Poorly directed study of political questions by a great number of people creates Utopians and poor citizens, as you can judge by the universal education as conducted by the Goys along those lines. It was necessary for us to infiltrate into their educational system such principles as have successfully broken down their social order. When we are in power, we will eliminate all disturbing subjects from educational systems and will make young people obedient children of their superiors, loving the sovereign as their assurance of hope, peace, and quiet.
For the study of the classics and ancient history, which contain more bad than good examples, we will substitute a program dealing with the future. We will obliterate from the memory of the people all those facts pertaining to former centuries which are not to our advantage, leaving only those which emphasize the mistakes of the Goy governments. The study of practical life, of obligatory social order, of the inter-relationship of human beings, the avoidance of evil, egotistical examples that plant the seed of evil, and other questions of a pedagogical nature, will head the educational program. This program will differ for each caste, never allowing education to be of a uniform character. Such a system is of special importance.
Each caste must be educated with strict limitations, according to its particular occupation and the nature of the work. Accidental genius has always been able and always will be able to rise to a higher caste; but, for the sake of this rare exception, to open the door to the inefficient, and to admit them to higher castes or ranks, enabling them to occupy positions of others born and trained to fill them—is absolute insanity. You, yourself, know what happened to the Goys when they yielded to this nonsense.
In order to implant the sovereign firmly in the minds and hearts of his subjects, it is necessary to acquaint the people, during his term of office, both in schools and in public places, with the importance of his activity and the benevolence of his enterprises.
We will abolish all unlicensed teaching. Students will have the right to gather, with their relatives, in their colleges as if in clubs. During these gatherings, on holidays, the teachers will read supposedly unbiased lectures on problems of human relationship, on the law of imitation, on the cruelty of unrestricted competition, and finally, on new philosophical theories which have not yet been disclosed to the world.
We will promote these theories into dogmatic beliefs, using them as stepping-stones to our faith. After having presented our program of action for the present and for the future, I will read to you the principles of these theories.
In short, knowing from the experience of many centuries that men live and are guided by ideas, that these ideas are imbued only by means of education given to persons of all ages, of course by different methods but meeting with equal success, we will absorb and appropriate to our own advantage the last traces of independent thought, which for a long time have been directed to the goal and to the ideas necessary to us. The system of enslaving thought is already in action through so-called visual education.
This system tends to turn the Goys into thoughtless, obedient animals, expecting to see in order to understand. In France one of our best agents, Bourgeois, has already announced a new program of visual education.
Protocol No. XVII
The lawyer’s profession makes people grow cold, cruel, stubborn and unprincipled, and compels them to take an abstract or purely legal viewpoint in all matters. They have learned to consider solely the personal gain derived from every case they handle and not the possibility of the social benefit of its results. They rarely refuse to take a case and always strive for acquittal at all cost, clinging to minor technical points of a legal nature. In this way they demoralize the courts. Therefore we will limit this profession, converting it into an executive public office. Lawyers will be deprived of the right of contact with their clients on the same basis as are the judges. They will receive their cases only from the court, preparing them on the strength of written reports and documents and defending their clients after they have been examined in court on the basis of the facts obtained during the trial. They will receive a salary, regardless of whether the defense has been successful or not. They will act as simple exponents of the case on behalf of the defense in counterbalance to the public prosecutor, who will act as exponent on behalf of the prosecution. This will shorten legal procedure and establish an honest and impartial defense, conducted not for the sake of personal gain, but based on the personal conviction of the lawyer. This will also eliminate the existing bribery among fellow lawyers and prevent their allowing the side to win which pays.