Part 34

It may be added that employees in mercantile and trading houses, who have not exceeded the age of 40 years and whose income is below L150, are allowed voluntarily to share in the benefits of this insurance.

3. _Accident Insurance (Unfallversicherung)._--The insurance of workmen and the lesser officials against the risks of accident is effected not through the state or the commune, but through associations formed _ad hoc_. These associations are composed of members following the same or allied occupations (e.g. foresters, seamen, smiths, &c.), and hence are called "professional associations" (_Berufsgenossenschaften_). They are empowered, subject to the limits set by the law, to regulate their own business by means of a general meeting and of elected committees. The greater number of these associations cover a very wide field, generally the whole empire; in such cases they are empowered to divide their spheres into sections, and to establish agents in different centres to inquire into cases of accident, and to see to the carrying out of the rules prescribed by the association for the avoidance of accidents. Those associations, of which the area of operations extends beyond any single state, are subordinate to the control of the imperial insurance bureau (_Reichsversicherungsamt_) at Berlin; those that are confined to a single state (as generally in the case of foresters and husbandmen) are under the control of the state insurance bureau (_Landesversicherungsamt_).

So far as their earnings do not exceed L150 per annum, the following classes are under the legal obligation to insure: labourers in mines, quarries, dockyards, wharves, manufactories and breweries; bricklayers and navvies; post-office, railway, and naval and military servants and officials; carters, raftsmen and canal hands; cellarmen, warehousemen; stevedores; and agricultural labourers. Each of these groups forms an association, which within a certain district embraces all the industries with which it is connected. The funds for covering the compensation payable in respect of accidents are raised by payments based, in agriculture, on the taxable capital, and in other trades and industries on the earnings of the insured. Compensation in respect of injury or death is not paid if the accident was brought about through the culpable negligence or other delict of the insured. In case of injury, involving incapacity for more than thirteen weeks (for the earlier period the _Krankenkassen_ provide), the weekly sum payable during complete or permanent incapacity is fixed at the ratio of two-thirds of the earnings during the year preceding the accident, and in case of partial disablement, at such a proportion of the earnings as corresponds to the loss through disablement. In certain circumstances (e.g. need for paid nursing) the sum may be increased to the full rate of the previous earnings. In case of death, as a consequence of injury, the following payments are made: (1) a sum of at least L2, 10s. to defray the expenses of interment; (2) a monthly allowance of one-fifth of the annual earnings as above to the widow and each child up to the age of 15.

_Life Insurance._--There were forty-six companies in 1900 for the insurance of life. The number of persons insured was 1,446,249 at the end of that year, the insurances amounting to roughly L320,000,000. Besides these are sixty-one companies--of which forty-six are comprised in the above life insurance companies--paying subsidies in case of death or of military service, endowments, &c. Some of these companies are industrial. The transactions of all these companies included in 1900 over 4,179,000 persons, and the amount of insurances effected was L80,000,000.

_Religion._--So far as the empire as a whole is concerned there is no state religion, each state being left free to maintain its own establishment. Thus while the emperor, as king of Prussia, is _summus episcopus_ of the Prussian Evangelical Church, as emperor he enjoys no such ecclesiastical headship. In the several states the relations of church and state differ fundamentally according as these states are Protestant or Catholic. In the latter these relations are regulated either by concordats between the governments and the Holy See, or by bulls of circumscription issued by the pope after negotiation. The effects of concordats and bulls alike are tempered by the exercise by the civil power of certain traditional reserved rights, e.g. the _placetum regium_, _recursus ab abusu_, _nominatio regia_, and that of vetoing the nomination of _personae minus gratae_. In the Protestant states the ecclesiastical authority remains purely territorial, and the sovereign remains effective head of the established church. During the 19th century, however, a large measure of ecclesiastical self-government (by means of general synods, &c.) was introduced, _pari passu_ with the growth of constitutional government in the state; and in effect, though the theoretical supremacy of the sovereign survives in the church as in the state, he cannot exercise it save through the general synod, which is the state parliament for ecclesiastical purposes. Where a sovereign rules over a state containing a large proportion of both Catholics and Protestants, which is usually the case, both systems coexist. Thus in Prussia the relations of the Roman Catholic community to the Protestant state are regulated by arrangement between the Prussian government and Rome; while in Bavaria the king, though a Catholic, is legally _summus episcopus_ of the Evangelical Church.

