(_Delivered on the 27th of February 1872._)
Ladies and Gentlemen,--At the close of my last lecture, the
conversation to which I was a listener, and the outlines of which, as
I clearly recollect 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 German 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.
These two worthy men saw clearly, by the system of instruction in
vogue, that the time was not yet ripe for a higher culture, a culture
founded upon that of the ancients: the neglected state of linguistic
instruction; the forcing of students into learned historical paths,
instead of giving them a practical training; the connection of certain
practices, encouraged in the public schools, with the objectionable
spirit of our journalistic publicity--all these easily perceptible
phenomena of the teaching of German led to the painful certainty that
the most beneficial of those forces which have come down to us from
classical antiquity are not yet known in our public schools: forces
which would train students for the struggle against the barbarism of
the present age, and which will perhaps once more transform the public
schools into the arsenals and workshops of this struggle.
On the other hand, it would seem in the meantime as if the spirit of
antiquity, in its fundamental principles, had already been driven away
from the portals of the public schools, and as if here also the gates
were thrown open as widely as possible to the be-flattered and
pampered type of our present self-styled "German culture." And if the
solitary talkers caught a glimpse of a single ray of hope, it was that
things would have to become still worse, that what was as yet divined
only by the few would soon be clearly perceived by the many, and that
then the time for honest and resolute men for the earnest
consideration of the scope of the education of the masses would not be
far distant.
After a few minutes' silent reflection, the philosopher'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 resistance; 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
themselves for the highest posts in the scholastic profession, 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, and only fury here and there will give rise to
some sort of embarrassed laughter. Just think of the innumerable crowd
of teachers, who, in all good faith, have assimilated the system of
education which has prevailed up to the present, that they may
cheerfully and without over-much deliberation carry it further on.
What do you think it will seem like to these men when they hear of
projects from which they are excluded _beneficio naturæ_; of commands
which their mediocre abilities are totally unable to carry out; of
hopes which find no echo in them; of battles the war-cries of which
they do not understand, and in the fighting of which they can take
part only as dull and obtuse rank and file? But, without exaggeration,
that must necessarily be the position of practically all the teachers
in our higher educational establishments: and indeed we cannot wonder
at this when we consider how such a teacher originates, how he
_becomes_ a teacher of such high status. Such a large number of higher
educational establishments are now to be found everywhere that far
more teachers will continue to be required for them than the nature of
even a highly-gifted people can produce; and thus an inordinate stream
of undesirables flows into these 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, hopelessly unfamiliar with pedagogical matters,
who believe that our present profusion of public schools and teachers,
which is manifestly out of all proportion, can be changed into a real
profusion, an _ubertas ingenii_, merely by a few rules and
regulations, 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 unselected 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
institutions: 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
eagerly sought to be quenched. But it is just at this point that one
should learn to hear aright: it is here, without being disconcerted by
the thundering noise of the education-mongers, that we must confront
those who talk so tirelessly about the educational necessities of
their time. Then we should meet with a strange disillusionment, one
which we, my good friend, have often met with: those blatant heralds
of educational needs, when examined at close quarters, are suddenly
seen to be transformed into zealous, yea, fanatical opponents of true
culture, _i.e._ all those who hold fast to the aristocratic nature of
the mind; for, at bottom, they regard as their goal the emancipation
of the masses from the mastery of the great few; they seek to
overthrow the most sacred hierarchy in the kingdom of the
intellect--the servitude of the masses, their submissive obedience,
their instinct of loyalty to the rule of genius.
