with great animation while the philosopher rebuked him with ever
increasing vehemence. "You are unchanged," he cried to him,
"unfortunately unchanged. It is quite incomprehensible 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 reluctantly, 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 unfortunately the same unchanged 'intellectual' character,
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, from reasons opposed to their nature and only led on by an
alluring delusion, did not devote themselves to education. It were
therefore a mistake publicly to reveal the ridiculous disproportion
between the number of really cultured people and the enormous
magnitude of the educational apparatus. Here lies the whole secret of
culture--namely, that an innumerable host of men struggle to achieve
it and work hard to that end, ostensibly in their own interests,
whereas at bottom it is only in order that it may be possible for the
few to attain to it."
"That is the principle," said the philosopher,--"and yet you could so
far forget yourself as to believe that you are one of the few? This
thought has occurred to you--I can see. That, however, is the result
of the worthless character of modern education. The rights of genius
are being democratised in order that people may be relieved of the
labour of acquiring culture, and their need of it. Every one wants if
possible to recline in the shade of the tree planted by genius, and to
escape the dreadful necessity of working for him, so that his
procreation may be made possible. What? Are you too proud to be a
teacher? Do you despise the thronging multitude of learners? Do you
speak contemptuously of the teacher's calling? And, aping my mode of
life, would you fain live in solitary seclusion, hostilely isolated
from that multitude? Do you suppose that you can reach at one bound
what I ultimately had to win for myself only after long and determined
struggles, in order even to be able to live like a philosopher? And do
you not fear that solitude will wreak its vengeance upon you? Just
try 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 incumbent 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 _minimise and weaken_ it on the
other. The first-named would, for various reasons, spread learning
among the greatest number of people; the second would compel education
to renounce its highest, noblest and sublimest claims in order to
subordinate itself to some other department of life--such as the
service of the State.
"I believe I have already hinted at the quarter in which the cry for
the greatest possible expansion of education is most loudly raised.
This expansion belongs to the most beloved of the dogmas of modern
political economy. As much knowledge and education as possible;
therefore the greatest possible supply and demand--hence as much
happiness as possible:--that is the formula. In this case utility is
made the object and goal of education,--utility in the sense of
gain--the greatest possible pecuniary gain. In the quarter now under
consideration culture would be defined as that point of vantage which
enables one to 'keep in the van of one's age,' from which one can see
all the easiest and best roads to wealth, and with which one controls
all the means of communication between men and nations. The purpose of
education, according to this scheme, would be to rear the most
'current' men possible,--'current' being used here in the sense in
which it is applied to the coins of the realm. The greater the number
of such men, the happier a nation will be; and this precisely is the
purpose of our modern educational institutions: to help every one, as
far as his nature will allow, to become 'current'; to develop him so
that his particular degree of knowledge and 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 number of men was only a means
to the earthly bliss of the few: the 'greatest possible expansion of
education' so enfeebles education that it can no longer confer
privileges or inspire respect. The most general form of culture is
simply barbarism. But I do not wish to interrupt your discussion."
The companion continued: "There are yet other reasons, besides this
beloved economical dogma, for the expansion of education that is being
striven after so valiantly everywhere. In some countries the fear of
religious oppression is so general, and the dread of its results so
marked, that people in all classes of society long for culture and
eagerly absorb those elements of it which are supposed to scatter the
religious instincts. Elsewhere the State, in its turn, strives here
and there for its own preservation, after the greatest possible
expansion of education, because it always feels strong enough to bring
the most determined emancipation, resulting from culture, under its
yoke, and readily approves of everything which tends to extend
culture, provided that it be of service to its officials or soldiers,
but in the main to itself, in its competition with other nations. In
this case, the foundations of a State must be sufficiently broad and
firm to constitute a fitting counterpart to the complicated arches of
culture which it supports, just as in the first case the traces of
some former religious tyranny must still be felt for a people to be
driven to such desperate remedies. Thus, wherever I hear the masses
raise the cry for an expansion of education, I am wont to ask myself
whether it is stimulated by a greedy lust 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 even admired, and their ever greater deviation
from the path of true culture is regarded as a moral phenomenon.
'Fidelity in small things,' 'dogged faithfulness,' become expressions
of highest eulogy, and the lack of culture outside the speciality is
flaunted abroad as a sign of noble sufficiency.
