"Little Folks in England"

A mere slip of a book for you today. It's a collection of 'easy' reading material from 1925 which, according to the editors, could be used after just one year of English lessons. All texts are taken from other volumes of reading material and centre around the 'typical' daily life of English children; how they play, what they do at school (especially the sports they play), and the stories they read.
The foreword explains the necessity of teaching with texts that introduce learners to the characteristics and culture of foreign peoples, not only to the language. The second book in the series is (was to be?) "England and the English".
Here are a few scans, a list of texts used, and my favourite text: "A Jolly Cricket Match".

Collection English Life, Part I: Little Folks in England
A. Schwieker & Dr. F. Schwieker
Otto Meissners Verlag, Hamburg

The following text is the only one in the collection which isn't credited. The text after it is from Tom Brown's School Days but I'm reasonably sure that this one isn't.

9. A Jolly Cricket Match

1. "I am sure you must be very stiff, Frank, after your hard work yesterday," said Mrs. Langham, when the family met in the breakfast-room on the Saturday morning following a grand cricket match; "yet I am very pleased indeed to see that you have made the effort to be down in good time for breakfast this morning."
2. "Now, Frank, tell us all about the match yesterday," said Bella, when they were all seated at table.
"There's not much to tell," said Frank. "our side won, as you know, and they played very fairly on the other."
"Our side smashed the other fellows all to bits," exclaimed Jack, "and old Frank scored the greatest number of runs on either side; I heard several say he was the best batsman by far on the field."
"You shut up, old fellow," replied his brother; "That's all stuff; there was plenty of good batting on the other side; it was a jolly match altogether."
3. "I do wish I could play in a real match," said Ben.
"You play!" said Frank, "Why such a bit of a chap as you would be mistaken for one of the wickets and get continually bowled down. how would you like that?"
"Never mind, Ben," said his mother, "go on growing, and some day you will be really the 'Big Ben' you are now called in fun, and then you will play with as much spirit as any boy."

The sources (exactly as they appear under each text):

Longman's British Empire Readers (Game of Leap-frog, Playing at Horses, Little John Going to the War, Jack and Jill)
Mc.Dougall's Suggestive Lessons in English, Book I (An Unlucky Drive, A Children's Party
Mc.Dougall's Suggestive Lessons in English, Book VI (A Letter telling about a Pet Canary)
Collins' Second Story Primer (A Tug of War, Roy and Toby at the Sea-side)
Waddy, The English Echo (On the Heath)
Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's Schooldays (Football, A Jolly Cricket Match[?], At Rugby School)
Mrs Hawtrey (The Holiday)
A Day on the Sands - Nelson's Picture Readers (The Little Sailors, Oh, What Fun!, Crabs for Tea, Sand Castles)
Little Dots (Willie's Fishing)
Daily Chronicle, July 1924 (The Pierrots appeared, Afloat on the Rolling Deep, Man Overboard)
The Child's Companion (The Schoolboys are snow-balling)
Standard American Series. Third Reader (A Brave Boy)
Baret, The First English Lessons (Santa Claus)
E.M. Towle (School Life)
Oliver and Boyd's Excelsior Readers, Book I (The Flower Castle, A Flower Story: St.Leonard and the Dragon)
Chamber's Stepping-Stones to Literature, Book I: Stories from Near and Far (The Story of Catskin, Lazy Jack, How Maize Came)

England: The Robber State (I)

I first came across Raubstaat England (England the Robber State) at a fleamarket a few months ago (and blogged about here). I managed to persuade myself that 40 Euros was too much to pay for 1941 cigarette card album but put up far less of a fight when I found it in a shop for 3/4 of the price.
Unlike typical British and American albums, most of the space is given over to text, making it more like a history book with the illustrations removed. It is, however, a history book with a very clear aim. Here are the front and inside covers:


The introductory chapter to Raubstaat England is called ,,Vorkämpfer der Freiheit" (champions of freedom). The title is in quote marks although there's no indication of who might have said this, or if it's a view attributed to a whole group of people. It's amazing how punctuation can indicate so much sometimes. The author (Dr E. Lewalter) starts with a description of his first English lessons, shortly after the turn of the century, in which he and his classmates were taught to recite a sea-shanty. Firstly, a bit of a dig at the unfamiliar pronunciation:

"[...] with amazement we became aware of which contortions the human speech apparatus, and of which uncleanliness the voicebox must be capable of, in order to bring forth truly English sounds."