"I have long accustomed myself to look with caution upon those who are
ardent in the cause of the so-called 'education of the people' in the
common meaning of the phrase; since for the most part they desire for
themselves, consciously or unconsciously, absolutely unlimited
freedom, which must inevitably degenerate into something resembling
the saturnalia of barbaric times, and which the sacred hierarchy of
nature will never grant them. They were born to serve and to obey; and
every moment in which their limping or crawling or broken-winded
thoughts are at work shows us clearly out of which clay nature moulded
them, and what trade mark she branded thereon. 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 intellectual 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 'education
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
mythological 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 forward
the progress of the education of the people means simply the
postponement of this violent demolition, and the maintenance of that
wholesome 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:
'Keep your eyes open! Be sensible! Be wise!' we know the aim of those
who profess to satisfy excessive educational requirements by means of
an extraordinary increase in the number of educational institutions
and the conceited tribe of teachers originated thereby. These very
people, using these very means, are fighting against the natural
hierarchy in the realm of the intellect, and destroying the roots of
all those noble and sublime plastic forces which have their material
origin in the unconsciousness of the people, and which fittingly
terminate in the procreation of genius and its due guidance and proper
training. It is only in the simile of the mother that we can grasp the
meaning and the responsibility of the true education of the people in
respect to genius: its real origin is not to be found in such
education; it has, so to speak, only a metaphysical source, a
metaphysical home. But for the genius to make his appearance; for him
to emerge from among the people; to portray the reflected picture, as
it were, the dazzling brilliancy of the peculiar colours of this
people; to depict the noble destiny of a people in the similitude of
an individual in a work which will last for all time, thereby making
his nation itself eternal, and redeeming it from the ever-shifting
element of transient things: all this is possible for the genius only
when he has been brought up and come to maturity in the tender care of
the culture of a people; whilst, on the other hand, without this
sheltering home, the genius will not, generally speaking, be able to
rise to the height of his eternal flight, but will at an early moment,
like a stranger 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
singularity 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 profession 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 philologists: how seldom we
see in them that humble feeling that we, when compared with such a
world as it was, have no right to exist at all: how coolly and
fearlessly, as compared with us, did that young brood build its
miserable nests in the midst of the magnificent temples! A powerful
voice from every nook and cranny should ring in the ears of those who,
from the day they begin their connection with the university, roam at
will with such self-complacency and shamelessness among the
awe-inspiring relics of that noble civilisation: 'Hence, ye
uninitiated, who will never be initiated; fly away in silence and
shame from these sacred chambers!' But this voice speaks in vain; for
one must to some extent be a Greek to understand a Greek curse of
excommunication. But these people I am speaking of are so barbaric
that they dispose of these relics to suit themselves: all their modern
conveniences and fancies are brought with them and concealed among
those ancient pillars and tombstones, and it gives rise to great
rejoicing when somebody finds, among the dust and cobwebs of
antiquity, something that he himself had slyly hidden there not so
very long before. One of them makes verses and takes care to consult
Hesychius' Lexicon. Something there immediately assures him that he is
destined to be an imitator of Æschylus, and leads him to believe,
indeed, that he 'has something in common with' Æschylus: the miserable
poetaster! Yet another peers with the suspicious eye of a policeman
into every contradiction, even into the shadow of every
contradiction, of which Homer was guilty: he fritters away his life in
tearing Homeric rags to tatters and sewing them together again, rags
that he himself was the first to filch from the poet's kingly robe. A
third feels ill at ease when examining all the mysterious and
orgiastic sides of antiquity: he makes up his mind once and for all to
let the enlightened Apollo alone pass without dispute, and to see in
the Athenian a gay and intelligent but nevertheless somewhat immoral
Apollonian. What a deep breath he draws when he succeeds in raising
yet another dark corner of antiquity to the level of his own
intelligence!--when, for example, he discovers in Pythagoras a
colleague who is as enthusiastic as himself in arguing about politics.
Another racks his brains as to why OEdipus was condemned by fate to
perform such abominable deeds--killing his father, marrying his
mother. Where lies the blame! Where the poetic justice! Suddenly it
occurs to him: OEdipus was a passionate fellow, lacking all Christian
gentleness--he even fell into an unbecoming rage when Tiresias called
him a monster and the curse of the whole country. Be humble and meek!
was what Sophocles tried to teach, otherwise you will have to marry
your mothers and kill your fathers! Others, again, pass their lives in
counting the number of verses written by Greek and Roman poets, and
are delighted with the proportions 7:13 = 14:26. Finally, one of them
brings forward his solution of a question, such as the Homeric poems
considered from the standpoint of prepositions, and thinks he has
drawn the truth from the bottom of the well with +ana+ and +kata+. All
of them, however, with the most widely separated aims in view, dig and
burrow in Greek soil with a restlessness and a blundering awkwardness
that must surely be painful to a true friend of antiquity: and thus it
comes to pass that I should like to take by the hand every talented or
talentless man who feels a certain professional inclination urging him
on to the study of antiquity, and harangue him as follows: 'Young sir,
do you know what perils threaten you, with your little stock of school
learning, before you become a man in the full sense of the word? Have
you heard that, according to Aristotle, it is by no means a tragic
death to be slain by a statue? Does that surprise you? Know, then,
that for centuries philologists have been trying, with ever-failing
strength, to re-erect the fallen statue of Greek antiquity, but
without success; for it is a colossus around which single individual
men crawl like pygmies. The leverage of the united representatives of
modern culture is utilised for the purpose; but it invariably happens
that the huge column is scarcely more than lifted from the ground when
it falls down again, crushing beneath its weight the luckless wights
under it. That, however, may be tolerated, for every being must perish
by some means or other; but who is there to guarantee that during all
these attempts the statue itself will not break in pieces! The
philologists are being crushed by the Greeks--perhaps we can put up
with this--but antiquity itself threatens to be crushed by these
philologists! Think that over, you easy-going young man; and turn
back, lest you too should not be an iconoclast!'"
