No More Learning

The philosopher was surprised, and stood still.
"You astonish me, you will-o'-the-wisps," he said;
"this is no quagmire we are on now. Of what
use is this ground to you? What does the prox-
imity of a philosopher mean to you? For around
him the air is sharp and clear, the ground dry and
hard. You must find out a more fantastic region
for your zig-zagging inclinations. "
"I think," interrupted the philosopher's com-
panion at this point, "the gentlemen have already
told us that they promised to meet some one here
at this hour; but it seems to me that they listened
to our comedy of education like a chorus, and truly
'idealistic spectators'—for they did not disturb
us; we thought we were alone with each other. "
"Yes, that is true," said the philosopher, "that
praise must not be withheld from them, but it seems
to me that they deserve still higher praise"
Here I seized the philosopher's hand and said:
"That man must be as obtuse as a reptile, with his
stomach on the ground and his head buried in
mud, who can listen to such a discourse as yours
without becoming earnest and thoughtful, or even
excited and indignant. Self-accusation and annoy-
ance might perhaps cause a few to get angry ; but
our impression was quite different: the only thing
I do not know is how exactly to describe it. This
hour was so well-timed for us, and our minds were
so well prepared, that we sat there like empty
vessels, and now it seems as if we were filled to
overflowing with this new wisdom : for I no longer
know how to help myself, and if some one asked
me what I am thinking of doing to-morrow, or


## p. 103 (#123) ############################################

FOURTH LECTURE. 103
what I have made up my mind to do with myself
from now on, I should not know what to answer.
For it is easy to see that we have up to the present
been living and educating ourselves in the wrong
way—but what can we do to cross over the chasm
between to-day and to-morrow? "
"Yes," acknowledged my friend, "I have a
similar feeling, and I ask the same question: but
besides that I feel as if I were frightened away
from German culture by entertaining such high
and ideal views of its task; yea, as if I were un-
worthy to co-operate with it in carrying out its
aims. I only see a resplendent file of the highest
natures moving towards this goal; I can imagine
over what abysses and through what temptations
this procession travels. Who would dare to be so
bold as to join in it? "
At this point the philosopher's companion again
turned to him and said : " Don't be angry with me
when I tell you that I too have a somewhat similar
feeling, which I have not mentioned to you before.
When talking to you I often felt drawn out of
myself, as it were, and inspired with your ardour
and hopes till I almost forgot myself. Then a
calmer moment arrives; a piercing wind of reality
brings me back to earth—and then I see the wide
gulf between us, over which you yourself, as in a
dream, draw me back again. Then what you call
'culture' merely totters meaninglessly around me
or lies heavily on my breast: it is like a shirt of
mail that weighs me down, or a sword that I
cannot wield. "
Our minds, as we thus argued with the philo-


## p. 104 (#124) ############################################

104 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
sopher, were unanimous, and, mutually encourag-
ing and stimulating one another, we slowly walked
with him backwards and forwards along the
unencumbered space which had earlier in the day
served us as a shooting range. And then, in the
still night, under the peaceful light of hundreds of
stars, we all broke out into a tirade which ran
somewhat as follows:—
"You have told us so much about the genius,"
we began, " about his lonely and wearisome journey
through the world, as if nature never exhibited
anything but the most diametrical contraries: in
one place the stupid, dull masses, acting by instinct,
and then, on a far higher and more remote plane,
the great contemplating few, destined for the pro-
duction of immortal works. But now you call
these the apexes of the intellectual pyramid: it
would, however, seem that between the broad,
heavily burdened foundation up to the highest of
the free and unencumbered peaks there must be
countless intermediate degrees, and that here we
must apply the saying natura non facit saltus.
Where then are we to look for the beginning of
what you call culture; where is the line of de-
marcation to be drawn between the spheres which
are ruled from below upwards and those which
are ruled from above downwards? And if it be
only in connection with these exalted beings that
true culture may be spoken of, how are institutions
to be founded for the uncertain existence of such
natures, how can we devise educational establish-
ments which shall be of benefit only to these select
few? It rather seems to us that such persons


## p. 105 (#125) ############################################

FOURTH LECTURE. IO$
know how to find their own way, and that their
full strength is shown in their being able to walk
without the educational crutches necessary for other
people, and thus undisturbed to make their way
through the storm and stress of this rough world
just like a phantom. "
We kept on arguing in this fashion, speaking
without any great ability and not putting our
thoughts in any special form : but the philosopher's
companion went even further, and said to him:
"Just think of all these great geniuses of whom we
are wont to be so proud, looking upon them as
tried and true leaders and guides of this real German
spirit, whose names we commemorate by statues
and festivals, and whose works we hold up with
feelings of pride for the admiration of foreign lands
—how did they obtain the education you demand
for them, to what degree do they show that they
have been nourished and matured by basking in
the sun of national education? And yet they
are seen to be possible, they have nevertheless be-
come men whom we must honour: yea, their works
themselves justify the form of the development of
these noble spirits; they justify even a certain want
of education for which we must make allowance
owing to their country and the age in which they
lived. How could Lessing and Winckelmann
benefit by the German culture of their time? Even
less than, or at all events just as little as Beethoven,
Schiller, Goethe, or every one of our great poets
and artists. It may perhaps be a law of nature that
only the later generations are destined to know by
what divine gifts an earlier generation was favoured. "


## p. 106 (#126) ############################################

106 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
At this point the old philosopher could not con-
trol his anger, and shouted to his companion: "Oh,
you innocent lamb of knowledge! You gentle
sucking doves, all of you! And would you give
the name of arguments to those distorted, clumsy,
narrow-minded, ungainly, crippled things? Yes,
I have just now been listening to the fruits of some
of this present-day culture, and my ears are still
ringing with the sound of historical ' self-under-
stood' things, of over-wise and pitiless historical
reasonings! Mark this, thou unprofaned Nature:
thou hast grown old, and for thousands of years
this starry sky has spanned the space above thee—
but thou hast never yet heard such conceited and,
at bottom, mischievous chatter as the talk of the
present day! So you are proud of your poets and
artists, my good Teutons? You point to them and
brag about them to foreign countries, do you?
And because it has given you no trouble to have
them amongst you, you have formed the pleasant
theory that you need not concern yourselves further
with them? Isn't that so, my inexperienced
children : they come of their own free will, the stork
brings them to you! Who would dare to mention
a midwife! You deserve an earnest teaching, eh?
You should be proud of the fact that all the noble
and brilliant men we have mentioned were pre-
maturely suffocated, worn out, and crushed through
you, through your barbarism? You think without
shame of Lessing, who, on account of your stupidity,
perished in battle against your ludicrous gods and
idols, the evils of your theatres, your learned men,
and your theologians, without once daring to lift
N


