No More Learning

In those days,
moreover, we fondly imagined that everybody
who held the post and possessed the dignity of a •
philosopher must perforce be one: we were in-
experienced and badly informed. We frankly
admitted that we had not yet belonged to any
philosophical college, but that we would certainly
make up for lost time.
"Then what," he asked, "did you mean when

'


## p. 30 (#50) ##############################################

30 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIO
you spoke of philosophising? " Said I, "W
at a loss for a definition. But to all intent
purposes we meant this, that we wished to
earnest endeavours to consider the best po
means of becoming men of culture. " "Thai
good deal and at the same time very li
growled the philosopher; "just you think the m
over. Here are our benches, let us discuss
question exhaustively: I shall not disturb
meditations with regard to how you are to bee
men of culture. I wish you success and—p<
of view, as in your duelling questions; brand-
original, and enlightened points of view,
philosopher does not wish to prevent your p]
sophising: but refrain at least from disconcer
him with your pistol-shots. Try to imitate
Pythagoreans to-day: they, as servants of a'
philosophy, had to remain silent for five year
possibly you may also be able to remain silent
five times fifteen minutes, as servants of y
own future culture, about which you seem
concerned. "
We had reached our destination: the soler
isation of our rite began. As on the previ(
occasion, five years ago, the Rhine was once irn
flowing beneath a light mist, the sky seemed brij
and the woods exhaled the same fragrance. \
took our places on the farthest corner of the m<
distant bench; sitting there we were almost cc
cealed, and neither the philosopher nor his coi
panion could see our faces. We were alon
when the sound of the philosopher's voice reachi
us, it had become so blended with the rustlii
"N


## p. 31 (#51) ##############################################

FIRST LECTURE. 31
leaves and with the buzzing murmur of the myriads
of living things inhabiting the wooded height, that
it almost seemed like the music of nature; as a
sound it resembled nothing more than a distant
monotonous plaint. We were indeed undisturbed.
Some time elapsed in this way, and while the
glow of sunset grew steadily paler the recollection
of our youthful undertaking in the cause of culture
waxed ever more vivid. It seemed to us as if we
owed the greatest debt of gratitude to that little
society we had founded ; for it had done more than
merely supplement our public school training;
it had actually been the only fruitful society we
had had, and within its frame we even placed our
public school life, as a purely isolated factor help-
ing us in our general efforts to attain to culture.
We knew this, that, thanks to our little society,
no thought of embracing any particular career
had ever entered our minds in those days. The
all too frequent exploitation of youth by the State,
for its own purposes—that is to say, so that it may
rear useful officials as quickly as possible and
guarantee their unconditional obedience to it by
means of excessively severe examinations—had
remained quite foreign to our education. And to
show how little we had been actuated by thoughts
of utility or by the prospect of speedy advancement
and rapid success, on that day we were struck by
the comforting consideration that, even then, we
had not yet decided what we should be—we had
not even troubled ourselves at all on this head.
Our little society had sown the seeds of this happy
indifference in our souls and for it alone we were


## p. 32 (#52) ##############################################

32 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
prepared to celebrate the anniversary of its founda-
tion with hearty gratitude. I have already pointed
out, I think, that in the eyes of the present age,
which is so intolerant of anything that is not use-
ful, such purposeless enjoyment of the moment,
such a lulling of one's self in the cradle of the
present, must seem almost incredible and at all
events blameworthy. How useless we were!
And how proud we were of being useless! We
used even to quarrel with each other as to which
of us should have the glory of being the more
useless. We wished to attach no importance to
anything, to have strong views about nothing, to
aim at nothing; we wanted to take no thought
for the morrow, and desired no more than to
recline comfortably like good-for-nothings on
the threshold of the present; and we did—bless
us!
—That, ladies and gentlemen, was our stand-
point then! —
Absorbed in these reflections, I was just about
to give an answer to the question of the future of
our Educational Institutions in the same self-
sufficient way, when it gradually dawned upon me
that the "natural music," coming from the philo-
sopher's bench had lost its original character and
travelled to us in much more piercing and distinct
tones than before. Suddenly I became aware
that I was listening, that I was eavesdropping,
and was passionately interested, with both ears
keenly alive to every sound. I nudged my friend
who was evidently somewhat tired,and I whispered:
"Don't fall asleep! There is something for us to


## p. 33 (#53) ##############################################

FIRST LECTURE. 33
learn over there. It applies to us, even though it
be not meant for us. "
For instance, I heard the younger of the two
men defending himself with great animation while
the philosopher rebuked him with ever increasing
vehemence. "You are unchanged," he cried to
him, " unfortunately unchanged. It is quite incom-
prehensible to me how you can still be the same as
you were seven years ago, when I saw you for the
last time and left you with so much misgiving. I
fear I must once again divest you, however re-
luctantly, of the skin of modern culture which you
have donned meanwhile;—and what do I find
beneath it? The same immutable 'intelligible'
character forsooth, according to Kant; but unfor-
tunately the same unchanged 'intellectual' char-
acter, too—which may also be a necessity, though
not a comforting one. I ask myself to what
purpose have I lived as a philosopher, if, possessed
as you are of no mean intelligence and a genuine
thirst for knowledge, all the years you have spent
in my company have left no deeper impression
upon you. At present you are behaving as if you
had not even heard the cardinal principle of all
culture, which I went to such pains to inculcate
upon you during our former intimacy. Tell me,—
what was that principle? "
"I remember," replied the scolded pupil, "you
used to say no one would strive to attain to culture
if he knew how incredibly small the number of
really cultured people actually is, and can ever be.
And even this number of really cultured people
would not be possible if a prodigious multitude,
C


## p. 34 (#54) ##############################################

34 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIO
from reasons opposed to their nature and on
on by an alluring delusion, did not devote 1
selves to education. It were therefore a mi
publicly to reveal the ridiculous disproportio
tween the number of really cultured people an
enormous magnitude of the educational appai
. Here lies the whole secret of culture—namely
an innumerable host of men struggle to achie
and work hard to that end, ostensibly in their
interests, whereas at bottom it is only in order
it may be possible for the few to attain to it. '
"That is the principle," said the philosophy
"and yet you could so far forget yourself a
believe that you are one of the few?
thought has occurred to you—I can see. T
however, is the result of the worthless charactf
I modern education. The rights of genius are b<
i democratised in order that people may be relie
! of the labour of acquiring culture, and their n
of it. Every one wants if possible to recline
the shade of the tree planted by genius, and
escape the dreadful necessity of working for h
so that his procreation may be made possi!
What? Are you too proud to be a teacher?
you despise the thronging multitude of learne
Do you speak contemptuously of the teache
calling? And, aping my mode of life, would y
fain live in solitary seclusion, hostilely isolal
from that multitude? Do you suppose that y
can reach at one bound what I ultimately had
win for myself only after long and determin
struggles, in order even to be able to live like
philosopher? And do you not fear that solitm


## p. 35 (#55) ##############################################

FIRST LECTURE. 35
will wreak its vengeance upon you? Just try ~l
living the life of a hermit of culture. One must
be blessed with overflowing wealth in order to live
for the good of all on one's own resources!
Extraordinary youngsters! They felt it in-
cumbent upon them to imitate what is precisely
most difficult and most high,—what is possible
only to the master, when they, above all, should
know how difficult and dangerous this is, and how
many excellent gifts may be ruined by attempting
it! "
"I will conceal nothing from you, sir," the
companion replied. "I have heard too much
from your lips at odd times and have been too
long in your company to be able to surrender
myself entirely to our present system of education
and instruction. I am too painfully conscious of
the disastrous errors and abuses to which you used
to call my attention—though I very well know
that I am not strong enough to hope for any
success were I to struggle ever so valiantly against
them. I was overcome by a feeling of general
discouragement; my recourse to solitude was the
result neither of pride nor arrogance. I would
fain describe to you what I take to be the nature
of the educational questions now attracting such
enormous and pressing attention. It seemed to
me that I must recognise two main directions in
the forces at work—two seemingly antagonistic
tendencies, equally deleterious in their action, and
ultimately combining to produce their results: a
striving to achieve the greatest possible expansion
of education on the one hand, and a tendency to


