A personal and historical reflection on German education from Humboldt to the 1970s: the rigor of continual assessment, the dignity of the old Abitur, the rise of the Gesamtschule, and the slow erosion of standards in the late twentieth century. Seen through the eyes of an English teacher working in North Rhine-Westphalia, this article contrasts German seriousness with British drift and explores how a once-formidable system began to follow the comprehensive path already taken in the UK and the USA.