## p. 107 (#127) ############################################

FOURTH LECTURE. I07
himself to the height of that immortal flight for
which he was brought into the world. And what
are your impressions when you think of Winckel-
mann, who, that he might rid his eyes of your
grotesque fatuousness, went to beg help from the
Jesuits, and whose disgraceful religious conversion
recoils upon you and will always remain an in-
effaceable blemish upon you? You can even name
Schiller without blushing! Just look at his
picture! The fiery, sparkling eyes, looking at you
with disdain, those flushed, death-like cheeks: can
you learn nothing from all that? In him you had
a beautiful and divine plaything, and through it was
destroyed. And if it had been possible for you to
take Goethe's friendship away from this melancholy,
hasty life, hunted to premature death, then you
would have crushed him even sooner than you did.
You have not rendered assistance to a single one
of our great geniuses—and now upon that fact you
wish to build up the theory that none of them shall
ever be helped in future? For each of them, how-
ever, up to this very moment, you have always been
the ' resistance of the stupid world' that Goethe
speaks of in his "Epilogue to the Bell" ; towards
eachof them you acted the part of apathetic dullards
or jealous narrow-hearts or malignant egotists. In
spite of you they created their immortal works,
against you they directed their attacks, and thanks
to you they died so prematurely, their tasks only
half accomplished, blunted and dulled and shattered
in the battle. Who can tell to what these heroic
men were destined to attain if only that true German
spirit had gathered them together within the pro-


## p. 108 (#128) ############################################

108 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
tecting walls of a powerful institution ? —that spirit
which, without the help of some such institution,
drags out an isolated, debased, and degraded exist-
ence. All those great men were utterly ruined;
and it is only an insane belief in the Hegelian
'reasonableness of all happenings' which would
absolve you of any responsibility in the matter.
And not those men alone! Indictments are pour-
ing forth against you from every intellectual pro-
vince: whether I look at the talents of our poets,
philosophers, painters, or sculptors—and not only
in the case of gifts of the highest order—I every-
where see immaturity, overstrained nerves, or pre-
maturely exhausted energies, abilities wasted and
nipped in the bud; I everywhere feel that' resistance
of the stupid world,' in other words, your guiltiness.
That is what I am talking about when I speak of
lacking educational establishments. and why I think
those which at present claim the name in such a
pitiful condition. Whoever is pleased to call this
an ' ideal desire,' and refers to it as ' ideal' as if he
were trying to get rid of it by praising me, deserves
the answer that the present system is a scandal and
a disgrace, and that the man who asks for warmth
in the midst of ice and snow must indeed get angry
if he hears this referred to as an 'ideal desire. '
The matter we are now discussing is concerned with
clear, urgent, and palpably evident realities: a man
who knows anything of the question feels that there
is a need which must be seen to, just like cold and
hunger. But the man who is not affected at all by
this matter most certainly has a standard by which
to measure the extent of his own culture, and thus


## p. 109 (#129) ############################################

FOURTH LECTURE. 109
to know what I call 'culture,' and where the line
should be drawn between that which is ruled from
below upwards and that which is ruled from above
downwards. "
The philosopher seemed to be speaking very
heatedly. We begged him to walk round with us
again, since he had uttered the latter part of his
discourse standing near the tree-stump which had
served us as a target. For a few minutes no]t a
word more was spoken. Slowly and thoughtfully
we walked to and fro. We did not so much feel
ashamed of having brought forward such foolish
arguments as we felt a kind of restitution of our
personality. After the heated and, so far as we
were concerned, very unflattering utterance of the
philosopher, we seemed to feel ourselves nearer to
him—that we even stood in a personal relationship
to him. For so wretched is man that he never feels
himself brought into such close contact with a
stranger as when the latter shows some sign of
weakness, some defect. That our philosopher had
lost his temper and made use of abusive language
helped to bridge over the gulf created between us
by our timid respect for him: and for the sake of
the reader who feels his indignation rising at this
suggestion let it be added that this bridge often
leads from distant hero-worship to personal love
and pity. And, after the feeling that our personality
had been restored to us, this pity gradually became
stronger and stronger. Why were we making this
old man walk up and down with us between the
rocks and trees at that time of the night? And,
since he had yielded to our entreaties, why could


## p. 110 (#130) ############################################

IIO FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
we not have thought of a more modest and un-
assuming manner of having ourselves instructed,
why should the three of us have contradicted him
in such clumsy terms?
For now we saw how thoughtless, unprepared,
and baseless were all the objections we had made,
and how greatly the echo of the present was heard
in them, the voice of which, in the province of
culture, the old man would fain not have heard.
Our objections,however, were not purely intellectual
ones: our reasons for protesting against the philo-
sopher's statements seemed to lie elsewhere. They
arose perhaps from the instinctive anxiety to know
whether, if the philosopher's views were carried into
effect, our own personalities would find a place in
the higher or lower division; and this made it
necessary for us to find some arguments against
the mode of thinking which robbed us of our self-
styled claims to culture. People, however, should
not argue with companions who feel the weight of
an argument so personally; or, as the moral in our
case would have been: such companions should
not argue, should not contradict at all.
Sowe walked on beside the philosopher,ashamed,
compassionate, dissatisfied with ourselves, and more
than ever convinced that the old man was right and
that we had done him wrong. How remote now
seemed the youthful dream of our educational
institution; how clearly we saw the danger which
we had hitherto escaped merely by good luck,
namely, giving ourselves up body and soul to the
educational system which forced itself upon our
notice so enticingly, from the time when we entered