## p. 36 (#56) ##############################################

36 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTK
minimise and weaken it on the other. The
named would, for various reasons, spread Ie;
among the greatest number of people; the s
would compel education to renounce its hi
noblest and sublimest claims in order to subon
itself to some other department of life—su
the service of the State.
"I believe I have already hinted at the qi
in which the cry for the greatest possible expa
of education is most loudly raised. This expa
belongs to the most beloved of the dogm
modern political economy. As much know
and education as possible; therefore the gre
possible supply and demand—hence as i
happiness as possible :—that is the formula,
this case utility is made the object and go;
'education,—utility in the sense of gain-
greatest possible pecuniary gain. In the qu,
now under consideration culture would be del
as that point of vantage which enables one to '!
in the van of one's age,' from which one car
all the easiest and best roads to wealth, and
which one controls all the means of communica
between men and nations. The purpose
education, according to this scheme, would
'to rear the most' current' men possible,—' cum
being used here in the sense in which it is app
to the coins of the realm. The greater the nurr
of such men, the happier a nation will be; and
precisely is the purpose of our modern educatic
institutions: to help every one, as far as
nature will allow, to become ' current'; to deve
him so that his particular degree of knowledge;


## p. 37 (#57) ##############################################

FIRST LECTURE. 37
science may yield him the greatest possible amount
of happiness and pecuniary gain. Every one must
be able to form some sort of estimate of himself;
he must know how much he may reasonably
expect from life. The 'bond between intelligence
and property' which this point of view postulates
has almost the force of a moral principle. In this
quarter all culture is loathed which isolates, which
sets goals beyond gold and gain, and which requires
time: it is customary to dispose of such eccentric
tendencies in education as systems of ' Higher
Egotism,' or of ' Immoral Culture—Epicureanism. '
According to the morality reigning here, the
demands are quite different; what is required
above all is 'rapid education,' so that a money-
earning creature may be produced with all speed;
there is even a desire to make this education so
thorough that a creature may be reared that will
be able to earn a great deal of money. Men
are allowed only the precise amount of culture
which is compatible with the interests of gain; but
that amount, at least, is expected from them. In
short: mankind has a necessary right to happiness
on earth—that is why culture is necessary—but
on that account alone! "
"I must just say something here," said the
philosopher. "In the case of the view you have
described so clearly, there arises the great and
awful danger that at some time or other the great
masses may overleap the middle classes and spring
headlong into this earthly bliss. That is what is
now called 'the social question. ' It might seem
to these masses that education for the greatest


## p. 38 (#58) ##############################################

38 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIC
number of men was only a means to the e
bliss of the few: the ' greatest possible expj
of education' so enfeebles education that
no longer confer privileges or inspire respect,
most general form of culture is simply barbj
But I do not wish to interrupt your discussic
The companion continued: "There are
other reasons, besides this beloved econoi
dogma, for the expansion of education th
being striven after so valiantly everywhere,
some countries the fear of religious oppression
general, and the dread of its results so mai
that people in all classes of society long for cu
and eagerly absorb those elements of it which
supposed to scatter the religious instincts. I
where the State, in its turn, strives here and t
for its own preservation, after the greatest pos<
expansion of education, because it always J
strong enough to bring the most determined en
cipation, resulting from culture, under its y<
and readily approves of everything which te
to extend culture, provided that it be of sen
to its officials or soldiers, but in the main to it;
in its competition with other nations. In 1
case, the foundations of a State must be sufficier
broad and firm to constitute a fitting counterp
to the complicated arches of culture which
supports, just as in the first case the traces of so
former religious tyranny must still be felt foi
people to be driven to such desperate remedi
Thus, wherever I hear the masses raise the cry
an expansion of education, I am wont to a
myself whether it is stimulated by a greedy h


## p. 39 (#59) ##############################################

FIRST LECTURE. 39
of gain and property, by the memory of a former
religious persecution, or by the prudent egotism of
the State itself.
"On the other hand, it seemed to me that there
was yet another tendency, not so clamorous,
perhaps, but quite as forcible, which, hailing from
various quarters, was animated by a different
desire,—the desire to minimise and weaken
education.
"In all cultivated circles people are in the habit
of whispering to one another words something after
this style : that it is a general fact that, owing to the
present frantic exploitation of the scholar in the
service of his science, his education becomes every
day more accidental and more uncertain. For
the study of science has been extended to such
interminable lengths that he who, though not
exceptionally gifted, yet possesses fair abilities,
will need to devote himself exclusively to one
branch and ignore all others if he ever wish to
achieve anything in his work. Should he then
elevate himself above the herd by means of his
speciality, he still remains one of them in regard
to all else,—that is to say, in regard to all the most
important things in life. Thus, a specialist in
science gets to resemble nothing so much as a
factory workman who spends his whole life in
turning one particular screw or handle on a certain
instrument or machine, at which occupation he
acquires the most consummate skill. In Germany,
where we know how to drape such painful facts
with the glorious garments of fancy, this narrow
specialisation on the part of our learned men is


## p. 40 (#60) ##############################################

40 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTK
even admired, and their ever greater de-
from the path of true culture is regardec
moral phenomenon. 'Fidelity in small t
'dogged faithfulness,' become expressio
highest eulogy, and the lack of culture outsii
speciality is flaunted abroad as a sign of
sufficiency.
"For centuries it has been an understood
that one alluded to scholars alone when one i
of cultured men; but experience tells us tr
would be difficult to find any necessary rel
between the two classes to-day. For at pr
the exploitation of a man for the purpose of sc
is accepted everywhere without the slig
scruple. Who still ventures to ask, What
be the value of a science which consumes
minions in this vampire fashion? The div
-of labour in science is practically struggling
wards the same goal which religions in cei
parts of the world are consciously striving afte
that is to say, towards the decrease and even
destruction of learning. That, however, whicl
the case of certain religions, is a perfectly jus
able aim, both in regard to their origin and ti
history, can only amount to self-immolation w
transferred to the realm of science. In
matters of a general and serious nature, <
above all, in regard to the highest philosophi
problems, we have now already reached a po
at which the scientific man, as such, is no lonj
allowed to speak. On the other hand, that;
hesive and tenacious stratum which has now fill
up the interstices between the sciences—Jourm


## p. 41 (#61) ##############################################

FIRST LECTURE. 41
ism—believes it has a mission to fulfil here, and
this it does, according to its own particular lights
—that is to say, as its name implies, after the
fashion of a day-labourer.
"It is precisely in journalism that the two
tendencies combine and become one. The ex-
pansion and the diminution of education here join
hands. The newspaper actually steps into the
place of culture, and he who, even as a scholar,
wishes to voice any claim for education, must avail
himself of this viscous stratum of communication
which cements the seams between all forms of life,
all classes, all arts, and all sciences, and which is
as firm and reliable as news paper is, as a rule. In
the newspaper the peculiar educational aims of the
present culminate, just as the journalist, the servant
of the moment, has stepped into the place of the
genius, of the leader for all time, of the deliverer
from the tyranny of the moment. Now, tell me,
distinguished master, what hopes could I still have
in a struggle against the general topsy-turvification
of all genuine aims for education; with what
courage can I, a single teacher, step forward,
when I know that the moment any seeds of real
culture are sown, they will be mercilessly crushed
by the roller of this pseudo-culture? Imagine
how useless the most energetic work on the part
of the individual teacher must be, who would fain
lead a pupil back into the distant and evasive
Hellenic world and to the real home of culture,
when in less than an hour, that same pupil will
have recourse to a newspaper, the latest novel, or
one of those learned books, the very style of which