(,,[...]wir wurden mit Staunen gewahr, welcher Verrenkungen die menschlichen Sprechwerkzeuge, welcher Unreinlichkeiten die Muskulaturen des Kehlkopfes fähig sein mußten, um echt englisch klingende Laute hervorzubringen.")

Eventually the class are trusted to recite the full sea shanty in chorus, pre-pubescent voices escaping through the open classroom window to declare triumphantly to the world:

"And 't is our endeavour
In battle and in breeze
That England shall ever
Be Lord of the seas."

I agree with the author that this is a slightly dubious thing for German children to be memorising and chanting in the middle of an Anglo-German arms race. On the other hand, he has beefed up the militarism in his translation:

,,Ob Schlachten toben,
Ob Stürme dräun,
England muß Herrin
Der Meere sein."

which, brought back into English, goes something like: "Whether battles rage or storms threaten, England must be ruler of the seas". This rather unfairly changes the song from one of ambition to one of jealous protection of superiority, which nicely sets up the central message of the book.*

Lewalter wonders why nobody worried about Germany's youth, even after World War One, being taught using such anglophile material, which he feels must have led to a creeping sense of awe regarding England's naval power. Apparently the rest of his old textbook failed to provide balance and consisted of moving and edifying texts on, for example, the death of General Wolfe**, the Battle of Blenheim (with no mention of Prince Eugene), and all manner of English victories, including against the Scots and the Irish.
Two impressions arose through exposure to this material:
1. that the English always had right, and therefore the sympathies of the young German reader, on their side.
2. that the English had always been friends and allies of the Germans; their "cousins across the Channel" (,,Vettern jenseits des Kanals")
So where is he going with all this?

"However different the experiences of individual youths may have been, taken as a whole one is able to say that the German youth before the world war was raised in a strange, almost resigned reverence towards England - to be followed by a harsh awakening when England allied herself with our enemies right at the start of the world war."

,,Mögen solche Jugenderlebnisse auch im einzelnen recht verschieden gewesen sein, im ganzen wird man sagen dürfen, daß die deutsche Jugend vor dem Weltkriege in einer seltsamen, fast resignierenden Englandfrömmigkeit auferzogen wurde - aus der dann ein böses Erwachen folgte, als England sich gleich zu Beginn des Weltkrieges auf die Seite unserer Feinde stellte."

Lewalter makes it clear that this attitude only applied to England and that it would be unthinkable, especially after the war of 1870, for French grammar textbooks to contain texts glorifying French imperialism. He admits that German sympathies for the Boers during the Boer War "cast a threatening shadow over Anglo-German relations" (,,einen bedrohlichen Schatten auf die deutsch-englischen Beziehungen geworfen") but this was not seen as grounds to change the way in which Germany's youth were taught.

Without knowing which textbook was inflicted upon the author and his classmates, it is impossible to judge whether his assertions are accurate or exaggerated. None of the pre-1914 English textbooks I have found so far deal so thoroughly with England's military history. However, the re-use of texts by English authors seems to have been common (quicker, easier, more authentic and no doubt cheaper than having German authors write sample texts from scratch) and the chosen texts were never intended to provide a balanced view of history, but to serve as interesting reading exercises. Also, this problem hadn't gone completely unnoticed before the 1940s, as shown by the foreword to the 1939 rewrite of Pleasant English II.

So that's brought us to the beginning of page two. The other 128 pages will have to wait.


*Interestingly enough, a similar process - that of interpreting a patriotic song as having an overly aggressive, expansionist message - has also been carried out on the German national anthem.


**Benjamin West's painting Death of General Wolfe is the first collectible picture in the album and has the following caption:

"General Wolfe's death in Quebec", a picture which has been reproduced countless times and is widespread not only in England, but also across the whole of Europe. The sentimental portrayal glorifies one of the most brutal violent actions of English history: the plundering of Canada.

,,General Wolfes Tod bei Quebec", ein Bild, das in unzähligen Wiedergaben nicht nur in England, sondern in ganz Europa verbreitet wurde, Die rührselige Darstellung verklärte eine der brutalsten Gewalttaten der englischen Geschichte: den Raub Kanadas."

Links
Here are a few resources on the history of cigarette card collecting in Germany:

• http://www.germancards.com/GeneralStuff/germancards.htm
  
• http://www.franklyncards.com/one/german.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette_card

And this is a list of other albums published by the Cigaretten-Bilderdienst: http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n79-106295