ABSTRACT
UNTIL the year 1933 German education had a creditable history. In the field of science, it is true, Germany had comparatively little to her credit before the middle of the nineteenth century, whereas Italy, France, Holland, and Great Britain had attained great distinction some two or three centuries earlier. Some of the German States, however, were the first to introduce compulsory universal education into Europe, and it was in Germany that parttime education was first made obligatory between the ages of 14 and 17 or 18.1 In the course of the later decades of the nineteenth century German education was appraised by the outside world far beyond its real merits, and multitudes of foreign students went to German universities and technical colleges. Germans, including professors and other educationists, were good advertisers and commercial travellers-a fact which was largely responsible for making Germany the Mecca of education. During the first World War Lord Haldane’s excessive generosity in describing Germany as his spiritual home cost him his political career.