## p. 42 (#62) ##############################################

42 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
already bears the revolting impress of moc
barbaric culture"
"Now, silence a minute ! " interjected the ph
sopher in a strong and sympathetic voice,
understand you now, and ought never to h
spoken so crossly to you. You are altoget
right, save in your despair. I shall now proc
to say a few words of consolation. "
"\


## p. 43 (#63) ##############################################

SECOND LECTURE.
{Delivered on the 6th of February 1872. )
Ladies and Gentlemen,—Those among you
whom I now have the pleasure of addressing for
the first time and whose only knowledge of my
first lecture has been derived from reports will, I
hope, not mind being introduced here into the
middle of a dialogue which I had begun to recount
on the last occasion, and the last points of which
I must now recall. The philosopher's young com-
panion was just pleading openly and confidentially
with his distinguished tutor, and apologising for
having so far renounced his calling as a teacher
in order to spend his days in comfortless solitude.
No suspicion of superciliousness or arrogance had
induced him to form this resolve.
"I have heard too much from your lips at
various times," the straightforward pupil said,
"and have been too long in your company, to sur-
render myself blindly to our present systems of
education and instruction. I am too painfully
conscious of the disastrous errors and abuses to
which you were wont to call my attention; and
yet I know that I am far from possessing the
requisite strength to meet with success, however
valiantly I might struggle to shatter the bulwarks


## p. 44 (#64) ##############################################

44 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIO
of this would-be culture. I was overcome
general feeling of depression: my recours
solitude was not arrogance or superciliousi
Whereupon, to account for his behavioui
described the general character of modern
cational methods so vividly that the philosc
could not help interrupting him in a voice fi
sympathy, and crying words of comfort to hir
"Now, silence for a minute, my poor frie
he cried; "I can more easily understand you i
and should not have lost my patience with;
You are altogether right, save in your despair,
shall now proceed to say a few words of com
to you. How long do you suppose the stab
education in the schools of our time, which see
to weigh so heavily upon you, will last? I shall
conceal my views on this point from you: its tim
over; its days are counted. The first who will d
to be quite straightforward in this respect will h
his honesty re-echoed back to him by thousar
of courageous souls. For, at bottom, there is
tacit understanding between the more nobly gift
and more warmly disposed men of the prese
day. Every one of them knows what he has hi
to suffer from the condition of culture in school
every one of them would fain protect his offsprir
from the need of enduring similar drawbacks, eve
though he himself was compelled to submit (
them. If these feelings are never quite honestl
expressed, however, it is owing to a sad want c
spirit among modern pedagogues. These laci
real initiative; there are too few practical mei
among them—that is to say, too few who happei


## p. 45 (#65) ##############################################

SECOND LECTURE. 45
to have good and new ideas, and who know that
real genius and the real practical mind must
necessarily come together in the same individuals,
whilst the sober practical men have no ideas and
therefore fall short in practice.
"Let any one examine the pedagogic literature
of the present; he who is not shocked at its utter
poverty of spirit and its ridiculously awkward antics
is beyond being spoiled. Here our philosophy
must not begin with wonder but with dread; he
who feels no dread at this point must be asked
not to meddle with pedagogic questions. The
reverse, of course, has been the rule up to the
present; those who were terrified ran away filled
with embarrassment as you did, my poor friend,
while the sober and fearless ones spread their
heavy hands over the most delicate technique
that has ever existed in art—over the technique
of education. This, however, will not be possible
much longer; at some time or other the upright man
will appear, who will not only have the good ideas
I speak of, but who in order to work at their
realisation, will dare to break with all that exists
at present: he may by means of a wonderful
example achieve what the broad hands, hitherto
active, could not even imitate—then people will
everywhere begin to draw comparisons; then men
will at least be able to perceive a contrast and will
be in a position to reflect upon its causes, whereas,
at present, so many still believe, in perfect good
faith, that heavy hands are a necessary factor in
pedagogic work. "
"My dear master," said the younger man, " I
S


## p. 46 (#66) ##############################################

46 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
wish you could point to one single example wl
would assist me in seeing the soundness of
hopes which you so heartily raise in me. We
both acquainted with public schools; do you th
for instance, that in respect of these institutions a
thing may be done by means of honesty and g<
and new ideas to abolish the tenacious and ai
quated customs now extant? In this quarter
seems to me, the battering-rams of an attack:
party will have to meet with no solid wall, 1
with the most fatal of stolid and slippery princip]
The leader of the assault has no visible and tangil
opponent to crush, but rather a creature in disgu
that can transform itself/into a hundred differe
shapes and, in"fe^£h-OTthese, slip out of his gra;
only in order to reappear and to confound i
enemy by cowardly surrenders and feigned r
treats. It was precisely the public schools whi<
drove me into despair and solitude, simply becau
I feel that if the struggle here leads to victory a
other educational institutions must give in; bi
that, if the reformer be forced to abandon h
cause here, he may as well give up all hope i
regard to every other scholastic question. There
fore, dear master, enlighten me concerning th
public schools; what can we hope for in the wa;
of their abolition or reform? "
"I also hold the question of public schools t<
be as important as you do," the philosopher replied
"All other educational institutions must fix theii
aims in accordance with those of the public schoo
system; whatever errors of judgment it maysuffei
from, they suffer from also, and if it were ever


## p. 47 (#67) ##############################################

SECOND LECTURE. 47
purified and rejuvenated, they would be purified and
rejuvenated too. The universities can no longer
lay claim to this importance as centres of influence,
seeing that, as they now stand, they are at least,
in one important aspect, only a kind of annex to
the public school system, as I shall shortly point
out to you. For the moment, let us consider,
together, what to my mind constitutes the very
hopeful struggle of the two possibilities: either
that the motley and evasive spirit of public schools
which has hitherto been fostered, will completely
vanish, or that it will have to be completely
purified and rejuvenated. And in order that I
may not shock you with general propositions, let \_
us first try to recall one of those public school
experiences which we have all had, and from which
we have all suffered. Under severe examination
what, as a matter of fact, is the present system of
teaching German in public schools?
"I shall first of all tell you what it should
be. Everybody speaks and writes German as
thoroughly badly as it is just possible to do so in
an age of newspaper German: that is why the
growing youth who happens to be both noble and
gifted has to be taken by force and put under the
glass shade of good taste and of severe linguistic
discipline. If this is not possible, I would prefer
in future that Latin be spoken ; for I am ashamed
of a language so bungled and vitiated.
"What would be the duty of a higher educa-
tional institution, in this respect, if not this—
namely, with authority and dignified severity to
put youths, neglected, as far as their own language
V


## p. 48 (#68) ##############################################

48 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
is concerned, on the right path, and to cr
them: 'Take your own language seriously!
who does not regard this matter as a sacred i
does not possess even the germ of a higher cul
From your attitude in this matter, from j
treatment of your mother-tongue, we can ju
how highly or how lowly you esteem art, anc
what extent you are related to it. If you nc
no physical loathing in yourselves when you n
with certain words and tricks of speech in
journalistic jargon, cease from striving after i
ture; for here in your immediate vicinity, at ev
moment of your life, while you are either speak
or writing, you have a touchstone for testing h
difficult, how stupendous, the task of the cultu
man is, and how very improbable it must be tl
many of you will ever attain to culture. '
"In accordance with the spirit of this addre
the teacher of German at a public school woi
be forced to call his pupil's attention to thousan
of details, and with the absolute certainty of go
taste, to forbid their using such words and expr<
sions, for instance, as: 'beanspruchen] 'verei
nakmen,' 'einer Sache Rechnung tragen' 'die Ini
ativeergreifen''selbstverstdndlick'* etc. ,cum tcea
in infinitum. The same teacher would also ha-
to take our classical authors and show, line for lin
how carefully and with what precision every e:
pression has to be chosen when a writer has tl
* It is not practicable to translate these German solecisn
by similar instances of English solecisms. The reader wl
is interested in the subject will find plenty of material in
book like the Oxford King's English.
N