## p. 111 (#131) ############################################

FOURTH LECTURE. HI
the public schools up to that moment. How then
had it come about that we had not taken our places
in the chorus of its admirers? Perhaps merely
because we were real students, and could still draw
back from the rough-and-tumble, the pushing and
struggling, the restless, ever-breaking waves of
publicity, to seek refuge in our own little educa-
tional establishment; which, however, time would
have soon swallowed up also.
Overcome by such reflections, we were about to
address the philosopher again, when he suddenly
turned towards us, and said in a softer tone—
"I cannot be surprised if you young men behave
rashly and thoughtlessly; for it is hardly likely that
you have ever seriously considered what I have just
said to you. Don't be in a hurry; carry this
question about with you, but do at any rate con-
sider it day and night. For you are now at the
parting of the ways, and now you know where each
path leads. If you take the one, your age will
receive you with open arms, you will not find it
wanting in honours and decorations: you will form
units of an enormous rank and file; and there will
be as many people like-minded standing behind
you as in front of you. And when the leader gives
the word it will be re-echoed from rank to rank.
For here your first duty is this: to fight in rank
and file; and your second: to annihilate all those
who refuse to form part of the rank and file. On
the other path you will havebut few fellow-travellers:
it is more arduous, winding and precipitous; and
those who take the first path will mock you, for
your progress is more wearisome, and they will try


## p. 112 (#132) ############################################

112 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
to lure you over into their own ranks. When the
two paths happen to cross, however, you will be
roughly handled and thrust aside, or else shunned
and isolated.
"Now, take these two parties, so different from
each other in every respect, and tell me what
I meaning an educational establishment would have
for them. That enormous horde, crowding onwards
on the first path towards its goal, would take the
term to mean an institution by which each of its
members would become duly qualified to take his
place in the rank and file, and would be purged of
everything which might tend to make him strive
after higher and more remote aims. I don't deny,
of course, that they can find pompous words with
which to describe their aims: for example, they
speak of the ' universal development of free person-
ality upon a firm social, national, and human
basis,' or they announce as their goal: 'The
founding of the peaceful sovereignty of the people
upon reason, education, and justice. '
"An educational establishment for the other and
smaller company, however, would be something
vastly different. They would employ it to prevent
themselves from being separated from one another
and overwhelmed by the first huge crowd, to prevent
their few select spirits from losing sight of their
splendid and noble task through premature weari-
ness, or from being turned aside from the true path,
corrupted, or subverted. These select spirits must
complete their work: that is the raison d'etre of
their common institution—a work, indeed, which,
as it were, must be free from subjective traces, and


## p. 113 (#133) ############################################

FOURTH LECTURE. 113
must further rise above the transient events of future
times as the pure reflection of the eternal and im-
mutable essence of things. And all those who
occupy places in that institution must co-operate
in the endeavour to engender men of genius by this
purification from subjectiveness and the creation
of the works of genius. Not a few, even of those
whose talents may be of the second or third order,
are suited to such co-operation, and only when
serving in such an educational establishment as this
do they feel that they are truly carrying out their
life's task. But now it is just these talents I speak
of which are drawn away from the true path, and
their instincts estranged, by the continual seduc-
tions of that modern 'culture. '
"The egotistic ernotions1weal<,"p^'""'J anH yam'tyc
of these few select minds are continually assailed
by the "temptations unceasingly murmured into
their ears by the spirit of the age: 'Come with
me! There you are servants, retainers, tools,
eclipsed by higher natures; your own peculiar
characteristics never have free play; you are tied
down, chained down, like slaves; yea, like auto-
mata: here, with me, you will enjoy the freedom
of your own personalities, as masters should, your
talents will cast their lustre on yourselves alone,
with their aid you may come to the very front
rank; an innumerable train of followers will accom-
pany you, and the applause of public opinion will
yield you more pleasure than a nobly-bestowed
commendation from the height of genius. ' Even
the very best of men now yield to these tempta-
tions: and it cannot be said that the deciding
H


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114 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
factor here is the degree of talent, or whether a
man is accessible to these voices or not; but rather
the degree and the height of a certain moral
sublimity, the instinct towards heroism, towards
sacrifice—and finally a positive, habitual need of
culture, prepared by a proper kind of education,
which education, as I have previously said, is first
and foremost obedience and submission to the dis-
cipline of genius. Of this discipline and sub-
mission, however, the present institutions called
by courtesy 'educational establishments' know
nothing whatever, although I have no doubt that
the public school was originally intended to be an
institution for sowing the seeds of true culture, or
at least as a preparation for it. I have no doubt,
either, that they took the first bold steps in the
wonderful and stirring times of the Reformation,
and that afterwards, in the era which gave birth
to Schiller and Goethe, there was again a grow-
ing demand for culture, like the first protuberance
of that wing spoken of by Plato in the Phaedrus,
which, at every contact with the beautiful, bears
the soul aloft into the upper regions, the habita-
tions of the gods. "
"Ah," began the philosopher's companion,
"when you quote the divine Plato and the world
of ideas, I do not think you are angry with me,
however much my previous utterance may have
merited your disapproval and wrath. As soon as
you speak of it, I feel that Platonic wing rising
within me; and it is only at intervals, when I act
as the charioteer of my soul, that I have any diffi-
culty with the resisting and unwilling horse that


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FOURTH LECTURE. 115
Plato has also described to us, the ' crooked, lum-
bering animal, put together anyhow, with a short,
thick neck; flat-faced, and of a dark colour, with
grey eyes and blood-red complexion; the mate
of insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly
yielding to whip or spur. ' * Just think how long
I have lived at a distance from you, and how all
those temptations you speak of have endeavoured
to lure me away, not perhaps without some success,
even though I myself may not have observed it.
I now see more clearly than ever the necessity for
an institution which will enable us to live and mix
freely with the few men of true culture, so that
we may have them as our leaders and guiding
stars. How greatly I feel the danger of travelling
alone! And when it occurred to me that I could
save myself by flight from all contact with the
spirit of the time, I found that this flight itself
was a mere delusion. Continuously, with every
breath we take, some amount of that atmosphere
circulates through every vein and artery, and no
solitude is lonesome or distant enough for us to
be out of reach of its fogs and clouds. Whether]
in the guise of hope, doubt, profit, or virtue, the
shades of that culture hover about us; and we
have been deceived by that jugglery even here in the
presence of a true hermit of culture. How stead-
fastly and faithfully must the few followers of that
culture—which might almost be called sectarian
—be ever on the alert! How they must strengthen
and uphold one another! How adversely would
* Phaedrus; Jowett's translation.


