,,on ,,the ,,future ,,of ,,our ,,educational ,,institutions ,,homer ,,and ,,classical ,,philology ,by ,,friedrich ,,nietzsche ,,translated1 ,,with ,,introduction1 ,,by ,j4,m4 ,,kennedy ,the ,complete ,works of ,friedrich ,nietzsche ,the ,first ,complete and ,authorised ,english ,translation ,edited by ,dr ,oscar ,levy ,volume ,three ,t4,n4 ,,foulis #ac #ae ,,frederick ,,street ,,edinburgh3 ,,and ,,london #aiji ,,contents ,,translator',s ,,introduction ,,author',s ,,preface ,,author',s ,,introduction ,,the ,,future ,,of ,,our ,,educational ,,institutions ,,first ,,lecture ,,second ,,lecture ,,third ,,lecture ,,fourth ,,lecture ,,fifth ,,lecture ,,homer ,,and ,,classical ,,philology ,,translator',s ,,introduction ,on the ,future of our ,educational ,institutions comprehends a series of five lectures delivered by ,nietzsche when ,professor of ,classical ,philology at ,ble ,university4 ,as they were prepared when he was only twenty-seven years of age1 we can scarcely expect to find in them that broad1 good ,european point of view which we meet with in his later works4 ,these lectures1 however1 are not only highly interesting in themselves2 but indispensable for those who wish to trace the gradual development of ,nietzsche's thought4 ,nietzsche's aim1 as is now pretty well known1 was the elevation of the type man4 ,at this period of his life he believed that this end could be best attained by the protection and careful development of men of genius1 ,hence his antagonism in the following lectures towards the purely time-serving ,german schools and colleges of his age1 in which culture was not only neglected but not even known--the one aim of the teachers being to instruct the pupils in the art of getting on1 of playing a successful part in the struggle for existence1 of becoming useful citizens4 ,of course1 ,nietzsche was too little of a wild reformer to be adverse to a schooling of this nature4 ,he freely admits that a bread-winning education is necessary for the majority1 and that officials are necessary to the ,state2 but he adds that everything learnt as a preparation for taking part in the commercial or political battle of life has nothing to do with culture4 ,true culture is only for a few select minds1 which it is necessary to bring together under the protecting roof of an institution that shall prepare them for culture1 and for culture only4 ,such an institution1 he goes on to say1 does not yet exist2 but we must have it if the delicate flower of the ,german mind is no longer to be choked by the noxious weeds which have gathered round it4 ,as instances of minds thus choked1 ,nietzsche mentions ,lessing1 ,winckelmann1 and ,schiller4 ,the standard of culture to be aimed at by the man of genius ,nietzsche had in mind was to be found in the model literary and artistic works which have come down to us from ancient ,greece4 ,to understand these works1 of course1 the classical authors had to be studied in the original1 and the methods of teaching then in vogue paid too much attention to inconsequential points 7ie4g4_/i variant readings7 instead of dealing with the subject in a broad-minded philosophical spirit4 ,nietzsche endeavoured to counteract this tendency in the ,homer and ,classical ,philology1 his inaugural address at ,ble ,university1 by outlining a much vaster conception of philology than his fellow-teachers had ever dreamt of1 laying stress upon the iartistic_/i results which would accrue if the science were applied on a wider scale--results which would be of a much higher order than those obtained by the narrow pedantry then prevailing4 ,it is a very superficial comment on these lectures to say that ,nietzsche was merely referring to the ,german schools and colleges of his time4 ,it would be even shallower to suggest that his remarks do not apply to the schools and teachers of present-day ,england and ,america2 for we likewise do not possess the cultural institution1 the ireal_/i educational establishment1 that ,nietzsche longed for4 ,broadly speaking1 the ,english public schools1 the older ,english universities1 and the ,american high schools1 train their scholars to be useful to the ,state3 the modern universities and the remaining schools give that instructionin bread-winning which ,nietzsche admits to be necessary for the majority2 but in no case is an attempt made to pick out a few higher minds and train them for culture4 ,our crude methods of teaching the classical languages are too well known to be commented upon2 and an insight into classical antiquity1 with the good taste1 the firm principles1 and the lofty aims obtained therefrom1 is exactly what our various educational institutions do not aim at giving4 ,yet1 as ,nietzsche truly says1 no progress in any other direction1 no matter how brilliant1 can deliver our students from the curse of an education which adapts itself more and more to the needs of the age1 and thus loses all its power of guiding the age4 ,let the student who1 as the victim of this system1 suffers more from it than his teachers care to admit1 read the paragraph on pp4 #acb and #acc containing the sentences-- ,he feels that he can neither lead nor help himself4444 ,his condition is undignified1 even dreadful3 he keeps between the two extremes of work at high pressure and a state of melancholy enervation4444 ,he seeks consolation in hasty and incessant action so as to hide himself from himself1 etc41 and then let him confess that ,nietzsche's insight into his psychology is profound and decisive4 ,the whole paragraph might have been written by ,nietzsche after a visit to present-day ,england4 ,as bearing upon the same subject1 the reader will find it interesting to compare the lectures here translated with ,matthew ,arnold's prose writings passim1 particularly the i,essays in ,criticism1 ,mixed ,essays1_/i and i,culture and ,anarchy_/i4 ,j4 ,m4 ,,kennedy4 ,,london1 ,may #aiji4 ,,preface4 ,the reader from whom ,i expect something must possess three qualities3 he must be calm and must read without haste2 he must not be ever interposing his own personality and his own special culture2 and he must not expect as the ultimate results of his study of these pages that he will be presented with a set of new formul4 ,i do not propose to furnish formul or new plans of study for ,gymnasia or other schools2 and ,i am much more inclined to admire the extraordinary power of those who are able to cover the whole distance between the depths of empiricism and the heights of special culture-problems1 and who again descend to the level of the driest rules and the most neatly expressed formul4 ,i shall be content if only ,i can ascend a tolerably lofty mountain1 from the summit of which1 after having recovered my breath1 ,i may obtain a general survey of the ground2 for ,i shall never be able1 in this book1 to satisfy the votaries of tabulated rules4 ,indeed1 ,i see a time coming when serious men1 working together in the service of a completely rejuvenated and purified culture1 may again become the directors of a system of everyday instruction1 calculated to promote that culture2 and they will probably be compelled once more to draw up sets of rules3 but how remote this time now seems6 ,and what may not happen meanwhile6 ,it is just possible that between now and then all ,gymnasia--yea1 and perhaps all universities1 may be destroyed1 or have become so utterly transformed that their very regulations may1 in the eyes of future generations1 seem to be but the relics of the cave-dwellers' age4 ,this book is intended for calm readers1--for men who have not yet been drawn into the mad headlong rush of our hurry-skurrying age1 and who do not experience any idolatrous delight in throwing themselves beneath its chariot-wheels4 ,it is for men1 therefore1 who are not accustomed to estimate the value of everything according to the amount of time it either saves or wastes4 ,in short1 it is for the few4 ,these1 we believe1 still have time4 ,without any qualms of conscience they may improve the most fruitful and vigorous hours of their day in meditating on the future of our education2 they may even believe when the evening has come that they have used their day in the most dignified and useful way1 namely1 in the meditatio generis futuri4 ,no one among them has yet forgotten to think while reading a book2 he still understands the secret of reading between the lines1 and is indeed so generous in what he himself brings to his study1 that he continues to reflect upon what he has read1 perhaps long after he has laid the book aside4 ,and he does this1 not because he wishes to write a criticism about it or even another book2 but simply because reflection is a pleasant pastime to him4 ,frivolous spendthrift6 ,thou art a reader after my own heart2 for thou wilt be patient enough to accompany an author any distance1 even though he himself cannot yet see the goal at which he is aiming1--even though he himself feels only that he must at all events honestly believe in a goal1 in order that a future and possibly very remote generation may come face to face with that towards which we are now blindly and instinctively groping4 ,should any reader demur and suggest that all that is required is prompt and bold reform2 should he imagine that a new organisation introduced by the ,state1 were all that is necessary1 then we fear he would have misunderstood not only the author but the very nature of the problem under consideration4 ,the third and most important stipulation is1 that he should in no case be constantly bringing himself and his own culture forward1 after the style of most modern men1 as the correct standard and measure of all things4 ,we would have him so highly educated that he could even think meanly of his education or despise it altogether4 ,only thus would he be able to trust entirely to the author's guidance2 for it is only by virtue of ignorance and his consciousness of ignorance1 that the latter can dare to make himself heard4 ,finally1 the author would wish his reader to be fully alive to the specific character of our present barbarism and of that which distinguishes us1 as the barbarians of the nineteenth century1 from other barbarians4 ,now1 with this book in his hand1 the writer seeks all those who may happen to be wandering1 hither and thither1 impelled by feelings similar to his own4 ,allow yourselves to be discovered--ye lonely ones in whose existence ,i believe6 ,ye unselfish ones1 suffering in yourselves from the corruption of the ,german spirit6 ,ye contemplative ones who cannot1 with hasty glances1 turn your eyes swiftly from one surface to another6 ,ye lofty thinkers1 of whom ,aristotle said that ye wander through life vacillating and inactive so long as no great honour or glorious ,cause calleth you to deeds6 ,it is you ,i summon6 ,refrain this once from seeking refuge in your lairs of solitude and dark misgivings4 ,bethink you that this book was framed to be your herald4 ,when ye shall go forth to battle in your full panoply1 who among you will not rejoice in looking back upon the herald who rallied you8 ,,introduction4 ,the title ,i gave to these lectures ought1 like all titles1 to have been as definite1 as plain1 and as significant as possible2 now1 however1 ,i observe that owing to a certain excess of precision1 in its present form it is too short and consequently misleading4 ,my first duty therefore will be to explain the title1 together with the object of these lectures1 to you1 and to apologise for being obliged to do this4 ,when ,i promised to speak to you concerning the future of our educational institutions1 ,i was not thinking especially of the evolution of our particular institutions in ,ble4 ,however frequently my general observations may seem to bear particular application to our own conditions here1 ,i personally have no desire to draw these inferences1 and do not wish to be held responsible if they should be drawn1 for the simple reason that ,i consider myself still far too much an inexperienced stranger among you1 and much too superficially acquainted with your methods1 to pretend to pass judgment upon any such special order of scholastic establishments1 or to predict the probable course their development will follow4 ,on the other hand1 ,i know full well under what distinguished auspices ,i have to deliver these lectures--namely1 in a city which is striving to educate and enlighten its inhabitants on a scale so magnificently out of proportion to its size1 that it must put all larger cities to shame4 ,this being so1 ,i presume ,i am justified in assuming that in a quarter where so much is done for the things of which ,i wish to speak1 people must also think a good deal about them4 ,my desire--yea1 my very first condition1 therefore1 would be to become united in spirit with those who have not only thought very deeply upon educational problems1 but have also the will to promote what they think to be right by all the means in their power4 ,and1 in view of the difficulties of my task and the limited time at my disposal1 to such listeners1 alone1 in my audience1 shall ,i be able to make myself understood--and even then1 it will be on condition that they shall guess what ,i can do no more than suggest1 that they shall supply what ,i am compelled to omit2 in brief1 that they shall need but to be reminded and not to be taught4 ,thus1 while ,i disclaim all desire of being taken for an uninvited adviser on questions relating to the schools and the ,university of ,ble1 ,i repudiate even more emphatically still the rle of a prophet standing on the horizon of civilisation and pretending to predict the future of education and of scholastic organisation4 ,i can no more project my vision through such vast periods of time than ,i can rely upon its accuracy when it is brought too close to an object under examination4 ,with my title3 ,our ,educational ,institutions1 ,i wish to refer neither to the establishments in ,ble nor to the incalculably vast number of other scholastic institutions which exist throughout the nations of the world to-day2 but ,i wish to refer to ,german institutions of the kind which we rejoice in here4 ,it is their future that will now engage our attention1 i4e4 the future of ,german elementary1 secondary1 and public schools 7,gymnasien7 and universities4 ,while pursuing our discussion1 however1 we shall for once avoid all comparisons and valuations1 and guard more especially against that flattering illusion that our conditions should be regarded as the standard for all others and as surpassing them4 ,let it suffice that they are our institutions1 that they have not become a part of ourselves by mere accident1 and were not laid upon us like a garment2 but that they are living monuments of important steps in the progress of civilisation1 in some respects even the furniture of a bygone age1 and as such link us with the past of our people1 and are such a sacred and venerable legacy that ,i can only undertake to speak of the future of our educational institutions in the sense of their being a most probable approximation to the ideal spirit which gave them birth4 ,i am1 moreover1 convinced that the numerous alterations which have been introduced into these institutions within recent years1 with the view of bringing them up-to-date1 are for the most part but distortions and aberrations of the originally sublime tendencies given to them at their foundation4 ,and what we dare to hope from the future1 in this behalf1 partakes so much of the nature of a rejuvenation1 a reviviscence1 and a refining of the spirit of ,germany that1 as a result of this very process1 our educational institutions may also be indirectly remoulded and born again1 so as to appear at once old and new1 whereas now they only profess to be modern or up-to-date4 ,now it is only in the spirit of the hope above mentioned that ,i wish to speak of the future of our educational institutions3 and this is the second point in regard to which ,i must tender an apology from the outset4 ,the prophet pose is such a presumptuous one that it seems almost ridiculous to deny that ,i have the intention of adopting it4 ,no one should attempt to describe the future of our education1 and the means and methods of instruction relating thereto1 in a prophetic spirit1 unless he can prove that the picture he draws already exists in germ to-day1 and that all that is required is the extension and development of this embryo if the necessary modifications are to be produced in schools and other educational institutions4 ,all ,i ask1 is1 like a ,roman haruspex1 to be allowed to steal glimpses of the future out of the very entrails of existing conditions1 which1 in this case1 means no more than to hand the laurels of victory to any one of the many forces tending to make itself felt in our present educational system1 despite the fact that the force in question may be neither a favourite1 an esteemed1 nor a very extensive one4 ,i confidently assert that it will be victorious1 however1 because it has the strongest and mightiest of all allies in nature herself2 and in this respect it were well did we not forget that scores of the very first principles of our modern educational methods are thoroughly artificial1 and that the most fatal weaknesses of the present day are to be ascribed to this artificiality4 ,he who feels in complete harmony with the present state of affairs and who acquiesces in it as something selbstverstndliches1#a excites our envy neither in regard to his faith nor in regard to that egregious word selbstverstndlich1 so frequently heard in fashionable circles4 ,he1 however1 who holds the opposite view and is therefore in despair1 does not need to fight any longer3 all he requires is to give himself up to solitude in order soon to be alone4 ,albeit1 between those who take everything for granted and these anchorites1 there stand the fighters--that is to say1 those who still have hope1 and as the noblest and sublimest example of this class1 we recognise ,schiller as he is described by ,goethe in his ,epilogue to the ,bell4 ,brighter now glow'd his cheek1 and still more bright ,with that unchanging1 ever youthful glow3-- ,that courage which o'ercomes1 in hard-fought fight1 ,sooner or later ev'ry earthly foe1-- ,that faith which soaring to the realms of light1 ,now boldly presseth on1 now bendeth low1 ,so that the good may work1 wax1 thrive amain1 ,so that the day the noble may attain4#b ,i should like you to regard all ,i have just said as a kind of preface1 the object of which is to illustrate the title of my lectures and to guard me against any possible misunderstanding and unjustified criticisms4 ,and now1 in order to give you a rough outline of the range of ideas from which ,i shall attempt to form a judgment concerning our educational institutions1 before proceeding to disclose my views and turning from the title to the main theme1 ,i shall lay a scheme before you which1 like a coat of arms1 will serve to warn all strangers who come to my door1 as to the nature of the house they are about to enter1 in case they may feel inclined1 after having examined the device1 to turn their backs on the premises that bear it4 ,my scheme is as follows3-- ,two seemingly antagonistic forces1 equally deleterious in their actions and ultimately combining to produce their results1 are at present ruling over our educational institutions1 although these were based originally upon very different principles4 ,these forces are3 a striving to achieve the greatest possible extension of education on the one hand1 and a tendency to minimise and to weaken it on the other4 ,the first-named would fain spread learning among the greatest possible number of people1 the second would compel education to renounce its highest and most independent claims in order to subordinate itself to the service of the ,state4 ,in the face of these two antagonistic tendencies1 we could but give ourselves up to despair1 did we not see the possibility of promoting the cause of two other contending factors which are fortunately as completely ,german as they are rich in promises for the future2 ,i refer to the present movement towards limiting and concentrating education as the antithesis of the first of the forces above mentioned1 and that other movement towards the strengthening and the independence of education as the antithesis of the second force4 ,if we should seek a warrant for our belief in the ultimate victory of the two last-named movements1 we could find it in the fact that both of the forces which we hold to be deleterious are so opposed to the eternal purpose of nature as the concentration of education for the few is in harmony with it1 and is true1 whereas the first two forces could succeed only in founding a culture false to the root4 ,,footnotes3 #a ,selbstverstndlich granted or self-understood4 #b ,the ,poems of ,goethe4 ,edgar ,alfred ,bowring's ,translation4 7,ed4 #ahec47 ,,the ,,future ,,of ,,our ,,educational ,,institutions4 ,,first ,,lecture4 7,delivered on the #afth of ,january #ahgb47 ,ladies and ,gentlemen1--,the subject ,i now propose to consider with you is such a serious and important one1 and is in a sense so disquieting1 that1 like you1 ,i would gladly turn to any one who could proffer some information concerning it1--were he ever so young1 were his ideas ever so improbable--provided that he were able1 by the exercise of his own faculties1 to furnish some satisfactory and sufficient explanation4 ,it is just possible that he may have had the opportunity of hearing sound views expressed in reference to the vexed question of the future of our educational institutions1 and that he may wish to repeat them to you2 he may even have had distinguished teachers1 fully qualified to foretell what is to come1 and1 like the haruspices of ,rome1 able to do so after an inspection of the entrails of the ,present4 ,indeed1 you yourselves may expect something of this kind from me4 ,i happened once1 in strange but perfectly harmless circumstances1 to overhear a conversation on this subject between two remarkable men1 and the more striking points of the discussion1 together with their manner of handling the theme1 are so indelibly imprinted on my memory that1 whenever ,i reflect on these matters1 ,i invariably find myself falling into their grooves of thought4 ,i cannot1 however1 profess to have the same courageous confidence which they displayed1 both in their daring utterance of forbidden truths1 and in the still more daring conception of the hopes with which they astonished me4 ,it therefore seemed to me to be in the highest degree important that a record of this conversation should be made1 so that others might be incited to form a judgment concerning the striking views and conclusions it contains3 and1 to this end1 ,i had special grounds for believing that ,i should do well to avail myself of the opportunity afforded by this course of lectures4 ,i am well aware of the nature of the community to whose serious consideration ,i now wish to commend that conversation--,i know it to be a community which is striving to educate and enlighten its members on a scale so magnificently out of proportion to its size that it must put all larger cities to shame4 ,this being so1 ,i presume ,i may take it for granted that in a quarter where so much is done for the things of which ,i wish to speak1 people must also think a good deal about them4 ,in my account of the conversation already mentioned1 ,i shall be able to make myself completely understood only to those among my audience who will be able to guess what ,i can do no more than suggest1 who will supply what ,i am compelled to omit1 and who1 above all1 need but to be reminded and not taught4 ,listen1 therefore1 ladies and gentlemen1 while ,i recount my harmless experience and the less harmless conversation between the two gentlemen whom1 so far1 ,i have not named4 ,let us now imagine ourselves in the position of a young student--that is to say1 in a position which1 in our present age of bewildering movement and feverish excitability1 has become an almost impossible one4 ,it is necessary to have lived through it in order to believe that such careless self-lulling and comfortable indifference to the moment1 or to time in general1 are possible4 ,in this condition ,i1 and a friend about my own age1 spent a year at the ,university of ,bonn on the ,rhine1--it was a year which1 in its complete lack of plans and projects for the future1 seems almost like a dream to me now--a dream framed1 as it were1 by two periods of growth4 ,we two remained quiet and peaceful1 although we were surrounded by fellows who in the main were very differently disposed1 and from time to time we experienced considerable difficulty in meeting and resisting the somewhat too pressing advances of the young men of our own age4 ,now1 however1 that ,i can look upon the stand we had to take against these opposing forces1 ,i cannot help associating them in my mind with those checks we are wont to receive in our dreams1 as1 for instance1 when we imagine we are able to fly and yet feel ourselves held back by some incomprehensible power4 ,i and my friend had many reminiscences in common1 and these dated from the period of our boyhood upwards4 ,one of these ,i must relate to you1 since it forms a sort of prelude to the harmless experience already mentioned4 ,on the occasion of a certain journey up the ,rhine1 which we had made together one summer1 it happened that he and ,i independently conceived the very same plan at the same hour and on the same spot1 and we were so struck by this unwonted coincidence that we determined to carry the plan out forthwith4 ,we resolved to found a kind of small club which would consist of ourselves and a few friends1 and the object of which would be to provide us with a stable and binding organisation directing and adding interest to our creative impulses in art and literature2 or1 to put it more plainly3 each of us would be pledged to present an original piece of work to the club once a month1--either a poem1 a treatise1 an architectural design1 or a musical composition1 upon which each of the others1 in a friendly spirit1 would have to pass free and unrestrained criticism4 ,we thus hoped1 by means of mutual correction1 to be able both to stimulate and to chasten our creative impulses and1 as a matter of fact1 the success of the scheme was such that we have both always felt a sort of respectful attachment for the hour and the place at which it first took shape in our minds4 ,this attachment was very soon transformed into a rite2 for we all agreed to go1 whenever it was possible to do so1 once a year to that lonely spot near ,rolandseck1 where on that summer's day1 while sitting together1 lost in meditation1 we were suddenly inspired by the same thought4 ,frankly speaking1 the rules which were drawn up on the formation of the club were never very strictly observed2 but owing to the very fact that we had many sins of omission on our conscience during our student-year in ,bonn1 when we were once more on the banks of the ,rhine1 we firmly resolved not only to observe our rule1 but also to gratify our feelings and our sense of gratitude by reverently visiting that spot near ,rolandseck on the day appointed4 ,it was1 however1 with some difficulty that we were able to carry our plans into execution2 for1 on the very day we had selected for our excursion1 the large and lively students' association1 which always hindered us in our flights1 did their utmost to put obstacles in our way and to hold us back4 ,our association had organised a general holiday excursion to ,rolandseck on the very day my friend and ,i had fixed upon1 the object of the outing being to assemble all its members for the last time at the close of the half-year and to send them home with pleasant recollections of their last hours together4 ,the day