## p. 49 (#69) ##############################################

SECOND LECTURE. 49
correct feeling in his heart and has before his eyes
a perfect conception of all he is writing. He would
necessarily urge his pupils, time and again, to ex-
press the same thought ever more happily; nor
would he have to abate in rigour until the less
gifted in his class had contracted an unholy fear
of their language, and the others had developed
great enthusiasm for it.
"Here then is a task for so-called 'formal'
education * [the education tending to develop the
mental faculties, as opposed to ' material' educa-
tion^ which is intended to deal only with the
acquisition of facts, e. g. history, mathematics, etc. ],
and one of the utmost value: but what do we find
in the public school—that is to say, in the head-
quarters of formal education? He who under-
stands how to apply what he has heard here will also
know what to think of the modern public school
as a so-called educational institution. He will dis-
cover, for instance, that the public school, according
to its fundamental principles, does not educate for the
purposes of culture, but for the purposes of scholar-
ship; and, further, that of late it seems to have
adopted a course which indicates rather that it has
even discarded scholarship in favour of journalism
as the object of its exertions. This can be clearly'
seen from the way in which German is taught.
"Instead of that purely practical method of
instruction by which the teacher accustoms his
pupils to severe self-discipline in their own
language, we find everywhere the rudiments of a
* German : Formelle Bildung.
t German : Materielle Bildung.
D
f~


## p. 50 (#70) ##############################################

50 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIO:
historico-scholastic method of teaching the mc
tongue: that is to say, people deal with it a«
were a dead language and as if the presenl
future were under no obligations to it whatsc
The historical method has become so univers
our time, that even the living body of the lang
is sacrificed for the sake of anatomical study,
this is precisely where culture begins—namel;
understanding how to treat the quick as sometl
vital, and it is here too that the mission of
cultured teacher begins: in suppressing the ur|
-- claims of ' historical interests ' wherever it is at
all necessary to do properly and not merely
know properly. Our mother-tongue, howevei
a domain in which the pupil must learn how
do properly, and to this practical end, alone,
teaching of German is essential in our schola;
establishments. The historical method may c
tainly be a considerably easier and more co
fortable one for the teacher; it also seems to
compatible with a much lower grade of abili
and, in general, with a smaller display of ener
and will on his part. But we shall find that tl
observation holds good in every department
pedagogic life: the simpler and more comfortab
method always masquerades in the disguise i
grand pretensions and stately titles; the real!
practical side, the doing, which should belong to cu
ture and which, at bottom, is the more difficult sid
meets only with disfavour and contempt. Tha
is why the honest man must make himself am
others quite clear concerning this quid pro quo.
"Now, apart from these learned incentives to;


## p. 51 (#71) ##############################################

SECOND LECTURE. 51
study of the language, what is there besides which
the German teacher is wont to offer? How does
he reconcile the spirit of his school with the spirit
of the few that Germany can claim who are really
cultured,—i. e.
with the spirit of its classical poets
and artists? This is a dark and thorny sphere,
into which one cannot even bear a light without
dread; but even here we shall conceal nothing
from ourselves; for sooner or later the whole of it
will have to be reformed. In the public school,
the repulsive impress of our aesthetic journalism is
stamped upon the still unformed minds of youths.
Here, too, the teacher sows the seeds of that
crude and wilful misinterpretation of the classics,
which later on disports itself as art-criticism, and
which is nothing but bumptious barbarity. Here
the pupils learn to speak of our unique Schiller
with the superciliousness of prigs; here they are
taught to smile at the noblest and most German
of his works—at the Marquis of Posa, at Max and
Thekla—at these smiles German genius becomes
incensed and a worthier posterity will blush.
"The last department in which the German
teacher in a public school is at all active, which is
often regarded as his sphere of highest activity, and
is here and there even considered the pinnacle of
public school education,is the so-called German com-
position. Owing to the very fact that in this depart-
ment it is almost always the most gifted pupils who
display the greatest eagerness, it ought to have been
made clear how dangerously stimulating, precisely
here, the task of the teacher must be. German
composition makes an appeal to the individual, and


## p. 52 (#72) ##############################################

52 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
the more strongly a pupil is conscious ol
various qualities, the more personally will h<
his German composition. This 'personal do
is urged on with yet an additional fillip in s
public schools by the choice of the subject,
strongest proof of which is, in my opinion,
even in the lower classes the non-pedag<
subject is set, by means of which the pupil is
to give a description of his life and of his devel
ment. Now, one has only to read the titles of
compositions set in a large number of pul
schools to be convinced that probably the la
majority of pupils have to suffer their whole In
through no fault of their own, owing to t
premature demand for personal work—for 1
unripe procreation of thoughts. And how oft
are not all a man's subsequent literary perfon
ances but a sad result of this pedagogic origir.
sin against the intellect!
"Let us only think of what takes place at su<
an age in the production of such work. It is tl
first individual creation; the still undevelope
powers tend for the first time to crystallise; tr
staggering sensation produced by the demand fc
self-reliance imparts a seductive charm to thes
early performances, which is not only quite nev
but which never returns. All the daring of natur
is hauled out of its depths; all vanities—n<
longer constrained by mighty barriers—an
allowed for the first time to assume a literarj
form: the young man, from that time forward
feels as if he had reached his consummation as a
being not only able, but actually invited, to speak


## p. 53 (#73) ##############################################

SECOND LECTURE. 53
and to converse. The subject he selects obliges
him either to express his judgment upon certain
poetical works, to class historical persons together
in a description of character, to discuss serious
ethical problems quite independently, or even to
turn the searchlight inwards, to throw its rays
upon his own development and to make a critical
report of himself: in short, a whole world of
reflection is spread out before the astonished young
man who, until then, had been almost unconscious,
and is delivered up to him to be judged.
"Now let us try to picture the teacher's usual
attitude towards these first highly influential
examples of original composition. What does
he hold to be most reprehensible in this class of
work? What does he call his pupil's attention
to? —To all excess in form or thought—that is
to say, to all that which, at their age, is essentially
characteristic and individual. Their really in-
dependent traits which, in response to this very
premature excitation, can manifest themselves only
in awkwardness, crudeness, and grotesque features,
—in short, their individuality is reproved and
rejected by the teacher in favour of an unoriginal
decent average. On,the other hand, uniform medio-
crity gets peevish praise; for, as a rule, it is just the
class of work likely to bore the teacher thoroughly.
"There may still be men who recognise a most
absurd and most dangerous element of the public
school curriculum in the whole farce of this
German composition. Originality is demanded
here: but the only shape in which it can manifest
itself is rejected, and the ' formal' education that


## p. 54 (#74) ##############################################

54 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
the system takes for granted is attained to on!
a very limited number of men who complete
a ripe age. ^Here everybody without except!
regarded as gifted for literature and consider*
capable of holding opinions concerning the
important questions and people, whereas the
aim which proper education should most zealo
strive to achieve would be the suppression ol
ridiculous claims to independent judgment,
the inculcation upon young men of obedienc
the sceptre of genius. Here a pompous forrj
diction is taught in an age when every spokei
written word is a piece of barbarism. Now lei
consider, besides, the danger of arousing the s
complacency which is so easily awakened in yout
let us think how their vanity must be flatte
when they see their literary reflection for the f.
time in the mirror. Who, having seen all th
effects at one glance, could any longer doi
whether all the faults of our public, literary, a
artistic life were not stamped upon every fre
generation by the system we are examining: has
and vain production, the disgraceful manufacture
books; complete want of style; the crude, characte
less, or sadly swaggering method of expression; tl
(loss of every aesthetic canon; the voluptuousne
of anarchy and chaos—in short, the literary pecu
arities of both our journalism and our scholarshi
"None but the very fewest are aware tha
among many thousands, perhaps only one
justified in describing himself as literary, an
that all others who at their own risk try to be s
deserve to be met with Homeric laughter by a.