"Indeed," said the philosopher, laughing, "there are many philologists
who have turned back as you so much desire, and I notice a great
contrast with my own youthful experience. Consciously or
unconsciously, large numbers of them have concluded that it is
hopeless and useless for them to come into direct contact with
classical antiquity, hence they are inclined to look upon this study
as barren, superseded, out-of-date. This herd has turned with much
greater zest to the science of language: here in this wide expanse of
virgin soil, where even the most mediocre gifts can be turned to
account, and where a kind of insipidity and dullness is even looked
upon as decided talent, with the novelty and uncertainty of methods
and the constant danger of making fantastic mistakes--here, where dull
regimental routine and discipline are desiderata--here the newcomer is
no longer frightened by the majestic and warning voice that rises from
the ruins of antiquity: here every one is welcomed with open arms,
including even him who never arrived at any uncommon impression or
noteworthy thought after a perusal of Sophocles and Aristophanes, with
the result that they end in an etymological tangle, or are seduced
into collecting the fragments of out-of-the-way dialects--and their
time is spent in associating and dissociating, collecting and
scattering, and running hither and thither consulting books. And such
a usefully employed philologist would now fain be a teacher! He now
undertakes to teach the youth of the public schools something about
the ancient writers, although he himself has read them without any
particular impression, much less with insight! What a dilemma!
Antiquity has said nothing to him, consequently he has nothing to say
about antiquity. A sudden thought strikes him: why is he a skilled
philologist at all! Why did these authors write Latin and Greek! And
with a light heart he immediately begins to etymologise with Homer,
calling Lithuanian or Ecclesiastical Slavonic, or, above all, the
sacred Sanskrit, to his assistance: as if Greek lessons were merely
the excuse for a general introduction to the study of languages, and
as if Homer were lacking in only one respect, namely, not being
written in pre-Indogermanic. Whoever is acquainted with our present
public schools well knows what a wide gulf separates their teachers
from classicism, and how, from a feeling of this want, comparative
philology and allied professions have increased their numbers to such
an unheard-of degree."
"What I mean is," said the other, "it would depend upon whether a
teacher of classical culture did _not_ confuse his Greeks and Romans
with the other peoples, the barbarians, whether he could _never_ put
Greek and Latin _on a level with_ other languages: so far as his
classicalism is concerned, it is a matter of indifference whether the
framework of these languages concurs with or is in any way related to
the other languages: such a concurrence does not interest him at all;
his real concern is with _what is not common to both_, with what shows
him that those two peoples were not barbarians as compared with the
others--in so far, of course, as he is a true teacher of culture and
models himself after the majestic patterns of the classics."
"I may be wrong," said the philosopher, "but I suspect that, owing to
the way in which Latin and Greek are now taught in schools, the
accurate grasp of these languages, the ability to speak and write them
with ease, is lost, and that is something in which my own generation
distinguished itself--a generation, indeed, whose few survivers have
by this time grown old; whilst, on the other hand, the present
teachers seem to impress their pupils with the genetic and historical
importance of the subject to such an extent that, at best, their
scholars ultimately turn into little Sanskritists, etymological
spitfires, or reckless conjecturers; but not one of them can read his
Plato or Tacitus with pleasure, as we old folk can. The public schools
may still be seats of learning: not, however of _the_ learning which,
as it were, is only the natural and involuntary auxiliary of a culture
that is directed towards the noblest ends; but rather of that culture
which might be compared to the hypertrophical swelling of an unhealthy
body. The public schools are certainly the seats of this obesity, if,
indeed, they have not degenerated into the abodes of that elegant
barbarism which is boasted of as being 'German culture of the
present!'"