was a glorious one2 the weather was of the kind which1 in our climate at least1 only falls to our lot in late summer3 heaven and earth merged harmoniously with one another1 and1 glowing wondrously in the sunshine1 autumn freshness blended with the blue expanse above4 ,arrayed in the bright fantastic garb in which1 amid the gloomy fashions now reigning1 students alone may indulge1 we boarded a steamer which was gaily decorated in our honour1 and hoisted our flag on its mast4 ,from both banks of the river there came at intervals the sound of signal-guns1 fired according to our orders1 with the view of acquainting both our host in ,rolandseck and the inhabitants in the neighbourhood with our approach4 ,i shall not speak of the noisy journey from the landing-stage1 through the excited and expectant little place1 nor shall ,i refer to the esoteric jokes exchanged between ourselves2 ,i also make no mention of a feast which became both wild and noisy1 or of an extraordinary musical production in the execution of which1 whether as soloists or as chorus1 we all ultimately had to share1 and which ,i1 as musical adviser of our club1 had not only had to rehearse1 but was then forced to conduct4 ,towards the end of this piece1 which grew ever wilder and which was sung to ever quicker time1 ,i made a sign to my friend1 and just as the last chord rang like a yell through the building1 he and ,i vanished1 leaving behind us a raging pandemonium4 ,in a moment we were in the refreshing and breathless stillness of nature4 ,the shadows were already lengthening1 the sun still shone steadily1 though it had sunk a good deal in the heavens1 and from the green and glittering waves of the ,rhine a cool breeze was wafted over our hot faces4 ,our solemn rite bound us only in so far as the latest hours of the day were concerned1 and we therefore determined to employ the last moments of clear daylight by giving ourselves up to one of our many hobbies4 ,at that time we were passionately fond of pistol-shooting1 and both of us in later years found the skill we had acquired as amateurs of great use in our military career4 ,our club servant happened to know the somewhat distant and elevated spot which we used as a range1 and had carried our pistols there in advance4 ,the spot lay near the upper border of the wood which covered the lesser heights behind ,rolandseck3 it was a small uneven plateau1 close to the place we had consecrated in memory of its associations4 ,on a wooded slope alongside of our shooting-range there was a small piece of ground which had been cleared of wood1 and which made an ideal halting-place2 from it one could get a view of the ,rhine over the tops of the trees and the brushwood1 so that the beautiful1 undulating lines of the ,seven ,mountains and above all of the ,drachenfels bounded the horizon against the group of trees1 while in the centre of the bow formed by the glistening ,rhine itself the island of ,nonnenwrth stood out as if suspended in the river's arms4 ,this was the place which had become sacred to us through the dreams and plans we had had in common1 and to which we intended to withdraw1 later in the evening1--nay1 to which we should be obliged to withdraw1 if we wished to close the day in accordance with the law we had imposed on ourselves4 ,at one end of the little uneven plateau1 and not very far away1 there stood the mighty trunk of an oak-tree1 prominently visible against a background quite bare of trees and consisting merely of low undulating hills in the distance4 ,working together1 we had once carved a pentagram in the side of this tree-trunk4 ,years of exposure to rain and storm had slightly deepened the channels we had cut1 and the figure seemed a welcome target for our pistol-practice4 ,it was already late in the afternoon when we reached our improvised range1 and our oak-stump cast a long and attenuated shadow across the barren heath4 ,all was still3 thanks to the lofty trees at our feet1 we were unable to catch a glimpse of the valley of the ,rhine below4 ,the peacefulness of the spot seemed only to intensify the loudness of our pistol-shots--and ,i had scarcely fired my second barrel at the pentagram when ,i felt some one lay hold of my arm and noticed that my friend had also some one beside him who had interrupted his loading4 ,turning sharply on my heels ,i found myself face to face with an astonished old gentleman1 and felt what must have been a very powerful dog make a lunge at my back4 ,my friend had been approached by a somewhat younger man than ,i had2 but before we could give expression to our surprise the older of the two interlopers burst forth in the following threatening and heated strain3 ,no6 no6 he called to us1 no duels must be fought here1 but least of all must you young students fight one4 ,away with these pistols and compose yourselves4 ,be reconciled1 shake hands6 ,what8--and are you the salt of the earth1 the intelligence of the future1 the seed of our hopes--and are you not even able to emancipate yourselves from the insane code of honour and its violent regulations8 ,i will not cast any aspersions on your hearts1 but your heads certainly do you no credit4 ,you1 whose youth is watched over by the wisdom of ,greece and ,rome1 and whose youthful spirits1 at the cost of enormous pains1 have been flooded with the light of the sages and heroes of antiquity1--can you not refrain from making the code of knightly honour--that is to say1 the code of folly and brutality--the guiding principle of your conduct8--,examine it rationally once and for all1 and reduce it to plain terms2 lay its pitiable narrowness bare1 and let it be the touchstone1 not of your hearts but of your minds4 ,if you do not regret it then1 it will merely show that your head is not fitted for work in a sphere where great gifts of discrimination are needful in order to burst the bonds of prejudice1 and where a well-balanced understanding is necessary for the purpose of distinguishing right from wrong1 even when the difference between them lies deeply hidden and is not1 as in this case1 so ridiculously obvious4 ,in that case1 therefore1 my lads1 try to go through life in some other honourable manner2 join the army or learn a handicraft that pays its way4 ,to this rough1 though admittedly just1 flood of eloquence1 we replied with some irritation1 interrupting each other continually in so doing3 ,in the first place1 you are mistaken concerning the main point2 for we are not here to fight a duel at all2 but rather to practise pistol-shooting4 ,secondly1 you do not appear to know how a real duel is conducted2--do you suppose that we should have faced each other in this lonely spot1 like two highwaymen1 without seconds or doctors1 etc4 etc48 ,thirdly1 with regard to the question of duelling1 we each have our own opinions1 and do not require to be waylaid and surprised by the sort of instruction you may feel disposed to give us4 ,this reply1 which was certainly not polite1 made a bad impression upon the old man4 ,at first1 when he heard that we were not about to fight a duel1 he surveyed us more kindly3 but when we reached the last passage of our speech1 he seemed so vexed that he growled4 ,when1 however1 we began to speak of our point of view1 he quickly caught hold of his companion1 turned sharply round1 and cried to us in bitter tones3 ,people should not have points of view1 but thoughts6 ,and then his companion added3 ,be respectful when a man such as this even makes mistakes6 ,meanwhile1 my friend1 who had reloaded1 fired a shot at the pentagram1 after having cried3 ,look out6 ,this sudden report behind his back made the old man savage2 once more he turned round and looked sourly at my friend1 after which he said to his companion in a feeble voice3 ,what shall we do8 ,these young men will be the death of me with their firing4--,you should know1 said the younger man1 turning to us1 that your noisy pastimes amount1 as it happens on this occasion1 to an attempt upon the life of philosophy4 ,you observe this venerable man1--he is in a position to beg you to desist from firing here4 ,and when such a man begs---- ,well1 his request is generally granted1 the old man interjected1 surveying us sternly4 ,as a matter of fact1 we did not know what to make of the whole matter2 we could not understand what our noisy pastimes could have in common with philosophy2 nor could we see why1 out of regard for polite scruples1 we should abandon our shooting-range1 and at this moment we may have appeared somewhat undecided and perturbed4 ,the companion noticing our momentary discomfiture1 proceeded to explain the matter to us4 ,we are compelled1 he said1 to linger in this immediate neighbourhood for an hour or so2 we have a rendezvous here4 ,an eminent friend of this eminent man is to meet us here this evening2 and we had actually selected this peaceful spot1 with its few benches in the midst of the wood1 for the meeting4 ,it would really be most unpleasant if1 owing to your continual pistol-practice1 we were to be subjected to an unending series of shocks2 surely your own feelings will tell you that it is impossible for you to continue your firing when you hear that he who has selected this quiet and isolated place for a meeting with a friend is one of our most eminent philosophers4 ,this explanation only succeeded in perturbing us the more2 for we saw a danger threatening us which was even greater than the loss of our shooting-range1 and we asked eagerly1 ,where is this quiet spot8 ,surely not to the left here1 in the wood8 ,that is the very place4 ,but this evening that place belongs to us1 my friend interposed4 ,we must have it1 we cried together4 ,our long-projected celebration seemed at that moment more important than all the philosophies of the world1 and we gave such vehement and animated utterance to our sentiments that in view of the incomprehensible nature of our claims we must have cut a somewhat ridiculous figure4 ,at any rate1 our philosophical interlopers regarded us with expressions of amused inquiry1 as if they expected us to proffer some sort of apology4 ,but we were silent1 for we wished above all to keep our secret4 ,thus we stood facing one another in silence1 while the sunset dyed the tree-tops a ruddy gold4 ,the philosopher contemplated the sun1 his companion contemplated him1 and we turned our eyes towards our nook in the woods which to-day we seemed in such great danger of losing4 ,a feeling of sullen anger took possession of us4 ,what is philosophy1 we asked ourselves1 if it prevents a man from being by himself or from enjoying the select company of a friend1--in sooth1 if it prevents him from becoming a philosopher8 ,for we regarded the celebration of our rite as a thoroughly philosophical performance4 ,in celebrating it we wished to form plans and resolutions for the future1 by means of quiet reflections we hoped to light upon an idea which would once again help us to form and gratify our spirit in the future1 just as that former idea had done during our boyhood4 ,the solemn act derived its very significance from this resolution1 that nothing definite was to be done1 we were only to be alone1 and to sit still and meditate1 as we had done five years before when we had each been inspired with the same thought4 ,it was to be a silent solemnisation1 all reminiscence and all future2 the present was to be as a hyphen between the two4 ,and fate1 now unfriendly1 had just stepped into our magic circle--and we knew not how to dismiss her2--the very unusual character of the circumstances filled us with mysterious excitement4 ,whilst we stood thus in silence for some time1 divided into two hostile groups1 the clouds above waxed ever redder and the evening seemed to grow more peaceful and mild2 we could almost fancy we heard the regular breathing of nature as she put the final touches to her work of art--the glorious day we had just enjoyed2 when1 suddenly1 the calm evening air was rent by a confused and boisterous cry of joy which seemed to come from the ,rhine4 ,a number of voices could be heard in the distance--they were those of our fellow-students who by that time must have taken to the ,rhine in small boats4 ,it occurred to us that we should be missed and that we should also miss something3 almost simultaneously my friend and ,i raised our pistols3 our shots were echoed back to us1 and with their echo there came from the valley the sound of a well-known cry intended as a signal of identification4 ,for our passion for shooting had brought us both repute and ill-repute in our club4 ,at the same time we were conscious that our behaviour towards the silent philosophical couple had been exceptionally ungentlemanly2 they had been quietly contemplating us for some time1 and when we fired the shock made them draw close up to each other4 ,we hurried up to them1 and each in our turn cried out3 ,forgive us4 ,that was our last shot1 and it was intended for our friends on the ,rhine4 ,they have understood us1 do you hear8 ,if you insist upon having that place among the trees1 grant us at least the permission to recline there also4 ,you will find a number of benches on the spot3 we shall not disturb you2 we shall sit quite still and shall not utter a word3 but it is now past seven o'clock and we must go there at once4 ,that sounds more mysterious than it is1 ,i added after a pause2 we have made a solemn vow to spend this coming hour on that ground1 and there were reasons for the vow4 ,the spot is sacred to us1 owing to some pleasant associations1 it must also inaugurate a good future for us4 ,we shall therefore endeavour to leave you with no disagreeable recollections of our meeting--even though we have done much to perturb and frighten you4 ,the philosopher was silent2 his companion1 however1 said3 ,our promises and plans unfortunately compel us not only to remain1 but also to spend the same hour on the spot you have selected4 ,it is left for us to decide whether fate or perhaps a spirit has been responsible for this extraordinary coincidence4 ,besides1 my friend1 said the philosopher1 ,i am not half so displeased with these warlike youngsters as ,i was4 ,did you observe how quiet they were a moment ago1 when we were contemplating the sun8 ,they neither spoke nor smoked1 they stood stone still1 ,i even believe they meditated4 ,turning suddenly in our direction1 he said3 ,were you meditating8 ,just tell me about it as we proceed in the direction of our common trysting-place4 ,we took a few steps together and went down the slope into the warm balmy air of the woods where it was already much darker4 ,on the way my friend openly revealed his thoughts to the philosopher1 he confessed how much he had feared that perhaps to-day for the first time a philosopher was about to stand in the way of his philosophising4 ,the sage laughed4 ,what8 ,you were afraid a philosopher would prevent your philosophising8 ,this might easily happen3 and you have not yet experienced such a thing8 ,has your university life been free from experience8 ,you surely attend lectures on philosophy8 ,this question discomfited us2 for1 as a matter of fact1 there had been no element of philosophy in our education up to that time4 ,in those days1 moreover1 we fondly imagined that everybody who held the post and possessed the dignity of a philosopher must perforce be one3 we were inexperienced and badly informed4 ,we frankly admitted that we had not yet belonged to any philosophical college1 but that we would certainly make up for lost time4 ,then what1 he asked1 did you mean when you spoke of philosophising8 ,said ,i1 ,we are at a loss for a definition4 ,but to all intents and purposes we meant this1 that we wished to make earnest endeavours to consider the best possible means of becoming men of culture4 ,that is a good deal and at the same time very little1 growled the philosopher2 just you think the matter over4 ,here are our benches1 let us discuss the question exhaustively3 ,i shall not disturb your meditations with regard to how you are to become men of culture4 ,i wish you success and--points of view1 as in your duelling questions2 brand-new1 original1 and enlightened points of view4 ,the philosopher does not wish to prevent your philosophising3 but refrain at least from disconcerting him with your pistol-shots4 ,try to imitate the ,pythagoreans to-day3 they1 as servants of a true philosophy1 had to remain silent for five years--possibly you may also be able to remain silent for five times fifteen minutes1 as servants of your own future culture1 about which you seem so concerned4 ,we had reached our destination3 the solemnisation of our rite began4 ,as on the previous occasion1 five years ago1 the ,rhine was once more flowing beneath a light mist1 the sky seemed bright and the woods exhaled the same fragrance4 ,we took our places on the farthest corner of the most distant bench2 sitting there we were almost concealed1 and neither the philosopher nor his companion could see our faces4 ,we were alone3 when the sound of the philosopher's voice reached us1 it had become so blended with the rustling leaves and with the buzzing murmur of the myriads of living things inhabiting the wooded height1 that it almost seemed like the music of nature2 as a sound it resembled nothing more than a distant monotonous plaint4 ,we were indeed undisturbed4 ,some time elapsed in this way1 and while the glow of sunset grew steadily paler the recollection of our youthful undertaking in the cause of culture waxed ever more vivid4 ,it seemed to us as if we owed the greatest debt of gratitude to that little society we had founded2 for it had done more than merely supplement our public school training2 it had actually been the only fruitful society we had had1 and within its frame we even placed our public school life1 as a purely isolated factor helping us in our general efforts to attain to culture4 ,we knew this1 that1 thanks to our little society1 no thought of embracing any particular career had ever entered our minds in those days4 ,the all too frequent exploitation of youth by the ,state1 for its own purposes--that is to say1 so that it may rear useful officials as quickly as possible and guarantee their unconditional obedience to it by means of excessively severe examinations--had remained quite foreign to our education4 ,and to show how little we had been actuated by thoughts of utility or by the prospect of speedy advancement and rapid success1 on that day we were struck by the comforting consideration that1 even then1 we had not yet decided what we should be--we had not even troubled ourselves at all on this head4 ,our little society had sown the seeds of this happy indifference in our souls and for it alone we were prepared to celebrate the anniversary of its foundation with hearty gratitude4 ,i have already pointed out1 ,i think1 that in the eyes of the present age1 which is so intolerant of anything that is not useful1 such purposeless enjoyment of the moment1 such a lulling of one's self in the cradle of the present1 must seem almost incredible and at all events blameworthy4 ,how useless we were6 ,and how proud we were of being useless6 ,we used even to quarrel with each other as to which of us should have the glory of being the more useless4 ,we wished to attach no importance to anything1 to have strong views about nothing1 to aim at nothing2 we wanted to take no thought for the morrow1 and desired no more than to recline comfortably like good-for-nothings on the threshold of the present2 and we did--bless us6 --,that1 ladies and gentlemen1 was our standpoint then6-- ,absorbed in these reflections1 ,i was just about to give an answer to the question of the future of our ,educational ,institutions in the same self-sufficient way1 when it gradually dawned upon me that the natural music1 coming from the philosopher's bench had lost its original character and travelled to us in much more piercing and distinct tones than before4 ,suddenly ,i became aware that ,i was listening1 that ,i was eavesdropping1 and was passionately interested1 with both ears keenly alive to every sound4 ,i nudged my friend who was evidently somewhat tired1 and ,i whispered3 ,don't fall asleep6 ,there is something for us to learn over there4 ,it applies to us1 even though it be not meant for us4 ,for instance1 ,i heard the younger of the two men defending himself with great animation while the philosopher rebuked him with ever increasing vehemence4 ,you are unchanged1 he cried to him1 unfortunately unchanged4 ,it is quite incomprehensible to me how you can still be the same as you were seven years ago1 when ,i saw you for the last time and left you with so much misgiving4 ,i fear ,i must once again divest you1 however reluctantly1 of the skin of modern culture which you have donned meanwhile2--and what do ,i find beneath it8 ,the same immutable 'intelligible' character forsooth1 according to ,kant2 but unfortunately the same unchanged 'intellectual' character1 too--which may also be a necessity1 though not a comforting one4 ,i ask myself to what purpose have ,i lived as a philosopher1 if1 possessed as you are of no mean intelligence and a genuine thirst for knowledge1 all the years you have spent in my company have left no deeper impression upon you4 ,at present you are behaving as if you had not even heard the cardinal principle of all culture1 which ,i went to such pains to inculcate upon you during our former intimacy4 ,tell me1--what was that principle8 ,i remember1 replied the scolded pupil1 you used to say no one would strive to attain to culture if he knew how incredibly small the number of really cultured people actually is1 and can ever be4 ,and even this number of really cultured people would not be possible if a prodigious multitude1 from reasons opposed to their nature and only led on by an alluring delusion1 did not devote themselves to education4 ,it were therefore a mistake publicly to reveal the ridiculous disproportion between the number of really cultured people and the enormous magnitude of the educational apparatus4 ,here lies the whole secret of culture--namely1 that an innumerable host of men struggle to achieve it and work hard to that end1 ostensibly in their own interests1 whereas at bottom it is only in order that it may be possible for the few to attain to it4 ,that is the principle1 said the philosopher1--and yet you could so far forget yourself as to believe that you are one of the few8 ,this thought has occurred to you--,i can see4 ,that1 however1 is the result of the worthless character of modern education4 ,the rights of genius are being democratised in order that people may be relieved of the labour of acquiring culture1 and their need of it4 ,every one wants if possible to recline in the shade of the tree planted by genius1 and to escape the dreadful necessity of working for him1 so that his procreation may be made possible4 ,what8 ,are you too proud to be a teacher8 ,do you despise the thronging multitude of learners8 ,do you speak contemptuously of the teacher's calling8 ,and1 aping my mode of life1 would you fain live in solitary seclusion1 hostilely isolated from that multitude8 ,do you suppose that you can reach at one bound what ,i ultimately had to win for myself only after long and determined struggles1 in order even to be able to live like a philosopher8 ,and do you not fear that solitude will wreak its vengeance upon you8 ,just try living the life of a hermit of culture4 ,one must be blessed with overflowing wealth in order to live for the good of all on one's own resources6 ,extraordinary youngsters6 ,they felt it incumbent upon them to imitate what is precisely most difficult and most high1--what is possible only to the master1 when they1 above all1 should know how difficult and dangerous this is1 and how many excellent gifts may be ruined by attempting it6 ,i will conceal nothing from you1 sir1 the companion replied4 ,i have heard too much from your lips at odd times and have been too long in your company to be able to surrender myself entirely to our present system of education and instruction4 ,i am too painfully conscious of the disastrous errors and abuses to which you used to call my attention--though ,i very well know that ,i am not strong enough to hope for any success were ,i to struggle ever so valiantly against them4 ,i was overcome by a feeling of general discouragement2 my recourse to solitude was the result neither of pride nor arrogance4 ,i would fain describe to you what ,i take to be the nature of the educational questions now attracting such enormous and pressing attention4 ,it seemed to me that ,i must recognise two main directions in the forces at work--two seemingly antagonistic tendencies1 equally deleterious in their action1 and ultimately combining to produce their results3 a striving to achieve the greatest possible expansion of education on the one hand1 and a tendency to minimise and weaken it on the other4 ,the first-named would1 for various reasons1 spread learning among the greatest number of people2 the second would compel education to renounce its highest1 noblest and sublimest claims in order to subordinate itself to some other department of life--such as the service of the ,state4 ,i believe ,i have already hinted at the quarter in which the cry for the greatest possible expansion of education is most loudly raised4 ,this expansion belongs to the most beloved of the dogmas of modern political economy4 ,as much knowledge and education as possible2 therefore the greatest possible supply and demand--hence as much happiness as possible3--that is the formula4 ,in this case utility is made the object and goal of education1--utility in the sense of gain--the greatest possible pecuniary gain4 ,in the quarter now under consideration culture would be defined as that point of vantage which enables one to 'keep in the van of one's age1' from which one can see all the easiest and best roads to wealth1 and with which one controls all the means of communication between men and nations4 ,the purpose of education1 according to this scheme1 would be to rear the most 'current' men possible1--'current' being used here in the sense in which it is applied to the coins of the realm4 ,the greater the number of such men1 the happier a nation will be2 and this precisely is the purpose of our modern educational institutions3 to help every one1 as far as his nature will allow1 to become 'current'2 to develop him so that his particular degree of knowledge and science may yield him the greatest possible amount of happiness and pecuniary gain4 ,every one must be able to form some sort of estimate of himself2 he must know how much he may reasonably expect from life4 ,the 'bond between intelligence and property' which this point of view postulates has almost the force of a moral principle4 ,in this quarter all culture is loathed which isolates1 which sets goals beyond gold and gain1 and which requires time3 it is customary to dispose of such eccentric tendencies in education as systems of ',higher ,egotism1' or of ',immoral ,culture--,epicureanism4' ,according to the morality reigning here1 the demands are quite different2 what is required above all is 'rapid education1' so that a money-earning creature may be produced with all speed2 there is even a desire to make this education so thorough that a creature may be reared that will be able to earn a great deal of money4 ,men are allowed only the precise amount of culture which is compatible with the interests of gain2 but that amount1 at least1 is expected from them4 ,in short3 mankind has a necessary right to happiness on earth--that is why culture is necessary--but on that account alone6 ,i must just say something here1 said the philosopher4 ,in the case of the view you have described so clearly1 there arises the great and awful danger that at some time or other the