## p. 55 (#75) ##############################################

SECOND LECTURE. 55
competent men as a reward for every sentence
they have ever had printed;—for it is truly a
spectacle meet for the gods to see a literary
Hephaistos limping forward who would pretend
to help us to something. To educate men to
earnest and inexorable habits and views, in this
respect, should be the highest aim of all mental
training, whereas the general laisser aller of the
'fine personality' can be nothing else than the
hall-mark of barbarism. From what I have
said, however, it must be clear that, at least in
the teaching of German, no thought is given to
culture; something quite different is in view,—
namely, the production of the afore-mentioned ,»
'free personality. ' And so long as German
public schools prepare the road for outrageous
and irresponsible scribbling, so long as they do
not regard the immediate and practical discipline ,
of speaking and writing as their most holy duty, so I
long as they treat the mother-tongue as if it were 1
only a necessary evil or a dead body, I shall not )
regard these institutions as belonging to real culture. I
"In regard to the language, what is surely least
noticeable is any trace of the influence of classical
examples: that is why, on the strength of this
consideration alone, the so-called 'classical
education' which is supposed to be provided by
our public school, strikes me as something ex-
ceedingly doubtful and confused. For how could
anybody, after having cast one glance at those
examples, fail to see the great earnestness with
which the Greek and the Roman regarded and
treated his language, from his youth onwards,—
f


## p. 56 (#76) ##############################################

$6 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
how is it possible to mistake one's example
point like this one? —provided, of course,
the classical Hellenic and Roman world re
did hover before the educational plan of
public schools as the highest and most instruc
of all morals—a fact I feel very much inclinec
doubt. The claim put forward by public sch<
concerning the 'classical education' they prov
seems to be more an awkward evasion tl
anything else; it is used whenever there is a
question raised as to the competency of the put
schools to impart culture and to educate. Classi
education, indeed! It sounds so dignified!
confounds the aggressor and staves off the assault
for who could see to the bottom of this bewilderi;
formula all at once? And this has long been t
customary strategy of the public school: fro
whichever side the war-cry may come, it writ
upon its shield—not overloaded with honours-
one of those confusing catchwords, such a;
'classical education,' 'formal education,' 'scientif
education':—three glorious things which an
however, unhappily at loggerheads, not only wit
themselves but among themselves, and are suci
that, if they were compulsorily brought togethei
would perforce bring forth a culture-monster
For a ' classical education' is something so unhearc
of, difficult and rare, and exacts such complicatec
talent, that only ingenuousness or impudence
could put it forward as an attainable goal in out
public schools. The words: 'formal education'
belong to that crude kind of unphilosophical
phraseology which one should do one's utmost


## p. 57 (#77) ##############################################

SECOND LECTURE. 57
to get rid of; for there is no such thing as 'the
opposite of formal education. ' And he who
regards 'scientific education' as the object of a
public school thereby sacrifices 'classical educa-
tion' and the so-called ' formal education/ at one
stroke, as the scientific man and the cultured
man belong to two different spheres which, though
coming together at times in the same individual,
are never reconciled.
"If we compare- all three of these would-be
aims of the public school with the actual facts to
be observed in the present method of. teaching
German, we see immediately what they really
amount to in practice,—-that is to say, only to
subterfuges for use in the fight and struggle for
existence and, often enough, mere means where-
with to bewilder an opponent. For we are
unable to detect any single feature in this
teaching of German which in any way recalls
the example of classical antiquity and its glorious
methods of training in languages. 'Formal
education,' however, which is supposed to be
achieved by this method of teaching German, has
been shown to be wholly at the pleasure of the
'free personality,' which is as good as saying
that it is barbarism and anarchy. And as for
the preparation in science, which is one of the
consequences of this teaching, our Germanists
will have to determine, in all justice, how little
these learned beginnings in public schools have
contributed to the splendour of their sciences,
and how much the personality of individual
university professors has done so. —Put briefly:


## p. 58 (#78) ##############################################

58 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
the public school has hitherto neglected its r
important and most urgent duty towards the'
beginning of all real culture, which is the mot
tongue; but in so doing it has lacked the nati
fertile soil for all further efforts at culture,
only by means of stern, artistic, and car
discipline and habit, in a language, can the con
feeling for the greatness of our classical writers
strengthened. Up to the present their recog
tion by the public schools has been owing aim
solely to the doubtful aesthetic hobbies of a i
teachers or to the massive effects of certain
their tragedies and novels. But everybody shou
himself, be aware of the difficulties of 1
language: he should have learnt them from e
perience: after long seeking and struggling
must reach the path our great poets trod in ord
to be able to realise how lightly and beautiful
they trod it, and how stiffly and swaggeringly tl
others follow at their heels.
"Only by means of such discipline can tl
young man acquire that physical loathing for tl
beloved and much-admired 'elegance' of style <
our newspaper manufacturers and novelists, an
for the 'ornate style' of our literary men; by:
alone is he irrevocably elevated at a stroke abov
a whole host of absurd questions and scruple;
such, for instance, as whether Auerbach anc
Gutzkow are really poets, for his disgust at botl
will be so great that he will be unable to reac
them any longer, and thus the problem will be
solved for him. Let no one imagine that it is an
easy matter to develop this feeling to the extent
S


## p. 59 (#79) ##############################################

SECOND LECTURE. 59
necessary in order to have this physical loathing;
but let no one hope to reach sound aesthetic judg-
ments along any other road than the thorny one
of language, and by this I do not mean philo-
logical research, but self-discipline in one's mother-
tongue.
"Everybody who is in earnest in this matter 'Sti. iUv.
will have the same sort of experience as the
recruit in the army who is compelled to learn
walking after having walked almost all his life as
a dilettante or empiricist. It is a hard time: one
almost fears that the tendons are going to snap
and one ceases to hope that the artificial and
consciously acquired movements and positions of
the feet will ever be carried out with ease and
comfort. It is painful to see how awkwardly and
heavily one foot is set before the other, and one
dreads that one may not only be unable to learn
the new way of walking, but that one will forget
how to walk at all. Then it suddenly becomes
noticeable that a new habit and a second nature
have been born of the practised movements, and
that the assurance and strength of the old manner
of walking returns with a little more grace: at
this point one begins to realise how difficult
walking is, and one feels in a position to laugh
at the untrained empiricist or the elegant dilettante.
Our * elegant' writers, as their style shows, have
never learnt 'walking' in this sense, and in our
public schools, as our other writers show, no one
learns walking either. Culture begins, however,
with the correct movement of the language: and
once it has properly begun, it begets that physical


## p. 60 (#80) ##############################################

60 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIOIS
sensation in the presence of ' elegant' writers w
is known by the name of' loathing. '
"We recognise the fatal consequences of
present public schools, in that they are unabl
inculcate severe and genuine culture, which sh<
consist above all in obedience and habituation;
that, at their best, they much more often ach
a result by stimulating and kindling scien
tendencies, is shown by the hand which is
frequently seen uniting scholarship and barbar
taste, science and journalism. In a very la
majority of cases to-day we can observe how sa>
our scholars fall short of the standard of cult;
which the efforts of Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, a
Winckelmann established; and this falling shi
shows itself precisely in the egregious err<
which the men we speak of are exposed to, equai
among literary historians—whether Gervinus
Julian Schmidt—as in any other compan;
everywhere, indeed, where men and worm
converse. It shows itself most frequently ar
painfully, however, in pedagogic spheres, in tl
literature of public schools. It can be prove
that the only value that these men have in a re;
educational establishment has not been mentionec
much less generally recognised for half a century
their value as preparatory leaders and mysto
gogues of classical culture, guided by whose hand;
alone can the correct road leading to antiquity b(
found.
"Every so-called classical education can have
but one natural starting-point—an artistic, earnest,
and exact familiarity with the use of the mother-
\