## p. 116 (#136) ############################################

Il6 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
any errors be criticised here, and how sympathetic-
ally excused! And thus, teacher, I ask you to
pardon me, after you have laboured so earnestly
to set me in the right path! "
"You use a language which I do not care for,
my friend," said the philosopher, " and one which
reminds me of a diocesan conference. With that
I have nothing to do. But your Platonic horse
pleases me, and on its account you shall be for-
given. I am willing to exchange my own animal
for yours. But it is getting chilly, and I don't
feel inclined to walk about any more just now.
The friend I was waiting for is indeed foolish
enough to come up here even at midnight if he
promised to do so. But I have waited in vain
for the signal agreed upon; and I cannot guess
what has delayed him. For as a rule he is
punctual, as we old men are wont, to be, some-
thing that you young men nowadays look upon
as old-fashioned. But he has left me in the lurch
for once: how annoying it is! Come away with
me! It's time to go! "
At this moment something happened.


## p. 117 (#137) ############################################

FIFTH LECTURE.
(Delivered on the 23rd of March 1872. )
Ladies and Gentlemen,—If you have lent a
sympathetic ear to what I have told you about
the heated argument of our philosopher in the
stillness of that memorable night, you must have
felt as disappointed as we did when he announced
his peevish intention. You will remember that he
had suddenly told us he wished to go; for, having
been left in the lurch by his friend in the first
place, and, in the second, having been bored rather
than animated by the remarks addressed to him
by his companion and ourselves when walking
backwards and forwards on the hillside, he now
apparently wanted to put an end to what appeared
to him to be a useless discussion. It must have
seemed to him that his day had been lost, and he
would have liked to blot it out of his memory,
together with the recollection of ever having made
our acquaintance. And we were thus rather un-
willingly preparing to depart when something else
suddenly brought him to a standstill, and the foot
he had just raised sank hesitatingly to the ground
again.
A coloured flame, making a crackling noise for
a few seconds, attracted our attention from the


## p. 118 (#138) ############################################

Il8 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
direction of the Rhine; and immediately following
upon this we heard a slow, harmonious call, quite
in tune, although plainly the cry of numerous
youthful voices. "That's his signal," exclaimed
the philosopher, "so my friend is really coming,
and I haven't waited for nothing, after all. It
will be a midnight meeting indeed—but how am
I to let him know that I am still here? Come!
Your pistols; let us see your talent once again!
Did you hear the severe rhythm of that melody
saluting us? Mark it well, and answer it in the
same rhythm by a series of shots. "
This was a task well suited to our tastes and
abilities; so we loaded up as quickly as we could
and pointed our weapons at the brilliant stars in
the heavens, whilst the echo of that piercing cry
died away in the distance. The reports of the
first, second, and third shots sounded sharply in the
stillness; and then the philosopher cried "False
time ! " as our rhythm was suddenly interrupted:
for, like a lightning flash, a shooting star tore its
way across the clouds after the third report, and
almost involuntarily our fourth and fifth shots
were sent after it in the direction it had taken.
"False time! " said the philosopher again,
"who told you to shoot stars! They can fall
well enough without you! People should know
what they want before they begin to handle
weapons. "
And then we once more heard that loud melody
from the waters of the Rhine, intoned by numerous
and strong voices. "They understand us," said
the philosopher, laughing, " and who indeed could


## p. 119 (#139) ############################################

FIFTH LECTURE. Iig
resist when such a dazzling phantom comes within
range? " "Hush ! " interrupted his friend, "what
sort of a company can it be that returns the signal
to us in such a way? I should say they were
between twenty and forty strong, manly voices in
that crowd—and where would such a number
come from to greet us? They don't appear to
have left the opposite bank of the Rhine yet; but
at any rate we must have a look at them from our
own side of the river. Come along, quickly! "
We were then standing near the top of the hill,
you may remember, and our view of the river was
interrupted by a dark, thick wood. On the other
hand, as I have told you, from the quiet little spot
which we had left we could have a better view
than from the little plateau on the hillside; and
the Rhine, with the island of Nonnenworth in the
middle, was just visible to the beholder who peered
over the tree-tops. We therefore set off hastily
towards this little spot, taking care, however, not
to go too quickly for the philosopher's comfort.
The night was pitch dark, and we seemed to find
our way by instinct rather than by clearly dis-
tinguishing the path, as we walked down with the
philosopher in the middle.
We had scarcely reached our side of the river
when a broad and fiery, yet dull and uncertain
light shot up, which plainly came from the
opposite side of the Rhine. "Those are torches,"
I cried, "there is nothing surer than that my
comrades from Bonn are over yonder, and that
your friend must be with them. It is they who
sang that peculiar song, and they have doubtless


