No More Learning

We are educati
We are at the zenith! We are the apexes of
pyramids! We are the aims of universal histor
—when they hear the seductive promises, w]
the shameful signs of non-culture, the plebe
publicity of the so-called ' interests of culture'
extolled for their benefit in magazines and nei
papers as an entirely new and the best possib
full-grown form of culture! Whither shall t
poor fellows fly when they feel the presenting
that these promises are not true—where but to t
most obtuse, sterile scientificality, that here ti
shriek of culture may no longer be audible
them? Pursued in this way, must they not en
like the ostrich, by burying their heads in tl
sand? Is it not a real happiness for them, burie
as they are among dialects, etymologies, and cor
jectures, to lead a life like that of the ants, eve
though they are miles removed from true cultun
if only they can close their ears tightly and b
deaf to the voice of the 'elegant' culture of thi
time. "


## p. 85 (#105) #############################################

THIRD LECTURE. 85
"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 expres-
sion, which makes such demands, is rather a
novelty, and has only come to a ' self-understand-
ing' 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


## p. 86 (#106) #############################################

86 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
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 uni-
versal 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 appoint-
ments, 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,


## p. 87 (#107) #############################################

THIRD LECTURE. 87
namely, the tendency of the Hegelian philosophy: t
yea, it would perhaps be no exaggeration to say
that, in the subordination of all strivings after educa-
tion 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 condi-
tions 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 main-
tenance 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 con-
cerning 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 utili-
tarian point of view of recognising as culture only


## p. 88 (#108) #############################################

88 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
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 thank-
fulness which is so distasteful to modern men;
because he clearly recognised not only that with-
out 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 pro-
• tection afforded by the State. The State was for
T his culture not a supervisor, regulator, and watch-
man, 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 like-
wise the culture thus promoted, which subordinates
itself to this purpose of the State. With the real
German spirit and the education derived therefrom,


## p. 89 (#109) #############################################

THIRD LECTURE. 89
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 philo-
sophy, 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 accla-
mations 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 educa-^
tional institutions, of teachers? Why this education
of the masses on such an extended scale? Because
the true German spirit is hated, because the aristo-
cratic 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! -i


## p. 90 (#110) #############################################

90 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
"A new phenomenon! The State as the guiding
star of culture! In the meantime one thing con-
soles 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 ego-
istical, 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 elo-
quence, 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! '"
N


## p. 91 (#111) #############################################

FOURTH LECTURE.
{Delivered on the %th of March 1872. )
Ladies and Gentlemen,—Now that you have
followed my tale up to this point, and that we have
made ourselves joint masters of the solitary, remote,
and at times abusive duologue of the philosopher
and his companion, I sincerely hope that you, like
strong swimmers, are ready to proceed on the
second half of our journey, especially as I can
promise you that a few other marionettes will
appear in the puppet-play of my adventure, and
that if up to the present you have only been able
to do little more than endure what I have been
telling you, the waves of my story will now bear
you more quickly and easily towards the end. In
other words we have now come to a turning, and
it would be advisable for us to take a short glance
backwards to see what we think we have gained
from such a varied conversation.
"Remain in your present position," the philo-
sopher seemed to say to his companion, " for you
may cherish hopes. It is more and more clearly
evident that we have no educational institutions
at all; but that we ought to have them. Our
public schools—established, it would seem, for
this high object—have either become the nurseries
,--


## p. 92 (#112) #############################################

92 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
/ of a reprehensible culture which repels the
/ culture with profound hatred—i. e. a true, ari
»\ cratic culture, founded upon a few carefully cho
minds; or they foster a micrological and ste
/ learning which, while it is far removed from cultz.
/ has at least this merit, that it avoids that rep
hensible culture as well as the true culture. " T
philosopher had particularly drawn his companior
attention to the strange corruption which mu
have entered into the heart of culture when tk
State thought itself capable of tyrannising over i
and of attaining its ends through it; and furthe
when the State, in conjunction with this culture
struggled against other hostile forces as well as
against the spirit which the philosopher ventured to
call the " true German spirit. " This spirit, linked to
the Greeks by the noblest ties, and shown by its
past history to have been steadfast and courageous,
pure and lofty in its aims, its faculties qualifying
it for the high task of freeing modern man from
the curse of modernity—this spirit is condemned
to live apart, banished from its inheritance. But
\ when its slow, painful tones of woe resound
through the desert of the present, then the
overladen and gaily-decked caravan of culture
is pulled up short, horror-stricken. We must not
only astonish, but terrify—such was the philo-
sopher's opinion: not to fly shamefully away, but
to take the offensive, was his advice; but he
especially counselled his companion not to ponder
too anxiously over the individual from whom,
through a higher instinct, this aversion for the
present barbarism proceeded. "Let it perish:
\