## p. 61 (#81) ##############################################

SECOND LECTURE. 6l
tongue: this, together with the secret of form,
however, one can seldom attain to of one's own ac-
cord, almost everybody requires those great leaders
and tutors and must place himself in their hands.
There is, however, no such thing as a classical
education that could grow without this inferred
love of form. Here, where the power of discerning
form and barbarity gradually awakens, there appear
the pinions which bear one to the only real home of
culture—ancient Greece. If with the solitary help
of those pinions we sought to reach those far-distant
and diamond-studded walls encircling the strong-
hold of Hellenism, we should certainly not get very
far; once more, therefore, we need the same leaders
and tutors, our German classical writers, that we
may be borne up, too, by the wing-strokes of their
past endeavours—to the land of yearning, to Greece.
"Not a suspicion of this possible relationship
between our classics and classical education seems
to have pierced the antique walls of public schools.
Philologists seem much more eagerly engaged in
introducing Homer and Sophocles to the young
souls of their pupils, in their own style, calling the
result simply by the unchallenged euphemism:
'classical education. ' Let every one's own experi-
ence tell him what he had of Homer and Sophocles
at the hands of such eager teachers. It is in this
department that the greatest number of deepest
deceptions occur, and whence misunderstandings
are inadvertently spread. In German public schools
I have never yet found a trace of what might really
be called 'classical education,' and there is nothing
surprising in this when one thinks of the way in


## p. 62 (#82) ##############################################

62 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIOI
which these institutions have emancipated t
selves from German classical writers and the
cipline of the German language. Nobody res
antiquity by means of a leap into the dark, anc
the whole method of treating ancient writer
schools, the plain commentating and paraphra
of our philological teachers, amounts to notl
more than a leap into the dark.
"The feeling for classical Hellenism is, s
matter of fact, such an exceptional outcome of
most energetic fight for culture and artistic ta]
that the public school could only have profes
to awaken this feeling owing to a very crude n
understanding. In what age? In an age wh
is led about blindly by the most sensational desi
of the day, and which is not aware of the fact th
once that feeling for Hellenism is roused, it i
mediately becomes aggressive and must expr<
itself by indulging in an incessant war with the 5
called culture of the present. For the public schc
boy of to-day, the Hellenes as Hellenes are deai
yes, he gets some enjoyment out of Homer, but
novel by Spielhagen interests him much more: ye
he swallows Greek tragedy and comedy with
certain relish, but a thoroughly modern drama, lik
Freitag's' Journalists,' moves him in quite anothe
fashion. In regard to all ancient authors he i
rather inclined to speak after the manner of th
aesthete, Hermann Grimm, who, on one occasion, a
the end of a tortuous essay on the Venus of Mile
asks himself: ' What does this goddess's form meat
to me? Of what use are the thoughts she suggest;
to me? Orestes and CEdipus, Iphigenia and Anti-


## p. 63 (#83) ##############################################

SECOND LECTURE. 63
gone, what have they in common with my heart? '—
No, my dear public school boy, the Venus of Milo
does not concern you in any way, and concerns
your teacher just as little—and that is the mis-
fortune, that is the secret of the modern public
school. Who will conduct you to the land of
culture, if your leaders are blind and assume the
position of seers notwithstanding? Which of you
will ever attain to a true feeling for the sacred I
seriousness of art, if you are systematically spoiled, |
and taught to stutter independently instead of being
taught to speak; to aestheticise on your own ac-
count, when you ought to be taught to approach
works of art almost piously; to philosophise with-
out assistance, while you ought to be compelled to
listen to great thinkers. All this with the result
that you remain eternally at a distance from
antiquity and become the servants of the day.
"At all events, the most wholesome feature of
our modern institutions is to be found in the
earnestness with which the Latin and Greek
languages are studied over a long course of years.
In this way boys learn to respect a grammar,
lexicons, and a language that conforms to fixed
rules; in this department of public school work
there is an exact knowledge of what constitutes a
fault, and no one is troubled with any thought of
justifying himself every minute by appealing (as in
the case of modern German) to various grammatical
and orthographical vagaries and vicious forms. If
only this respect for language did not hang in the
air so, like a theoretical burden which one is pleased
to throw off the moment one turns to one's mother-


## p. 64 (#84) ##############################################

64 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIOI
tongue! More often than not, the classical m
makes pretty short work of the mother-tongue;
the outset he treats it as a department of knowl
in which one is allowed that indolent ease
which the German treats everything that bel
to his native soil. The splendid practice affo
by translating from one language into ano
which so improves and fertilises one's artistic fet
for one's own tongue, is, in the case of Gen
never conducted with that fitting categorical st
ness and dignity which would be above all neces
in dealing with an undisciplined language. Of
exercises of this kind have tended to decrease ■
more and more: people are satisfied to know
foreign classical tongues, they would scorn be
able to apply them.
"Here one gets another glimpse of the schol;
tendency of public schools: a phenomenon wr.
throws much light upon the object which o
animated them,—that is to say, the serious de;
to cultivate the pupil. This belonged to the ti
of our great poets, those few really cultu:
Germans,—the time when the magnificent Frii
rich August Wolf directed the new stream
classical thought, introduced from Greece a
Rome by those men, into the heart of the pub
schools. Thanks to his bold start, a new order
public schools was established, which thenceforwa
was not to be merely a nursery for science, bi
above all, the actual consecrated home of <
higher and nobler culture.
"Of the many necessary measures which th
change called into being, some of the most in


## p. 65 (#85) ##############################################

SECOND LECTURE. 65
portant have been transferred with lasting success
to the modern regulations of public schools: the
most important of all, however, did not succeed—
the one demanding that the teacher, also, should
be consecrated to the new spirit, so that the aim
of the public school has meanwhile considerably
departed from the original plan laid down by Wolf,
which was the cultivation of the pupil. The old
estimate of scholarship and scholarly culture, as an
absolute, which Wolf overcame, seems after a slow
and spiritless struggle rather to have taken the
place of the culture-principle of more recent intro-
duction, and now claims its former exclusive rights,
though not with the same frankness, but disguised
and with features veiled. And the reason why it
was impossible to make public schools fall in with
the magnificent plan of classical culture lay in the
un-German, almost foreign or cosmopolitan nature
of these efforts in the cause of education: in the
belief that it was possible to remove the native soil
from under a man's feet and that he should still
remain standing; in the illusion that people can
spring direct, without bridges, into the strange
Hellenic world, by abjuring German and the
German mind in general.
"Of course one must know how to trace this
Germanic spirit to its lair beneath its many modern
dressings, or even beneath heaps of ruins; one
must love it so that one is not ashamed of it in
its stunted form, and one must above all be on
one's guard against confounding it with what
now disports itself proudly as 'Up-to-date Ger-
man culture. ' The German spirit is very far from
E


## p. 66 (#86) ##############################################

66 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIC
being on friendly times with this up-to-date ci
and precisely in those spheres where the
complains of a lack of culture the real Gc
spirit has survived, though perhaps not a
with a graceful, but more often an ungra
exterior. On the other hand, that which
grandiloquently assumes the title of' Germar
ture' is a sort of cosmopolitan aggregate, \
bears the same relation to the German spij
Journalism does to Schiller or Meyerbeer to ]
hoven: here the strongest influence at work i;
fundamentally and thoroughly un-German civ;
tion of France, which is aped neither with fc
nor with taste, and the imitation of which j:
the society, the press, the art, and the lite
style of Germany their pharisaical chara
Naturally the copy nowhere produces the re
artistic effect which the original, grown out of
heart of Roman civilisation, is able to prod
almost to this day in France. Let any one \
wishes to see the full force of this contrast comp
our most noted novelists with the less noted o
of France or Italy: he will recognise in both
same doubtful tendencies and aims, as also
same still more doubtful means, but in France
will find them coupled with artistic earnestness,
least with grammatical purity, and often w
beauty, while in their every feature he will recc
nise the echo of a corresponding social cultu
In Germany, on the other hand, they will strike hi
as unoriginal, flabby, filled with dressing-gov
thoughts and expressions, unpleasantly spread 01
and therewithal possessing no background