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120 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
accompanied your friend here. See! Listen!
They are putting off in little boats. The whole
torchlight procession will have arrived here in less
than half an hour.
"
The philosopher jumped back. "What do you
say ? " he ejaculated, " your comrades from Bonn
—students—can my friend have come here with
students f"
This question, uttered almost wrathfully, pro-
voked us. "What's your objection to students? "
we demanded; but there was no answer. It was
only after a pause that the philosopher slowly
began to speak, not addressing us directly, as it
were, but rather some one in the distance: "So,
my friend, even at midnight, even on the top of a
lonely mountain, we shall not be alone; and you
yourself are bringing a pack of mischief-making
students along with you, although you well know
that I am only too glad to get out of the way of
hoc genus omne. I don't quite understand you,
my friend: it must mean something when we
arrange to meet after a long separation at such an
out-of-the-way place and at such an unusual hour.
Why should we want a crowd of witnesses—and
such witnesses! What calls us together to-day is
least of all a sentimental, soft-hearted necessity;
for both of us learnt early in life to live alone in
dignified isolation. It was not for our own sakes,
not to show our tender feelings towards each other,
or to perform an unrehearsed act of friendship,
that we decided to meet here; but that here,
where I once came suddenly upon you as you sat
in majestic solitude, we might earnestly deliberate


## p. 121 (#141) ############################################

FIFTH LECTURE. 121
with each other like knights of a new order. Let
them listen to us who can understand us; but why
should you bring with you a throng of people who
don't understand us! I don't know what you
mean by such a thing, my friend! "
We did not think it proper to interrupt the
dissatisfied old grumbler; and as he came to a
melancholy close we did not dare to tell him how
greatly this distrustful repudiation of students
vexed us.
At last the philosopher's companion turned to
him and said: "I am reminded of the fact that
even you at one time, before I made your
acquaintance, occupied posts in several universities,
and that reports concerning your intercourse with
the students and your methods of instruction at
the time are still in circulation. From the tone
of resignation in which you have just referred to
students many would be inclined to think that you
had some peculiar experiences which were not at
all to your liking; but personally I rather believe
that you saw and experienced in such places just
what every one else saw and experienced in them,
but that you judged what you saw and felt more
justly and severely than any one else. For,
during the time I have known you, I have learnt
that the most noteworthy, instructive, and decisive
experiences and events in one's life are those
which are of daily occurrence; that the greatest
riddle, displayed in full view of all, is seen by the
fewest to be the greatest riddle, and that these
problems are spread about in every direction,
under the very feet of the passers-by, for the few


## p. 122 (#142) ############################################

122 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
real philosophers to lift up carefully, thenceforth
to shine as diamonds of wisdom. Perhaps, in the
short time now left us before the arrival of your
friend, you will be good enough to tell us some-
thing of your experiences of university life, so as
to close the circle of observations, to which we
were involuntarily urged, respecting our educational
institutions. We may also be allowed to remind
you that you, at an earlier stage of your remarks,
gave me the promise that you would do so.
Starting with the public school, you claimed for it
an extraordinary importance: all other institutions
must be judged by its standard, according as its
aim has been proposed; and, if its aim happens
to be wrong, all the others have to suffer. Such
an importance cannot now be adopted by the
universities as a standard; for, by their present
system of grouping, they would be nothing more
than institutions where public school students
might go through finishing courses. You promised
me that you would explain this in greater detail
later on: perhaps our student friends can bear
witness to that, if they chanced to overhear that
part of our conversation. "
"We can testify to that," I put in. The
philosopher then turned to us and said: "Well,
if you really did listen attentively, perhaps you
can now tell me what you understand by the ex-
pression 'the present aim of our public schools. '
Besides, you are still near enough to this sphere
to judge my opinions by the standard of your own
impressions and experiences. "
My friend instantly answered, quickly and


## p. 123 (#143) ############################################

FIFTH LECTURE. 123
smartly, as was his habit, in the following words:
"Until now we had always thought that the sole
object of the public school was to prepare students
for the universities. This preparation, however,
should tend to make us independent enough for
the extraordinarily free position of a university
student; * for it seems to me that a student, to a
greater extent than any other individual, has more
to decide and settle for himself. He must guide
himself on a wide, utterly unknown path for many
years, so the public school must do its best to
render him independent. "
I continued the argument where my friend left
off. "It even seems to me," I said, "that every-
thing for which you have justly blamed the public
school is only a necessary means employed to
imbue the youthful student with some kind of in-
dependence, or at all events with the belief that
there is such a thing. The teaching of German
composition must be at the service of this inde-
pendence: the individual must enjoy his opinions
and carry out his designs early, so that he may be
able to travel alone and without crutches. In this
way he will soon be encouraged to produce original
work, and still sooner to take up criticism and
analysis. If Latin and Greek studies prove insuffi-
cient to make a student an enthusiastic admirer
* The reader may be reminded that a German university
student is subject to very few restrictions, and that much
greater liberty is allowed him than is permitted to English
students. Nietzsche did not approve of this extraordinary
freedom, which, in his opinion, led to intellectual law-
lessness. —Tr.


## p. 124 (#144) ############################################

124 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
of antiquity, the methods with which such studies
are pursued are at all events sufficient to awaken
the scientific sense, the desire for a more strict
causality of knowledge, the passion for finding out
and inventing. Only think how many young men
may be lured away for ever to the attractions of
science by a new reading of some sort which they
have snatched up with youthful hands at the
public school! The public school boy must learn
and collect a great deal of varied information:
hence an impulse will gradually be created, accom-
panied with which he will continue to learn and
collect independently at the university. We
believe, in short, that the aim of the public school
is to prepare and accustom the student always to
live and learn independently afterwards, just as
beforehand he must live and learn dependently at
the public school. "
The philosopher laughed, not altogether good-
naturedly, and said: "You have just given me a
fine example of that independence. And it is this
very independence that shocks me so much, and
makes any place in the neigbourhood of present-
day students so disagreeable to me. Yes, my
good friends, you are perfect, you are mature;
nature has cast you and broken up the moulds,
and your teachers must surely gloat over you.
What liberty, certitude, and independence of
judgment; what novelty and freshness of insight!
You sit in judgment—and the cultures of all ages
run away. The scientific sense is kindled, and
rises out of you like a flame—let people be care-
ful, lest you set them alight! If I go further into