great masses may overleap the middle classes and spring headlong into this earthly bliss4 ,that is what is now called 'the social question4' ,it might seem to these masses that education for the greatest number of men was only a means to the earthly bliss of the few3 the 'greatest possible expansion of education' so enfeebles education that it can no longer confer privileges or inspire respect4 ,the most general form of culture is simply barbarism4 ,but ,i do not wish to interrupt your discussion4 ,the companion continued3 ,there are yet other reasons1 besides this beloved economical dogma1 for the expansion of education that is being striven after so valiantly everywhere4 ,in some countries the fear of religious oppression is so general1 and the dread of its results so marked1 that people in all classes of society long for culture and eagerly absorb those elements of it which are supposed to scatter the religious instincts4 ,elsewhere the ,state1 in its turn1 strives here and there for its own preservation1 after the greatest possible expansion of education1 because it always feels strong enough to bring the most determined emancipation1 resulting from culture1 under its yoke1 and readily approves of everything which tends to extend culture1 provided that it be of service to its officials or soldiers1 but in the main to itself1 in its competition with other nations4 ,in this case1 the foundations of a ,state must be sufficiently broad and firm to constitute a fitting counterpart to the complicated arches of culture which it supports1 just as in the first case the traces of some former religious tyranny must still be felt for a people to be driven to such desperate remedies4 ,thus1 wherever ,i hear the masses raise the cry for an expansion of education1 ,i am wont to ask myself whether it is stimulated by a greedy lust of gain and property1 by the memory of a former religious persecution1 or by the prudent egotism of the ,state itself4 ,on the other hand1 it seemed to me that there was yet another tendency1 not so clamorous1 perhaps1 but quite as forcible1 which1 hailing from various quarters1 was animated by a different desire1--the desire to minimise and weaken education4 ,in all cultivated circles people are in the habit of whispering to one another words something after this style3 that it is a general fact that1 owing to the present frantic exploitation of the scholar in the service of his science1 his education becomes every day more accidental and more uncertain4 ,for the study of science has been extended to such interminable lengths that he who1 though not exceptionally gifted1 yet possesses fair abilities1 will need to devote himself exclusively to one branch and ignore all others if he ever wish to achieve anything in his work4 ,should he then elevate himself above the herd by means of his speciality1 he still remains one of them in regard to all else1--that is to say1 in regard to all the most important things in life4 ,thus1 a specialist in science gets to resemble nothing so much as a factory workman who spends his whole life in turning one particular screw or handle on a certain instrument or machine1 at which occupation he acquires the most consummate skill4 ,in ,germany1 where we know how to drape such painful facts with the glorious garments of fancy1 this narrow specialisation on the part of our learned men is even admired1 and their ever greater deviation from the path of true culture is regarded as a moral phenomenon4 ',fidelity in small things1' 'dogged faithfulness1' become expressions of highest eulogy1 and the lack of culture outside the speciality is flaunted abroad as a sign of noble sufficiency4 ,for centuries it has been an understood thing that one alluded to scholars alone when one spoke of cultured men2 but experience tells us that it would be difficult to find any necessary relation between the two classes to-day4 ,for at present the exploitation of a man for the purpose of science is accepted everywhere without the slightest scruple4 ,who still ventures to ask1 ,what may be the value of a science which consumes its minions in this vampire fashion8 ,the division of labour in science is practically struggling towards the same goal which religions in certain parts of the world are consciously striving after1--that is to say1 towards the decrease and even the destruction of learning4 ,that1 however1 which1 in the case of certain religions1 is a perfectly justifiable aim1 both in regard to their origin and their history1 can only amount to self-immolation when transferred to the realm of science4 ,in all matters of a general and serious nature1 and above all1 in regard to the highest philosophical problems1 we have now already reached a point at which the scientific man1 as such1 is no longer allowed to speak4 ,on the other hand1 that adhesive and tenacious stratum which has now filled up the interstices between the sciences--,journalism--believes it has a mission to fulfil here1 and this it does1 according to its own particular lights--that is to say1 as its name implies1 after the fashion of a day-labourer4 ,it is precisely in journalism that the two tendencies combine and become one4 ,the expansion and the diminution of education here join hands4 ,the newspaper actually steps into the place of culture1 and he who1 even as a scholar1 wishes to voice any claim for education1 must avail himself of this viscous stratum of communication which cements the seams between all forms of life1 all classes1 all arts1 and all sciences1 and which is as firm and reliable as news paper is1 as a rule4 ,in the newspaper the peculiar educational aims of the present culminate1 just as the journalist1 the servant of the moment1 has stepped into the place of the genius1 of the leader for all time1 of the deliverer from the tyranny of the moment4 ,now1 tell me1 distinguished master1 what hopes could ,i still have in a struggle against the general topsy-turvification of all genuine aims for education2 with what courage can ,i1 a single teacher1 step forward1 when ,i know that the moment any seeds of real culture are sown1 they will be mercilessly crushed by the roller of this pseudo-culture8 ,imagine how useless the most energetic work on the part of the individual teacher must be1 who would fain lead a pupil back into the distant and evasive ,hellenic world and to the real home of culture1 when in less than an hour1 that same pupil will have recourse to a newspaper1 the latest novel1 or one of those learned books1 the very style of which already bears the revolting impress of modern barbaric culture---- ,now1 silence a minute6 interjected the philosopher in a strong and sympathetic voice4 ,i understand you now1 and ought never to have spoken so crossly to you4 ,you are altogether right1 save in your despair4 ,i shall now proceed to say a few words of consolation4 ,,second ,,lecture4 7,delivered on the #fth of ,february #ahgb47 ,,ladies ,,and ,,gentlemen1--,those among you whom ,i now have the pleasure of addressing for the first time and whose only knowledge of my first lecture has been derived from reports will1 ,i hope1 not mind being introduced here into the middle of a dialogue which ,i had begun to recount on the last occasion1 and the last points of which ,i must now recall4 ,the philosopher's young companion was just pleading openly and confidentially with his distinguished tutor1 and apologising for having so far renounced his calling as a teacher in order to spend his days in comfortless solitude4 ,no suspicion of superciliousness or arrogance had induced him to form this resolve4 ,i have heard too much from your lips at various times1 the straightforward pupil said1 and have been too long in your company1 to surrender myself blindly to our present systems of education and instruction4 ,i am too painfully conscious of the disastrous errors and abuses to which you were wont to call my attention2 and yet ,i know that ,i am far from possessing the requisite strength to meet with success1 however valiantly ,i might struggle to shatter the bulwarks of this would-be culture4 ,i was overcome by a general feeling of depression3 my recourse to solitude was not arrogance or superciliousness4 ,whereupon1 to account for his behaviour1 he described the general character of modern educational methods so vividly that the philosopher could not help interrupting him in a voice full of sympathy1 and crying words of comfort to him4 ,now1 silence for a minute1 my poor friend1 he cried2 ,i can more easily understand you now1 and should not have lost my patience with you4 ,you are altogether right1 save in your despair4 ,i shall now proceed to say a few words of comfort to you4 ,how long do you suppose the state of education in the schools of our time1 which seems to weigh so heavily upon you1 will last8 ,i shall not conceal my views on this point from you3 its time is over2 its days are counted4 ,the first who will dare to be quite straightforward in this respect will hear his honesty re-echoed back to him by thousands of courageous souls4 ,for1 at bottom1 there is a tacit understanding between the more nobly gifted and more warmly disposed men of the present day4 ,every one of them knows what he has had to suffer from the condition of culture in schools2 every one of them would fain protect his offspring from the need of enduring similar drawbacks1 even though he himself was compelled to submit to them4 ,if these feelings are never quite honestly expressed1 however1 it is owing to a sad want of spirit among modern pedagogues4 ,these lack real initiative2 there are too few practical men among them--that is to say1 too few who happen to have good and new ideas1 and who know that real genius and the real practical mind must necessarily come together in the same individuals1 whilst the sober practical men have no ideas and therefore fall short in practice4 ,let any one examine the pedagogic literature of the present2 he who is not shocked at its utter poverty of spirit and its ridiculously awkward antics is beyond being spoiled4 ,here our philosophy must not begin with wonder but with dread2 he who feels no dread at this point must be asked not to meddle with pedagogic questions4 ,the reverse1 of course1 has been the rule up to the present2 those who were terrified ran away filled with embarrassment as you did1 my poor friend1 while the sober and fearless ones spread their heavy hands over the most delicate technique that has ever existed in art--over the technique of education4 ,this1 however1 will not be possible much longer2 at some time or other the upright man will appear1 who will not only have the good ideas ,i speak of1 but who in order to work at their realisation1 will dare to break with all that exists at present3 he may by means of a wonderful example achieve what the broad hands1 hitherto active1 could not even imitate--then people will everywhere begin to draw comparisons2 then men will at least be able to perceive a contrast and will be in a position to reflect upon its causes1 whereas1 at present1 so many still believe1 in perfect good faith1 that heavy hands are a necessary factor in pedagogic work4 ,my dear master1 said the younger man1 ,i wish you could point to one single example which would assist me in seeing the soundness of the hopes which you so heartily raise in me4 ,we are both acquainted with public schools2 do you think1 for instance1 that in respect of these institutions anything may be done by means of honesty and good and new ideas to abolish the tenacious and antiquated customs now extant8 ,in this quarter1 it seems to me1 the battering-rams of an attacking party will have to meet with no solid wall1 but with the most fatal of stolid and slippery principles4 ,the leader of the assault has no visible and tangible opponent to crush1 but rather a creature in disguise that can transform itself into a hundred different shapes and1 in each of these1 slip out of his grasp1 only in order to reappear and to confound its enemy by cowardly surrenders and feigned retreats4 ,it was precisely the public schools which drove me into despair and solitude1 simply because ,i feel that if the struggle here leads to victory all other educational institutions must give in2 but that1 if the reformer be forced to abandon his cause here1 he may as well give up all hope in regard to every other scholastic question4 ,therefore1 dear master1 enlighten me concerning the public schools2 what can we hope for in the way of their abolition or reform8 ,i also hold the question of public schools to be as important as you do1 the philosopher replied4 ,all other educational institutions must fix their aims in accordance with those of the public school system2 whatever errors of judgment it may suffer from1 they suffer from also1 and if it were ever purified and rejuvenated1 they would be purified and rejuvenated too4 ,the universities can no longer lay claim to this importance as centres of influence1 seeing that1 as they now stand1 they are at least1 in one important aspect1 only a kind of annex to the public school system1 as ,i shall shortly point out to you4 ,for the moment1 let us consider1 together1 what to my mind constitutes the very hopeful struggle of the two possibilities3 either that the motley and evasive spirit of public schools which has hitherto been fostered1 will completely vanish1 or that it will have to be completely purified and rejuvenated4 ,and in order that ,i may not shock you with general propositions1 let us first try to recall one of those public school experiences which we have all had1 and from which we have all suffered4 ,under severe examination what1 as a matter of fact1 is the present system of teaching ,german in public schools8 ,i shall first of all tell you what it should be4 ,everybody speaks and writes ,german as thoroughly badly as it is just possible to do so in an age of newspaper ,german3 that is why the growing youth who happens to be both noble and gifted has to be taken by force and put under the glass shade of good taste and of severe linguistic discipline4 ,if this is not possible1 ,i would prefer in future that ,latin be spoken2 for ,i am ashamed of a language so bungled and vitiated4 ,what would be the duty of a higher educational institution1 in this respect1 if not this--namely1 with authority and dignified severity to put youths1 neglected1 as far as their own language is concerned1 on the right path1 and to cry to them3 ',take your own language seriously6 ,he who does not regard this matter as a sacred duty does not possess even the germ of a higher culture4 ,from your attitude in this matter1 from your treatment of your mother-tongue1 we can judge how highly or how lowly you esteem art1 and to what extent you are related to it4 ,if you notice no physical loathing in yourselves when you meet with certain words and tricks of speech in our journalistic jargon1 cease from striving after culture2 for here in your immediate vicinity1 at every moment of your life1 while you are either speaking or writing1 you have a touchstone for testing how difficult1 how stupendous1 the task of the cultured man is1 and how very improbable it must be that many of you will ever attain to culture4' ,in accordance with the spirit of this address1 the teacher of ,german at a public school would be forced to call his pupil's attention to thousands of details1 and with the absolute certainty of good taste1 to forbid their using such words and expressions1 for instance1 as3 'beanspruchen1' 'vereinnahmen1' 'einer ,sache ,rechnung tragen1' 'die ,initiative ergreifen1' 'selbstverstndlich1'#c etc41 cum tdio in infinitum4 ,the same teacher would also have to take our classical authors and show1 line for line1 how carefully and with what precision every expression has to be chosen when a writer has the correct feeling in his heart and has before his eyes a perfect conception of all he is writing4 ,he would necessarily urge his pupils1 time and again1 to express the same thought ever more happily2 nor would he have to abate in rigour until the less gifted in his class had contracted an unholy fear of their language1 and the others had developed great enthusiasm for it4 ,here then is a task for so-called 'formal' education#d the education tending to develop the mental faculties1 as opposed to 'material' education1#e which is intended to deal only with the acquisition of facts1 e4g4 history1 mathematics1 etc41 and one of the utmost value3 but what do we find in the public school--that is to say1 in the head-quarters of formal education8 ,he who understands how to apply what he has heard here will also know what to think of the modern public school as a so-called educational institution4 ,he will discover1 for instance1 that the public school1 according to its fundamental principles1 does not educate for the purposes of culture1 but for the purposes of scholarship2 and1 further1 that of late it seems to have adopted a course which indicates rather that it has even discarded scholarship in favour of journalism as the object of its exertions4 ,this can be clearly seen from the way in which ,german is taught4 ,instead of that purely practical method of instruction by which the teacher accustoms his pupils to severe self-discipline in their own language1 we find everywhere the rudiments of a historico-scholastic method of teaching the mother-tongue3 that is to say1 people deal with it as if it were a dead language and as if the present and future were under no obligations to it whatsoever4 ,the historical method has become so universal in our time1 that even the living body of the language is sacrificed for the sake of anatomical study4 ,but this is precisely where culture begins--namely1 in understanding how to treat the quick as something vital1 and it is here too that the mission of the cultured teacher begins3 in suppressing the urgent claims of 'historical interests' wherever it is above all necessary to do properly and not merely to know properly4 ,our mother-tongue1 however1 is a domain in which the pupil must learn how to do properly1 and to this practical end1 alone1 the teaching of ,german is essential in our scholastic establishments4 ,the historical method may certainly be a considerably easier and more comfortable one for the teacher2 it also seems to be compatible with a much lower grade of ability and1 in general1 with a smaller display of energy and will on his part4 ,but we shall find that this observation holds good in every department of pedagogic life3 the simpler and more comfortable method always masquerades in the disguise of grand pretensions and stately titles2 the really practical side1 the doing1 which should belong to culture and which1 at bottom1 is the more difficult side1 meets only with disfavour and contempt4 ,that is why the honest man must make himself and others quite clear concerning this quid pro quo4 ,now1 apart from these learned incentives to a study of the language1 what is there besides which the ,german teacher is wont to offer8 ,how does he reconcile the spirit of his school with the spirit of the few that ,germany can claim who are really cultured1--i4e4 with the spirit of its classical poets and artists8 ,this is a dark and thorny sphere1 into which one cannot even bear a light without dread2 but even here we shall conceal nothing from ourselves2 for sooner or later the whole of it will have to be reformed4 ,in the public school1 the repulsive impress of our sthetic journalism is stamped upon the still unformed minds of youths4 ,here1 too1 the teacher sows the seeds of that crude and wilful misinterpretation of the classics1 which later on disports itself as art-criticism1 and which is nothing but bumptious barbarity4 ,here the pupils learn to speak of our unique ,schiller with the superciliousness of prigs2 here they are taught to smile at the noblest and most ,german of his works--at the ,marquis of ,posa1 at ,max and ,thekla--at these smiles ,german genius becomes incensed and a worthier posterity will blush4 ,the last department in which the ,german teacher in a public school is at all active1 which is often regarded as his sphere of highest activity1 and is here and there even considered the pinnacle of public school education1 is the so-called ,german composition4 ,owing to the very fact that in this department it is almost always the most gifted pupils who display the greatest eagerness1 it ought to have been made clear how dangerously stimulating1 precisely here1 the task of the teacher must be4 ,german composition makes an appeal to the individual1 and the more strongly a pupil is conscious of his various qualities1 the more personally will he do his ,german composition4 ,this 'personal doing' is urged on with yet an additional fillip in some public schools by the choice of the subject1 the strongest proof of which is1 in my opinion1 that even in the lower classes the non-pedagogic subject is set1 by means of which the pupil is led to give a description of his life and of his development4 ,now1 one has only to read the titles of the compositions set in a large number of public schools to be convinced that probably the large majority of pupils have to suffer their whole lives1 through no fault of their own1 owing to this premature demand for personal work--for the unripe procreation of thoughts4 ,and how often are not all a man's subsequent literary performances but a sad result of this pedagogic original sin against the intellect6 ,let us only think of what takes place at such an age in the production of such work4 ,it is the first individual creation2 the still undeveloped powers tend for the first time to crystallise2 the staggering sensation produced by the demand for self-reliance imparts a seductive charm to these early performances1 which is not only quite new1 but which never returns4 ,all the daring of nature is hauled out of its depths2 all vanities--no longer constrained by mighty barriers--are allowed for the first time to assume a literary form3 the young man1 from that time forward1 feels as if he had reached his consummation as a being not only able1 but actually invited1 to speak and to converse4 ,the subject he selects obliges him either to express his judgment upon certain poetical works1 to class historical persons together in a description of character1 to discuss serious ethical problems quite independently1 or even to turn the searchlight inwards1 to throw its rays upon his own development and to make a critical report of himself3 in short1 a whole world of reflection is spread out before the astonished young man who1 until then1 had been almost unconscious1 and is delivered up to him to be judged4 ,now let us try to picture the teacher's usual attitude towards these first highly influential examples of original composition4 ,what does he hold to be most reprehensible in this class of work8 ,what does he call his pupil's attention to8--,to all excess in form or thought--that is to say1 to all that which1 at their age1 is essentially characteristic and individual4 ,their really independent traits which1 in response to this very premature excitation1 can manifest themselves only in awkwardness1 crudeness1 and grotesque features1--in short1 their individuality is reproved and rejected by the teacher in favour of an unoriginal decent average4 ,on the other hand1 uniform mediocrity gets peevish praise2 for1 as a rule1 it is just the class of work likely to bore the teacher thoroughly4 ,there may still be men who recognise a most absurd and most dangerous element of the public school curriculum in the whole farce of this ,german composition4 ,originality is demanded here3 but the only shape in which it can manifest itself is rejected1 and the 'formal' education that the system takes for granted is attained to only by a very limited number of men who complete it at a ripe age4 ,here everybody without exception is regarded as gifted for literature and considered as capable of holding opinions concerning the most important questions and people1 whereas the one aim which proper education should most zealously strive to achieve would be the suppression of all ridiculous claims to independent judgment1 and the inculcation upon young men of obedience to the sceptre of genius4 ,here a pompous form of diction is taught in an age when every spoken or written word is a piece of barbarism4 ,now let us consider1 besides1 the danger of arousing the self-complacency which is so easily awakened in youths2 let us think how their vanity must be flattered when they see their literary reflection for the first time in the mirror4 ,who1 having seen all these effects at one glance1 could any longer doubt whether all the faults of our public1 literary1 and artistic life were not stamped upon every fresh generation by the system we are examining3 hasty and vain production1 the disgraceful manufacture of books2 complete want of style2 the crude1 characterless1 or sadly swaggering method of expression2 the loss of every sthetic canon2 the voluptuousness of anarchy and chaos--in short1 the literary peculiarities of both our journalism and our scholarship4 ,none but the very fewest are aware that1 among many thousands1 perhaps only one is justified in describing himself as literary1 and that all others who at their own risk try to be so deserve to be met with ,homeric laughter by all competent men as a reward for every sentence they have ever had printed2--for it is truly a spectacle meet for the gods to see a literary ,hephaistos limping forward who would pretend to help us to something4 ,to educate men to earnest and inexorable habits and views1 in this respect1 should be the highest aim of all mental training1 whereas the general laisser aller of the 'fine personality' can be nothing else than the hall-mark of barbarism4 ,from what ,i have said1 however1 it must be clear that1 at least in the teaching of ,german1 no thought is given to culture2 something quite different is in view1--namely1 the production of the afore-mentioned 'free personality4' ,and so long as ,german public schools prepare the road for outrageous and irresponsible scribbling1 so long as they do not regard the immediate and practical discipline of speaking and writing as their most holy duty1 so long as they treat the mother-tongue as if it were only a necessary evil or a dead body1 ,i shall not regard these institutions as belonging to real culture4 ,in regard to the language1 what is surely least noticeable is any trace of the influence of classical examples3 that is why1 on the strength of this consideration alone1 the so-called 'classical education' which is supposed to be provided by our public school1 strikes me as something exceedingly doubtful and confused4 ,for how could anybody1 after having cast one glance at those examples1 fail to see the great earnestness with which the ,greek and the ,roman regarded and treated his language1 from his youth onwards--how is it possible to mistake one's example on a point like this one8--provided1 of course1 that the classical ,hellenic and ,roman world really did hover before the educational plan of our public schools as the highest and most instructive of all morals--a fact ,i feel very much inclined to doubt4 ,the claim put forward by public schools concerning the 'classical education' they provide seems to be more an awkward evasion than anything else2 it is used whenever there is any question raised as to the competency of the public schools to impart culture and to educate4 ,classical education1 indeed6 ,it sounds so dignified6 ,it confounds the aggressor and staves off the assault--for who could see to the bottom of this bewildering formula all at once8 ,and this has long been the customary strategy of the public school3 from whichever side the war-cry may come1 it writes upon its shield--not