## p. 67 (#87) ##############################################

SECOND LECTURE. 6j
social form. At the most, owing to their scholarly
mannerisms and display of knowledge, he will be
reminded of the fact that in Latin countries it is
the artistically-trained man, and that in Germany
it is the abortive scholar, who becomes a journalist.
With this would-be German and thoroughly un-
original culture, the German can nowhere reckon
upon victory: the Frenchman and the Italian will
always get the better of him in this respect, while,
in regard to the clever imitation of a foreign cul-
ture, the Russian, above all, will always be his
superior.
"We are therefore all the more anxious to hold
fast to that German spirit which revealed itself in
the German Reformation, and in German music,
and which has shown its enduring and genuine
strength in the enormous courage and severity of
German philosophy and in the loyalty of the
German soldier, which has been tested quite re- t
cently. From it we expect a victory over that \
'up-to-date' pseudo-culture which is now the
fashion. What we should hope for the future is
that schools may draw the real school of culture
into this struggle, and kindle the flame of enthu-
siasm in the younger generation, more particularly
in public schools, for that which is truly German;
and in this way so-called classical education will
resume its natural place and recover its one pos-
sible starting-point.
"A thorough reformation and purification of the
public school can only be the outcome of a pro-
found and powerful reformation and purification
of the German spirit. It is a very complex and
J


## p. 68 (#88) ##############################################

68 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
difficult task to find the border-line which join
heart of the Germanic spirit with the genii
Greece. Not, however, before the noblest r
of genuine German genius snatch at the han
this genius of Greece as at a firm post in
torrent of barbarity, not before a devouring ye
ing for this genius of Greece takes possessio
German genius, and not before that view of
Greek home, on which Schiller and Goethe, i
enormous exertions, were able to feast their e
has become the Mecca of the best and most gi
men, will the aim of classical education in pu
schools acquire any definition; and they at li
will not be to blame who teach ever so li
science and learning in public schools, in orde:
keep a definite and at the same time ideal ain
their eyes, and to rescue their pupils from t
glistening phantom which now allows itself to
called 'culture' and 'education. ' This is the:
plight of the public school of to-day: the narrow
views remain in a certain measure right, beca
no one seems able to reach or, at least, to indie
the spot where all these views culminate
error. "
"No one? " the philosopher's pupil inquii
with a slight quaver in his voice; and both m
were silent.
X


## p. 69 (#89) ##############################################

THIRD LECTURE.
(Delivered on the T]th of February 1872. )
Ladies and Gentlemen,—At the close of my
last lecture, the conversation to which 1 was a
listener, and the outlines of which, as I clearly re-
collect them, I am now trying to lay before you,
was interrupted by a long and solemn pause.
Both the philosopher and his companion sat silent,
sunk in deep dejection: the peculiarly critical state
of that important educational institution, the Ger-
man public school, lay upon their souls like a heavy
burden, which one single, well-meaning individual
is not strong enough to remove, and the multitude,
though strong, not well meaning enough.
Our solitary thinkers were perturbed by two
facts: by clearly perceiving on the one hand that
what might rightly be called " classical education"
was now only a far-off ideal, a castle in the air,
which could not possibly be built as a reality on
the foundations of our present educational system,
and that, on the other hand, what was now, with
customary and unopposed euphemism, pointed to
as " classical education " could only claim the value
of a pretentious illusion, the best effect of which
was that the expression "classical education" still
lived on and had not yet lost its pathetic sound.


## p. 70 (#90) ##############################################

70 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION:
These two worthy men saw clearly, by the sys
of instruction in vogue, that the time was not
ripe for a higher culture, a culture founded u
that of the ancients: the neglected state of
guistic instruction; the forcing of students i
learned historical paths, instead of giving thei
practical training; the connection of certain pi
tices, encouraged in the public schools, with
objectionable spirit of our journalistic publicity
all these easily perceptible phenomena of
teaching of German led to the painful certaii
that the most beneficial of those forces which h;
come down to us from classical antiquity are i
yet known in our public schools: forces wh
would train students for the struggle against 1
barbarism of the present age, and which will pi
haps once more transform the public schools ir
the arsenals and workshops of this struggle.
On the other hand, it would seem in the mea
time as if the spirit of antiquity, in its fundamen
principles, had already been driven away from t
portals of the public schools, and as if here al
the gates were thrown open as widely as possib
to the be-flattered and pampered type of our prese
self-styled " German culture. " And if the solita
talkers caught a glimpse of a single ray of hope,
was that things would have to become still wors
that what was as yet divined only by the few wou
soon be clearly perceived by the many, and th<
then the time for honest and resolute men for tl
earnest consideration of the scope of the educatio
of the masses would not be far distant.
After a few minutes' silent reflection, the philc


## p. 71 (#91) ##############################################

THIRD LECTURE. 71
sopher's companion turned to him and said : " You
used to hold out hopes to me, but now you have
done more: you have widened my intelligence, and
with it my strength and courage: now indeed can
I look on the field of battle with more hardihood,
now indeed do I repent of my too hasty flight.
We want nothing for ourselves, and it should be
nothing to us how many individuals may fall in
this battle, or whether we ourselves may be among
the first. Just because we take this matter so
seriously, we should not take our own poor selves
so seriously: at the very moment we are falling
some one else will grasp the banner of our faith.
I will not even consider whether I am strong enough
for such a fight, whether I can offer sufficient re-
sistance; it may even be an honourable death to
fall to the accompaniment of the mocking laughter
of such enemies, whose seriousness has frequently
seemed to us to be something ridiculous. When
I think how my contemporaries prepared them-
selves for the highest posts in the scholastic pro-
fession, as I myself have done, then I know how
we often laughed at the exact contrary, and grew
serious over something quite different"
"Now, my friend," interrupted the philosopher,
laughingly, "you speak as one who would fain dive
into the water without being able to swim, and
who fears something even more than the mere
drowning; not being drowned, but laughed at.
But being laughed at should be the very last thing
for us to dread; for we are in a sphere where there
are too many truths to tell, too many formidable,
painful, unpardonable truths, for us to escape hatred,


## p. 72 (#92) ##############################################

72 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
and only fury here and there will give rise to so
sort of embarrassed laughter. Just think of the
numerable crowd of teachers, who, in all good fai
have assimilated the system of education which 1
prevailed up to the present, that they may chei
fully and without over-much deliberation carry
further on. What do you think it will seem li
to these men when they hear of projects from whi
they are excluded beneficio natures; of comman
which their mediocre abilities are totally unable
carry out; of hopes which find no echo in ther
of battles the war-cries of which they do not unde
stand, and in the fighting of which they can tai
part only as dull and obtuse rank and file? Bi
without exaggeration, that must necessarily be tl
position of practically all the teachers in our high'
educational establishments: and indeed we canm
wonder at this when we consider how such
teacher originates, how he becomes a teacher (
such high status. Such a large number of hight
educational establishments are now to be foun
everywhere that far more teachers will continue t
be required for them than the nature of even
highly-gifted people can produce; and thus ai
inordinate stream of undesirable sflows into thesi
institutions, who, however, by their preponderating
numbers and their instinct of similis simile gaudet
gradually come to determine the nature of these
institutions. There may be a few people, hope-
lessly unfamiliar with pedagogical matters, who
believe that our present profusion of public schools
and teachers, which is manifestly out of all propor-
tion, can be changed into a real profusion, an