## p. 125 (#145) ############################################

FIFTH LECTURE. 125
the question and look at your professors, I again
find the same independence in a greater and even
more charming degree: never was there a time
so full of the most sublime independent folk,
never was slavery more detested, the slavery of
education and culture included.
"Permit me, however, to measure this independ-
ence of yours by the standard of this culture, and
to consider your university as an educational
institution and nothing else. If a foreigner desires
to know something of the methods of our uni-
versities, he asks first of all with emphasis: 'How
is the student connected with the university? '
We answer: 'By the ear, as a hearer. ' The
foreigner is astonished. 'Only by the ear? ' he
repeats. 'Only by the ear,' we again reply. The
student hears. When he speaks, when he sees,
when he is in the company of his companions
when he takes up some branch of art: in short,
when he lives, he is independent, i. e. not dependent
upon the educational institution. The student
very often writes down something while he hears;
and it is only at these rare moments that he hangs
to the umbilical cord of his alma mater. He him-
self may choose what he is to listen to; he is not
bound to believe what is said; he may close his
ears if he does not care to hear. This is the
'acroamatic' method of teaching.
"The teacher, however, speaks to these listening
students. Whatever else he may think and do
is cut off from the student's perception by an
immense gap. The professor often reads when
he is speaking. As a rule he wishes to have as


## p. 126 (#146) ############################################

126 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
many hearers as possible; he is not content to
have a few, and he is never satisfied with one
only. One speaking mouth, with many ears, and
half as many writing hands—there you have
to all appearances, the external academical
apparatus; the university engine of culture set in
motion. Moreover, the proprietor of this one
mouth is severed from and independent of the
owners of the many ears; and this double in-
dependence is enthusiastically designated as
'academical freedom. ' And again, that this free-
dom may be broadened still more, the one may
speak what he likes and the other may hear what
he likes; except that, behind both of them, at a
modest distance, stands the State, with all the
intentness of a supervisor, to remind the professors
and students from time to time that it is the aim,
the goal, the be-all and end-all, of this curious
speaking and hearing procedure.
"We, who must be permitted to regard this
phenomenon merely as an educational institution,
will then inform the inquiring foreigner that what
is called 'culture' in our universities merely pro-
ceeds from the mouth to the ear, and that every
kind of training for culture is, as I said before,
merely 'acroamatic. ' Since, however, not only
the hearing, but also the choice of what to hear is
left to the independent decision of the liberal-
minded and unprejudiced student, and since, again,
he can withhold all belief and authority from what
he hears, all training for culture, in the true sense
of the term, reverts to himself: and the independ-
ence it was thought desirable to aim at in the


## p. 127 (#147) ############################################

FIFTH LECTURE. 127
public school now presents itself with the highest
possible pride as 'academical self-training for
culture,' and struts about in its brilliant plumage.
"Happy times, when youths are clever and
cultured enough to teach themselves how to walk!
Unsurpassable public schools, which succeed in
implanting independence in the place of the de-
pendence, discipline, subordination, and obedience
implanted by former generations that thought it
their duty to drive away all the bumptiousness
of independence! Do you clearly see, my good
friends, why I, from the standpoint of culture,
regard the present type of university as a mere
appendage to the public school? The culture
instilled by the public school passes through the
gates of the university as something ready and
entire, and with its own particular claims: it
demands, it gives laws, it sits in judgment. Do
not, then, let yourselves be deceived in regard to
the cultured student; for he, in so far as he thinks
he has absorbed the blessings of education, is
merely the public school boy as moulded by the
hands of his teacher: one who, since his academi-
cal isolation, and after he has left the public school,
has therefore been deprived of all further guidance
to culture, that from now on he may begin to live
by himself and be free.
"Free! Examine this freedom, ye observers
of human nature! Erected upon the sandy,
crumbling foundation of our present public school
culture, its building slants to one side, trembling
before the whirlwind's blast. Look at the free
student, the herald of self-culture: guess what his


## p. 128 (#148) ############################################

128 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
instincts are; explain him from his needs! How
does his culture appear to you when you measure
it by three graduated scales: first, by his need for
philosophy; second, by his instinct for art; and
third, by Greek and Roman antiquity as the in-
carnate categorical imperative of all culture?
"Man is so much encompassed about by the
most serious and difficult problems that, when they
are brought to his attention in the right way, he
is impelled betimes towards a lasting kind of philo-
sophical wonder, from which alone, as a fruitful
soil, a deep and noble culture can grow forth. His
own experiences lead him most frequently to the
consideration of these problems; and it is especially
in the tempestuous period of youth that every
personal event shines with a double gleam, both
as the exemplification of a triviality and, at the
same time, of an eternally surprising problem,
deserving of explanation. At this age, which, as
it were, sees his experiences encircled with meta-
physical rainbows, man is, in the highest degree,
in need of a guiding hand, because he has suddenly
and almost instinctively convinced himself of the
—ambiguity of existence, and has lost the firm sup-
port of the beliefs he has hitherto held.
"This natural state of great need must of course
be looked upon as the worst enemy of that beloved
independence for which the cultured youth of the
present day should be trained. All these sons of
the present, who have raised the banner of the
'self-understood,' are therefore straining every
nerve to crush down these feelings of youth, to
cripple them, to mislead them, or to stop their


## p. 129 (#149) ############################################

FIFTH LECTURE. 129
growth altogether; and the favourite means em-
ployed is to paralyse that natural philosophic
impulse by the so-called "historical culture. " A
still recent system,* which has won for itself a
world-wide scandalous reputation, has discovered
the formula for this self-destruction of philosophy;
and now, wherever the historical view of things
is found, we can see such a naive recklessness
in bringing the irrational to 'rationality' and
'reason' and making black look like white, that
one is even inclined to parody Hegel's phrase and
ask: 'Is all this irrationality real? ' Ah, it is
only the irrational that now seems to be 'real,'
i. e. really doing something; and to bring this
kind of reality forward for the elucidation of history
is reckoned as true ' historical culture. ' It is into
this that the philosophical impulse of our time has
pupated itself; and the peculiar philosophers of
our universities seem to have conspired to fortify
and confirm the young academicians in it.
"It has thus come to pass that, in place of a
profound interpretation of the eternally recurring
problems, a historical—yea, even philological—
balancing and questioning has entered into the
educational arena: what this or that philosopher
has or has not thought; whether this or that essay
or dialogue is to be ascribed to him or not; or
even whether this particular reading of a classical
text is to be preferred to that. It is to neutral |
preoccupations with philosophy like these that our
students in philosophical seminaries are stimulated;
* Hegel's. —Tr.
I