According to the religious census of 1900 there were in the German empire 35,231,104 Evangelical Protestants, 20,327,913 Roman Catholics, 6472 Greek Orthodox, 203,678 Christians belonging to other confessions, 586,948 Jews, 11,597 members of other sects and 5938 unclassified. The Christians belonging to other confessions include Moravian Brethren, Mennonites, Baptists, Methodists and Quakers, German Catholics, Old Catholics, &c. The table on following page shows the distribution of the population according to religious beliefs as furnished by the census of 1900.

Almost two-thirds of the population belong to the Evangelical Church, and rather more than a third to the Church of Rome; the actual figures (based on the census of 1900) being (%) Evangelical Protestants, 62.5; Roman Catholics, 36.1; Dissenters and others, .043, and Jews, 1.0. The Protestants have not increased proportionately in number since 1890, while the Roman Catholics show a small relative increase. Three states in Germany have a decidedly predominant Roman Catholic population, viz. Alsace-Lorraine, Bavaria and Baden; and in four states the Protestant element prevails, but with from 24 to 34% of Roman Catholics; viz. Prussia, Wurttemberg, Hesse and Oldenburg. In Saxony and the eighteen minor states the number of Roman Catholics is only from 0.3 to 3.3% of the population.

+--------------------------+-------------+-----------+-----------+--------+ | States. |Evangelicals.| Catholics.| Other | Jews. | | | | |Christians.| | +--------------------------+-------------+-----------+-----------+--------+ | Prussia | 21,817,577 |12,113,670 | 139,127 |392,322 | | Bavaria | 1,749,206 | 4,363,178 | 7,607 | 54,928 | | Saxony | 3,972,063 | 198,265 | 19,103 | 12,416 | | Wurttemberg | 1,497,299 | 650,392 | 9,426 | 11,916 | | Baden | 704,058 | 1,131,639 | 5,563 | 26,132 | | Hesse | 746,201 | 341,570 | 7,368 | 24,486 | | Mecklenburg-Schwerin | 597,268 | 8,182 | 487 | 1,763 | | Saxe-Weimar | 347,144 | 14,158 | 361 | 1,188 | | Mecklenburg-Strelitz | 100,568 | 1,612 | 62 | 331 | | Oldenburg | 309,510 | 86,920 | 1,334 | 1,359 | | Brunswick | 436,976 | 24,175 | 1,271 | 1,824 | | Saxe-Meiningen | 244,810 | 4,170 | 395 | 1,351 | | Saxe-Altenburg | 189,885 | 4,723 | 206 | 99 | | Saxe-Coburg-Gotha | 225,074 | 3,330 | 515 | 608 | | Anhalt | 301,953 | 11,699 | 794 | 1,605 | | Schwarzburg-Sondershausen| 79,593 | 1,110 | 27 | 166 | | Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt | 92,298 | 676 | 37 | 48 | | Waldeck | 55,285 | 1,831 | 164 | 637 | | Reuss-Greiz | 66,860 | 1,043 | 444 | 48 | | Reuss-Schleiz | 135,958 | 2,579 | 466 | 178 | | Schaumburg-Lippe | 41,908 | 785 | 177 | 257 | | Lippe | 132,708 | 5,157 | 205 | 879 | | Lubeck | 93,671 | 2,190 | 213 | 670 | | Bremen | 208,815 | 13,506 | 876 | 1,409 | | Hamburg | 712,338 | 30,903 | 3,149 | 17,949 | | Alsace-Lorraine | 372,078 | 1,310,450 | 4,301 | 32,379 | +--------------------------+-------------+-----------+-----------+--------+ | Total | 35,231,104 |20,327,913 | 203,678 |586,948 | +--------------------------+-------------+-----------+-----------+--------+

