Chapter 109 Christmas
After visiting the East African school in the First Town, Maximilian I and his entourage were deeply touched.
Top aristocrats like the two have received royal court education since childhood, and it is difficult for them to get in touch with such a grassroots education model like that in East Africa.
Moreover, as East Africa was a colony, there was no need to hide anything from the two. What they saw was the most real daily life in East African schools.
There are few courses in East African schools, with only two main subjects: German and mathematics, followed by history and physical education.
The content is also extremely simple, and there is even a large amount of repetitive content in each grade. After finishing school in East Africa, the most you can do is to be proficient in German reading and writing and simple mathematical operations.
The entire East African education system contains less than one-third of the knowledge of the previous Ernst Primary School (third grade level).
This was decided to adapt to the weak teaching staff in East African colonies, which are currently only capable of providing this kind of poor education.
Of course, this kind of education in East Africa also has upward channels. After passing the final examination, the best students will have the opportunity to study abroad in Germany.
In terms of difficulty, it is very easy to pass the exam and get a place to study abroad with the average level of elementary school graduates in the previous life, but immigrants from East Africa may not necessarily realize the importance of education.
This means that only children from families that value education have a greater chance of studying in Germany, while children from families that do not value education may just stay in East Africa to farm, even if they have good grades when they graduate, because going to Germany requires parental consent.
Ernst was too lazy to correct this situation. Anyway, he only needed to train a sufficient number of talents. If there was an overabundance of talents, it would sometimes be a disaster.
After all, compared with jobs that require a high level of education, the most needed occupation in East Africa is farmers, who develop the land. In industrial countries in Europe, workers are the most needed.
In terms of the current level of industrialization, only the United Kingdom has completed industrialization completely (urbanization level has reached more than 50%), while other countries are lower and there is still much room for improvement.
The cultural level required of workers in these industrial countries is not high, not to mention the East African colonies which are currently still centered on agricultural development.
The reason for instituting compulsory education in East Africa is for the purpose of assimilation and cultivating talents needed for the future. This is necessary to consolidate the rule. It is not actually intended to truly change the fate of these people (although it has changed objectively).
Just as Prussia introduced compulsory education in order to improve the combat effectiveness of its army, the motives behind compulsory education in East Africa are not simple.
If you ask how much importance Ernst attaches to education, the answer is actually just that, although Ernst received a complete nine years of compulsory education and higher education in his previous life.
But Ernst is a nobleman in this life, and what he is doing now seems noble (enclosing land and building a country), but the premise is to maintain the interests of the Hechingen royal family and its continued prosperity in the future.
The experience of India and other countries in the past told Ernst that as long as a country is large in size and has a large population, even if the population is of low quality, its upper class can accumulate a large amount of wealth.
Therefore, the nobility represented by Ernst essentially does not need too many highly educated people, but rather needs people who can create wealth and are obedient.
This is essentially the same reason why ancient rulers liked to keep their people ignorant and why the West is anti-intellectual.
Education in East Africa is somewhere in between the two. The attitude towards education is lukewarm, neither teaching too much nor too little, and actively lowering the standards.
Apart from paying more attention to national issues and cultural identity (Germanization), they are not keen on changing other qualities and concepts of ordinary people.
As long as you behave like a German, nothing else matters. Who cares whether you have noble morals or are kind? ... This part of education should be left to the family.
So the East African education system, which looks simple and full of loopholes, is actually full of political wisdom.
Of course, Maximilian I could not see this. After visiting the education in East Africa, he could not help but make suggestions to the East African government officials around him. In Maximilian I's view, this simple and crude education had huge room for improvement.
The staff, on the other hand, listened with one ear and let it out with the other, promising everything but actually not making any promises.
Except for the employees of the Hechingen Group (who basically have a high school education or above), the entire East African government and military management personnel, including the students of the Hechingen Military Academy whose name sounds impressive, are actually at elementary school level.
To employees and mercenaries, it is just a job, but to students of the Hechingen Military Academy, it is a way to repay the principal's kindness.
They would only follow the route planned by Ernst and complete the task meticulously, and they did not care about how East Africa developed.
That is to say, out of respect for Maximilian I's status, they dealt with the matter, while Maximilian I continued to chatter non-stop.
A living European intellectual's comments on East African policy really proves the saying that being out of office brings relief.
If he could be as energetic as he is today when he was the Emperor of Mexico, I could be in his place too. Ernst would truly admire Maximilian I.
…
December 25, 1867.
It's Christmas again.
Ernst and Prince Constantine, who had been traveling extensively during the year, returned to Hechingen early to celebrate the holiday.
Ernst was strolling in the castle holding a little Rottweiler. The little Rottweiler was bought from a farm in Berlin in Ernst's village. Its name was "Neville". It had no practical meaning, but was just a commemoration of a pastoral dog he had raised in his previous life. That dog was raised by Ernst when he was a child in his previous life. The dog was named Neville and died of old age. Ernst was sad for a long time.
The castle was decorated for the holidays, and a fir tree transplanted from the southern German forest was placed in the hall as a Christmas tree.
Unlike previous years, electric lights were used in the hall this year, replacing candles and other lighting tools. The entire castle, and even the roads outside the castle, were illuminated by the Hexingen Consortium's lighting system.
Other royal families and major cities in Europe also enjoyed the convenience of electric lights. Of course, some more traditional people still used candles to create the atmosphere of the religious holiday of Christmas.
The huge castle seemed a bit deserted. Because of Christmas, many servants were sent home by Prince Constantine to spend time with their families, so there were not many people in the castle.
This year, the climate is a little colder, and there is heavy snow in Hechingen and the whole of Germany. Through the window, you can see that the ground is covered with white snow. In the forest surrounding the castle, the tops of the pine and cypress trees are covered with dark green branches and leaves under the snow.
While Germany was still covered in snow in the cold winter, in the far south, in East Africa, it was still like spring, and the East African government also organized its residents to start celebrating Christmas.
The year 1867 will be over in a few days. 1867 is an unforgettable year. In this year, the East African colonies completely controlled the entire territories of Tanzania and Kenya. The number of immigrants reached 500,000, and it had the initial scale of a country. East Africa could already be regarded as a political entity and participated in international affairs.
(End of this chapter)
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