## p. 130 (#150) ############################################

130 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
whence I have long accustomed myself to regard
such science as a mere ramification of philology,
and to value its representatives in proportion as
they are good or bad philologists. So it has come
about that philosophy itself is banished from the
universites: wherewith our first question as to
the value of our universities from the standpoint
of culture is answered.
"In what relationship these universities stand
to art cannot be acknowledged without shame:
in none at all. Of artistic thinking, learning,
striving, and comparison, we do not find in them
a single trace; and no one would seriously think
that the voice of the universities would ever be
raised to help the advancement of the higher
national schemes of art. Whether an individual
teacher feels himself to be personally qualified for
art, or whether a professorial chair has been estab-
lished for the training of sestheticising literary
historians, does not enter into the question at all:
the fact remains that the university is not in a
position to control the young academician by
severe artistic discipline, and that it must let
happen what happens, willy-nilly—and this is the
cutting answer to the immodest pretensions of the
universities to represent themselves as the highest
educational institutions.
"We find our academical 'independents' grow-
ing up without philosophy and without art; and
how can they then have any need to 'go in for'
the Greeks and Romans ? —for we need now no
longer pretend, like our forefathers, to have any
great regard for Greece and Rome, which, besides,
\


## p. 131 (#151) ############################################

FIFTH LECTURE. 131
sit enthroned in almost inaccessible loneliness and
majestic alienation. The universities of the present
time consequently give no heed to almost extinct
educational predilections like these, and found
their philological chairs for the training of new
and exclusive generations of philologists, who on
their part give similar philological preparation in
the public schools—a vicious circle which is use-
ful neither to philologists nor to public schools,
but which above all accuses the university for the
third time of not being what it so pompously
proclaims itself to be—a training ground for
culture. Take away the Greeks, together with
philosophy and art, and what ladder have you
still remaining by which to ascend to culture?
For, if you attempt to clamber up the ladder
without these helps, you must permit me to inform
you that all your learning will lie like a heavy
burden on your shoulders rather than furnishing
you with wings and bearing you aloft.
"If you honest thinkers have honourably
remained in these three stages of intelligence,
and have perceived that, in comparison with the
Greeks, the modern student is unsuited to and
unprepared for philosophy, that he has no truly
artistic instincts, and is merely a barbarian be-
lieving himself to be free, you will not on this
account turn away from him in disgust, although
you will, of course, avoid coming into too close
proximity with him. For, as he now is, he is not
to blame: as you have perceived him he is the
dumb but terrible accuser of those who are to
blame.
f


## p. 132 (#152) ############################################

132 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
"You should understand the secret language
spoken by this guilty innocent, and then you, too,
would learn to understand the inward state of
that independence which is paraded outwardly
with so much ostentation. Not one of these
noble, well-qualified youths has remained a
stranger to that restless, tiring, perplexing, and
debilitating need of culture: during his university
term, when he is apparently the only free man in
a crowd of servants and officials, he atones for
this huge illusion of freedom by ever-growing
inner doubts and convictions. He feels that he
can neither lead nor help himself; and then he
plunges hopelessly into the workaday world and
endeavours to ward off such feelings by study.
The most trivial bustle fastens itself upon him;
he sinks under his heavy burden. Then he
suddenly pulls himself together; he still feels
some of that power within him which would have
enabled him to keep his head above water. Pride
and noble resolutions assert themselves and grow
in him. He is afraid of sinking at this early
stage into the limits of a narrow profession; and
now he grasps at pillars and railings alongside
the stream that he may not be swept away by
the current. In vain! for these supports give
way, and he finds he has clutched at broken
reeds. In low and despondent spirits he sees
his plans vanish away in smoke. His condition
is undignified, even dreadful: he keeps between
the two extremes of work at high pressure and
a state of melancholy enervation. Then he be-
comes tired, lazy, afraid of work, fearful of


## p. 133 (#153) ############################################

FIFTH LECTURE. 133
everything great; and hating himself. He looks
into his own breast, analyses his faculties, and
finds he is only peering into hollow and chaotic
vacuity. And then he once more falls from the
heights of his eagerly-desired self-knowledge into
an ironical scepticism. He divests his struggles
,^of their real importance, and feels himself ready
, to undertake any class of useful work, however
degrading. He now seeks consolation in hasty
and incessant action so as to hide himself from
himself. And thus his helplessness and the want
of a leader towards culture drive him from one
form of life into another: but doubt, elevation,
worry, hope, despair — everything flings him
hither and thither as a proof that all the stars "1
above him by which he could have guided his J
ship have set.
"There you have the picture of this glorious
independence of yours, of that academical freedom,
reflected in the highest minds—those which are
truly in need of culture, compared with whom
that other crowd of indifferent natures does not
count at all, natures that delight in their freedom
in a purely barbaric sense. For these latter show
by their base smugness and their narrow pro-
fessional limitations that this is the right element
for them: against which there is nothing to be
said. Their comfort, however, does not counter-
balance the suffering of one single young man
who has an inclination for culture and feels the
need of a guiding hand, and who at last, in a
moment of discontent, throws down the reins and
begins to despise himself. This is the guiltless


## p. 134 (#154) ############################################

134 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
innocent; for who has saddled him with the
unbearable burden of standing alone? Who has
urged him on to independence at an age when
one of the most natural and peremptory needs of
youth is, so to speak, a self-surrendering to great
leaders and an enthusiastic following in the foot-
steps of the masters?
"It is repulsive to consider the effects to which
the violent suppression of such noble natures may
lead. He who surveys the greatest supporters
and friends of that pseudo-culture of the present
time, which I so greatly detest, will only too
frequently find among them such degenerate and
shipwrecked men of culture, driven by inward
despair to violent enmity against culture, when,
in a moment of desperation, there was no one at
hand to show them how to attain it. It is not
the worst and most insignificant people whom we
afterwards find acting as journalists and writers
for the press in the metamorphosis of despair:
the spirit of some well-known men of letters
might even be described, and justly, as degenerate
studentdom. How else, for example, can we
reconcile that once well-known 'young Germany'
with its present degenerate successors? Here we
discover a need of culture which, so to speak, has
grown mutinous, and which finally breaks out into
the passionate cry: I am culture! There, before
the gates of the public schools and universities, we
can see the culture which has been driven like a
fugitive away from these institutions. True, this
culture is without the erudition of those establish-
ments, but assumes nevertheless the mien of a