## p. 93 (#113) #############################################

FOURTH LECTURE.
93
the Pythian god had no difficulty in finding a new
tripod, a second Pythia, so long, at least, as the
mystic cold vapours rose from the earth. "
The philosopher once more began to speak:
"Be careful to remember, my friend," said he,
"there are two things you must not confuse. A
man must learn a great deal that he may live and
take part in the struggle for existence; but every-
thing that he as an individual learns and does with
this end in view has nothing whatever to do with
culture. This latter only takes its beginning in a
sphere that lies far above the world of necessity,
indigence, and struggle for existence. The ques-
tion now is to what extent a man values his ego
in comparison with other egos, how much of his
strength he uses up in the endeavour to earn his ,
living. Many a one, by stoically confining his',
needs within a narrow compass, will shortly and
easily reach the sphere in which he may forget,
and, as it were, shake off his ego, so that he can
enjoy perpetual youth in a solar system of time-
less and impersonal things. Another widens the
scope and needs of his ego as much as possible,
and builds the mausoleum of this ego in vast
proportions, as if he were prepared to fight and
conquer that terrible adversary, Time. In this
instinct also we may see a longing for immortality:
wealth and power, wisdom, presence of mind,
eloquence, a flourishing outward aspect, a renowned
name—all these are merely turned into the means
by which an insatiable, personal will to live craves
for new life, with which, again, it hankers after an
eternity that is at last seen to be illusory.
;. ■)
J


## p. 94 (#114) #############################################

94 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
"But even in this highest form of the ego, in
the enhanced needs of such a distended and, as
it were, collective individual, true culture is never
touched upon; and if, for example, art is sought
after, only its disseminating and stimulating actions
come into prominence, i. e. those which least give
rise to pure and noble art, and most of all to low
and degraded forms of it. For in all his efforts,
however great and exceptional they seem to the
onlooker, he never succeeds in freeing himself
from his own hankering and restless personality:
that illuminated, ethereal sphere where one may
contemplate without the obstruction of one's own
personality continually recedes from him—and
thus, let him learn, travel, and collect as he may,
he must always live an exiled life at a remote
distance from a higher life and from true culture.
For true culture would scorn to contaminate itself
with the needy and covetous individual; it well
knows how to give the slip to the man who would
fain employ it as a means of attaining to egoistic
ends; and if any one cherishes the belief that he
has firmly secured it as a means of livelihood, and
that he can procure the necessities of life by its
sedulous cultivation, then it suddenly steals away
with noiseless steps and an air of derisive mockery. *
"I will thus ask you, my friend, not to
confound this culture, this sensitive, fastidious,
ethereal goddess, with that useful maid-of-all-work
which is also called 'culture,' but which is only
* It will be apparent from these words that Nietzsche is
still under the influence of Schopenhauer. —Tr.


## p. 95 (#115) #############################################

FOURTH LECTURE. 95
the intellectual servant and counsellor of one's
practical necessities, wants, and means of livelihood.
Every kind of training, however, which holds out
the prospect of bread-winning as its end and aim,
is not a training for culture as we understand the
word; but merely a collection of precepts and'
directions to show how, in the struggle for
existence, a man may preserve and protect his
own person. It may be freely admitted that for |
the great majority of men such a course of
instruction is of the highest importance; and the
more arduous the struggle is the more intensely
must the young man strain every nerve to utilise
his strength to the best advantage.
"But—let no one think for a moment that the
schools which urge him on to this struggle and
prepare him for it are in any way seriously to be
considered as establishments of culture. They are
institutions which teach one how to take part in
the battle of life; whether they promise to turn
out civil servants, or merchants, or officers, or
wholesale dealers, or farmers, or physicians, or
men with a technical training. The regulations
and standards prevailing at such institutions
differ from those in a true educational institution;
and what in the latter is permitted, and even
freely held out as often as possible, ought to be
considered as a criminal offence in the former.
"Let me give you an example. If you wish to
guide a young man on the path of true culture,
beware of interrupting his naive, confident, and, as
it were, immediate and personal relationship with t—
nature. The woods, the rocks, the winds, the,'