overloaded with honours--one of those confusing catchwords1 such as3 'classical education1' 'formal education1' 'scientific education'3--three glorious things which are1 however1 unhappily at loggerheads1 not only with themselves but among themselves1 and are such that1 if they were compulsorily brought together1 would perforce bring forth a culture-monster4 ,for a 'classical education' is something so unheard of1 difficult and rare1 and exacts such complicated talent1 that only ingenuousness or impudence could put it forward as an attainable goal in our public schools4 ,the words3 'formal education' belong to that crude kind of unphilosophical phraseology which one should do one's utmost to get rid of2 for there is no such thing as 'the opposite of formal education4' ,and he who regards 'scientific education' as the object of a public school thereby sacrifices 'classical education' and the so-called 'formal education1' at one stroke1 as the scientific man and the cultured man belong to two different spheres which1 though coming together at times in the same individual1 are never reconciled4 ,if we compare all three of these would-be aims of the public school with the actual facts to be observed in the present method of teaching ,german1 we see immediately what they really amount to in practice1--that is to say1 only to subterfuges for use in the fight and struggle for existence and1 often enough1 mere means wherewith to bewilder an opponent4 ,for we are unable to detect any single feature in this teaching of ,german which in any way recalls the example of classical antiquity and its glorious methods of training in languages4 ',formal education1' however1 which is supposed to be achieved by this method of teaching ,german1 has been shown to be wholly at the pleasure of the 'free personality1' which is as good as saying that it is barbarism and anarchy4 ,and as for the preparation in science1 which is one of the consequences of this teaching1 our ,germanists will have to determine1 in all justice1 how little these learned beginnings in public schools have contributed to the splendour of their sciences1 and how much the personality of individual university professors has done so4--,put briefly3 the public school has hitherto neglected its most important and most urgent duty towards the very beginning of all real culture1 which is the mother-tongue2 but in so doing it has lacked the natural1 fertile soil for all further efforts at culture4 ,for only by means of stern1 artistic1 and careful discipline and habit1 in a language1 can the correct feeling for the greatness of our classical writers be strengthened4 ,up to the present their recognition by the public schools has been owing almost solely to the doubtful sthetic hobbies of a few teachers or to the massive effects of certain of their tragedies and novels4 ,but everybody should1 himself1 be aware of the difficulties of the language3 he should have learnt them from experience3 after long seeking and struggling he must reach the path our great poets trod in order to be able to realise how lightly and beautifully they trod it1 and how stiffly and swaggeringly the others follow at their heels4 ,only by means of such discipline can the young man acquire that physical loathing for the beloved and much-admired 'elegance' of style of our newspaper manufacturers and novelists1 and for the 'ornate style' of our literary men2 by it alone is he irrevocably elevated at a stroke above a whole host of absurd questions and scruples1 such1 for instance1 as whether ,auerbach and ,gutzkow are really poets1 for his disgust at both will be so great that he will be unable to read them any longer1 and thus the problem will be solved for him4 ,let no one imagine that it is an easy matter to develop this feeling to the extent necessary in order to have this physical loathing2 but let no one hope to reach sound sthetic judgments along any other road than the thorny one of language1 and by this ,i do not mean philological research1 but self-discipline in one's mother-tongue4 ,everybody who is in earnest in this matter will have the same sort of experience as the recruit in the army who is compelled to learn walking after having walked almost all his life as a dilettante or empiricist4 ,it is a hard time3 one almost fears that the tendons are going to snap and one ceases to hope that the artificial and consciously acquired movements and positions of the feet will ever be carried out with ease and comfort4 ,it is painful to see how awkwardly and heavily one foot is set before the other1 and one dreads that one may not only be unable to learn the new way of walking1 but that one will forget how to walk at all4 ,then it suddenly become noticeable that a new habit and a second nature have been born of the practised movements1 and that the assurance and strength of the old manner of walking returns with a little more grace3 at this point one begins to realise how difficult walking is1 and one feels in a position to laugh at the untrained empiricist or the elegant dilettante4 ,our 'elegant' writers1 as their style shows1 have never learnt 'walking' in this sense1 and in our public schools1 as our other writers show1 no one learns walking either4 ,culture begins1 however1 with the correct movement of the language3 and once it has properly begun1 it begets that physical sensation in the presence of 'elegant' writers which is known by the name of 'loathing4' ,we recognise the fatal consequences of our present public schools1 in that they are unable to inculcate severe and genuine culture1 which should consist above all in obedience and habituation2 and that1 at their best1 they much more often achieve a result by stimulating and kindling scientific tendencies1 is shown by the hand which is so frequently seen uniting scholarship and barbarous taste1 science and journalism4 ,in a very large majority of cases to-day we can observe how sadly our scholars fall short of the standard of culture which the efforts of ,goethe1 ,schiller1 ,lessing1 and ,winckelmann established2 and this falling short shows itself precisely in the egregious errors which the men we speak of are exposed to1 equally among literary historians--whether ,gervinus or ,julian ,schmidt--as in any other company2 everywhere1 indeed1 where men and women converse4 ,it shows itself most frequently and painfully1 however1 in pedagogic spheres1 in the literature of public schools4 ,it can be proved that the only value that these men have in a real educational establishment has not been mentioned1 much less generally recognised for half a century3 their value as preparatory leaders and mystogogues of classical culture1 guided by whose hands alone can the correct road leading to antiquity be found4 ,every so-called classical education can have but one natural starting-point--an artistic1 earnest1 and exact familiarity with the use of the mother-tongue3 this1 together with the secret of form1 however1 one can seldom attain to of one's own accord1 almost everybody requires those great leaders and tutors and must place himself in their hands4 ,there is1 however1 no such thing as a classical education that could grow without this inferred love of form4 ,here1 where the power of discerning form and barbarity gradually awakens1 there appear the pinions which bear one to the only real home of culture--ancient ,greece4 ,if with the solitary help of those pinions we sought to reach those far-distant and diamond-studded walls encircling the stronghold of ,hellenism1 we should certainly not get very far2 once more1 therefore1 we need the same leaders and tutors1 our ,german classical writers1 that we may be borne up1 too1 by the wing-strokes of their past endeavours--to the land of yearning1 to ,greece4 ,not a suspicion of this possible relationship between our classics and classical education seems to have pierced the antique walls of public schools4 ,philologists seem much more eagerly engaged in introducing ,homer and ,sophocles to the young souls of their pupils1 in their own style1 calling the result simply by the unchallenged euphemism3 'classical education4' ,let every one's own experience tell him what he had of ,homer and ,sophocles at the hands of such eager teachers4 ,it is in this department that the greatest number of deepest deceptions occur1 and whence misunderstandings are inadvertently spread4 ,in ,german public schools ,i have never yet found a trace of what might really be called 'classical education1' and there is nothing surprising in this when one thinks of the way in which these institutions have emancipated themselves from ,german classical writers and the discipline of the ,german language4 ,nobody reaches antiquity by means of a leap into the dark1 and yet the whole method of treating ancient writers in schools1 the plain commentating and paraphrasing of our philological teachers1 amounts to nothing more than a leap into the dark4 ,the feeling for classical ,hellenism is1 as a matter of fact1 such an exceptional outcome of the most energetic fight for culture and artistic talent that the public school could only have professed to awaken this feeling owing to a very crude misunderstanding4 ,in what age8 ,in an age which is led about blindly by the most sensational desires of the day1 and which is not aware of the fact that1 once that feeling for ,hellenism is roused1 it immediately becomes aggressive and must express itself by indulging in an incessant war with the so-called culture of the present4 ,for the public school boy of to-day1 the ,hellenes as ,hellenes are dead3 yes1 he gets some enjoyment out of ,homer1 but a novel by ,spielhagen interests him much more3 yes1 he swallows ,greek tragedy and comedy with a certain relish1 but a thoroughly modern drama1 like ,freitag's ',journalists1' moves him in quite another fashion4 ,in regard to all ancient authors he is rather inclined to speak after the manner of the sthete1 ,hermann ,grimm1 who1 on one occasion1 at the end of a tortuous essay on the ,venus of ,milo1 asks himself3 ',what does this goddess's form mean to me8 ,of what use are the thoughts she suggests to me8 ,orestes and ,o,edipus1 ,iphigenia and ,antigone1 what have they in common with my heart8'--,no1 my dear public school boy1 the ,venus of ,milo does not concern you in any way1 and concerns your teacher just as little--and that is the misfortune1 that is the secret of the modern public school4 ,who will conduct you to the land of culture1 if your leaders are blind and assume the position of seers notwithstanding8 ,which of you will ever attain to a true feeling for the sacred seriousness of art1 if you are systematically spoiled1 and taught to stutter independently instead of being taught to speak2 to stheticise on your own account1 when you ought to be taught to approach works of art almost piously2 to philosophise without assistance1 while you ought to be compelled to listen to great thinkers4 ,all this with the result that you remain eternally at a distance from antiquity and become the servants of the day4 ,at all events1 the most wholesome feature of our modern institutions is to be found in the earnestness with which the ,latin and ,greek languages are studied over a long course of years4 ,in this way boys learn to respect a grammar1 lexicons1 and a language that conforms to fixed rules2 in this department of public school work there is an exact knowledge of what constitutes a fault1 and no one is troubled with any thought of justifying himself every minute by appealing 7as in the case of modern ,german7 to various grammatical and orthographical vagaries and vicious forms4 ,if only this respect for language did not hang in the air so1 like a theoretical burden which one is pleased to throw off the moment one turns to one's mother-tongue6 ,more often than not1 the classical master makes pretty short work of the mother-tongue2 from the outset he treats it as a department of knowledge in which one is allowed that indolent ease with which the ,german treats everything that belongs to his native soil4 ,the splendid practice afforded by translating from one language into another1 which so improves and fertilises one's artistic feeling for one's own tongue1 is1 in the case of ,german1 never conducted with that fitting categorical strictness and dignity which would be above all necessary in dealing with an undisciplined language4 ,of late1 exercises of this kind have tended to decrease ever more and more3 people are satisfied to know the foreign classical tongues1 they would scorn being able to apply them4 ,here one gets another glimpse of the scholarly tendency of public schools3 a phenomenon which throws much light upon the object which once animated them1--that is to say1 the serious desire to cultivate the pupil4 ,this belonged to the time of our great poets1 those few really cultured ,germans1--the time when the magnificent ,friedrich ,august ,wolf directed the new stream of classical thought1 introduced from ,greece and ,rome by those men1 into the heart of the public schools4 ,thanks to his bold start1 a new order of public schools was established1 which thenceforward was not to be merely a nursery for science1 but1 above all1 the actual consecrated home of all higher and nobler culture4 ,of the many necessary measures which this change called into being1 some of the most important have been transferred with lasting success to the modern regulations of public schools3 the most important of all1 however1 did not succeed--the one demanding that the teacher1 also1 should be consecrated to the new spirit1 so that the aim of the public school has meanwhile considerably departed from the original plan laid down by ,wolf1 which was the cultivation of the pupil4 ,the old estimate of scholarship and scholarly culture1 as an absolute1 which ,wolf overcame1 seems after a slow and spiritless struggle rather to have taken the place of the culture-principle of more recent introduction1 and now claims its former exclusive rights1 though not with the same frankness1 but disguised and with features veiled4 ,and the reason why it was impossible to make public schools fall in with the magnificent plan of classical culture lay in the un-,german1 almost foreign or cosmopolitan nature of these efforts in the cause of education3 in the belief that it was possible to remove the native soil from under a man's feet and that he should still remain standing2 in the illusion that people can spring direct1 without bridges1 into the strange ,hellenic world1 by abjuring ,german and the ,german mind in general4 ,of course one must know how to trace this ,germanic spirit to its lair beneath its many modern dressings1 or even beneath heaps of ruins2 one must love it so that one is not ashamed of it in its stunted form1 and one must above all be on one's guard against confounding it with what now disports itself proudly as ',up-to-date ,german culture4' ,the ,german spirit is very far from being on friendly times with this up-to-date culture3 and precisely in those spheres where the latter complains of a lack of culture the real ,german spirit has survived1 though perhaps not always with a graceful1 but more often an ungraceful1 exterior4 ,on the other hand1 that which now grandiloquently assumes the title of ',german culture' is a sort of cosmopolitan aggregate1 which bears the same relation to the ,german spirit as ,journalism does to ,schiller or ,meyerbeer to ,beethoven3 here the strongest influence at work is the fundamentally and thoroughly un-,german civilisation of ,france1 which is aped neither with talent nor with taste1 and the imitation of which gives the society1 the press1 the art1 and the literary style of ,germany their pharisaical character4 ,naturally the copy nowhere produces the really artistic effect which the original1 grown out of the heart of ,roman civilisation1 is able to produce almost to this day in ,france4 ,let any one who wishes to see the full force of this contrast compare our most noted novelists with the less noted ones of ,france or ,italy3 he will recognise in both the same doubtful tendencies and aims1 as also the same still more doubtful means1 but in ,france he will find them coupled with artistic earnestness1 at least with grammatical purity1 and often with beauty1 while in their every feature he will recognise the echo of a corresponding social culture4 ,in ,germany1 on the other hand1 they will strike him as unoriginal1 flabby1 filled with dressing-gown thoughts and expressions1 unpleasantly spread out1 and therewithal possessing no background of social form4 ,at the most1 owing to their scholarly mannerisms and display of knowledge1 he will be reminded of the fact that in ,latin countries it is the artistically-trained man1 and that in ,germany it is the abortive scholar1 who becomes a journalist4 ,with this would-be ,german and thoroughly unoriginal culture1 the ,german can nowhere reckon upon victory3 the ,frenchman and the ,italian will always get the better of him in this respect1 while1 in regard to the clever imitation of a foreign culture1 the ,russian1 above all1 will always be his superior4 ,we are therefore all the more anxious to hold fast to that ,german spirit which revealed itself in the ,german ,reformation1 and in ,german music1 and which has shown its enduring and genuine strength in the enormous courage and severity of ,german philosophy and in the loyalty of the ,german soldier1 which has been tested quite recently4 ,from it we expect a victory over that 'up-to-date' pseudo-culture which is now the fashion4 ,what we should hope for the future is that schools may draw the real school of culture into this struggle1 and kindle the flame of enthusiasm in the younger generation1 more particularly in public schools1 for that which is truly ,german2 and in this way so-called classical education will resume its natural place and recover its one possible starting-point4 ,a thorough reformation and purification of the public school can only be the outcome of a profound and powerful reformation and purification of the ,german spirit4 ,it is a very complex and difficult task to find the border-line which joins the heart of the ,germanic spirit with the genius of ,greece4 ,not1 however1 before the noblest needs of genuine ,german genius snatch at the hand of this genius of ,greece as at a firm post in the torrent of barbarity1 not before a devouring yearning for this genius of ,greece takes possession of ,german genius1 and not before that view of the ,greek home1 on which ,schiller and ,goethe1 after enormous exertions1 were able to feast their eyes1 has become the ,mecca of the best and most gifted men1 will the aim of classical education in public schools acquire any definition2 and they at least will not be to blame who teach ever so little science and learning in public schools1 in order to keep a definite and at the same time ideal aim in their eyes1 and to rescue their pupils from that glistening phantom which now allows itself to be called 'culture' and 'education4' ,this is the sad plight of the public school of to-day3 the narrowest views remain in a certain measure right1 because no one seems able to reach or1 at least1 to indicate the spot where all these views culminate in error4 ,no one8 the philosopher's pupil inquired with a slight quaver in his voice2 and both men were silent4 ,,footnotes3 #c ,it is not practicable to translate these ,german solecisms by similar instances of ,english solecisms4 ,the reader who is interested in the subject will find plenty of material in a book like the ,oxford ,king's ,english4 #d ,german3 ,formelle ,bildung4 #e ,german3 ,materielle ,bildung4 ,,third ,,lecture4 7,delivered on the #bgth of ,february #ahgb47 ,ladies and ,gentlemen1--,at the close of my last lecture1 the conversation to which ,i was a listener1 and the outlines of which1 as ,i clearly recollect them1 ,i am now trying to lay before you1 was interrupted by a long and solemn pause4 ,both the philosopher and his companion sat silent1 sunk in deep dejection3 the peculiarly critical state of that important educational institution1 the ,german public school1 lay upon their souls like a heavy burden1 which one single1 well-meaning individual is not strong enough to remove1 and the multitude1 though strong1 not well meaning enough4 ,our solitary thinkers were perturbed by two facts3 by clearly perceiving on the one hand that what might rightly be called classical education was now only a far-off ideal1 a castle in the air1 which could not possibly be built as a reality on the foundations of our present educational system1 and that1 on the other hand1 what was now1 with customary and unopposed euphemism1 pointed to as classical education could only claim the value of a pretentious illusion1 the best effect of which was that the expression classical education still lived on and had not yet lost its pathetic sound4 ,these two worthy men saw clearly1 by the system of instruction in vogue1 that the time was not yet ripe for a higher culture1 a culture founded upon that of the ancients3 the neglected state of linguistic instruction2 the forcing of students into learned historical paths1 instead of giving them a practical training2 the connection of certain practices1 encouraged in the public schools1 with the objectionable spirit of our journalistic publicity--all these easily perceptible phenomena of the teaching of ,german led to the painful certainty that the most beneficial of those forces which have come down to us from classical antiquity are not yet known in our public schools3 forces which would train students for the struggle against the barbarism of the present age1 and which will perhaps once more transform the public schools into the arsenals and workshops of this struggle4 ,on the other hand1 it would seem in the meantime as if the spirit of antiquity1 in its fundamental principles1 had already been driven away from the portals of the public schools1 and as if here also the gates were thrown open as widely as possible to the be-flattered and pampered type of our present self-styled ,german culture4 ,and if the solitary talkers caught a glimpse of a single ray of hope1 it was that things would have to become still worse1 that what was as yet divined only by the few would soon be clearly perceived by the many1 and that then the time for honest and resolute men for the earnest consideration of the scope of the education of the masses would not be far distant4 ,after a few minutes' silent reflection1 the philosopher's companion turned to him and said3 ,you used to hold out hopes to me1 but now you have done more3 you have widened my intelligence1 and with it my strength and courage3 now indeed can ,i look on the field of battle with more hardihood1 now indeed do ,i repent of my too hasty flight4 ,we want nothing for ourselves1 and it should be nothing to us how many individuals may fall in this battle1 or whether we ourselves may be among the first4 ,just because we take this matter so seriously1 we should not take our own poor selves so seriously3 at the very moment we are falling some one else will grasp the banner of our faith4 ,i will not even consider whether ,i am strong enough for such a fight1 whether ,i can offer sufficient resistance2 it may even be an honourable death to fall to the accompaniment of the mocking laughter of such enemies1 whose seriousness has frequently seemed to us to be something ridiculous4 ,when ,i think how my contemporaries prepared themselves for the highest posts in the scholastic profession1 as ,i myself have done1 then ,i know how we often laughed at the exact contrary1 and grew serious over something quite different---- ,now1 my friend1 interrupted the philosopher1 laughingly1 you speak as one who would fain dive into the water without being able to swim1 and who fears something even more than the mere drowning2 not being drowned1 but laughed at4 ,but being laughed at should be the very last thing for us to dread2 for we are in a sphere where there are too many truths to tell1 too many formidable1 painful1 unpardonable truths1 for us to escape hatred1 and only fury here and there will give rise to some sort of embarrassed laughter4 ,just think of the innumerable crowd of teachers1 who1 in all good faith1 have assimilated the system of education which has prevailed up to the present1 that they may cheerfully and without over-much deliberation carry it further on4 ,what do you think it will seem like to these men when they hear of projects from which they are excluded beneficio natur2 of commands which their mediocre abilities are totally unable to carry out2 of hopes which find no echo in them2 of battles the war-cries of which they do not understand1 and in the fighting of which they can take part only as dull and obtuse rank and file8 ,but1 without exaggeration1 that must necessarily be the position of practically all the teachers in our higher educational establishments3 and indeed we cannot wonder at this when we consider how such a teacher originates1 how he becomes a teacher of such high status4 ,such a large number of higher educational establishments are now to be found everywhere that far more teachers will continue to be required for them than the nature of even a highly-gifted people can produce2 and thus an inordinate stream of undesirables flows into these institutions1 who1 however1 by their preponderating numbers and their instinct of 'similis simile gaudet' gradually come to determine the nature of these institutions4 ,there may be a few people1 hopelessly unfamiliar with pedagogical matters1 who believe that our present profusion of public schools and teachers1 which is manifestly out of all proportion1 can be changed into a real profusion1 an ubertas ingenii1 merely by a few rules and regulations1 and without any reduction in the number of these institutions4 ,but we may surely be unanimous in recognising that by the very nature of things only an exceedingly small number of people are destined for a true course of education1 and that a much smaller number of higher educational establishments would suffice for their further development1 but that1 in view of the present large numbers of educational institutions1 those for whom in general such institutions ought only to be established must feel themselves to be the least facilitated in their progress4 ,the same holds good in regard to teachers4 ,it is precisely the best teachers--those who1 generally speaking1 judged by a high standard1 are worthy of this honourable name--who are now perhaps the least fitted1 in view of the present standing of our public schools1 for the education of these unselected youths1 huddled together in a confused heap2 but who must rather1 to a certain extent1 keep hidden from them the best they could give3 and1 on the other hand1 by far the larger number of these teachers feel themselves quite at home in these institutions1 as their moderate abilities stand in a kind of harmonious relationship to the dullness of their pupils4 ,it is from this majority that we hear the ever-resounding call for the establishment of new public schools and higher educational institutions3 we are living in an age which1 by ringing the changes on its deafening and continual cry1 would certainly give one the impression that there was an unprecedented thirst for culture which eagerly sought to be quenched4 ,but it is just at this point that one should learn to hear aright3 it is here1 without being disconcerted by the thundering noise of the education-mongers1 that we must confront those who talk so tirelessly about the educational necessities of their time4 ,then we should meet with a strange disillusionment1 one which we1 my good friend1 have often met with3 those blatant heralds of educational needs1 when examined at close quarters1 are