From the above table little can be inferred as to the geographical distribution of the two chief confessions. On this point it must be borne in mind that the population of the larger towns, on account of the greater mobility of the population since the introduction of railways and the abolition of restrictions upon free settlement, has become more mixed--Berlin, Leipzig, Hamburg, &c., showing proportionally more Roman Catholics, and Cologne, Frankfort-on-Main, Munich more Protestants than formerly. Otherwise the geographical limits of the confessions have been but little altered since the Thirty Years' War. In the mixed territories those places which formerly belonged to Roman Catholic princes are Roman Catholic still, and _vice versa_. Hence a religious map of South Germany looks like an historical map of the 17th century. The number of localities where the two confessions exist side by side is small. Generally speaking, South Germany is predominantly Roman Catholic. Some districts along the Danube (province of Bavaria, Upper Palatinate, Swabia), southern Wurttemberg and Baden, and in Alsace-Lorraine are entirely so. These territories are bordered by a broad stretch of country on the north, where Protestantism has maintained its hold since the time of the Reformation, including Bayreuth or eastern upper Franconia, middle Franconia, the northern half of Wurttemberg and Baden, with Hesse and the Palatinate. Here the average proportion of Protestants to Roman Catholics is two to one. The basin of the Main is again Roman Catholic from Bamberg to Aschaffenburg (western upper Franconia and lower Franconia). In Prussia the western and south-eastern provinces are mostly Roman Catholic, especially the Rhine province, together with the government districts of Munster and Arnsberg. The territories of the former principality of Cleves and of the countship of Mark (comprising very nearly the basin of the Ruhr), which went to Brandenburg in 1609, must, however, be excepted. North of Munster, Roman Catholicism is still prevalent in the territory of the former bishopric of Osnabruck. In the east, East Prussia (Ermeland excepted) is purely Protestant. Roman Catholicism was predominant a hundred years ago in all the frontier provinces acquired by Prussia in the days of Frederick the Great, but since then the German immigrants have widely propagated the Protestant faith in these districts. A prevailingly Roman Catholic population is still found in the district of Oppeln and the countship of Glatz, in the province of Posen, in the Polish-speaking _Kreise_ of West Prussia, and in Ermeland (East Prussia). In all the remaining territory the Roman Catholic creed is professed only in the Eichsfeld on the southern border of the province of Hanover and around Hildesheim.

Protestant Church.

The adherents of Protestantism are divided by their confessions into Reformed and Lutheran. To unite these the "church union" has been introduced in several Protestant states, as for example in Prussia and Nassau in 1817, in the Palatinate in 1818 and in Baden in 1822. Since 1817 the distinction has accordingly been ignored in Prussia, and Christians are there enumerated only as Evangelical or Roman Catholic. The union, however, has not remained wholly unopposed--a section of the more rigid Lutherans who separated themselves from the state church being now known as Old Lutherans. In 1866 Prussia annexed Hanover and Schleswig-Holstein, where the Protestants were Lutherans, and Hesse, where the Reformed Church had the preponderance. The inhabitants of these countries opposed the introduction of the union, but could not prevent their being subordinated to the Prussian _Oberkirchenrat_ (high church-council), the supreme court of the state church. A synodal constitution for the Evangelical State Church was introduced in Prussia in 1875. The _Oberkirchenrat_ retains the right of supreme management. The ecclesiastical affairs of the separate provinces are directed by consistorial boards. The parishes (_Pfarreien_) are grouped into dioceses (_Sprengel_), presided over by superintendents, who are subordinate to the superintendent-general of the province. Prussia has sixteen superintendents-general. The ecclesiastical administration is similarly regulated in the other countries of the Protestant creed. Regarding the number of churches and chapels Germany has no exact statistics.

Roman Catholic Church.