"But," asked the other, "what is to become of that large body of
teachers who have not been endowed with a true gift for culture, and
who set up as teachers merely to gain a livelihood from the
profession, because there is a demand for them, because a superfluity
of schools brings with it a superfluity of teachers? Where shall they
go when antiquity peremptorily orders them to withdraw? Must they not
be sacrificed to those powers of the present who, day after day, call
out to them from the never-ending columns of the press 'We are
culture! We are education! We are at the zenith! We are the apexes of
the pyramids! We are the aims of universal history!'--when they hear
the seductive promises, when the shameful signs of non-culture, the
plebeian publicity of the so-called 'interests of culture' are
extolled for their benefit in magazines and newspapers as an entirely
new and the best possible, full-grown form of culture! Whither shall
the poor fellows fly when they feel the presentiment that these
promises are not true--where but to the most obtuse, sterile
scientificality, that here the shriek of culture may no longer be
audible to them? Pursued in this way, must they not end, like the
ostrich, by burying their heads in the sand? Is it not a real
happiness for them, buried as they are among dialects, etymologies,
and conjectures, to lead a life like that of the ants, even though
they are miles removed from true culture, if only they can close their
ears tightly and be deaf to the voice of the 'elegant' culture of the
time."
"You are right, my friend," said the philosopher, "but whence comes the
urgent necessity for a surplus of schools for culture, which further
gives rise to the necessity for a surplus of teachers?--when we so
clearly see that the demand for a surplus springs from a sphere which is
hostile to culture, and that the consequences of this surplus only lead
to non-culture. Indeed, we can discuss this dire necessity only in so
far as the modern State is willing to discuss these things with us, and
is prepared to follow up its demands by force: which phenomenon
certainly makes the same impression upon most people as if they were
addressed by the eternal law of things. For the rest, a 'Culture-State,'
to use the current expression, which makes such demands, is rather a
novelty, and has only come to a 'self-understanding' within the last
half century, _i.e._ in a period when (to use the favourite popular
word) so many 'self-understood' things came into being, but which are in
themselves not 'self-understood' at all. This right to higher education
has been taken so seriously by the most powerful of modern
States--Prussia--that the objectionable principle it has adopted, taken
in connection with the well-known daring and hardihood of this State, is
seen to have a menacing and dangerous consequence for the true German
spirit; for we see endeavours being made in this quarter to raise the
public school, formally systematised, up to the so-called 'level of the
time.' Here is to be found all that mechanism by means of which as many
scholars as possible are urged on to take up courses of public school
training: here, indeed, the State has its most powerful inducement--the
concession of certain privileges respecting military service, with the
natural consequence that, according to the unprejudiced evidence of
statistical officials, by this, and by this only, can we explain the
universal congestion of all Prussian public schools, and the urgent and
continual need for new ones. What more can the State do for a surplus of
educational institutions than bring all the higher and the majority of
the lower civil service appointments, the right of entry to the
universities, and even the most influential military posts into close
connection with the public school: and all this in a country where both
universal military service and the highest offices of the State
unconsciously attract all gifted natures to them. The public school is
here looked upon as an honourable aim, and every one who feels himself
urged on to the sphere of government will be found on his way to it.
This is a new and quite original occurrence: the State assumes the
attitude of a mystogogue of culture, and, whilst it promotes its own
ends, it obliges every one of its servants not to appear in its presence
without the torch of universal State education in their hands, by the
flickering light of which they may again recognise the State as the
highest goal, as the reward of all their strivings after education.
"Now this last phenomenon should indeed surprise them; it should
remind them of that allied, slowly understood tendency of a philosophy
which was formerly promoted for reasons of State, namely, the
tendency of the Hegelian philosophy: yea, it would perhaps be no
exaggeration to say that, in the subordination of all strivings after
education to reasons of State, Prussia has appropriated, with success,
the principle and the useful heirloom of the Hegelian philosophy,
whose apotheosis of the State in _this_ subordination certainly
reaches its height."
"But," said the philosopher's companion, "what purposes can the State
have in view with such a strange aim? For that it has some State
objects in view is seen in the manner in which the conditions of
Prussian schools are admired by, meditated upon, and occasionally
imitated by other States. These other States obviously presuppose
something here that, if adopted, would tend towards the maintenance
and power of the State, like our well-known and popular conscription.