suddenly seen to be transformed into zealous1 yea1 fanatical opponents of true culture1 i4e4 all those who hold fast to the aristocratic nature of the mind2 for1 at bottom1 they regard as their goal the emancipation of the masses from the mastery of the great few2 they seek to overthrow the most sacred hierarchy in the kingdom of the intellect--the servitude of the masses1 their submissive obedience1 their instinct of loyalty to the rule of genius4 ,i have long accustomed myself to look with caution upon those who are ardent in the cause of the so-called 'education of the people' in the common meaning of the phrase2 since for the most part they desire for themselves1 consciously or unconsciously1 absolutely unlimited freedom1 which must inevitably degenerate into something resembling the saturnalia of barbaric times1 and which the sacred hierarchy of nature will never grant them4 ,they were born to serve and to obey2 and every moment in which their limping or crawling or broken-winded thoughts are at work shows us clearly out of which clay nature moulded them1 and what trade mark she branded thereon4 ,the education of the masses cannot1 therefore1 be our aim2 but rather the education of a few picked men for great and lasting works4 ,we well know that a just posterity judges the collective intellectual state of a time only by those few great and lonely figures of the period1 and gives its decision in accordance with the manner in which they are recognised1 encouraged1 and honoured1 or1 on the other hand1 in which they are snubbed1 elbowed aside1 and kept down4 ,what is called the 'education of the masses' cannot be accomplished except with difficulty2 and even if a system of universal compulsory education be applied1 they can only be reached outwardly3 those individual lower levels where1 generally speaking1 the masses come into contact with culture1 where the people nourishes its religious instinct1 where it poetises its mythological images1 where it keeps up its faith in its customs1 privileges1 native soil1 and language--all these levels can scarcely be reached by direct means1 and in any case only by violent demolition4 ,and1 in serious matters of this kind1 to hasten forward the progress of the education of the people means simply the postponement of this violent demolition1 and the maintenance of that wholesome unconsciousness1 that sound sleep1 of the people1 without which counter-action and remedy no culture1 with the exhausting strain and excitement of its own actions1 can make any headway4 ,we know1 however1 what the aspiration is of those who would disturb the healthy slumber of the people1 and continually call out to them3 ',keep your eyes open6 ,be sensible6 ,be wise6' we know the aim of those who profess to satisfy excessive educational requirements by means of an extraordinary increase in the number of educational institutions and the conceited tribe of teachers originated thereby4 ,these very people1 using these very means1 are fighting against the natural hierarchy in the realm of the intellect1 and destroying the roots of all those noble and sublime plastic forces which have their material origin in the unconsciousness of the people1 and which fittingly terminate in the procreation of genius and its due guidance and proper training4 ,it is only in the simile of the mother that we can grasp the meaning and the responsibility of the true education of the people in respect to genius3 its real origin is not to be found in such education2 it has1 so to speak1 only a metaphysical source1 a metaphysical home4 ,but for the genius to make his appearance2 for him to emerge from among the people2 to portray the reflected picture1 as it were1 the dazzling brilliancy of the peculiar colours of this people2 to depict the noble destiny of a people in the similitude of an individual in a work which will last for all time1 thereby making his nation itself eternal1 and redeeming it from the ever-shifting element of transient things3 all this is possible for the genius only when he has been brought up and come to maturity in the tender care of the culture of a people2 whilst1 on the other hand1 without this sheltering home1 the genius will not1 generally speaking1 be able to rise to the height of his eternal flight1 but will at an early moment1 like a stranger weather-driven upon a bleak1 snow-covered desert1 slink away from the inhospitable land4 ,you astonish me with such a metaphysics of genius1 said the teacher's companion1 and ,i have only a hazy conception of the accuracy of your similitude4 ,on the other hand1 ,i fully understand what you have said about the surplus of public schools and the corresponding surplus of higher grade teachers2 and in this regard ,i myself have collected some information which assures me that the educational tendency of the public school must right itself by this very surplus of teachers who have really nothing at all to do with education1 and who are called into existence and pursue this path solely because there is a demand for them4 ,every man who1 in an unexpected moment of enlightenment1 has convinced himself of the singularity and inaccessibility of ,hellenic antiquity1 and has warded off this conviction after an exhausting struggle--every such man knows that the door leading to this enlightenment will never remain open to all comers2 and he deems it absurd1 yea disgraceful1 to use the ,greeks as he would any other tool he employs when following his profession or earning his living1 shamelessly fumbling with coarse hands amidst the relics of these holy men4 ,this brazen and vulgar feeling is1 however1 most common in the profession from which the largest numbers of teachers for the public schools are drawn1 the philological profession1 wherefore the reproduction and continuation of such a feeling in the public school will not surprise us4 ,just look at the younger generation of philologists3 how seldom we see in them that humble feeling that we1 when compared with such a world as it was1 have no right to exist at all3 how coolly and fearlessly1 as compared with us1 did that young brood build its miserable nests in the midst of the magnificent temples6 ,a powerful voice from every nook and cranny should ring in the ears of those who1 from the day they begin their connection with the university1 roam at will with such self-complacency and shamelessness among the awe-inspiring relics of that noble civilisation3 ',hence1 ye uninitiated1 who will never be initiated2 fly away in silence and shame from these sacred chambers6' ,but this voice speaks in vain2 for one must to some extent be a ,greek to understand a ,greek curse of excommunication4 ,but these people ,i am speaking of are so barbaric that they dispose of these relics to suit themselves3 all their modern conveniences and fancies are brought with them and concealed among those ancient pillars and tombstones1 and it gives rise to great rejoicing when somebody finds1 among the dust and cobwebs of antiquity1 something that he himself had slyly hidden there not so very long before4 ,one of them makes verses and takes care to consult ,hesychius' ,lexicon4 ,something there immediately assures him that he is destined to be an imitator of schylus1 and leads him to believe1 indeed1 that he 'has something in common with' schylus3 the miserable poetaster6 ,yet another peers with the suspicious eye of a policeman into every contradiction1 even into the shadow of every contradiction1 of which ,homer was guilty3 he fritters away his life in tearing ,homeric rags to tatters and sewing them together again1 rags that he himself was the first to filch from the poet's kingly robe4 ,a third feels ill at ease when examining all the mysterious and orgiastic sides of antiquity3 he makes up his mind once and for all to let the enlightened ,apollo alone pass without dispute1 and to see in the ,athenian a gay and intelligent but nevertheless somewhat immoral ,apollonian4 ,what a deep breath he draws when he succeeds in raising yet another dark corner of antiquity to the level of his own intelligence6--when1 for example1 he discovers in ,pythagoras a colleague who is as enthusiastic as himself in arguing about politics4 ,another racks his brains as to why ,o,edipus was condemned by fate to perform such abominable deeds--killing his father1 marrying his mother4 ,where lies the blame6 ,where the poetic justice6 ,suddenly it occurs to him3 ,o,edipus was a passionate fellow1 lacking all ,christian gentleness--he even fell into an unbecoming rage when ,tiresias called him a monster and the curse of the whole country4 ,be humble and meek6 was what ,sophocles tried to teach1 otherwise you will have to marry your mothers and kill your fathers6 ,others1 again1 pass their lives in counting the number of verses written by ,greek and ,roman poets1 and are delighted with the proportions #g3ac #ad3bf4 ,finally1 one of them brings forward his solution of a question1 such as the ,homeric poems considered from the standpoint of prepositions1 and thinks he has drawn the truth from the bottom of the well with ana and kata4 ,all of them1 however1 with the most widely separated aims in view1 dig and burrow in ,greek soil with a restlessness and a blundering awkwardness that must surely be painful to a true friend of antiquity3 and thus it comes to pass that ,i should like to take by the hand every talented or talentless man who feels a certain professional inclination urging him on to the study of antiquity1 and harangue him as follows3 ',young sir1 do you know what perils threaten you1 with your little stock of school learning1 before you become a man in the full sense of the word8 ,have you heard that1 according to ,aristotle1 it is by no means a tragic death to be slain by a statue8 ,does that surprise you8 ,know1 then1 that for centuries philologists have been trying1 with ever-failing strength1 to re-erect the fallen statue of ,greek antiquity1 but without success2 for it is a colossus around which single individual men crawl like pygmies4 ,the leverage of the united representatives of modern culture is utilised for the purpose2 but it invariably happens that the huge column is scarcely more than lifted from the ground when it falls down again1 crushing beneath its weight the luckless wights under it4 ,that1 however1 may be tolerated1 for every being must perish by some means or other2 but who is there to guarantee that during all these attempts the statue itself will not break in pieces6 ,the philologists are being crushed by the ,greeks--perhaps we can put up with this--but antiquity itself threatens to be crushed by these philologists6 ,think that over1 you easy-going young man2 and turn back1 lest you too should not be an iconoclast6' ,indeed1 said the philosopher1 laughing1 there are many philologists who have turned back as you so much desire1 and ,i notice a great contrast with my own youthful experience4 ,consciously or unconsciously1 large numbers of them have concluded that it is hopeless and useless for them to come into direct contact with classical antiquity1 hence they are inclined to look upon this study as barren1 superseded1 out-of-date4 ,this herd has turned with much greater zest to the science of language3 here in this wide expanse of virgin soil1 where even the most mediocre gifts can be turned to account1 and where a kind of insipidity and dullness is even looked upon as decided talent1 with the novelty and uncertainty of methods and the constant danger of making fantastic mistakes--here1 where dull regimental routine and discipline are desiderata--here the newcomer is no longer frightened by the majestic and warning voice that rises from the ruins of antiquity3 here every one is welcomed with open arms1 including even him who never arrived at any uncommon impression or noteworthy thought after a perusal of ,sophocles and ,aristophanes1 with the result that they end in an etymological tangle1 or are seduced into collecting the fragments of out-of-the-way dialects--and their time is spent in associating and dissociating1 collecting and scattering1 and running hither and thither consulting books4 ,and such a usefully employed philologist would now fain be a teacher6 ,he now undertakes to teach the youth of the public schools something about the ancient writers1 although he himself has read them without any particular impression1 much less with insight6 ,what a dilemma6 ,antiquity has said nothing to him1 consequently he has nothing to say about antiquity4 ,a sudden thought strikes him3 why is he a skilled philologist at all6 ,why did these authors write ,latin and ,greek6 ,and with a light heart he immediately begins to etymologise with ,homer1 calling ,lithuanian or ,ecclesiastical ,slavonic1 or1 above all1 the sacred ,sanskrit1 to his assistance3 as if ,greek lessons were merely the excuse for a general introduction to the study of languages1 and as if ,homer were lacking in only one respect1 namely1 not being written in pre-,indogermanic4 ,whoever is acquainted with our present public schools well knows what a wide gulf separates their teachers from classicism1 and how1 from a feeling of this want1 comparative philology and allied professions have increased their numbers to such an unheard-of degree4 ,what ,i mean is1 said the other1 it would depend upon whether a teacher of classical culture did not confuse his ,greeks and ,romans with the other peoples1 the barbarians1 whether he could never put ,greek and ,latin on a level with other languages3 so far as his classicalism is concerned1 it is a matter of indifference whether the framework of these languages concurs with or is in any way related to the other languages3 such a concurrence does not interest him at all2 his real concern is with what is not common to both1 with what shows him that those two peoples were not barbarians as compared with the others--in so far1 of course1 as he is a true teacher of culture and models himself after the majestic patterns of the classics4 ,i may be wrong1 said the philosopher1 but ,i suspect that1 owing to the way in which ,latin and ,greek are now taught in schools1 the accurate grasp of these languages1 the ability to speak and write them with ease1 is lost1 and that is something in which my own generation distinguished itself--a generation1 indeed1 whose few survivers have by this time grown old2 whilst1 on the other hand1 the present teachers seem to impress their pupils with the genetic and historical importance of the subject to such an extent that1 at best1 their scholars ultimately turn into little ,sanskritists1 etymological spitfires1 or reckless conjecturers2 but not one of them can read his ,plato or ,tacitus with pleasure1 as we old folk can4 ,the public schools may still be seats of learning3 not1 however of the learning which1 as it were1 is only the natural and involuntary auxiliary of a culture that is directed towards the noblest ends2 but rather of that culture which might be compared to the hypertrophical swelling of an unhealthy body4 ,the public schools are certainly the seats of this obesity1 if1 indeed1 they have not degenerated into the abodes of that elegant barbarism which is boasted of as being ',german culture of the present6' ,but1 asked the other1 what is to become of that large body of teachers who have not been endowed with a true gift for culture1 and who set up as teachers merely to gain a livelihood from the profession1 because there is a demand for them1 because a superfluity of schools brings with it a superfluity of teachers8 ,where shall they go when antiquity peremptorily orders them to withdraw8 ,must they not be sacrificed to those powers of the present who1 day after day1 call out to them from the never-ending columns of the press ',we are culture6 ,we are education6 ,we are at the zenith6 ,we are the apexes of the pyramids6 ,we are the aims of universal history6'--when they hear the seductive promises1 when the shameful signs of non-culture1 the plebeian publicity of the so-called 'interests of culture' are extolled for their benefit in magazines and newspapers as an entirely new and the best possible1 full-grown form of culture6 ,whither shall the poor fellows fly when they feel the presentiment that these promises are not true--where but to the most obtuse1 sterile scientificality1 that here the shriek of culture may no longer be audible to them8 ,pursued in this way1 must they not end1 like the ostrich1 by burying their heads in the sand8 ,is it not a real happiness for them1 buried as they are among dialects1 etymologies1 and conjectures1 to lead a life like that of the ants1 even though they are miles removed from true culture1 if only they can close their ears tightly and be deaf to the voice of the 'elegant' culture of the time4 ,you are right1 my friend1 said the philosopher1 but whence comes the urgent necessity for a surplus of schools for culture1 which further gives rise to the necessity for a surplus of teachers8--when we so clearly see that the demand for a surplus springs from a sphere which is hostile to culture1 and that the consequences of this surplus only lead to non-culture4 ,indeed1 we can discuss this dire necessity only in so far as the modern ,state is willing to discuss these things with us1 and is prepared to follow up its demands by force3 which phenomenon certainly makes the same impression upon most people as if they were addressed by the eternal law of things4 ,for the rest1 a ',culture-,state1' to use the current expression1 which makes such demands1 is rather a novelty1 and has only come to a 'self-understanding' within the last half century1 i4e4 in a period when 7to use the favourite popular word7 so many 'self-understood' things came into being1 but which are in themselves not 'self-understood' at all4 ,this right to higher education has been taken so seriously by the most powerful of modern ,states--,prussia--that the objectionable principle it has adopted1 taken in connection with the well-known daring and hardihood of this ,state1 is seen to have a menacing and dangerous consequence for the true ,german spirit2 for we see endeavours being made in this quarter to raise the public school1 formally systematised1 up to the so-called 'level of the time4' ,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 public school training3 here1 indeed1 the ,state has its most powerful inducement--the concession of certain privileges respecting military service1 with the natural consequence that1 according to the unprejudiced evidence of statistical officials1 by this1 and by this only1 can we explain the universal congestion of all ,prussian public schools1 and the urgent and continual need for new ones4 ,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 appointments1 the right of entry to the universities1 and even the most influential military posts into close connection with the public school3 and all this in a country where both universal military service and the highest offices of the ,state unconsciously attract all gifted natures to them4 ,the public school is here looked upon as an honourable aim1 and every one who feels himself urged on to the sphere of government will be found on his way to it4 ,this is a new and quite original occurrence3 the ,state assumes the attitude of a mystogogue of culture1 and1 whilst it promotes its own ends1 it obliges every one of its servants not to appear in its presence without the torch of universal ,state education in their hands1 by the flickering light of which they may again recognise the ,state as the highest goal1 as the reward of all their strivings after education4 ,now this last phenomenon should indeed surprise them2 it should remind them of that allied1 slowly understood tendency of a philosophy which was formerly promoted for reasons of ,state1 namely1 the tendency of the ,hegelian philosophy3 yea1 it would perhaps be no exaggeration to say that1 in the subordination of all strivings after education to reasons of ,state1 ,prussia has appropriated1 with success1 the principle and the useful heirloom of the ,hegelian philosophy1 whose apotheosis of the ,state in this subordination certainly reaches its height4 ,but1 said the philosopher's companion1 what purposes can the ,state have in view with such a strange aim8 ,for that it has some ,state objects in view is seen in the manner in which the conditions of ,prussian schools are admired by1 meditated upon1 and occasionally imitated by other ,states4 ,these other ,states obviously presuppose something here that1 if adopted1 would tend towards the maintenance and power of the ,state1 like our well-known and popular conscription4 ,where everyone proudly wears his soldier's uniform at regular intervals1 where almost every one has absorbed a uniform type of national culture through the public schools1 enthusiastic hyperboles may well be uttered concerning the systems employed in former times1 and a form of ,state omnipotence which was attained only in antiquity1 and which almost every young man1 by both instinct and training1 thinks it is the crowning glory and highest aim of human beings to reach4 ,such a comparison1 said the philosopher1 would be quite hyperbolical1 and would not hobble along on one leg only4 ,for1 indeed1 the ancient ,state emphatically did not share the utilitarian point of view of recognising as culture only what was directly useful to the ,state itself1 and was far from wishing to destroy those impulses which did not seem to be immediately applicable4 ,for this very reason the profound ,greek had for the ,state that strong feeling of admiration and thankfulness which is so distasteful to modern men2 because he clearly recognised not only that without such ,state protection the germs of his culture could not develop1 but also that all his inimitable and perennial culture had flourished so luxuriantly under the wise and careful guardianship of the protection afforded by the ,state4 ,the ,state was for his culture not a supervisor1 regulator1 and watchman1 but a vigorous and muscular companion and friend1 ready for war1 who accompanied his noble1 admired1 and1 as it were1 ethereal friend through disagreeable reality1 earning his thanks therefor4 ,this1 however1 does not happen when a modern ,state lays claim to such hearty gratitude because it renders such chivalrous service to ,german culture and art3 for in this regard its past is as ignominious as its present1 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 cities1 and how the highest objects of these ,german masters are supported on the part of the ,state4 ,there must therefore be peculiar circumstances surrounding both this purpose towards which the ,state is tending1 and which always promotes what is here called 'education'2 and surrounding likewise the culture thus promoted1 which subordinates itself to this purpose of the ,state4 ,with the real ,german spirit and the education derived therefrom1 such as ,i have slowly outlined for you1 this purpose of the ,state is at war1 hiddenly or openly3 the spirit of education1 which is welcomed and encouraged with such interest by the ,state1 and owing to which the schools of this country are so much admired abroad1 must accordingly originate in a sphere that never comes into contact with this true ,german spirit3 with that spirit which speaks to us so wondrously from the inner heart of the ,german ,reformation1 ,german music1 and ,german philosophy1 and which1 like a noble exile1 is regarded with such indifference and scorn by the luxurious education afforded by the ,state4 ,this spirit is a stranger3 it passes by in solitary sadness1 and far away from it the censer of pseudo-culture is swung backwards and forwards1 which1 amidst the acclamations of 'educated' teachers and journalists1 arrogates to itself its name and privileges1 and metes out insulting treatment to the word ',german4' ,why does the ,state require that surplus of educational institutions1 of teachers8 ,why this education of the masses on such an extended scale8 ,because the true ,german spirit is hated1 because the aristocratic nature of true culture is feared1 because the people endeavour in this way to drive single great individuals into self-exile1 so that the claims of the masses to education may be1 so to speak1 planted down and carefully tended1 in order that the many may in this way endeavour to escape the rigid and strict discipline of the few great leaders1 so that the masses may be persuaded that they can easily find the path for themselves--following the guiding star of the ,state6 ,a new phenomenon6 ,the ,state as the guiding star of culture6 ,in the meantime one thing consoles me3 this ,german spirit1 which people are combating so much1 and for which they have substituted a gaudily attired locum tenens1 this spirit is brave3 it will fight and redeem itself into a purer age2 noble1 as it is now1 and victorious1 as it one day will be1 it will always preserve in its mind a certain pitiful toleration of the ,state1 if the latter1 hard-pressed in the hour of extremity1 secures such a pseudo-culture as its associate4 ,for what1 after all1 do we know about the difficult task of governing men1 i4e4 to keep law1 order1 quietness1 and peace among millions of boundlessly egoistical1 unjust1 unreasonable1 dishonourable1 envious1 malignant1 and hence very narrow-minded and perverse human beings2 and thus to protect the few things that the ,state has conquered for itself against covetous neighbours and jealous robbers8 ,such a hard-pressed ,state holds out its arms to any associate1 grasps at any straw2 and when such an associate does introduce himself with flowery eloquence1 when he adjudges the ,state1 as ,hegel did1 to be an 'absolutely complete ethical organism1' the be-all and end-all of every one's education1 and goes on to indicate how he himself can best promote the interests of the ,state--who will be surprised if1 without further parley1 the ,state falls upon his neck and cries aloud in a barbaric voice of full conviction3 ',yes6 ,thou art education6 ,thou art indeed culture6' ,,fourth ,,lecture4 7,delivered on the #eth of ,march #ahgb47 ,,ladies ,,and ,,gentlemen1--,now that you have followed my tale up to this point1 and that we have made ourselves joint masters of the solitary1 remote1 and at times abusive duologue of the philosopher and his companion1 ,i sincerely hope that you1 like strong swimmers1 are ready to proceed on the second half of our journey1 especially as ,i can promise you that a few other marionettes will appear in the puppet-play of my adventure1 and that if up to the present you have only been able to do little more than endure what ,i have been telling you1 the waves of my story will now bear you more quickly and easily towards the end4 ,in other words we have now come to a turning1 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 conversation4 ,remain in your present position1 the philosopher seemed to say to his companion1 for you may cherish hopes4 ,it is more and more clearly evident that we have no educational institutions at all2 but that we ought to have them4 ,our public schools--established1 it would seem1 for this high object--have either become the nurseries of a reprehensible culture which repels the true culture with profound hatred--i4e4 a true1 aristocratic culture1 founded upon a few carefully chosen minds2 or they foster a micrological and sterile learning which1 while it is far removed from culture1 has at least this merit1 that it avoids that reprehensible culture as well as the true culture4 ,the philosopher had particularly drawn his companion's attention to the strange corruption which must have entered into the heart of culture when the ,state thought itself capable of tyrannising over it and of attaining its ends through it2 and further when the ,state1 in conjunction with this