## p. 96 (#116) #############################################

96 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
vulture, the flowers, the butterfly, the meads, the
mountain slopes, must all speak to him in their
own language; in them he must, as it were, come
to know himself again in countless reflections and
images, in a variegated round of changing visions;
and in this way he will unconsciously and gradually
feel the metaphysical unity of all things in the
great image of nature, and at the same time tran-
quillise his soul in the contemplation of her eternal
endurance and necessity. But how many young
men should be permitted to grow up in such close
and almost personal proximity to nature! The
others must learn another truth betimes: how to
subdue nature to themselves. Here is an end of
this naive metaphysics; and the physiology of
plants and animals, geology, inorganic chemistry,
force their devotees to view nature from an alto-
gether different standpoint. What is lost by this
new point of view is not only a poetical phantas-
magoria, but the instinctive, true, and unique point
of view, instead of which we have shrewd and
clever calculations, and, so to speak, overreachings
of nature. Thus to the truly cultured man is
vouchsafed the inestimable benefit of being able to
remain faithful, without a break, to the contem-
plative instincts of his childhood, and so to attain
to a calmness, unity, consistency, and harmony
which can never be even thought of by a man
who is compelled to fight in the struggle for
existence.
"You must not think, however, that I wish to
withhold all praise from our primary and secondary
schools: I honour the seminaries where boys learn


## p. 97 (#117) #############################################

FOURTH LECTURE. 97
arithmetic and master modern languages, and study
geography and the marvellous discoveries made in
natural science. I am quite prepared to say further
that those youths who pass through the better
class of secondary schools are well entitled to make
the claims put forward by the fully-fledged public
school boy; and the time is certainly not far dis-
tant when such pupils will be everywhere freely
admitted to the universities and positions under the
government, which has hitherto been the case only
with scholars from the public schools—of our pre-
sent public schools, be it noted ! * I cannot, how-
ever, refrain from adding the melancholy reflection:
if it be true that secondary and public schools are, on
the whole, working so heartily in common towards
the same ends, and differ from each other only in
such a slight degree, that they may take equal rank
before the tribunal of the State, then we com-
pletely lack another kind of educational institu-
tions: those for the development of culture! To
say the least, the secondary schools cannot be
reproached with this; for they have up to the
present propitiously and honourably followed up
tendencies of a lower order, but one nevertheless
highly necessary. In the public schools, however,
there is very much less honesty and very much
less ability too; for in them we find an instinctive
feeling of shame, the unconscious perception of
the fact that the whole institution has been igno-
miniously degraded, and that the sonorous words
of wise and apathetic teachers are contradictory
* This prophecy has come true. —Tr.
G


## p. 98 (#118) #############################################

98 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
to the dreary, barbaric, and sterile reality. So
there are no true cultural institutions! And in
those very places where a pretence to culture is
still kept up, we find the people more hopeless,
atrophied, and discontented than in the secondary
schools, where the so-called 'realistic' subjects
are taught! Besides this, only think how imma-
ture and uninformed one must be in the company
of such teachers when one actually misunderstands
the rigorously defined philosophical expressions
'real' and 'realism' to such a degree as to
think them the contraries of mind and matter,
and to interpret 'realism' as 'the road to know-
ledge, formation, and mastery of reality. '
"I for my own part know of only two exact
contraries: institutions for teaching culture and
institutions for teaching how to succeed in life. All
our present institutions belong to the second class;
but I am speaking only of the first. "
About two hours went by while the philoso-
phically-minded couple chatted about such start-
ling questions. Night slowly fell in the meantime;
and when in the twilight the philosopher's voice
had sounded like natural music through the woods,
it now rang out in the profound darkness of the
night when he was speaking with excitement or
even passionately; his tones hissing and thunder-
ing far down the valley, and reverberating among
the trees and rocks. Suddenly he was silent: he
had just repeated, almost pathetically, the words,
"we have no true educational institutions; we have
no true educational institutions ! " when something
fell down just in front of him—it might have been
\