"For centuries it has been an understood thing that one alluded to
scholars alone when one spoke of cultured men; but experience tells us
that it would be difficult to find any necessary relation between the
two classes to-day. For at present the exploitation of a man for the
purpose of science is accepted everywhere without the slightest
scruple. Who still ventures to ask, What may be the value of a science
which consumes its minions in this vampire fashion? The division of
labour in science is practically struggling towards the same goal
which religions in certain parts of the world are consciously striving
after,--that is to say, towards the decrease and even the destruction
of learning. That, however, which, in the case of certain religions,
is a perfectly justifiable aim, both in regard to their origin and
their history, can only amount to self-immolation when transferred to
the realm of science. In all matters of a general and serious nature,
and above all, in regard to the highest philosophical problems, we
have now already reached a point at which the scientific man, as such,
is no longer allowed to speak. On the other hand, that adhesive and
tenacious stratum which has now filled up the interstices between the
sciences--Journalism--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 expansion 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 already bears the revolting impress of modern barbaric
culture----"
"Now, silence a minute!" interjected the philosopher in a strong and
sympathetic voice. "I understand you now, and ought never to have
spoken so crossly to you. You are altogether right, save in your
despair. I shall now proceed to say a few words of consolation."
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 companion 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 surrender 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
of this would-be culture. I was overcome by a general feeling of
depression: my recourse to solitude was not arrogance or
superciliousness." Whereupon, to account for his behaviour, he
described the general character of modern educational methods so
vividly that the philosopher could not help interrupting him in a
voice full of sympathy, and crying words of comfort to him.
"Now, silence for a minute, my poor friend," he cried; "I can more
easily understand you now, and should not have lost my patience with
you. You are altogether right, save in your despair. I shall now
proceed to say a few words of comfort to you. How long do you suppose
the state of education in the schools of our time, which seems to
weigh so heavily upon you, will last? I shall not conceal my views on
this point from you: its time is over; its days are counted. The first
who will dare to be quite straightforward in this respect will hear
his honesty re-echoed back to him by thousands of courageous souls.
For, at bottom, there is a tacit understanding between the more nobly
gifted and more warmly disposed men of the present day. Every one of
them knows what he has had to suffer from the condition of culture in
schools; every one of them would fain protect his offspring from the
need of enduring similar drawbacks, even though he himself was
compelled to submit to them. If these feelings are never quite
honestly expressed, however, it is owing to a sad want of spirit among
modern pedagogues. These lack real initiative; there are too few
practical men among them--that is to say, too few who happen 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 wish you could point to
one single example which would assist me in seeing the soundness of
the hopes which you so heartily raise in me. We are both acquainted
with public schools; do you think, for instance, that in respect of
these institutions anything may be done by means of honesty and good
and new ideas to abolish the tenacious and antiquated customs now
extant? In this quarter, it seems to me, the battering-rams of an
attacking party will have to meet with no solid wall, but with the
most fatal of stolid and slippery principles. The leader of the
assault has no visible and tangible opponent to crush, but rather a
creature in disguise that can transform itself into a hundred
different shapes and, in each of these, slip out of his grasp, only in
order to reappear and to confound its enemy by cowardly surrenders and
feigned retreats. It was precisely the public schools which drove me
into despair and solitude, simply because I feel that if the struggle
here leads to victory all other educational institutions must give in;
but that, if the reformer be forced to abandon his cause here, he may
as well give up all hope in regard to every other scholastic question.
Therefore, dear master, enlighten me concerning the public schools;
what can we hope for in the way of their abolition or reform?"
"I also hold the question of public schools to be as important as you
do," the philosopher replied. "All other educational institutions must
fix their aims in accordance with those of the public school system;
whatever errors of judgment it may suffer from, they suffer from also,
and if it were ever 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 educational institution, in this
respect, if not this--namely, with authority and dignified severity to
put youths, neglected, as far as their own language is concerned, on
the right path, and to cry to them: 'Take your own language seriously!
He who does not regard this matter as a sacred duty does not possess
even the germ of a higher culture. From your attitude in this matter,
from your treatment of your mother-tongue, we can judge how highly or
how lowly you esteem art, and to what extent you are related to it. If
you notice no physical loathing in yourselves when you meet with
certain words and tricks of speech in our journalistic jargon, cease
from striving after culture; for here in your immediate vicinity, at
every moment of your life, while you are either speaking or writing,
you have a touchstone for testing how difficult, how stupendous, the
task of the cultured man is, and how very improbable it must be that
many of you will ever attain to culture.'
"In accordance with the spirit of this address, the teacher of German
at a public school would be forced to call his pupil's attention to
thousands of details, and with the absolute certainty of good taste,
to forbid their using such words and expressions, for instance, as:
'_beanspruchen_,' '_vereinnahmen_,' '_einer Sache Rechnung tragen_,'
'_die Initiative ergreifen_,' '_selbstverständlich_,'[3] etc., _cum
tædio in infinitum_. The same teacher would also have to take our
classical authors and show, line for line, how carefully and with what
precision every expression has to be chosen when a writer has the
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 express 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.