Where everyone proudly wears his soldier's uniform at regular
intervals, where almost every one has absorbed a uniform type of
national culture through the public schools, enthusiastic hyperboles
may well be uttered concerning the systems employed in former times,
and a form of State omnipotence which was attained only in antiquity,
and which almost every young man, by both instinct and training,
thinks it is the crowning glory and highest aim of human beings to
reach."
"Such a comparison," said the philosopher, "would be quite
hyperbolical, and would not hobble along on one leg only. For, indeed,
the ancient State emphatically did not share the utilitarian point of
view of recognising as culture only what was directly useful to the
State itself, and was far from wishing to destroy those impulses which
did not seem to be immediately applicable. For this very reason the
profound Greek had for the State that strong feeling of admiration and
thankfulness which is so distasteful to modern men; because he clearly
recognised not only that without such State protection the germs of
his culture could not develop, but also that all his inimitable and
perennial culture had flourished so luxuriantly under the wise and
careful guardianship of the protection afforded by the State. The
State was for his culture not a supervisor, regulator, and watchman,
but a vigorous and muscular companion and friend, ready for war, who
accompanied his noble, admired, and, as it were, ethereal friend
through disagreeable reality, earning his thanks therefor. This,
however, does not happen when a modern State lays claim to such hearty
gratitude because it renders such chivalrous service to German culture
and art: for in this regard its past is as ignominious as its present,
as a proof of which we have but to think of the manner in which the
memory of our great poets and artists is celebrated in German cities,
and how the highest objects of these German masters are supported on
the part of the State.
"There must therefore be peculiar circumstances surrounding both this
purpose towards which the State is tending, and which always promotes
what is here called 'education'; and surrounding likewise the culture
thus promoted, which subordinates itself to this purpose of the State.
With the real German spirit and the education derived therefrom, such
as I have slowly outlined for you, this purpose of the State is at
war, hiddenly or openly: _the_ spirit of education, which is welcomed
and encouraged with such interest by the State, and owing to which the
schools of this country are so much admired abroad, must accordingly
originate in a sphere that never comes into contact with this true
German spirit: with that spirit which speaks to us so wondrously from
the inner heart of the German Reformation, German music, and German
philosophy, and which, like a noble exile, is regarded with such
indifference and scorn by the luxurious education afforded by the
State. This spirit is a stranger: it passes by in solitary sadness,
and far away from it the censer of pseudo-culture is swung backwards
and forwards, which, amidst the acclamations of 'educated' teachers
and journalists, arrogates to itself its name and privileges, and
metes out insulting treatment to the word 'German.' Why does the State
require that surplus of educational institutions, of teachers? Why
this education of the masses on such an extended scale? Because the
true German spirit is hated, because the aristocratic nature of true
culture is feared, because the people endeavour in this way to drive
single great individuals into self-exile, so that the claims of the
masses to education may be, so to speak, planted down and carefully
tended, in order that the many may in this way endeavour to escape the
rigid and strict discipline of the few great leaders, so that the
masses may be persuaded that they can easily find the path for
themselves--following the guiding star of the State!
"A new phenomenon! The State as the guiding star of culture! In the
meantime one thing consoles me: this German spirit, which people are
combating so much, and for which they have substituted a gaudily
attired _locum tenens_, this spirit is brave: it will fight and redeem
itself into a purer age; noble, as it is now, and victorious, as it
one day will be, it will always preserve in its mind a certain pitiful
toleration of the State, if the latter, hard-pressed in the hour of
extremity, secures such a pseudo-culture as its associate. For what,
after all, do we know about the difficult task of governing men,
_i.e._ to keep law, order, quietness, and peace among millions of
boundlessly egoistical, unjust, unreasonable, dishonourable, envious,
malignant, and hence very narrow-minded and perverse human beings; and
thus to protect the few things that the State has conquered for itself
against covetous neighbours and jealous robbers? Such a hard-pressed
State holds out its arms to any associate, grasps at any straw; and
when such an associate does introduce himself with flowery eloquence,
when he adjudges the State, as Hegel did, to be an 'absolutely
complete ethical organism,' the be-all and end-all of every one's
education, and goes on to indicate how he himself can best promote the
interests of the State--who will be surprised if, without further
parley, the State falls upon his neck and cries aloud in a barbaric
voice of full conviction: 'Yes! Thou art education! Thou art indeed
culture!'"