Timidly, very timidly, did I venture to call my work by the title of "German," or "Universal German" education; and, indeed, I struck that out from one of my manuscripts, although it was precisely the name required to start with as it expressed the broad nature of my proposed institution. An appeal to the general public to become thorough men seemed to me too grandiose, too liable to be misunderstood, as, indeed, in the event, it only too truly proved; but to become thorough Germans, so I thought, would seem to them something in earnest, something worth the striving for, especially after such hard and special trials as had recently been endured by the German nation.
With your penetrating judgment you quarrelled with that term "German education;" but, after all, even the appeal to be made thorough Germans proved to be too grandiose and liable to be misunderstood. For every one said "German? Well, I am German, and have been so from my birth, just as a mushroom is a mushroom;[103] what, then, do I want with education to teach me to be a thorough German?" What would these worthy people have said, had I asked them to train themselves to become thorough men? Now had I planned my educational institute altogether differently, had I offered to train a special class, body-servants, footmen or housemaids, shoemakers or tailors, tradesmen or merchants, soldiers or even noblemen, then should I have gained fame and glory for the great usefulness and practical nature of my institution, for certain; and surely all men would have hastened to acknowledge it as an important matter, and as a thing to be adequately supported by the State. I should have been held as the right man in the right place by the State and by the world; and so much the more because as a State-machine I should have been engaged in cutting out and modelling other State-machines. But I—I only wanted to train up free, thinking, independent men! Now who wants to be, or who cares to suffer another to be, a free-thinking, independent man? If it was folly to talk about educating persons as Germans, what was it to talk about educating them as men? The education of Germans was felt to be something extraordinary and farfetched; the education of men was a mere shadow, a deceitful image, a blind enthusiasm.[104]
From this digression I now return, to continue my attempt at making myself known to you, as far as is possible, in a letter; by which I mean my real inner self, as manifested in my endeavours and my hopes.
Permit me, therefore, to go a step nearer towards what lies deepest in my soul, at least that of it which is communicable to another person. I have started by stating my position from the side of knowledge, now let me state it also from another side. My experience, especially that gained by repeated residences at the university, had taught me beyond a doubt that the method of education hitherto in use, especially where it involved learning by rote, and where it looked at subjects simply from the outside or historically, and considered then capable of apprehension by mere exercise work, dulled the edge of all high true attainment, of all real mental insight, of all genuine progress in scientific culture, of self-contemplation, and thus of all real knowledge, and of the acquisition of truth through knowledge. I might almost go further, and say that its tendency was towards rendering all these worthy objects impossible.
Therefore, I was firmly convinced, as of course I still am, that the whole former educational system, even that which had received improvement, ought to be exactly reversed, and regarded from a diametrically opposite point of view—namely, that of a system of development. I answered those who kept asking what it was that I really did want after all, with this sentence: "I want the exact opposite of what now serves as educational method and as teaching-system in general." I was, and am, completely convinced, that after this fashion alone genuine knowledge and absolute truth, by right the universal possessions of mankind, shall find once again, not alone single students here and there, but the vast majority of all our true-hearted young men and of our professors spreading far and wide the elements of a noble humanised life. To bring this into a practical scheme I held to be my highest duty, a duty which I could never evade, and one which I could never shake off, since a man cannot shake off his own nature.
Our greatest teachers, even Pestalozzi himself not excepted, seemed to me too bare, too empirical,[105] and arbitrary, and therefore not sufficiently scientific in their principles—that is, not sufficiently led by the laws of our being; they seemed to me in no wise to recognise the Divine element in science, to feel its worth, and to cherish it. Therefore I thought and hoped, with the courage and inexperience of youth, that all scientific and learned men, that the universities, in one word, would immediately recognise the purport of my efforts, and would strive with all their might to encourage me by word and deed.
In this I was egregiously mistaken; nevertheless I am not ashamed of the error. But few persons raised their voices for me or against me; and, indeed, your article in the Isis is the single sun-ray which really generously warmed and enlightened my life and lifework. Enough! the Universities paid no heed to the simple schoolmaster.[106] As to the "able editors," they, in their reviews, thought very differently from me; but why should I trouble myself further with remembering their performances, which were written simply with the object of degrading me and my work? They never succeeded in shaking my convictions in the least.
I regard the simple course of development, proceeding from analysis to synthesis, which characterises pure reasoned thought, as also the natural course of the development of every human being. Such a course of development, exactly opposite to the path taken by the old-fashioned methods of education, I now see mankind about to enter upon; nay, it has been actually entered upon already in a few single cases, though these cases are almost unknown and therefore unregarded; and with this new course of development a new period is to begin, a new age for all mankind, and therefore in the higher inner sense a new world; a world, perceiving and understanding, perceived and understood; a world of crystal clearness, creating an altogether new life for science, and carrying onward therefore the true science, that is, the science of being, and all that is founded upon this and conditioned by this.[107]
I may image forth the position of my educational establishment with regard to the universities, under the figure of family life.
In a healthily constituted family it is the mother who first cares for, watches over, and develops the child, teaches him to "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest," deriving everything she teaches from its central unity, and gathering up her teaching into that unity again.