## p. 73 (#93) ##############################################

THIRD LECTURE. 73
ubertas ingenii, merely by a few rules and regula-
tions, and without any reduction in the number of
these institutions. But we may surely be unanimous
in recognising that by the very nature of things
only an exceedingly small number of people are
destined for a true course of education, and that
a much smaller number of higher educational
establishments would suffice for their further
development, but that, in view of the present large
numbers of educational institutions, those for whom
in general such institutions ought only to be
established must feel themselves to be the least
facilitated in their progress.
"The same holds good in regard to teachers. It
is precisely the best teachers—those who, generally
speaking, judged by a high standard, are worthy
of this honourable name—who are now perhaps
the least fitted, in view of the present standing of
our public schools, for the education of these un-
selected youths, huddled together in a confused
heap; but who must rather, to a certain extent,
keep hidden from them the best they could give:
and, on the other hand, by far the larger number
of these teachers feel themselves quite at home in
these institutions, as their moderate abilities stand:
in a kind of harmonious relationship to the dullness |
of their pupils. It is from this majority that we
hear the ever-resounding call for the establishment
of new public schools and higher educational in-
stitutions : we are living in an age which, by ringing
the changes on its deafening and continual cry,
would certainly give one the impression that there
was an unprecedented thirst for culture which


## p. 74 (#94) ##############################################

74 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
eagerly sought to be quenched. But it is juj
this point that one should learn to hear aright
is here, without being disconcerted by the thun
ing noise of the education-mongers, that we n
confront those who talk so tirelessly about
educational necessities of their time. Then
should meet with a strange disillusionment, i
which we, my good friend, have often met wi
those blatant heralds of educational needs, wl
examined at close quarters, are suddenly seen to
transformed into zealous, yea, fanatical oppone
of true culture, i. e. all those who hold fast to 1
aristocratic nature of the mind; for, at bottc
they regard as their goal the emancipation of (
masses from the mastery of the great few; th
seek to overthrow the most sacred hierarchy in t
kingdom of the intellect—the servitude of t
masses, their submissive obedience, their instin
of loyalty to the rule of genius.
"I have long accustomed myself to look wi;
caution upon those who are ardent in the cause
the so-called 'education of the people' in tl
common meaning of the phrase; since for tr
most part they desire for themselves, conscious!
or unconsciously, absolutely unlimited freedon
which must inevitably degenerate into somethin
resembling the saturnalia of barbaric times, an
which the sacred hierarchy of nature will neve
grant them. They were born to serve and ti
•obey; and every moment in which their limpinj
or crawling or broken-winded thoughts are at worl
shows us clearly out of which clay nature mouldec
them, and what trade mark she branded thereon


## p. 75 (#95) ##############################################

THIRD LECTURE.
75
The education of the masses cannot, therefore, be
our aim; but rather the education of a few picked -»
men for great and lasting works. We well know
that a just posterity judges the collective intellec-
tual state of a time only by those few great and
lonely figures of the period, and gives its decision
in accordance with the manner in which they are
recognised, encouraged, and honoured, or, on the
other hand, in which they are snubbed, elbowed
aside, and kept down. What is called the 'educa-
tion of the masses' cannot be accomplished except
with difficulty; and even if a system of universal
compulsory education be applied, they can only
be reached outwardly: those individual lower levels
where, generally speaking, the masses come into
contact with culture, where the people nourishes
its religious instinct, where it poetises its mytho-
logical images, where it keeps up its faith in its
customs, privileges, native soil, and language—all
these levels can scarcely be reached by direct
means, and in any case only by violent demolition.
And, in serious matters of this kind, to hasten for-
ward the progress of the education of the people
means simply the postponement of this violent
demolition, and the maintenance of that whole-
some unconsciousness, that sound sleep, of the
people, without which counter-action and remedy \
no culture, with the exhausting strain and \
excitement of its own actions, can make any—
headway.
"We know, however, what the aspiration is of
those who would disturb the healthy slumber of
the people, and continually call out to them;
/'"
S"


## p. 76 (#96) ##############################################

j6 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
'Keep your eyes open! Be sensible! Be wi
we know the aim of those who profess to sal
excessive educational requirements by mean:
an extraordinary increase in the number of edi
tional institutions and the conceited tribe of teacl
originated thereby. These very people, using tr
~ *very means, are fighting against the natural b
: archy in the realm of the intellect, and destroy
the roots of all those noble and sublime pla:
forces which have their material origin in
unconsciousness of the people, and which fittini
terminate in the procreation of genius and its c
guidance and proper training. It is only in I
simile of the mother that we can grasp the me;
ing and the responsibility of the true education
the people in respect to genius: its real origin
not to be found in such education; it has, so
speak, only a metaphysical source, a metaphysic
home. But for the genius to make his appearanc
for him to emerge from among the people; to pc
tray the reflected picture, as it were, the dazzlii
brilliancy of the peculiar colours of this people;
depict the noble destiny of a people in the simi]
tude of an individual in a work which will last f<
all time, thereby making his nation itself eterns
and redeeming it from the ever-shifting element <
transient things: all this is possible for the genii
only when he has been brought up and come t
maturity in the tender care of the culture of
people; whilst, on the other hand, without thi
-- sheltering home, the genius will not, generall;
speaking, be able to rise to the height of his eterna
flight, but will at an early moment, like a strange:


## p. 77 (#97) ##############################################

THIRD LECTURE. 77
weather-driven upon a bleak, snow-covered desert,
slink away from the inhospitable land. "
"You astonish me with such a metaphysics of
genius," said the teacher's companion, " and I have
only a hazy conception of the accuracy of your
similitude. On the other hand, I fully understand
what you have said about the surplus of public
schools and the corresponding surplus of higher
grade teachers; and in this regard I myself have
collected some information which assures me that
the educational tendency of the public school must
right itself by this very surplus of teachers who
have really nothing at all to do with education,
and who are called into existence and pursue this
path solely because there is a demand for them.
Every man who, in an unexpected moment of
enlightenment, has convinced himself of the singu-
larity and inaccessibility of Hellenic antiquity, and
has warded off this conviction after an exhausting
struggle—every such man knows that the door
leading to this enlightenment will never remain
open to all comers; and he deems it absurd, yea
disgraceful, to use the Greeks as he would any
other tool he employs when following his profes-
sion or earning his living, shamelessly fumbling
with coarse hands amidst the relics of these holy
men. This brazen and vulgar feeling is, however,
most common in the profession from which the
largest numbers of teachers for the public schools
are drawn, the philological profession, wherefore
the reproduction and continuation of such a feeling
in the public school will not surprise us.
"Just look at the younger generation of


## p. 78 (#98) ##############################################

78 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIOl
philologists: how seldom we see in them
humble feeling that we, when compared
such a world as it was, have no right to i
at all: how coolly and fearlessly, as comp
with us, did that young brood build its miser
nests in the midst of the magnificent temf
A powerful voice from every nook and era
should ring in the ears of those who, from
day they begin their connection with the univer;
roam at will with such self-complacency
shamelessness among the awe-inspiring relics
"that noble civilisation: 'Hence, ye uninitiai
who will never be initiated; fly away in sile
and shame from these sacred chambers! ' J
this voice speaks in vain; for one must to so
extent be a Greek to understand a Greek cu
of excommunication. But these people I;
speaking of are so barbaric that they dispose
these relics to suit themselves: all their mode
conveniences and fancies are brought with the
and concealed among those ancient pillars ai
tombstones, and it gives rise to great rejoicii
when somebody finds, among the dust ar
cobwebs of antiquity, something that he himse
had slyly hidden there not so very long befor
One of them makes verses and takes care (
consult Hesychius' Lexicon.