There are five archbishoprics within the German empire: Gnesen-Posen, Cologne, Freiburg (Baden), Munich-Freising and Bamberg. The twenty bishoprics are: Breslau (where the bishop has the title of "prince-bishop"), Ermeland (seat at Frauenburg, East Prussia), Kulm (seat at Pelplin, West Prussia), Fulda, Hildesheim, Osnabruck, Paderborn, Munster, Limburg, Trier, Metz, Strassburg, Spires, Wurzburg, Regensburg, Passau, Eichstatt, Augsburg, Rottenburg (Wurttemberg) and Mainz. Apostolic vicariates exist in Dresden (for Saxony), and others for Anhalt and the northern missions.

The Old Catholics (q.v.), who seceded from the Roman Church in consequence of the definition of the dogma of papal infallibility, number roughly 50,000, with 54 clergy.

Jews.

It is in the towns that the Jewish element is chiefly to be found. They belong principally to the mercantile class, and are to a very large extent dealers in money. Their wealth has grown to an extraordinary degree. They are increasingly numerous in Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfort-on-Main, Breslau, Konigsberg, Posen, Cologne, Nuremberg and Furth. As a rule their numbers are proportionately greater in Prussia than elsewhere within the empire. But, since 1871, the Jewish population of Germany shows a far smaller increase than that of the Christian confessions, and even in the parts of the country where the Jewish population is densest it has shown a tendency to diminish. It is relatively greatest in the province of Posen, where the numbers have fallen from 61,982 (39.1 per thousand) in 1871 to 35,327 (18.7 per thousand) in 1900. The explanation is twofold--the extraordinary increase (1) in their numbers in Berlin and the province of Brandenburg, and (2) in the number of conversions to the Christian faith. In this last regard it may be remarked that the impulse is less from religious conviction than from a desire to associate on more equal terms with their neighbours. Though still, in fact at least, if not by law, excluded from many public offices, especially from commands in the army, they nevertheless are very powerful in Germany, the press being for the most part in their hands, and they furnish in many cities fully one-half of the lawyers and the members of the corporation. It should be mentioned, as a curious fact, that the numbers of the Jewish persuasion in the kingdom of Saxony increased from 3358 (1.3 per thousand) in 1871 to 12,416 (3 per thousand) in 1900.

_Education._--In point of educational culture Germany ranks high among all the civilized great nations of the world (see EDUCATION: _Germany_). Education is general and compulsory throughout the empire, and all the states composing it have, with minor modifications, adopted the Prussian system providing for the establishment of elementary schools--_Volksschulen_--in every town and village. The school age is from six to fourteen, and parents can be compelled to send their children to a _Volksschule_, unless, to the satisfaction of the authorities, they are receiving adequate instruction in some other recognized school or institution.

The total number of primary schools was 60,584 in 1906-1907; teachers, 166,597; pupils, 9,737,262--an average of about one _Volksschule_ to every 900 inhabitants. The annual expenditure was over L26,000,000, of which sum L7,500,000 was provided by state subvention. There were also in Germany in the same year 643 private schools, giving instruction similar to that of the elementary schools, with 41,000 pupils. A good criterion of the progress of education is obtained from the diminishing number of illiterate army recruits, as shown by the following:

+-----------+---------+------------------------+ | | |Unable to Read or Write.| | |Number of+--------+---------------+ | Years. |Recruits.| Total. | Per 1000 | | | | | Recruits. | +-----------+---------+--------+---------------+ | 1875-1876 | 139,855 | 3331 | 23.7 | | 1880-1881 | 151,180 | 2406 | 15.9 | | 1885-1886 | 152,933 | 1657 | 10.8 | | 1890-1891 | 193,318 | 1035 | 5.4 | | 1895-1896 | 250,287 | 374 | 1.5 | | 1898-1899 | 252,382 | 173 | 0.7 | | 1900-1901 | 253,000 | 131 | 0.45 | +-----------+---------+--------+---------------+

Of the above 131 illiterates in 1900-1901, 114 were in East and West Prussia, Posen and Silesia.

