuit, had at last reached his ideal of a viciously
logical education. The boys' physique showed it first, but their
physique could not be wholly charged to the school. German food
was bad at best, and a diet of sauerkraut, sausage, and beer
could never be good; but it was not the food alone that made
their faces white and their flesh flabby. They never breathed
fresh air; they had never heard of a playground; in all Berlin
not a cubic inch of oxygen was admitted in winter into an
inhabited building; in the school every room was tightly closed
and had no ventilation; the air was foul beyond all decency; but
when the American opened a window in the five minutes between
hours, he violated the rules and was invariably rebuked. As long
as cold weather lasted, the windows were shut. If the boys had a
holiday, they were apt to be taken on long tramps in the
Thiergarten or elsewhere, always ending in over-fatigue,
tobacco-smoke, sausages, and beer. With this, they were required
to prepare daily lessons that would have quickly broken down
strong men of a healthy habit, and which they could learn only
because their minds were morbid.
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