The Emperor had been a student at the Friedrichs Gymnasium in Cassel, and in 1875 his parents had presented a flag to the school, which had now to be replaced. In turning over the new flag to the first man in the upper class, the Emperor took occasion to give the students certain advice, particularly with regard to the use of alcoholic beverages. His attitude here marks a decided innovation in Germany, and if his address is compared with the one delivered at Bonn (April 24, 1901), it will be seen how keenly aware he is of the changing tendencies of the times.
I have decided to have a new flag woven for the upper class instead of the one which my parents bestowed when I was a student and which has fallen a victim to time. The high school has asked to have the old one back again; I will have it mended so that it may be hung. I wish you to remember, through it, that from your walls and your studies a German Emperor has gone forth.
You have been busy with the studies of antiquity. Do not lay too much stress upon the incidents of their political life; for these relations have so changed that they cannot be applied to the present. You may well rejoice in many of the great figures and characters of antiquity, but Greek culture has one special trait which no other nation has shown. The harmony which our own time so sadly lacks, the Greek people showed in art, in life, in their motions, in their dress, yes, even in their systems of philosophy, and in the handling of their problems. I especially advise you to read what Chamberlain so trenchantly says on this point in the Introduction to his "Foundations of the Nineteenth Century."
And then, above all, strive to know the history of your Fatherland. Learn to know the misery of our people in the later years of the Middle Ages, in the struggles between church and state and between the princes, in the strife of creeds during the Thirty Years' War, when our people were trodden down and brought into the service of foreign peoples and dynasties with whom its interests had nothing in common, until the final great downfall in the time of Napoleon. The year 1870 first brought us a united German state again. And if you enter upon a political career, keep your eye upon the field as a whole, and do not be disturbed by parties. For these shove their interests before those of the Fatherland and often draw a curtain between you and it. And if your political efforts threaten to bewilder you, I advise you to withdraw from them for a time--travel or go on a walking tour--and let Nature have her way. Then when you return you will have a clearer vision of the real relations. If at any time the waves overwhelm you, if the many phenomena of modern art and literature bewilder and depress you, you can always turn to these ideals of antiquity as a means of recovering your balance.