## p. 135 (#155) ############################################

FIFTH LECTURE. 135
sovereign; so that, for example, Gutzkow the
novelist might he pointed to as the best example
of a modern public school boy turned aesthete.
Such a degenerate man of culture is a serious
matter, and it is a horrifying spectacle for us to
see that all our scholarly and journalistic publicity
bears the stigma of this degeneracy upon it. How
else can we do justice to our learned men, who
pay untiring attention to, and even co-operate in
the journalistic corruption of the people, how else
than by the acknowledgment that their learning
must fill a want of their own similar to that filled
by novel-writing in the case of others: i. e. a
flight from one's self, an ascetic extirpation of
their cultural impulses, a desperate attempt to
annihilate their own individuality. From our
degenerate literary art, as also from that itch for
scribbling of our learned men which has now
reached such alarming proportions, wells forth
the same sigh: Oh that we could forget ourselves!
The attempt fails: memory, not yet suffocated by
the mountains of printed paper under which it is
buried, keeps on repeating from time to time:,
'A degenerate man of culture! Born for
culture and brought up to non-culture! Help-
less barbarian, slave of the day, chained to the
present moment, and thirsting for something—
ever thirsting! '
"Oh, the miserable guilty innocents! For they
lack something, a need that every one of them must \
have felt: a real educational institution, which could
give them goals, masters, methods, companions;
and from the midst of which the invigorating and


## p. 136 (#156) ############################################

136 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
uplifting breath of the true German spirit
would inspire them. Thus they perish in the
wilderness; thus they degenerate into enemies
of that spirit which is at bottom closely allied
to their own; thus they pile fault upon fault
higher than any former generation ever did,
soiling the clean, desecrating the holy, canon-
ising the false and spurious. It is by them
that you can judge the educational strength of
our universities, asking yourselves, in all serious-
ness, the question: What cause did you promote
through them? The German power of invention,
the noble German desire for knowledge, the qualify-
ing of the German for diligence and self-sacrifice
—splendid and beautiful things, which other
nations envy you; yea, the finest and most
magnificent things in the world, if only that true
German spirit overspread them like a dark thunder-
cloud, pregnant with the blessing of forthcoming
rain. But you are afraid of this spirit, and it has
therefore come to pass that a cloud of another sort
has thrown a heavy and oppressive atmosphere
around your universities, in which your noble-
minded scholars breathe wearily and with
difficulty.
"A tragic, earnest, and instructive attempt was
made in the present century to destroy the cloud
I have last referred to, and also to turn the people's
looks in the direction of the high welkin of the
German spirit. In all the annals of our universities
we cannot find any trace of a second attempt, and
he who would impressively demonstrate what is
now necessary for us will never find a better


## p. 137 (#157) ############################################

FIFTH LECTURE. r
example. I refer to the old, primitive Burschen-
schaft*
"When the war of liberation was over, the
young student brought back home the unlooked-
for and worthiest trophy of battle—the freedom
of his fatherland. Crowned with this laurel he
thought of something still nobler. On returning
to the university, and finding that he was breathing
heavily, he became conscious of that oppressive
and contaminated air which overhung the culture
of the university. He suddenly saw, with horror-
struck, wide-open eyes, the non-German barbarism,
hiding itself in the guise of all kinds of schol-
asticism; he suddenly discovered that his own
leaderless comrades were abandoned to a repulsive
kind of youthful intoxication. And he was ex-
asperated. He rose with the same aspect of proud
indignation as Schiller may have had when reciting
the Rodders to his companions: and if he had
prefaced his drama with the picture of a lion, and
the motto, ' in tyrannos,' his follower himself was
that very lion preparing to spring; and every
'tyrant' began to tremble. Yes, if these indignant
youths were looked at superficially and timorously,
they would seem to be little else than Schiller's
robbers: their talk sounded so wild to the anxious
listener that Rome and Sparta seemed mere
nunneries compared with these new spirits. The
consternation raised by these young men was
indeed far more general than had ever been
* A German students' association, of liberal principles,
founded for patriotic purposes at Jena in 1813.


## p. 138 (#158) ############################################

FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.

caused by those other ' robbers' in court circles,
of which a German prince, according to Goethe,
is said to have expressed the opinion: 'If he
had been God, and had foreseen the appearance
of the Robbers, he would not have created the
world. '
"Whence came the incomprehensible intensity
of this alarm? For those young men were the
bravest, purest, and most talented of the band both
in dress and habits: they were distinguished by a
magnanimous recklessness and a noble simplicity.
A divine command bound them together to seek
harder and more pious superiority: what could be
feared from them? To what extent this fear was
merely deceptive or simulated or really true is
something that will probably never be exactly
known ; but a strong instinct spoke out of this fear
and out of its disgraceful and senseless persecution.
This instinct hated the Burschenschaft with an
intense hatred for two reasons: first of all on ac-
count of its organisation, as being the first attempt
to construct a true educational institution, and,
secondly, on account of the spirit of this in-
stitution, that earnest, manly, stern, and daring
German spirit; that spirit of the miner's son,
Luther, which has come down to us unbroken from
the time of the Reformation.
"Think of the fate of the Burschenschaft when
I ask you, Did the German university then under-
stand that spirit, as even the German princes in
their hatred appear to have understood it? Did
the alma mater boldly and resolutely throw her pro-
tecting arms round her noble sons and say: 'You
\


## p. 139 (#159) ############################################

FIFTH LECTURE.