_The Limits of Education._
§ 46. The form of Education reaches its limits with the idea of
punishment, because this is the attempt to subsume the negative reality
and to make it conformable to its positive idea. But the limits of
Education are found in the idea of its nature, which is to fashion the
individual into theoretical and practical rationality. The authority of
the Educator at last becomes imperceptible, and it passes over into
advice and example, and obedience changes from blind conformity to free
gratitude and attachment. Individuality wears off its rough edges, and
is transfigured into the universality and necessity of Reason without
losing in this process its identity. Work becomes enjoyment, and he
finds his play in a change of activity. The youth takes possession of
himself, and can be left to himself.
--There are two widely differing views with regard to the limits of
Education. One lays great stress on the weakness of the pupil and the
power of the teacher. According to this view, Education has for its
province the entire formation of the youth. The despotism of this view
often manifests itself where large numbers are to be educated together,
and with very undesirable results, because it assumes that the
individual pupil is only a specimen of the whole, as if the school were
a great factory where each piece of goods is to be stamped exactly like
all the rest. Individuality is reduced by the tyranny of such despotism
to one uniform level till all originality is destroyed, as in cloisters,
barracks, and orphan asylums, where only one individual seems to exist.
There is a kind of Pedagogy also which fancies that one can thrust into
or out of the individual pupil what one will. This may be called a
superstitious belief in the power of Education.--The opposite extreme
disbelieves this, and advances the policy which lets alone and does
nothing, urging that individuality is unconquerable, and that often the
most careful and far-sighted education fails of reaching its aim in so
far as it is opposed to the nature of the youth, and that this
individuality has made of no avail all efforts toward the obtaining of
any end which was opposed to it. This representation of the
fruitlessness of all pedagogical efforts engenders an indifference
towards it which would leave, as a result, only a sort of vegetation of
individuality growing at hap-hazard.--
[Sidenote: _The Limits of Individuality._]
§ 47. _The limit of Education is_ (1) _a Subjective one_, a limit made
by the individuality of the youth. This is a definite limit. Whatever
does not exist in this individuality as a possibility cannot be
developed from it. Education can only lead and assist; it cannot create.
What Nature has denied to a man, Education cannot give him any more than
it is able, on the other hand, to annihilate entirely his original
gifts, although it is true that his talents may be suppressed,
distorted, and measurably destroyed. But the decision of the question in
what the real essence of any one's individuality consists can never be
made with certainty till he has left behind him his years of
development, because it is then only that he first arrives at the
consciousness of his entire self; besides, at this critical time, in the
first place, much knowledge only superficially acquired will drop off;
and again, talents, long slumbering and unsuspected, may first make
their appearance. Whatever has been forced upon a child in opposition to
his individuality, whatever has been only driven into him and has lacked
receptivity on his side, or a rational ground on the side of culture,
remains attached to his being only as an external ornament, a foreign
outgrowth which enfeebles his own proper character.
--We must distinguish from that affectation which arises through a
misunderstanding of the limit of individuality, the way which many
children and young persons have of supposing when they see models
finished and complete in grown persons, that they themselves are endowed
by Nature with the power to develop into the same. When they see a
reality which corresponds to their own possibility, the presentiment of
a like or a similar attainment moves them to an imitation of it as a
model personality. This may be sometimes carried so far as to be
disagreeable or ridiculous, but should not be too strongly censured,
because it springs from a positive striving after culture, and needs
only proper direction.--
[Sidenote: _Limit in the Means of Education._]
§ 48. (2) _The Objective limit of Education_ lies in the means which can
be appropriated for it. That the talent for a certain culture shall be
present is certainly the first thing; but the cultivation of this talent
is the second, and no less necessary. But how much cultivation can be
given to it extensively and intensively depends upon the means used, and
these again are conditioned by the material resources of the family to
which each one belongs. The greater and more valuable the means of
culture which are found in a family are, the greater is the immediate
advantage which the culture of each one has at the start. With regard to
many of the arts and sciences this limit of education is of great
significance. But the means alone are of no avail. The finest
educational apparatus will produce no fruit where corresponding talent
is wanting, while on the other hand talent often accomplishes incredible
feats with very limited means, and, if the way is only once open, makes
of itself a centre of attraction which draws to itself with magnetic
power the necessary means. The moral culture of each one is however,
fortunately from its very nature, out of the reach of such dependence.
--In considering the limit made by individuality we recognize the side
of truth in that indifference which considers Education entirely
superfluous, and in considering the means of culture we find the truth
in the other extreme of pedagogical despotism, which fancies that it can
command whatever culture it chooses for any one without regard to his
individuality.--
§ 49. (3) _The Absolute limit of Education_ is the time when the youth
has apprehended the problem which he has to solve, has learned to know
the means at his disposal, and has acquired a certain facility in using
them. The end and aim of Education is the emancipation of the youth. It
strives to make him self-dependent, and as soon as he has become so it
wishes to retire and to be able to leave him to the sole responsibility
of his actions. To treat the youth after he has passed this point of
time still as a youth, contradicts the very idea of Education, which
idea finds its fulfilment in the attainment of majority by the pupil.
Since the accomplishment of education cancels the original inequality
between the educator and the pupil, nothing is more oppressing, nay,
revolting to the latter than to be prevented by a continued dependence
from the enjoyment of the freedom which he has earned.
--The opposite extreme of the protracting of Education beyond its proper
time is necessarily the undue hastening of the Emancipation.--The
question whether one is prepared for freedom has been often opened in
politics. When any people have gone so far as to ask this question
themselves, it is no longer a question whether that people are prepared
for it, for without the consciousness of freedom this question would
never have occurred to them.--
[Sidenote: _Arrival at the age of Majority._]
§ 50. Although educators must now leave the youth free, the necessity of
further culture for him is still imperative. But it will no longer come
directly through them. Their pre-arranged, pattern-making work is now
supplanted by self-education. Each sketches for himself an ideal to
which in his life he seeks to approximate every day.
--In the work of self-culture one friend can help another by advice and
example; but he cannot educate, for education presupposes
inequality.--The necessities of human nature produce societies in which
equals seek to influence each other in a pedagogical way, since they
establish by certain steps of culture different classes. They presuppose
Education in the ordinary sense. But they wish to bring about Education
in a higher sense, and therefore they veil the last form of their ideal
in the mystery of secrecy.--To one who lives on contented with himself
and without the impulse toward self-culture, unless his unconcern
springs from his belonging to a savage state of society, the Germans
give the name of Philistine, and he is always repulsive to the student
who is intoxicated with an ideal.--