culture1 struggled against other hostile forces as well as against the spirit which the philosopher ventured to call the true ,german spirit4 ,this spirit1 linked to the ,greeks by the noblest ties1 and shown by its past history to have been steadfast and courageous1 pure and lofty in its aims1 its faculties qualifying it for the high task of freeing modern man from the curse of modernity--this spirit is condemned to live apart1 banished from its inheritance4 ,but when its slow1 painful tones of woe resound through the desert of the present1 then the overladen and gaily-decked caravan of culture is pulled up short1 horror-stricken4 ,we must not only astonish1 but terrify--such was the philosopher's opinion3 not to fly shamefully away1 but to take the offensive1 was his advice2 but he especially counselled his companion not to ponder too anxiously over the individual from whom1 through a higher instinct1 this aversion for the present barbarism proceeded1 ,let it perish3 the ,pythian god had no difficulty in finding a new tripod1 a second ,pythia1 so long1 at least1 as the mystic cold vapours rose from the earth4 ,the philosopher once more began to speak3 ,be careful to remember1 my friend1 said he1 there are two things you must not confuse4 ,a man must learn a great deal that he may live and take part in the struggle for existence2 but everything that he as an individual learns and does with this end in view has nothing whatever to do with culture4 ,this latter only takes its beginning in a sphere that lies far above the world of necessity1 indigence1 and struggle for existence4 ,the question now is to what extent a man values his ego in comparison with other egos1 how much of his strength he uses up in the endeavour to earn his living4 ,many a one1 by stoically confining his needs within a narrow compass1 will shortly and easily reach the sphere in which he may forget1 and1 as it were1 shake off his ego1 so that he can enjoy perpetual youth in a solar system of timeless and impersonal things4 ,another widens the scope and needs of his ego as much as possible1 and builds the mausoleum of this ego in vast proportions1 as if he were prepared to fight and conquer that terrible adversary1 ,time4 ,in this instinct also we may see a longing for immortality3 wealth and power1 wisdom1 presence of mind1 eloquence1 a flourishing outward aspect1 a renowned name--all these are merely turned into the means by which an insatiable1 personal will to live craves for new life1 with which1 again1 it hankers after an eternity that is at last seen to be illusory4 ,but even in this highest form of the ego1 in the enhanced needs of such a distended and1 as it were1 collective individual1 true culture is never touched upon2 and if1 for example1 art is sought after1 only its disseminating and stimulating actions come into prominence1 i4e4 those which least give rise to pure and noble art1 and most of all to low and degraded forms of it4 ,for in all his efforts1 however great and exceptional they seem to the onlooker1 he never succeeds in freeing himself from his own hankering and restless personality3 that illuminated1 ethereal sphere where one may contemplate without the obstruction of one's own personality continually recedes from him--and thus1 let him learn1 travel1 and collect as he may1 he must always live an exiled life at a remote distance from a higher life and from true culture4 ,for true culture would scorn to contaminate itself with the needy and covetous individual2 it well knows how to give the slip to the man who would fain employ it as a means of attaining to egoistic ends2 and if any one cherishes the belief that he has firmly secured it as a means of livelihood1 and that he can procure the necessities of life by its sedulous cultivation1 then it suddenly steals away with noiseless steps and an air of derisive mockery4#f ,i will thus ask you1 my friend1 not to confound this culture1 this sensitive1 fastidious1 ethereal goddess1 with that useful maid-of-all-work which is also called 'culture1' but which is only the intellectual servant and counsellor of one's practical necessities1 wants1 and means of livelihood ,every kind of training1 however1 which holds out the prospect of bread-winning as its end and aim1 is not a training for culture as we understand the word2 but merely a collection of precepts and directions to show how1 in the struggle for existence1 a man may preserve and protect his own person4 ,it may be freely admitted that for the great majority of men such a course of instruction is of the highest importance2 and the more arduous the struggle is the more intensely must the young man strain every nerve to utilise his strength to the best advantage4 ,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 culture4 ,they are institutions which teach one how to take part in the battle of life2 whether they promise to turn out civil servants1 or merchants1 or officers1 or wholesale dealers1 or farmers1 or physicians1 or men with a technical training4 ,the regulations and standards prevailing at such institutions differ from those in a true educational institution2 and what in the latter is permitted1 and even freely held out as often as possible1 ought to be considered as a criminal offence in the former4 ,let me give you an example4 ,if you wish to guide a young man on the path of true culture1 beware of interrupting his naive1 confident1 and1 as it were1 immediate and personal relationship with nature4 ,the woods1 the rocks1 the winds1 the vulture1 the flowers1 the butterfly1 the meads1 the mountain slopes1 must all speak to him in their own language2 in them he must1 as it were1 come to know himself again in countless reflections and images1 in a variegated round of changing visions2 and in this way he will unconsciously and gradually feel the metaphysical unity of all things in the great image of nature1 and at the same time tranquillise his soul in the contemplation of her eternal endurance and necessity4 ,but how many young men should be permitted to grow up in such close and almost personal proximity to nature6 ,the others must learn another truth betimes3 how to subdue nature to themselves4 ,here is an end of this naive metaphysics2 and the physiology of plants and animals1 geology1 inorganic chemistry1 force their devotees to view nature from an altogether different standpoint4 ,what is lost by this new point of view is not only a poetical phantasmagoria1 but the instinctive1 true1 and unique point of view1 instead of which we have shrewd and clever calculations1 and1 so to speak1 overreachings of nature4 ,thus to the truly cultured man is vouchsafed the inestimable benefit of being able to remain faithful1 without a break1 to the contemplative instincts of his childhood1 and so to attain to a calmness1 unity1 consistency1 and harmony which can never be even thought of by a man who is compelled to fight in the struggle for existence4 ,you must not think1 however1 that ,i wish to withhold all praise from our primary and secondary schools3 ,i honour the seminaries where boys learn arithmetic and master modern languages1 and study geography and the marvellous discoveries made in natural science4 ,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 boy2 and the time is certainly not far distant when such pupils will be everywhere freely admitted to the universities and positions under the government1 which has hitherto been the case only with scholars from the public schools--of our present public schools1 be it noted6#g ,i cannot1 however1 refrain from adding the melancholy reflection3 if it be true that secondary and public schools are1 on the whole1 working so heartily in common towards the same ends1 and differ from each other only in such a slight degree1 that they may take equal rank before the tribunal of the ,state1 then we completely lack another kind of educational institutions3 those for the development of culture6 ,to say the least1 the secondary schools cannot be reproached with this2 for they have up to the present propitiously and honourably followed up tendencies of a lower order1 but one nevertheless highly necessary4 ,in the public schools1 however1 there is very much less honesty and very much less ability too2 for in them we find an instinctive feeling of shame1 the unconscious perception of the fact that the whole institution has been ignominiously degraded1 and that the sonorous words of wise and apathetic teachers are contradictory to the dreary1 barbaric1 and sterile reality4 ,so there are no true cultural institutions6 ,and in those very places where a pretence to culture is still kept up1 we find the people more hopeless1 atrophied1 and discontented than in the secondary schools1 where the so-called 'realistic' subjects are taught6 ,besides this1 only think how immature 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 matter1 and to interpret 'realism' as 'the road to knowledge1 formation1 and mastery of reality4' ,i for my own part know of only two exact contraries3 institutions for teaching culture and institutions for teaching how to succeed in life4 ,all our present institutions belong to the second class2 but ,i am speaking only of the first4 ,about two hours went by while the philosophically-minded couple chatted about such startling questions4 ,night slowly fell in the meantime2 and when in the twilight the philosopher's voice had sounded like natural music through the woods1 it now rang out in the profound darkness of the night when he was speaking with excitement or even passionately2 his tones hissing and thundering far down the valley1 and reverberating among the trees and rocks4 ,suddenly he was silent3 he had just repeated1 almost pathetically1 the words1 we have no true educational institutions2 we have no true educational institutions6 when something fell down just in front of him--it might have been a fir-cone--and his dog barked and ran towards it4 ,thus interrupted1 the philosopher raised his head1 and suddenly became aware of the darkness1 the cool air1 and the lonely situation of himself and his companion4 ,well6 ,what are we about6 he ejaculated1 it's dark4 ,you know whom we were expecting here2 but he hasn't come4 ,we have waited in vain2 let us go4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i must now1 ladies and gentlemen1 convey to you the impressions experienced by my friend and myself as we eagerly listened to this conversation1 which we heard distinctly in our hiding-place4 ,i have already told you that at that place and at that hour we had intended to hold a festival in commemoration of something3 and this something had to do with nothing else than matters concerning educational training1 of which we1 in our own youthful opinions1 had garnered a plentiful harvest during our past life4 ,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 order1 as ,i have already mentioned1 that we might reciprocally encourage and watch over one another's educational impulses4 ,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 philosopher4 ,as when a traveller1 walking heedlessly across unknown ground1 suddenly puts his foot over the edge of a cliff1 so it now seemed to us that we had hastened to meet the great danger rather than run away from it4 ,here at this spot1 so memorable to us1 we heard the warning3 ,back6 ,not another step6 ,know you not whither your footsteps tend1 whither this deceitful path is luring you8 ,it seemed to us that we now knew1 and our feeling of overflowing thankfulness impelled us so irresistibly towards our earnest counsellor and trusty ,eckart1 that both of us sprang up at the same moment and rushed towards the philosopher to embrace him4 ,he was just about to move off1 and had already turned sideways when we rushed up to him4 ,the dog turned sharply round and barked1 thinking doubtless1 like the philosopher's companion1 of an attempt at robbery rather than an enraptured embrace4 ,it was plain that he had forgotten us4 ,in a word1 he ran away4 ,our embrace was a miserable failure when we did overtake him2 for my friend gave a loud yell as the dog bit him1 and the philosopher himself sprang away from me with such force that we both fell4 ,what with the dog and the men there was a scramble that lasted a few minutes1 until my friend began to call out loudly1 parodying the philosopher's own words3 ,in the name of all culture and pseudo-culture1 what does the silly dog want with us8 ,hence1 you confounded dog2 you uninitiated1 never to be initiated2 hasten away from us1 silent and ashamed6 ,after this outburst matters were cleared up to some extent1 at any rate so far as they could be cleared up in the darkness of the wood4 ,oh1 it's you6 ejaculated the philosopher1 our duellists6 ,how you startled us6 ,what on earth drives you to jump out upon us like this at such a time of the night8 ,joy1 thankfulness1 and reverence1 said we1 shaking the old man by the hand1 whilst the dog barked as if he understood1 we can't let you go without telling you this4 ,and if you are to understand everything you must not go away just yet2 we want to ask you about so many things that lie heavily on our hearts4 ,stay yet awhile2 we know every foot of the way and can accompany you afterwards4 ,the gentleman you expect may yet turn up4 ,look over yonder on the ,rhine3 what is that we see so clearly floating on the surface of the water as if surrounded by the light of many torches8 ,it is there that we may look for your friend1 ,i would even venture to say that it is he who is coming towards you with all those lights4 ,and so much did we assail the surprised old man with our entreaties1 promises1 and fantastic delusions1 that we persuaded the philosopher to walk to and fro with us on the little plateau1 by learned lumber undisturbed1 as my friend added4 ,shame on you6 said the philosopher1 if you really want to quote something1 why choose ,faust8 ,however1 ,i will give in to you1 quotation or no quotation1 if only our young companions will keep still and not run away as suddenly as they made their appearance1 for they are like will-o'-the-wisps2 we are amazed when they are there and again when they are not there4 ,my friend immediately recited-- ,respect1 ,i hope1 will teach us how we may ,our lighter disposition keep at bay4 ,our course is only zig-zag as a rule4 ,the philosopher was surprised1 and stood still4 ,you astonish me1 you will-o'-the-wisps1 he said2 this is no quagmire we are on now4 ,of what use is this ground to you8 ,what does the proximity of a philosopher mean to you8 ,for around him the air is sharp and clear1 the ground dry and hard4 ,you must find out a more fantastic region for your zig-zagging inclinations4 ,i think1 interrupted the philosopher's companion at this point1 the gentlemen have already told us that they promised to meet some one here at this hour2 but it seems to me that they listened to our comedy of education like a chorus1 and truly 'idealistic spectators'--for they did not disturb us2 we thought we were alone with each other4 ,yes1 that is true1 said the philosopher1 that praise must not be withheld from them1 but it seems to me that they deserve still higher praise---- ,here ,i seized the philosopher's hand and said3 ,that man must be as obtuse as a reptile1 with his stomach on the ground and his head buried in mud1 who can listen to such a discourse as yours without becoming earnest and thoughtful1 or even excited and indignant4 ,self-accusation and annoyance might perhaps cause a few to get angry2 but our impression was quite different3 the only thing ,i do not know is how exactly to describe it4 ,this hour was so well-timed for us1 and our minds were so well prepared1 that we sat there like empty vessels1 and now it seems as if we were filled to overflowing with this new wisdom3 for ,i no longer know how to help myself1 and if some one asked me what ,i am thinking of doing to-morrow1 or what ,i have made up my mind to do with myself from now on1 ,i should not know what to answer4 ,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-morrow8 ,yes1 acknowledged my friend1 ,i have a similar feeling1 and ,i ask the same question3 but besides that ,i feel as if ,i were frightened away from ,german culture by entertaining such high and ideal views of its task2 yea1 as if ,i were unworthy to co-operate with it in carrying out its aims4 ,i only see a resplendent file of the highest natures moving towards this goal2 ,i can imagine over what abysses and through what temptations this procession travels4 ,who would dare to be so bold as to join in it8 ,at this point the philosopher's companion again turned to him and said3 ,don't be angry with me when ,i tell you that ,i too have a somewhat similar feeling1 which ,i have not mentioned to you before4 ,when talking to you ,i often felt drawn out of myself1 as it were1 and inspired with your ardour and hopes till ,i almost forgot myself4 ,then a calmer moment arrives2 a piercing wind of reality brings me back to earth--and then ,i see the wide gulf between us1 over which you yourself1 as in a dream1 draw me back again4 ,then what you call 'culture' merely totters meaninglessly around me or lies heavily on my breast3 it is like a shirt of mail that weighs me down1 or a sword that ,i cannot wield4 ,our minds1 as we thus argued with the philosopher1 were unanimous1 and1 mutually encouraging and stimulating one another1 we slowly walked with him backwards and forwards along the unencumbered space which had earlier in the day served us as a shooting range4 ,and then1 in the still night1 under the peaceful light of hundreds of stars1 we all broke out into a tirade which ran somewhat as follows3-- ,you have told us so much about the genius1 we began1 about his lonely and wearisome journey through the world1 as if nature never exhibited anything but the most diametrical contraries3 in one place the stupid1 dull masses1 acting by instinct1 and then1 on a far higher and more remote plane1 the great contemplating few1 destined for the production of immortal works4 ,but now you call these the apexes of the intellectual pyramid3 it would1 however1 seem that between the broad1 heavily burdened foundation up to the highest of the free and unencumbered peaks there must be countless intermediate degrees1 and that here we must apply the saying natura non facit saltus4 ,where then are we to look for the beginning of what you call culture2 where is the line of demarcation to be drawn between the spheres which are ruled from below upwards and those which are ruled from above downwards8 ,and if it be only in connection with these exalted beings that true culture may be spoken of1 how are institutions to be founded for the uncertain existence of such natures1 how can we devise educational establishments which shall be of benefit only to these select few8 ,it rather seems to us that such persons know how to find their own way1 and that their full strength is shown in their being able to walk without the educational crutches necessary for other people1 and thus undisturbed to make their way through the storm and stress of this rough world just like a phantom4 ,we kept on arguing in this fashion1 speaking without any great ability and not putting our thoughts in any special form3 but the philosopher's companion went even further1 and said to him3 ,just think of all these great geniuses of whom we are wont to be so proud1 looking upon them as tried and true leaders and guides of this real ,german spirit1 whose names we commemorate by statues and festivals1 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 them1 to what degree do they show that they have been nourished and matured by basking in the sun of national education8 ,and yet they are seen to be possible1 they have nevertheless become men whom we must honour3 yea1 their works themselves justify the form of the development of these noble spirits2 they justify even a certain want of education for which we must make allowance owing to their country and the age in which they lived4 ,how could ,lessing and ,winckelmann benefit by the ,german culture of their time8 ,even less than1 or at all events just as little as ,beethoven1 ,schiller1 ,goethe1 or every one of our great poets and artists4 ,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 favoured4 ,at this point the old philosopher could not control his anger1 and shouted to his companion3 ,oh1 you innocent lamb of knowledge6 ,you gentle sucking doves1 all of you6 ,and would you give the name of arguments to those distorted1 clumsy1 narrow-minded1 ungainly1 crippled things8 ,yes1 ,i have just now been listening to the fruits of some of this present-day culture1 and my ears are still ringing with the sound of historical 'self-understood' things1 of over-wise and pitiless historical reasonings6 ,mark this1 thou unprofaned ,nature3 thou hast grown old1 and for thousands of years this starry sky has spanned the space above thee--but thou hast never yet heard such conceited and1 at bottom1 mischievous chatter as the talk of the present day6 ,so you are proud of your poets and artists1 my good ,teutons8 ,you point to them and brag about them to foreign countries1 do you8 ,and because it has given you no trouble to have them amongst you1 you have formed the pleasant theory that you need not concern yourselves further with them8 ,isn't that so1 my inexperienced children3 they come of their own free will1 the stork brings them to you6 ,who would dare to mention a midwife6 ,you deserve an earnest teaching1 eh8 ,you should be proud of the fact that all the noble and brilliant men we have mentioned were prematurely suffocated1 worn out1 and crushed through you1 through your barbarism8 ,you think without shame of ,lessing1 who1 on account of your stupidity1 perished in battle against your ludicrous gods and idols1 the evils of your theatres1 your learned men1 and your theologians1 without once daring to lift himself to the height of that immortal flight for which he was brought into the world4 ,and what are your impressions when you think of ,winckelmann1 who1 that he might rid his eyes of your grotesque fatuousness1 went to beg help from the ,jesuits1 and whose disgraceful religious conversion recoils upon you and will always remain an ineffaceable blemish upon you8 ,you can even name ,schiller without blushing6 ,just look at his picture6 ,the fiery1 sparkling eyes1 looking at you with disdain1 those flushed1 death-like cheeks3 can you learn nothing from all that8 ,in him you had a beautiful and divine plaything1 and through it was destroyed4 ,and if it had been possible for you to take ,goethe's friendship away from this melancholy1 hasty life1 hunted to premature death1 then you would have crushed him even sooner than you did4 ,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 future8 ,for each of them1 however1 up to this very moment1 you have always been the 'resistance of the stupid world' that ,goethe speaks of in his ,epilogue to the ,bell2 towards each of them you acted the part of apathetic dullards or jealous narrow-hearts or malignant egotists4 ,in spite of you they created their immortal works1 against you they directed their attacks1 and thanks to you they died so prematurely1 their tasks only half accomplished1 blunted and dulled and shattered in the battle4 ,who can tell to what these heroic men were destined to attain if only that true ,german spirit had gathered them together within the protecting walls of a powerful institution8--that spirit which1 without the help of some such institution1 drags out an isolated1 debased1 and degraded existence4 ,all those great men were utterly ruined2 and it is only an insane belief in the ,hegelian 'reasonableness of all happenings' which would absolve you of any responsibility in the matter4 ,and not those men alone6 ,indictments are pouring forth against you from every intellectual province3 whether ,i look at the talents of our poets1 philosophers1 painters1 or sculptors--and not only in the case of gifts of the highest order--,i everywhere see immaturity1 overstrained nerves1 or prematurely exhausted energies1 abilities wasted and nipped in the bud2 ,i everywhere feel that 'resistance of the stupid world1' in other words1 your guiltiness4 ,that is what ,i am talking about when ,i speak of lacking educational establishments1 and why ,i think those which at present claim the name in such a pitiful condition4 ,whoever is pleased to call this an 'ideal desire1' and refers to it as 'ideal' as if he were trying to get rid of it by praising me1 deserves the answer that the present system is a scandal and a disgrace1 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 desire4' ,the matter we are now discussing is concerned with clear1 urgent1 and palpably evident realities3 a man who knows anything of the question feels that there is a need which must be seen to1 just like cold and hunger4 ,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 culture1 and thus to know what ,i call 'culture1' and where the line should be drawn between that which is ruled from below upwards and that which is ruled from above downwards4 ,the philosopher seemed to be speaking very heatedly4 ,we begged him to walk round with us again1 since he had uttered the latter part of his discourse standing near the tree-stump which had served us as a target4 ,for a few minutes not a word more was spoken4 ,slowly and thoughtfully we walked to and fro4 ,we did not so much feel ashamed of having brought forward such foolish arguments as we felt a kind of restitution of our personality4 ,after the heated and1 so far as we were concerned1 very unflattering utterance of the philosopher1 we seemed to feel ourselves nearer to him--that we even stood in a personal relationship to him4 ,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 weakness1 some defect4 ,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 him3 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 pity4 ,and1 after the feeling that our personality had been restored to us1 this pity gradually became stronger and stronger4 ,why were we making this old man walk up and down with us between the rocks and trees at that time of the night8 ,and1 since he had yielded to our entreaties1 why could we not have thought of a more modest and unassuming manner of having ourselves instructed1 why should the three of us have contradicted him in such clumsy terms8 ,for now we saw how thoughtless1 unprepared1 and baseless were all the objections we had made1 and how greatly the echo of the present was heard in them1 the voice of which1 in the province of culture1 the old man would fain not have heard4 ,our objections1 however1 were not purely intellectual ones3 our reasons for protesting against the philosopher's statements seemed to lie elsewhere4 ,they arose perhaps from the instinctive anxiety to know whether1 if the philosopher's views were carried into effect1 our own personalities would find a place in the higher or lower division2 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 culture4 ,people1 however1 should not argue with companions who feel the weight of an argument so personally2 or1 as the moral in our case would have been3 such companions should not argue1 should not contradict at all4 ,so we walked on beside the philosopher1 ashamed1 compassionate1 dissatisfied with ourselves1 and more than ever convinced that the old man was right and that we had done him wrong4 ,how remote now seemed the youthful dream of our educational institution2 how clearly we saw the danger which we had hitherto escaped merely by good luck1 namely1 giving ourselves up body and soul to the educational system which forced itself upon our notice so enticingly1 from the time when we entered the public schools up to that moment4 ,how then had it come about that we had not taken our places