_Universities and Higher Technical Schools._--Germany owes its large number of universities, and its widely diffused higher education to its former subdivision into many separate states. Only a few of the universities date their existence from the 19th century; the majority of them are very much older. Each of the larger provinces, except Posen, has at least one university, the entire number being 21. All have four faculties except Munster, which has no faculty of medicine. As regards theology, Bonn, Breslau and Tubingen have both a Protestant and a Catholic faculty; Freiburg, Munich, Munster and Wurzburg are exclusively Catholic; and all the rest are Protestant.

The following table gives the names of the 21 universities, the dates of their respective foundations, the number of their professors and other teachers for the winter half-year 1908-1909, and of the students attending their lectures during the winter half-year of 1907-1908:

+------------+-----------+----------+--------------------------------------+-------+ | | Date of |Professors| Students. | | | |Foundation.| and +---------+------+---------+-----------+ Total.| | | | Teachers.|Theology.| Law. |Medicine.|Philosophy.| | +------------+-----------+----------+---------+------+---------+-----------+-------+ | Berlin | 1809 | 493 | 326 | 2747 | 1153 | 3934 | 8220 | | Bonn | 1818 | 190 | 395 | 833 | 282 | 1699 | 3209 | | Breslau | 1811 | 189 | 330 | 617 | 284 | 840 | 2071 | | Erlangen | 1743 | 77 | 155 | 323 | 355 | 225 | 1058 | | Freiburg | 1457 | 150 | 219 | 373 | 580 | 642 | 1814 | | Giessen | 1607 | 100 | 63 | 204 | 331 | 546 | 1144 | | Gottingen | 1737 | 161 | 102 | 441 | 188 | 1126 | 1857 | | Greifswald | 1456 | 105 | 68 | 188 | 186 | 361 | 803 | | Halle | 1694 | 174 | 331 | 450 | 217 | 1239 | 2237 | | Heidelberg | 1385 | 177 | 55 | 357 | 385 | 879 | 1676 | | Jena | 1558 | 116 | 48 | 267 | 265 | 795 | 1375 | | Kiel | 1665 | 121 | 35 | 271 | 239 | 480 | 1025 | | Konigsberg | 1544 | 152 | 68 | 317 | 218 | 502 | 1105 | | Leipzig | 1409 | 234 | 303 | 1013 | 606 | 2419 | 4341 | | Marburg | 1527 | 117 | 133 | 400 | 261 | 876 | 1670 | | Munich | 1826 | 239 | 169 | 1892 | 1903 | 1979 | 5943 | | Munster | 1902 | 95 | 278 | 458 | .. | 870 | 1606 | | Rostock | 1418 | 65 | 48 | 67 | 211 | 322 | 648 | | Strassburg | 1872 | 167 | 241 | 369 | 255 | 844 | 1709 | | Tubingen | 1477 | 111 | 464 | 467 | 263 | 384 | 1578 | | Wurzburg | 1582 | 102 | 106 | 331 | 625 | 320 | 1382 | +------------+-----------+----------+---------+------+---------+-----------+-------+

Not included in the above list is the little academy--Lyceum Hosianum--at Braunsberg in Prussia, having faculties of theology (Roman Catholic) and philosophy, with 13 teachers and 150 students. In all the universities the number of matriculated students in 1907-1908 was 46,471, including 320 women, 2 of whom studied theology, 14 law, 150 philosophy and 154 medicine. There were also, within the same period, 5653 non-matriculated _Horer_ (hearers), including 2486 women.

