—We must distinguish from that affectation which arises through a misunderstanding of the limit of individuality, the way which many children and young persons have of supposing when they see models finished and complete in grown persons, that they themselves are endowed by Nature with the power to develop into the same. When they see a reality which corresponds to their own possibility, the presentiment of a like or a similar attainment moves them to an imitation of it as a model personality. This may be sometimes carried so far as to be disagreeable or ridiculous, but should not be too strongly censured, because it springs from a positive striving after culture, and needs only proper direction.—
§ 48. (2) The Objective limit of Education lies in the means which can be appropriated for it. That the talent for a certain culture shall be present is certainly the first thing; but the cultivation of this talent is the second, and no less necessary. But how much cultivation can be given to it extensively and intensively depends upon the means used, and these again are conditioned by the material resources of the family to which each one belongs. The greater and more valuable the means of culture which are found in a family are, the greater is the immediate advantage which the culture of each one has at the start. With regard to many of the arts and sciences this limit of education is of great significance. But the means alone are of no avail. The finest educational apparatus will produce no fruit where corresponding talent is wanting, while on the other hand talent often accomplishes incredible feats with very limited means, and, if the way is only once open, makes of itself a centre of attraction which draws to itself with magnetic power the necessary means. The moral culture of each one is however, fortunately from its very nature, out of the reach of such dependence.
—In considering the limit made by individuality we recognize the side of truth in that indifference which considers Education entirely superfluous, and in considering the means of culture we find the truth in the other extreme of pedagogical despotism, which fancies that it can command whatever culture it chooses for any one without regard to his individuality.—
§ 49. (3) The Absolute limit of Education is the time when the youth has apprehended the problem which he has to solve, has learned to know the means at his disposal, and has acquired a certain facility in using them. The end and aim of Education is the emancipation of the youth. It strives to make him self-dependent, and as soon as he has become so it wishes to retire and to be able to leave him to the sole responsibility of his actions. To treat the youth after he has passed this point of time still as a youth, contradicts the very idea of Education, which idea finds its fulfilment in the attainment of majority by the pupil. Since the accomplishment of education cancels the original inequality between the educator and the pupil, nothing is more oppressing, nay, revolting to the latter than to be prevented by a continued dependence from the enjoyment of the freedom which he has earned.
—The opposite extreme of the protracting of Education beyond its proper time is necessarily the undue hastening of the Emancipation.—The question whether one is prepared for freedom has been often opened in politics. When any people have gone so far as to ask this question themselves, it is no longer a question whether that people are prepared for it, for without the consciousness of freedom this question would never have occurred to them.—
§ 50. Although educators must now leave the youth free, the necessity of further culture for him is still imperative. But it will no longer come directly through them. Their pre-arranged, pattern-making work is now supplanted by self-education. Each sketches for himself an ideal to which in his life he seeks to approximate every day.
—In the work of self-culture one friend can help another by advice and example; but he cannot educate, for education presupposes inequality.—The necessities of human nature produce societies in which equals seek to influence each other in a pedagogical way, since they establish by certain steps of culture different classes. They presuppose Education in the ordinary sense. But they wish to bring about Education in a higher sense, and therefore they veil the last form of their ideal in the mystery of secrecy.—To one who lives on contented with himself and without the impulse toward self-culture, unless his unconcern springs from his belonging to a savage state of society, the Germans give the name of Philistine, and he is always repulsive to the student who is intoxicated with an ideal.—