in the chorus of its admirers8 ,perhaps merely because we were real students1 and could still draw back from the rough-and-tumble1 the pushing and struggling1 the restless1 ever-breaking waves of publicity1 to seek refuge in our own little educational establishment2 which1 however1 time would have soon swallowed up also4 ,overcome by such reflections1 we were about to address the philosopher again1 when he suddenly turned towards us1 and said in a softer tone-- ,i cannot be surprised if you young men behave rashly and thoughtlessly2 for it is hardly likely that you have ever seriously considered what ,i have just said to you4 ,don't be in a hurry2 carry this question about with you1 but do at any rate consider it day and night4 ,for you are now at the parting of the ways1 and now you know where each path leads4 ,if you take the one1 your age will receive you with open arms1 you will not find it wanting in honours and decorations3 you will form units of an enormous rank and file2 and there will be as many people like-minded standing behind you as in front of you4 ,and when the leader gives the word it will be re-echoed from rank to rank4 ,for here your first duty is this3 to fight in rank and file2 and your second3 to annihilate all those who refuse to form part of the rank and file4 ,on the other path you will have but few fellow-travellers3 it is more arduous1 winding and precipitous2 and those who take the first path will mock you1 for your progress is more wearisome1 and they will try to lure you over into their own ranks4 ,when the two paths happen to cross1 however1 you will be roughly handled and thrust aside1 or else shunned and isolated4 ,now1 take these two parties1 so different from each other in every respect1 and tell me what meaning an educational establishment would have for them4 ,that enormous horde1 crowding onwards on the first path towards its goal1 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 file1 and would be purged of everything which might tend to make him strive after higher and more remote aims4 ,i don't deny1 of course1 that they can find pompous words with which to describe their aims3 for example1 they speak of the 'universal development of free personality upon a firm social1 national1 and human basis1' or they announce as their goal3 ',the founding of the peaceful sovereignty of the people upon reason1 education1 and justice4' ,an educational establishment for the other and smaller company1 however1 would be something vastly different4 ,they would employ it to prevent themselves from being separated from one another and overwhelmed by the first huge crowd1 to prevent their few select spirits from losing sight of their splendid and noble task through premature weariness1 or from being turned aside from the true path1 corrupted1 or subverted4 ,these select spirits must complete their work3 that is the raison d'tre of their common institution--a work1 indeed1 which1 as it were1 must be free from subjective traces1 and must further rise above the transient events of future times as the pure reflection of the eternal and immutable essence of things4 ,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 genius4 ,not a few1 even of those whose talents may be of the second or third order1 are suited to such co-operation1 and only when serving in such an educational establishment as this do they feel that they are truly carrying out their life's task4 ,but now it is just these talents ,i speak of which are drawn away from the true path1 and their instincts estranged1 by the continual seductions of that modern 'culture4' ,the egotistic emotions1 weaknesses1 and vanities of these few select minds are continually assailed by the temptations unceasingly murmured into their ears by the spirit of the age3 ',come with me6 ,there you are servants1 retainers1 tools1 eclipsed by higher natures2 your own peculiar characteristics never have free play2 you are tied down1 chained down1 like slaves2 yea1 like automata3 here1 with me1 you will enjoy the freedom of your own personalities1 as masters should1 your talents will cast their lustre on yourselves alone1 with their aid you may come to the very front rank2 an innumerable train of followers will accompany you1 and the applause of public opinion will yield you more pleasure than a nobly-bestowed commendation from the height of genius4' ,even the very best of men now yield to these temptations3 and it cannot be said that the deciding factor here is the degree of talent1 or whether a man is accessible to these voices or not2 but rather the degree and the height of a certain moral sublimity1 the instinct towards heroism1 towards sacrifice--and finally a positive1 habitual need of culture1 prepared by a proper kind of education1 which education1 as ,i have previously said1 is first and foremost obedience and submission to the discipline of genius4 ,of this discipline and submission1 however1 the present institutions called by courtesy 'educational establishments' know nothing whatever1 although ,i have no doubt that the public school was originally intended to be an institution for sowing the seeds of true culture1 or at least as a preparation for it4 ,i have no doubt1 either1 that they took the first bold steps in the wonderful and stirring times of the ,reformation1 and that afterwards1 in the era which gave birth to ,schiller and ,goethe1 there was again a growing demand for culture1 like the first protuberance of that wing spoken of by ,plato in the ,phaedrus1 which1 at every contact with the beautiful1 bears the soul aloft into the upper regions1 the habitations of the gods4 ,ah1 began the philosopher's companion1 when you quote the divine ,plato and the world of ideas1 ,i do not think you are angry with me1 however much my previous utterance may have merited your disapproval and wrath4 ,as soon as you speak of it1 ,i feel that ,platonic wing rising within me2 and it is only at intervals1 when ,i act as the charioteer of my soul1 that ,i have any difficulty with the resisting and unwilling horse that ,plato has also described to us1 the 'crooked1 lumbering animal1 put together anyhow1 with a short1 thick neck2 flat-faced1 and of a dark colour1 with grey eyes and blood-red complexion2 the mate of insolence and pride1 shag-eared and deaf1 hardly yielding to whip or spur4'#h ,just think how long ,i have lived at a distance from you1 and how all those temptations you speak of have endeavoured to lure me away1 not perhaps without some success1 even though ,i myself may not have observed it4 ,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 culture1 so that we may have them as our leaders and guiding stars4 ,how greatly ,i feel the danger of travelling alone6 ,and when it occurred to me that ,i could save myself by flight from all contact with the spirit of the time1 ,i found that this flight itself was a mere delusion4 ,continuously1 with every breath we take1 some amount of that atmosphere circulates through every vein and artery1 and no solitude is lonesome or distant enough for us to be out of reach of its fogs and clouds4 ,whether in the guise of hope1 doubt1 profit1 or virtue1 the shades of that culture hover about us2 and we have been deceived by that jugglery even here in the presence of a true hermit of culture4 ,how steadfastly and faithfully must the few followers of that culture--which might almost be called sectarian--be ever on the alert6 ,how they must strengthen and uphold one another6 ,how adversely would any errors be criticised here1 and how sympathetically excused6 ,and thus1 teacher1 ,i ask you to pardon me1 after you have laboured so earnestly to set me in the right path6 ,you use a language which ,i do not care for1 my friend1 said the philosopher1 and one which reminds me of a diocesan conference4 ,with that ,i have nothing to do4 ,but your ,platonic horse pleases me1 and on its account you shall be forgiven4 ,i am willing to exchange my own animal for yours4 ,but it is getting chilly1 and ,i don't feel inclined to walk about any more just now4 ,the friend ,i was waiting for is indeed foolish enough to come up here even at midnight if he promised to do so4 ,but ,i have waited in vain for the signal agreed upon2 and ,i cannot guess what has delayed him4 ,for as a rule he is punctual1 as we old men are wont1 to be1 something that you young men nowadays look upon as old-fashioned4 ,but he has left me in the lurch for once3 how annoying it is6 ,come away with me6 ,it's time to go6 ,at this moment something happened4 ,,footnotes3 #f ,it will be apparent from these words that ,nietzsche is still under the influence of ,schopenhauer4--,,tr4 #g ,this prophecy has come true4--,,tr4 #h ,phaedrus2 ,jowett's translation4 ,,fifth ,,lecture4 7,delivered on the #bcrd of ,march #ahgb47 ,,ladies ,,and ,,gentlemen1--,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 night1 you must have felt as disappointed as we did when he announced his peevish intention4 ,you will remember that he had suddenly told us he wished to go2 for1 having been left in the lurch by his friend in the first place1 and1 in the second1 having been bored rather than animated by the remarks addressed to him by his companion and ourselves when walking backwards and forwards on the hillside1 he now apparently wanted to put an end to what appeared to him to be a useless discussion4 ,it must have seemed to him that his day had been lost1 and he would have liked to blot it out of his memory1 together with the recollection of ever having made our acquaintance4 ,and we were thus rather unwillingly preparing to depart when something else suddenly brought him to a standstill1 and the foot he had just raised sank hesitatingly to the ground again4 ,a coloured flame1 making a crackling noise for a few seconds1 attracted our attention from the direction of the ,rhine2 and immediately following upon this we heard a slow1 harmonious call1 quite in tune1 although plainly the cry of numerous youthful voices4 ,that's his signal1 exclaimed the philosopher1 so my friend is really coming1 and ,i haven't waited for nothing1 after all4 ,it will be a midnight meeting indeed--but how am ,i to let him know that ,i am still here8 ,come6 ,your pistols2 let us see your talent once again6 ,did you hear the severe rhythm of that melody saluting us8 ,mark it well1 and answer it in the same rhythm by a series of shots4 ,this was a task well suited to our tastes and abilities2 so we loaded up as quickly as we could and pointed our weapons at the brilliant stars in the heavens1 whilst the echo of that piercing cry died away in the distance4 ,the reports of the first1 second1 and third shots sounded sharply in the stillness2 and then the philosopher cried ,false time6 as our rhythm was suddenly interrupted3 for1 like a lightning flash1 a shooting star tore its way across the clouds after the third report1 and almost involuntarily our fourth and fifth shots were sent after it in the direction it had taken4 ,false time6 said the philosopher again1 who told you to shoot stars6 ,they can fall well enough without you6 ,people should know what they want before they begin to handle weapons4 ,and then we once more heard that loud melody from the waters of the ,rhine1 intoned by numerous and strong voices4 ,they understand us1 said the philosopher1 laughing1 and who indeed could resist when such a dazzling phantom comes within range8 ,hush6 interrupted his friend1 what sort of a company can it be that returns the signal to us in such a way8 ,i should say they were between twenty and forty strong1 manly voices in that crowd--and where would such a number come from to greet us8 ,they don't appear to have left the opposite bank of the ,rhine yet2 but at any rate we must have a look at them from our own side of the river4 ,come along1 quickly6 ,we were then standing near the top of the hill1 you may remember1 and our view of the river was interrupted by a dark1 thick wood4 ,on the other hand1 as ,i have told you1 from the quiet little spot which we had left we could have a better view than from the little plateau on the hillside2 and the ,rhine1 with the island of ,nonnenwrth in the middle1 was just visible to the beholder who peered over the tree-tops4 ,we therefore set off hastily towards this little spot1 taking care1 however1 not to go too quickly for the philosopher's comfort4 ,the night was pitch dark1 and we seemed to find our way by instinct rather than by clearly distinguishing the path1 as we walked down with the philosopher in the middle4 ,we had scarcely reached our side of the river when a broad and fiery1 yet dull and uncertain light shot up1 which plainly came from the opposite side of the ,rhine4 ,those are torches1 ,i cried1 there is nothing surer than that my comrades from ,bonn are over yonder1 and that your friend must be with them4 ,it is they who sang that peculiar song1 and they have doubtless accompanied your friend here4 ,see6 ,listen6 ,they are putting off in little boats4 ,the whole torchlight procession will have arrived here in less than half an hour4 ,the philosopher jumped back4 ,what do you say8 he ejaculated1 your comrades from ,bonn--students--can my friend have come here with students8 ,this question1 uttered almost wrathfully1 provoked us4 ,what's your objection to students8 we demanded2 but there was no answer4 ,it was only after a pause that the philosopher slowly began to speak1 not addressing us directly1 as it were1 but rather some one in the distance3 ,so1 my friend1 even at midnight1 even on the top of a lonely mountain1 we shall not be alone2 and you yourself are bringing a pack of mischief-making students along with you1 although you well know that ,i am only too glad to get out of the way of hoc genus omne4 ,i don't quite understand you1 my friend3 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 hour4 ,why should we want a crowd of witnesses--and such witnesses6 ,what calls us together to-day is least of all a sentimental1 soft-hearted necessity2 for both of us learnt early in life to live alone in dignified isolation4 ,it was not for our own sakes1 not to show our tender feelings towards each other1 or to perform an unrehearsed act of friendship1 that we decided to meet here2 but that here1 where ,i once came suddenly upon you as you sat in majestic solitude1 we might earnestly deliberate with each other like knights of a new order4 ,let them listen to us who can understand us2 but why should you bring with you a throng of people who don't understand us6 ,i don't know what you mean by such a thing1 my friend6 ,we did not think it proper to interrupt the dissatisfied old grumbler2 and as he came to a melancholy close we did not dare to tell him how greatly this distrustful repudiation of students vexed us4 ,at last the philosopher's companion turned to him and said3 ,i am reminded of the fact that even you at one time1 before ,i made your acquaintance1 occupied posts in several universities1 and that reports concerning your intercourse with the students and your methods of instruction at the time are still in circulation4 ,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 liking2 but personally ,i rather believe that you saw and experienced in such places just what every one else saw and experienced in them1 but that you judged what you saw and felt more justly and severely than any one else4 ,for1 during the time ,i have known you1 ,i have learnt that the most noteworthy1 instructive1 and decisive experiences and events in one's life are those which are of daily occurrence2 that the greatest riddle1 displayed in full view of all1 is seen by the fewest to be the greatest riddle1 and that these problems are spread about in every direction1 under the very feet of the passers-by1 for the few real philosophers to lift up carefully1 thenceforth to shine as diamonds of wisdom4 ,perhaps1 in the short time now left us before the arrival of your friend1 you will be good enough to tell us something of your experiences of university life1 so as to close the circle of observations1 to which we were involuntarily urged1 respecting our educational institutions4 ,we may also be allowed to remind you that you1 at an earlier stage of your remarks1 gave me the promise that you would do so4 ,starting with the public school1 you claimed for it an extraordinary importance3 all other institutions must be judged by its standard1 according as its aim has been proposed2 and1 if its aim happens to be wrong1 all the others have to suffer4 ,such an importance cannot now be adopted by the universities as a standard2 for1 by their present system of grouping1 they would be nothing more than institutions where public school students might go through finishing courses4 ,you promised me that you would explain this in greater detail later on3 perhaps our student friends can bear witness to that1 if they chanced to overhear that part of our conversation4 ,we can testify to that1 ,i put in4 ,the philosopher then turned to us and said3 ,well1 if you really did listen attentively1 perhaps you can now tell me what you understand by the expression 'the present aim of our public schools4' ,besides1 you are still near enough to this sphere to judge my opinions by the standard of your own impressions and experiences4 ,my friend instantly answered1 quickly and smartly1 as was his habit1 in the following words3 ,until now we had always thought that the sole object of the public school was to prepare students for the universities4 ,this preparation1 however1 should tend to make us independent enough for the extraordinarily free position of a university student2#i for it seems to me that a student1 to a greater extent than any other individual1 has more to decide and settle for himself4 ,he must guide himself on a wide1 utterly unknown path for many years1 so the public school must do its best to render him independent4 ,i continued the argument where my friend left off4 ,it even seems to me1 ,i said1 that everything for which you have justly blamed the public school is only a necessary means employed to imbue the youthful student with some kind of independence1 or at all events with the belief that there is such a thing4 ,the teaching of ,german composition must be at the service of this independence3 the individual must enjoy his opinions and carry out his designs early1 so that he may be able to travel alone and without crutches4 ,in this way he will soon be encouraged to produce original work1 and still sooner to take up criticism and analysis4 ,if ,latin and ,greek studies prove insufficient to make a student an enthusiastic admirer of antiquity1 the methods with which such studies are pursued are at all events sufficient to awaken the scientific sense1 the desire for a more strict causality of knowledge1 the passion for finding out and inventing4 ,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 school6 ,the public school boy must learn and collect a great deal of varied information3 hence an impulse will gradually be created1 accompanied with which he will continue to learn and collect independently at the university4 ,we believe1 in short1 that the aim of the public school is to prepare and accustom the student always to live and learn independently afterwards1 just as beforehand he must live and learn dependently at the public school4 ,the philosopher laughed1 not altogether good-naturedly1 and said3 ,you have just given me a fine example of that independence4 ,and it is this very independence that shocks me so much1 and makes any place in the neighbourhood of present-day students so disagreeable to me4 ,yes1 my good friends1 you are perfect1 you are mature2 nature has cast you and broken up the moulds1 and your teachers must surely gloat over you4 ,what liberty1 certitude1 and independence of judgment2 what novelty and freshness of insight6 ,you sit in judgment--and the cultures of all ages run away4 ,the scientific sense is kindled1 and rises out of you like a flame--let people be careful1 lest you set them alight6 ,if ,i go further into the question and look at your professors1 ,i again find the same independence in a greater and even more charming degree3 never was there a time so full of the most sublime independent folk1 never was slavery more detested1 the slavery of education and culture included4 ,permit me1 however1 to measure this independence of yours by the standard of this culture1 and to consider your university as an educational institution and nothing else4 ,if a foreigner desires to know something of the methods of our universities1 he asks first of all with emphasis3 ',how is the student connected with the university8' ,we answer3 ',by the ear1 as a hearer4' ,the foreigner is astonished4 ',only by the ear8' he repeats4 ',only by the ear1' we again reply4 ,the student hears4 ,when he speaks1 when he sees1 when he is in the company of his companions when he takes up some branch of art3 in short1 when he lives he is independent1 i4e4 not dependent upon the educational institution4 ,the student very often writes down something while he hears2 and it is only at these rare moments that he hangs to the umbilical cord of his alma mater4 ,he himself may choose what he is to listen to2 he is not bound to believe what is said2 he may close his ears if he does not care to hear4 ,this is the 'acroamatic' method of teaching4 ,the teacher1 however1 speaks to these listening students4 ,whatever else he may think and do is cut off from the student's perception by an immense gap4 ,the professor often reads when he is speaking4 ,as a rule he wishes to have as many hearers as possible2 he is not content to have a few1 and he is never satisfied with one only4 ,one speaking mouth1 with many ears1 and half as many writing hands--there you have to all appearances1 the external academical apparatus2 the university engine of culture set in motion4 ,moreover1 the proprietor of this one mouth is severed from and independent of the owners of the many ears2 and this double independence is enthusiastically designated as 'academical freedom4' ,and again1 that this freedom may be broadened still more1 the one may speak what he likes and the other may hear what he likes2 except that1 behind both of them1 at a modest distance1 stands the ,state1 with all the intentness of a supervisor1 to remind the professors and students from time to time that it is the aim1 the goal1 the be-all and end-all1 of this curious speaking and hearing procedure4 ,we1 who must be permitted to regard this phenomenon merely as an educational institution1 will then inform the inquiring foreigner that what is called 'culture' in our universities merely proceeds from the mouth to the ear1 and that every kind of training for culture is1 as ,i said before1 merely 'acroamatic4' ,since1 however1 not only the hearing1 but also the choice of what to hear is left to the independent decision of the liberal-minded and unprejudiced student1 and since1 again1 he can withhold all belief and authority from what he hears1 all training for culture1 in the true sense of the term1 reverts to himself2 and the independence it was thought desirable to aim at in the public school now presents itself with the highest possible pride as 'academical self-training for culture1' and struts about in its brilliant plumage4 ,happy times1 when youths are clever and cultured enough to teach themselves how to walk6 ,unsurpassable public schools1 which succeed in implanting independence in the place of the dependence1 discipline1 subordination1 and obedience implanted by former generations that thought it their duty to drive away all the bumptiousness of independence6 ,do you clearly see1 my good friends1 why ,i1 from the standpoint of culture1 regard the present type of university as a mere appendage to the public school8 ,the culture instilled by the public school passes through the gates of the university as something ready and entire1 and with its own particular claims3 it demands1 it gives laws1 it sits in judgment4 ,do not1 then1 let yourselves be deceived in regard to the cultured student2 for he1 in so far as he thinks he has absorbed the blessings of education1 is merely the public school boy as moulded by the hands of his teacher3 one who1 since his academical isolation1 and after he has left the public school1 has therefore been deprived of all further guidance to culture1 that from now on he may begin to live by himself and be free4 ,free6 ,examine this freedom1 ye observers of human nature6 ,erected upon the sandy1 crumbling foundation of our present public school culture1 its building slants to one side1 trembling before the whirlwind's blast4 ,look at the free student1 the herald of self-culture3 guess what his instincts are2 explain him from his needs6 ,how does his culture appear to you when you measure it by three graduated scales3 first1 by his need for philosophy2 second1 by his instinct for art2 and third1 by ,greek and ,roman antiquity as the incarnate categorical imperative of all culture8 ,man is so much encompassed about by the most serious and difficult problems that1 when they are brought to his attention in the right way1 he is impelled betimes towards a lasting kind of philosophical wonder1 from which alone1 as a fruitful soil1 a deep and noble culture can grow forth4 ,his own experiences lead him most frequently to the consideration of these problems2 and it is especially in the tempestuous period of youth that every personal event shines with a double gleam1 both as the exemplification of a triviality and1 at the same time1 of an eternally surprising problem1 deserving of explanation4 ,at this age1 which1 as it were1 sees his experiences encircled with metaphysical rainbows1 man is1 in the highest degree1 in need of a guiding hand1 because he has suddenly and almost instinctively convinced himself of the ambiguity of existence1 and has lost the firm support of the beliefs he has hitherto held4 ,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 trained4 ,all these sons of the present1 who have raised the banner of the 'self-understood1' are therefore straining every nerve to crush down these feelings of youth1 to cripple them1 to mislead them1 or to stop their growth altogether2 and the favourite means employed is to paralyse that natural philosophic impulse by the so-called historical culture4 ,a still recent system1#aj which has won for itself a world-wide scandalous reputation1 has discovered the formula for this self-destruction of philosophy2 and now1 wherever the historical view of things is found1 we can see such a naive recklessness in bringing the irrational to 'rationality' and 'reason' and making black look like white1 that one is even inclined to parody ,hegel's phrase and ask3 ',is all this irrationality real8' ,ah1 it is only the irrational that now seems to be 'real1' i4e4 really doing something2 and to bring this kind of reality forward for the elucidation of history is reckoned as true 'historical culture4' ,it is into this that the philosophical impulse of our time has pupated itself2 and the peculiar philosophers of our universities seem to have conspired to fortify and confirm the young academicians in it4 ,it has thus come to pass that1 in place of a profound interpretation of the eternally recurring problems1 a historical--yea1 even philological--balancing and questioning has entered into the educational arena3 what this or that philosopher has or has not thought2 whether this or that essay or dialogue is to be ascribed to him or not2 or even whether this particular reading of a classical text is to be preferred to that4 ,it is to neutral preoccupations with philosophy like these that our students in philosophical seminaries are stimulated2 whence ,i have long accustomed myself to regard such science as a mere ramification of philology1 and to value its