Ten schools, technical high schools, or _Polytechnica_, rank with the universities, and have the power of granting certain degrees. They have departments of architecture, building, civil engineering, chemistry, metallurgy and, in some cases, anatomy. These schools are as follows: Berlin (Charlottenburg), Munich, Darmstadt, Karlsruhe, Hanover, Dresden, Stuttgart, Aix-la-Chapelle, Brunswick and Danzig; in 1908 they were attended by 14,149 students (2531 foreigners), and had a teaching staff of 753. Among the remaining higher technical schools may be mentioned the three mining academies of Berlin, Clausthal, in the Harz, and Freiberg in Saxony. For instruction in agriculture there are agricultural schools attached to several universities--notably Berlin, Halle, Gottingen, Konigsberg, Jena, Poppelsdorf near Bonn, Munich and Leipzig. Noted academies of forestry are those of Tharandt (in Saxony), Eberswalde, Munden on the Weser, Hohenheim near Stuttgart, Brunswick, Eisenach, Giessen and Karlsruhe. Other technical schools are again the five veterinary academies of Berlin, Hanover, Munich, Dresden and Stuttgart, the commercial colleges (_Handelshochschulen_) of Leipzig, Aix-la-Chapelle, Hanover, Frankfort-on-Main and Cologne, in addition to 424 commercial schools of a lesser degree, 100 schools for textile manufactures and numerous schools for special metal industries, wood-working, ceramic industries, naval architecture and engineering and navigation. For military science there are the academies of war (_Kriegsakademien_) in Berlin and Munich, a naval academy in Kiel, and various cadet and non-commissioned officers' schools.

_Libraries._--Mental culture and a general diffusion of knowledge are extensively promoted by means of numerous public libraries established in the capital, the university towns and other places. The most celebrated public libraries are those of Berlin (1,000,000 volumes and 30,000 MSS.); Munich (1,000,000 volumes, 40,000 MSS.); Heidelberg (563,000 volumes, 8000 MSS.); Gottingen (503,000 volumes, 6000 MSS.); Strassburg (760,000 volumes); Dresden (500,000 volumes, 6000 MSS.); Hamburg (municipal library, 600,000 volumes, 5000 MSS.); Stuttgart (400,000 volumes, 3500 MSS.); Leipzig (university library, 500,000 volumes, 5000 MSS.); Wurzburg (350,000 volumes); Tubingen (340,000 volumes); Rostock (318,000 volumes); Breslau (university library, 300,000 volumes, 7000 MSS.); Freiburg-im-Breisgau (250,000 volumes); Bonn (265,000 volumes); and Konigsberg (230,000 volumes, 1100 MSS.). There are also famous libraries at Gotha, Wolfenbuttel and Celle.

_Learned Societies._--There are numerous societies and unions, some of an exclusively scientific character and others designed for the popular diffusion of useful knowledge. Foremost among German academies is the Academy of Sciences (_Akademie der Wissenschaften_) in Berlin, founded in 1700 on Leibnitz's great plan and opened in 1711. After undergoing various vicissitudes, it was reorganized by Frederick the Great on the French model and received its present constitution in 1812. It has four sections: physical, mathematical, philosophical and historical. The members are (1) ordinary (50 in number, each receiving a yearly dotation of L30), and (2) extraordinary, consisting of honorary and corresponding (foreign) members. It has published since 1811 a selection of treatises furnished by its most eminent men, among whom must be reckoned Schleiermacher, the brothers Humboldt, Grimm, Savigny, Bockh, Ritter and Lachmann, and has promoted philological and historical research by helping the production of such works as _Corpus inscriptionum Graecarum_; _Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum_; _Monumenta Germaniae historica_, the works of Aristotle, Frederick the Great's works and Kant's collected works. Next in order come (1) the Academy of Sciences at Munich, founded in 1759, divided into three classes, philosophical, historical and physical, and especially famous for its historical research; (2) the Society of Sciences (_Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften_) in Gottingen, founded in 1742; (3) that of Erfurt, founded 1758; (4) Gorlitz (1779) and (5) the "Royal Saxon Society of Sciences" (_Konigliche sachsische Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften_), founded in Leipzig in 1846. Ample provision is made for scientific collections of all kinds in almost all places of any importance, either at the public expense or through private munificence.

_Observatories._--These have in recent years been considerably augmented. There are 19 leading observatories in the empire, viz. at Bamberg, Berlin (2), Bonn, Bothkamp in Schleswig, Breslau, Dusseldorf, Gotha, Gottingen, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Jena, Kiel, Konigsberg, Leipzig, Munich, Potsdam, Strassburg and Wilhelmshaven.