## p. 99 (#119) #############################################

FOURTH LECTURE. 99
a fir-cone—and his dog barked and ran towards
it Thus interrupted, the philosopher raised his
head, and suddenly became aware of the dark-
ness, the cool air, and the lonely situation of
himself and his companion. "Well! What are
we about! " he ejaculated, " it's dark. You know
whom we were expecting here; but he hasn't
come. We have waited in vain; let us go. "
I must now, ladies and gentlemen, convey to
you the impressions experienced by my friend and
myself as we eagerly listened to this conversation,
which we heard distinctly in our hiding-place. I
have already told you that at that place and at
that hour we had intended to hold a festival in
commemoration of something: and this something
had to do with nothing else than matters concern-
ing educational training, of which we, in our own
youthful opinions, had garnered a plentiful harvest
during our past life. We were thus disposed to
remember with gratitude the institution which we
had at one time thought out for ourselves at that
very spot in order, as I have already mentioned,
that we might reciprocally encourage and watch
over one another's educational impulses. But a
sudden and unexpected light was thrown on all
that past life as we silently gave ourselves up to
the vehement words of the philosopher. As when
a traveller, walking heedlessly across unknown
ground, suddenly puts his foot over the edge of
a cliff, so it now seemed to us that we had
hastened to meet the great danger rather than run
away from it. Here at this spot, so memorable


## p. 100 (#120) ############################################

IOO FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
to us, we heard the warning: "Back! Not another
step! Know you not whither your footsteps tend,
whither this deceitful path is luring you? "
It seemed to us that we now knew, and our
feeling of overflowing thankfulness impelled us so
irresistibly towards our earnest counsellor and
trusty Eckart, that both of us sprang up at the
same moment and rushed towards the philosopher
to embrace him. He was just about to move off,
and had already turned sideways when we rushed
up to him. The dog turned sharply round and
barked, thinking doubtless, like the philosopher's
companion, of an attempt at robbery rather than
an enraptured embrace. It was plain that he had
forgotten us. In a word, he ran away. Our
embrace was a miserable failure when we did over-
take him; for my friend gave a loud yell as the
dog bit him, and the philosopher himself sprang
away from me with such force that we both fell.
What with the dog and the men there was a
scramble that lasted a few minutes, until my friend
began to call out loudly, parodying the philo-
sopher's own words: " In the name of all culture
and pseudo-culture, what does the silly dog want
with us? Hence, you confounded dog; you un-
initiated, never to be initiated; hasten away from
us, silent and ashamed! " After this outburst
matters were cleared up to some extent, at any rate
so far as they could be cleared up in the darkness
of the wood. "Oh, it's you! " ejaculated the
philosopher, "our duellists! How you startled
us! What on earth drives you to jump out upon
us like this at such a time of the night? "


## p. 101 (#121) ############################################

FOURTH LECTURE. IOI
"Joy, thankfulness, and reverence," said we,
shaking the old man by the hand, whilst the dog
barked as if he understood, " we can't let you go
without telling you this. And if you are to under-
stand everything you must not go away just yet;
we want to ask you about so many things that lie
heavily on our hearts. Stay yet awhile; we know
every foot of the way and can accompany you
afterwards. The gentleman you expect may yet
turn up. Look over yonder on the Rhine: what
is that we see so clearly floating on the surface of
the water as if surrounded by the light of many
torches? It is there that we may look for your
friend, I would even venture to say that it is he
who is coming towards you with all those lights. "
And so much did we assail the surprised old
man with our entreaties, promises, and fantastic
delusions, that we persuaded the philosopher to
walk to and fro with us on the little plateau,
"by learned lumber undisturbed," as my friend
added.
"Shame on you! " said the philosopher, " if you
really want to quote something, why choose Faust?
However, I will give in to you, quotation or no
quotation, if only our young companions will keep
still and not run away as suddenly as they made
their appearance, for they are like will-o'-the-wisps;
we are amazed when they are there and again when
they are not there. "
My friend immediately recited—
Respect, I hope, will teach us how we may
Our lighter disposition keep at bay.
Our course is only zig-zag as a rule.


## p. 102 (#122) ############################################

102 FUTURE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
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


## p. 114 (#134) ############################################

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


## p. 115 (#135) ############################################

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


## p. 120 (#140) ############################################

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.