representatives in proportion as they are good or bad philologists4 ,so it has come about that philosophy itself is banished from the universities3 wherewith our first question as to the value of our universities from the standpoint of culture is answered4 ,in what relationship these universities stand to art cannot be acknowledged without shame3 in none at all4 ,of artistic thinking1 learning1 striving1 and comparison1 we do not find in them a single trace2 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 art4 ,whether an individual teacher feels himself to be personally qualified for art1 or whether a professorial chair has been established for the training of stheticising literary historians1 does not enter into the question at all3 the fact remains that the university is not in a position to control the young academician by severe artistic discipline1 and that it must let happen what happens1 willy-nilly--and this is the cutting answer to the immodest pretensions of the universities to represent themselves as the highest educational institutions4 ,we find our academical 'independents' growing up without philosophy and without art2 and how can they then have any need to 'go in for' the ,greeks and ,romans8--for we need now no longer pretend1 like our forefathers1 to have any great regard for ,greece and ,rome1 which1 besides1 sit enthroned in almost inaccessible loneliness and majestic alienation4 ,the universities of the present time consequently give no heed to almost extinct educational predilections like these1 and found their philological chairs for the training of new and exclusive generations of philologists1 who on their part give similar philological preparation in the public schools--a vicious circle which is useful neither to philologists nor to public schools1 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 culture4 ,take away the ,greeks1 together with philosophy and art1 and what ladder have you still remaining by which to ascend to culture8 ,for1 if you attempt to clamber up the ladder without these helps1 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 aloft4 ,if you honest thinkers have honourably remained in these three stages of intelligence1 and have perceived that1 in comparison with the ,greeks1 the modern student is unsuited to and unprepared for philosophy1 that he has no truly artistic instincts1 and is merely a barbarian believing himself to be free1 you will not on this account turn away from him in disgust1 although you will1 of course1 avoid coming into too close proximity with him4 ,for1 as he now is1 he is not to blame3 as you have perceived him he is the dumb but terrible accuser of those who are to blame4 ,you should understand the secret language spoken by this guilty innocent1 and then you1 too1 would learn to understand the inward state of that independence which is paraded outwardly with so much ostentation4 ,not one of these noble1 well-qualified youths has remained a stranger to that restless1 tiring1 perplexing1 and debilitating need of culture3 during his university term1 when he is apparently the only free man in a crowd of servants and officials1 he atones for this huge illusion of freedom by ever-growing inner doubts and convictions4 ,he feels that he can neither lead nor help himself2 and then he plunges hopelessly into the workaday world and endeavours to ward off such feelings by study4 ,the most trivial bustle fastens itself upon him2 he sinks under his heavy burden4 ,then he suddenly pulls himself together2 he still feels some of that power within him which would have enabled him to keep his head above water4 ,pride and noble resolutions assert themselves and grow in him4 ,he is afraid of sinking at this early stage into the limits of a narrow profession2 and now he grasps at pillars and railings alongside the stream that he may not be swept away by the current4 ,in vain6 for these supports give way1 and he finds he has clutched at broken reeds4 ,in low and despondent spirits he sees his plans vanish away in smoke4 ,his condition is undignified1 even dreadful3 he keeps between the two extremes of work at high pressure and a state of melancholy enervation4 ,then he becomes tired1 lazy1 afraid of work1 fearful of everything great2 and hating himself4 ,he looks into his own breast1 analyses his faculties1 and finds he is only peering into hollow and chaotic vacuity4 ,and then he once more falls from the heights of his eagerly-desired self-knowledge into an ironical scepticism4 ,he divests his struggles of their real importance1 and feels himself ready to undertake any class of useful work1 however degrading4 ,he now seeks consolation in hasty and incessant action so as to hide himself from himself4 ,and thus his helplessness and the want of a leader towards culture drive him from one form of life into another3 but doubt1 elevation1 worry1 hope1 despair--everything flings him hither and thither as a proof that all the stars above him by which he could have guided his ship have set4 ,there you have the picture of this glorious independence of yours1 of that academical freedom1 reflected in the highest minds--those which are truly in need of culture1 compared with whom that other crowd of indifferent natures does not count at all1 natures that delight in their freedom in a purely barbaric sense4 ,for these latter show by their base smugness and their narrow professional limitations that this is the right element for them3 against which there is nothing to be said4 ,their comfort1 however1 does not counter-balance the suffering of one single young man who has an inclination for culture and feels the need of a guiding hand1 and who at last1 in a moment of discontent1 throws down the reins and begins to despise himself4 ,this is the guiltless innocent2 for who has saddled him with the unbearable burden of standing alone8 ,who has urged him on to independence at an age when one of the most natural and peremptory needs of youth is1 so to speak1 a self-surrendering to great leaders and an enthusiastic following in the footsteps of the masters8 ,it is repulsive to consider the effects to which the violent suppression of such noble natures may lead4 ,he who surveys the greatest supporters and friends of that pseudo-culture of the present time1 which ,i so greatly detest1 will only too frequently find among them such degenerate and shipwrecked men of culture1 driven by inward despair to violent enmity against culture1 when1 in a moment of desperation1 there was no one at hand to show them how to attain it4 ,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 despair3 the spirit of some well-known men of letters might even be described1 and justly1 as degenerate studentdom4 ,how else1 for example1 can we reconcile that once well-known 'young ,germany' with its present degenerate successors8 ,here we discover a need of culture which1 so to speak1 has grown mutinous1 and which finally breaks out into the passionate cry3 ,i am culture6 ,there1 before the gates of the public schools and universities1 we can see the culture which has been driven like a fugitive away from these institutions4 ,true1 this culture is without the erudition of those establishments1 but assumes nevertheless the mien of a sovereign2 so that1 for example1 ,gutzkow the novelist might be pointed to as the best example of a modern public school boy turned sthete4 ,such a degenerate man of culture is a serious matter1 and it is a horrifying spectacle for us to see that all our scholarly and journalistic publicity bears the stigma of this degeneracy upon it4 ,how else can we do justice to our learned men1 who pay untiring attention to1 and even co-operate in the journalistic corruption of the people1 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 others3 i4e4 a flight from one's self1 an ascetic extirpation of their cultural impulses1 a desperate attempt to annihilate their own individuality4 ,from our degenerate literary art1 as also from that itch for scribbling of our learned men which has now reached such alarming proportions1 wells forth the same sigh3 ,oh that we could forget ourselves6 ,the attempt fails3 memory1 not yet suffocated by the mountains of printed paper under which it is buried1 keeps on repeating from time to time3 ',a degenerate man of culture6 ,born for culture and brought up to non-culture6 ,helpless barbarian1 slave of the day1 chained to the present moment1 and thirsting for something--ever thirsting6' ,oh1 the miserable guilty innocents6 ,for they lack something1 a need that every one of them must have felt3 a real educational institution1 which could give them goals1 masters1 methods1 companions2 and from the midst of which the invigorating and uplifting breath of the true ,german spirit would inspire them4 ,thus they perish in the wilderness2 thus they degenerate into enemies of that spirit which is at bottom closely allied to their own2 thus they pile fault upon fault higher than any former generation ever did1 soiling the clean1 desecrating the holy1 canonising the false and spurious4 ,it is by them that you can judge the educational strength of our universities1 asking yourselves1 in all seriousness1 the question3 ,what cause did you promote through them8 ,the ,german power of invention1 the noble ,german desire for knowledge1 the qualifying of the ,german for diligence and self-sacrifice--splendid and beautiful things1 which other nations envy you2 yea1 the finest and most magnificent things in the world1 if only that true ,german spirit overspread them like a dark thundercloud1 pregnant with the blessing of forthcoming rain4 ,but you are afraid of this spirit1 and it has therefore come to pass that a cloud of another sort has thrown a heavy and oppressive atmosphere around your universities1 in which your noble-minded scholars breathe wearily and with difficulty4 ,a tragic1 earnest1 and instructive attempt was made in the present century to destroy the cloud ,i have last referred to1 and also to turn the people's looks in the direction of the high welkin of the ,german spirit4 ,in all the annals of our universities we cannot find any trace of a second attempt1 and he who would impressively demonstrate what is now necessary for us will never find a better example4 ,i refer to the old1 primitive ,burschenschaft4#aa ,when the war of liberation was over1 the young student brought back home the unlooked-for and worthiest trophy of battle--the freedom of his fatherland4 ,crowned with this laurel he thought of something still nobler4 ,on returning to the university1 and finding that he was breathing heavily1 he became conscious of that oppressive and contaminated air which overhung the culture of the university4 ,he suddenly saw1 with horror-struck1 wide-open eyes1 the non-,german barbarism1 hiding itself in the guise of all kinds of scholasticism2 he suddenly discovered that his own leaderless comrades were abandoned to a repulsive kind of youthful intoxication4 ,and he was exasperated4 ,he rose with the same aspect of proud indignation as ,schiller may have had when reciting the ,robbers to his companions3 and if he had prefaced his drama with the picture of a lion1 and the motto1 'in tyrannos1' his follower himself was that very lion preparing to spring2 and every 'tyrant' began to tremble4 ,yes1 if these indignant youths were looked at superficially and timorously1 they would seem to be little else than ,schiller's robbers3 their talk sounded so wild to the anxious listener that ,rome and ,sparta seemed mere nunneries compared with these new spirits4 ,the consternation raised by these young men was indeed far more general than had ever been caused by those other 'robbers' in court circles1 of which a ,german prince1 according to ,goethe1 is said to have expressed the opinion3 ',if he had been ,god1 and had foreseen the appearance of the ,robbers1 he would not have created the world4' ,whence came the incomprehensible intensity of this alarm8 ,for those young men were the bravest1 purest1 and most talented of the band both in dress and habits3 they were distinguished by a magnanimous recklessness and a noble simplicity4 ,a divine command bound them together to seek harder and more pious superiority3 what could be feared from them8 ,to what extent this fear was merely deceptive or simulated or really true is something that will probably never be exactly known2 but a strong instinct spoke out of this fear and out of its disgraceful and senseless persecution4 ,this instinct hated the ,burschenschaft with an intense hatred for two reasons3 first of all on account of its organisation1 as being the first attempt to construct a true educational institution1 and1 secondly1 on account of the spirit of this institution1 that earnest1 manly1 stern1 and daring ,german spirit2 that spirit of the miner's son1 ,luther1 which has come down to us unbroken from the time of the ,reformation4 ,think of the fate of the ,burschenschaft when ,i ask you1 ,did the ,german university then understand that spirit1 as even the ,german princes in their hatred appear to have understood it8 ,did the alma mater boldly and resolutely throw her protecting arms round her noble sons and say3 ',you must kill me first1 before you touch my children8' ,i hear your answer--by it you may judge whether the ,german university is an educational institution or not4 ,the student knew at that time at what depth a true educational institution must take root1 namely1 in an inward renovation and inspiration of the purest moral faculties4 ,and this must always be repeated to the student's credit4 ,he may have learnt on the field of battle what he could learn least of all in the sphere of 'academical freedom'3 that great leaders are necessary1 and that all culture begins with obedience4 ,and in the midst of victory1 with his thoughts turned to his liberated fatherland1 he made the vow that he would remain ,german4 ,german6 ,now he learnt to understand his ,tacitus2 now he grasped the signification of ,kant's categorical imperative2 now he was enraptured by ,weber's ,lyre and ,sword songs4#ab ,the gates of philosophy1 of art1 yea1 even of antiquity1 opened unto him2 and in one of the most memorable of bloody acts1 the murder of ,kotzebue1 he revenged--with penetrating insight and enthusiastic short-sightedness--his one and only ,schiller1 prematurely consumed by the opposition of the stupid world3 ,schiller1 who could have been his leader1 master1 and organiser1 and whose loss he now bewailed with such heartfelt resentment4 ,for that was the doom of those promising students3 they did not find the leaders they wanted4 ,they gradually became uncertain1 discontented1 and at variance among themselves2 unlucky indiscretions showed only too soon that the one indispensability of powerful minds was lacking in the midst of them3 and1 while that mysterious murder gave evidence of astonishing strength1 it gave no less evidence of the grave danger arising from the want of a leader4 ,they were leaderless--therefore they perished4 ,for ,i repeat it1 my friends6 ,all culture begins with the very opposite of that which is now so highly esteemed as 'academical freedom'3 with obedience1 with subordination1 with discipline1 with subjection4 ,and as leaders must have followers so also must the followers have a leader--here a certain reciprocal predisposition prevails in the hierarchy of spirits3 yea1 a kind of pre-established harmony4 ,this eternal hierarchy1 towards which all things naturally tend1 is always threatened by that pseudo-culture which now sits on the throne of the present4 ,it endeavours either to bring the leaders down to the level of its own servitude or else to cast them out altogether4 ,it seduces the followers when they are seeking their predestined leader1 and overcomes them by the fumes of its narcotics4 ,when1 however1 in spite of all this1 leader and followers have at last met1 wounded and sore1 there is an impassioned feeling of rapture1 like the echo of an ever-sounding lyre1 a feeling which ,i can let you divine only by means of a simile4 ,have you ever1 at a musical rehearsal1 looked at the strange1 shrivelled-up1 good-natured species of men who usually form the ,german orchestra8 ,what changes and fluctuations we see in that capricious goddess 'form'6 ,what noses and ears1 what clumsy1 danse macabre movements6 ,just imagine for a moment that you were deaf1 and had never dreamed of the existence of sound or music1 and that you were looking upon the orchestra as a company of actors1 and trying to enjoy their performance as a drama and nothing more4 ,undisturbed by the idealising effect of the sound1 you could never see enough of the stern1 medieval1 wood-cutting movement of this comical spectacle1 this harmonious parody on the homo sapiens4 ,now1 on the other hand1 assume that your musical sense has returned1 and that your ears are opened4 ,look at the honest conductor at the head of the orchestra performing his duties in a dull1 spiritless fashion3 you no longer think of the comical aspect of the whole scene1 you listen--but it seems to you that the spirit of tediousness spreads out from the honest conductor over all his companions4 ,now you see only torpidity and flabbiness1 you hear only the trivial1 the rhythmically inaccurate1 and the melodiously trite4 ,you see the orchestra only as an indifferent1 ill-humoured1 and even wearisome crowd of players4 ,but set a genius--a real genius--in the midst of this crowd2 and you instantly perceive something almost incredible4 ,it is as if this genius1 in his lightning transmigration1 had entered into these mechanical1 lifeless bodies1 and as if only one demoniacal eye gleamed forth out of them all4 ,now look and listen--you can never listen enough6 ,when you again observe the orchestra1 now loftily storming1 now fervently wailing1 when you notice the quick tightening of every muscle and the rhythmical necessity of every gesture1 then you too will feel what a pre-established harmony there is between leader and followers1 and how in the hierarchy of spirits everything impels us towards the establishment of a like organisation4 ,you can divine from my simile what ,i would understand by a true educational institution1 and why ,i am very far from recognising one in the present type of university4 ,from a few ,,ms4 notes written down by ,nietzsche in the spring and autumn of #ahgb1 and still preserved in the ,nietzsche ,archives at ,weimar1 it is evident that he at one time intended to add a sixth and seventh lecture to the five just given4 ,these notes1 although included in the latest edition of ,nietzsche's works1 are utterly lacking in interest and continuity1 being merely headings and sub-headings of sections in the proposed lectures4 ,they do not1 indeed1 occupy more than two printed pages1 and were deemed too fragmentary for translation in this edition4 ,,footnotes3 #i ,the reader may be reminded that a ,german university student is subject to very few restrictions1 and that much greater liberty is allowed him than is permitted to ,english students4 ,nietzsche did not approve of this extraordinary freedom1 which1 in his opinion1 led to intellectual lawlessness4--,,tr4 #aj ,hegel's4--,,tr4 #aa ,a ,german students' association1 of liberal principles1 founded for patriotic purposes at ,jena in #ahac4 #ab ,weber set one or two of ,krner's ,lyre and ,sword songs to music4 ,the reader will remember that these lectures were delivered when ,nietzsche was only in his twenty-eighth year4 ,like ,goethe1 he afterwards freed himself from all patriotic trammels and prejudices1 and aimed at a general ,european culture4 ,luther1 ,schiller1 ,kant1 ,krner1 and ,weber did not continue to be the objects of his veneration for long1 indeed1 they were afterwards violently attacked by him1 and the superficial student who speaks of inconsistency may be reminded of ,nietzsche's phrase in stanza #ab of the epilogue to ,beyond ,good and ,evil3 ,nur wer sich wandelt1 bleibt mit mir verwandt2 i4e4 only the changing ones have anything in common with me4--,,tr4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,homer ,,and ,,classical ,,philology4 7,inaugural ,address delivered at ,ble ,university1 #bhth of ,may #ahfi47 ,at the present day no clear and consistent opinion seems to be held regarding ,classical ,philology4 ,we are conscious of this in the circles of the learned just as much as among the followers of that science itself4 ,the cause of this lies in its many-sided character1 in the lack of an abstract unity1 and in the inorganic aggregation of heterogeneous scientific activities which are connected with one another only by the name ,philology4 ,it must be freely admitted that philology is to some extent borrowed from several other sciences1 and is mixed together like a magic potion from the most outlandish liquors1 ores1 and bones4 ,it may even be added that it likewise conceals within itself an artistic element1 one which1 on sthetic and ethical grounds1 may be called imperatival--an element that acts in opposition to its purely scientific behaviour4 ,philology is composed of history just as much as of natural science or sthetics3 history1 in so far as it endeavours to comprehend the manifestations of the individualities of peoples in ever new images1 and the prevailing law in the disappearance of phenomena2 natural science1 in so far as it strives to fathom the deepest instinct of man1 that of speech2 sthetics1 finally1 because from various antiquities at our disposal it endeavours to pick out the so-called classical antiquity1 with the view and pretension of excavating the ideal world buried under it1 and to hold up to the present the mirror of the classical and everlasting standards4 ,that these wholly different scientific and sthetico-ethical impulses have been associated under a common name1 a kind of sham monarchy1 is shown especially by the fact that philology at every period from its origin onwards was at the same time pedagogical4 ,from the standpoint of the pedagogue1 a choice was offered of those elements which were of the greatest educational value2 and thus that science1 or at least that scientific aim1 which we call philology1 gradually developed out of the practical calling originated by the exigencies of that science itself4 ,these philological aims were pursued sometimes with greater ardour and sometimes with less1 in accordance with the degree of culture and the development of the taste of a particular period2 but1 on the other hand1 the followers of this science are in the habit of regarding the aims which correspond to their several abilities as the aims of philology2 whence it comes about that the estimation of philology in public opinion depends upon the weight of the personalities of the philologists6 ,at the present time--that is to say1 in a period which has seen men distinguished in almost every department of philology--a general uncertainty of judgment has increased more and more1 and likewise a general relaxation of interest and participation in philological problems4 ,such an undecided and imperfect state of public opinion is damaging to a science in that its hidden and open enemies can work with much better prospects of success4 ,and philology has a great many such enemies4 ,where do we not meet with them1 these mockers1 always ready to aim a blow at the philological moles1 the animals that practise dust-eating ex professo1 and that grub up and eat for the eleventh time what they have already eaten ten times before4 ,for opponents of this sort1 however1 philology is merely a useless1 harmless1 and inoffensive pastime1 an object of laughter and not of hate4 ,but1 on the other hand1 there is a boundless and infuriated hatred of philology wherever an ideal1 as such1 is feared1 where the modern man falls down to worship himself1 and where ,hellenism is looked upon as a superseded and hence very insignificant point of view4 ,against these enemies1 we philologists must always count upon the assistance of artists and men of artistic minds2 for they alone can judge how the sword of barbarism sweeps over the head of every one who loses sight of the unutterable simplicity and noble dignity of the ,hellene2 and how no progress in commerce or technical industries1 however brilliant1 no school regulations1 no political education of the masses1 however widespread and complete1 can protect us from the curse of ridiculous and barbaric offences against good taste1 or from annihilation by the ,gorgon head of the classicist4 ,whilst philology as a whole is looked on with jealous eyes by these two classes of opponents1 there are numerous and varied hostilities in other directions of philology2 philologists themselves are quarrelling with one another2 internal dissensions are caused by useless disputes about precedence and mutual jealousies1 but especially by the differences--even enmities--comprised in the name of philology1 which are not1 however1 by any means naturally harmonised instincts4 ,science has this in common with art1 that the most ordinary1 everyday thing appears to it as something entirely new and attractive1 as if metamorphosed by witchcraft and now seen for the first time4 ,life is worth living1 says art1 the beautiful temptress2 life is worth knowing1 says science4 ,with this contrast the so heartrending and dogmatic tradition follows in a theory1 and consequently in the practice of classical philology derived from this theory4 ,we may consider antiquity from a scientific point of view2 we may try to look at what has happened with the eye of a historian1 or to arrange and compare the linguistic forms of ancient masterpieces1 to bring them at all events under a morphological law2 but we always lose the wonderful creative force1 the real fragrance1 of the atmosphere of antiquity2 we forget that passionate emotion which instinctively drove our meditation and enjoyment back to the ,greeks4 ,from this point onwards we must take notice of a clearly determined and very surprising antagonism which philology has great cause to regret4 ,from the circles upon whose help we must place the most implicit reliance--the artistic friends of antiquity1 the warm supporters of ,hellenic beauty and noble simplicity--we hear harsh voices crying out that it is precisely the philologists themselves who are the real opponents and destroyers of the ideals of antiquity4 ,schiller upbraided the philologists with having scattered ,homer's laurel crown to the winds4 ,it was none other than ,goethe who1 in early life a supporter of ,wolf's theories regarding ,homer1 recanted in the verses-- ,with subtle wit you took away ,our former adoration3 ,the ,iliad1 you may us say1 ,was mere conglomeration4 ,think it not crime in any way3 ,youth's fervent adoration ,leads us to know the verity1 ,and feel the poet's unity4 ,the reason of this want of piety and reverence must lie deeper2 and many are in doubt as to whether philologists are lacking in artistic capacity and impressions1 so that they are unable to do justice to the ideal1 or whether the spirit of negation has become a destructive and iconoclastic principle of theirs4 ,when1 however1 even the friends of antiquity1 possessed of such doubts and hesitations1 point to our present classical philology as something questionable1 what influence may we not ascribe to the outbursts of the realists and the claptrap of the heroes of the passing hour8 ,to answer the latter on this occasion1 especially when we consider the nature of the present assembly1 would be highly injudicious2 at any rate1 if ,i do not wish to meet with the fate of that sophist who1 when in ,sparta1 publicly undertook to praise and defend ,herakles1 when he was interrupted with the query3 ,but who then has found fault with him8 ,i cannot help thinking1 however1 that some of these scruples are still sounding in the ears of not a few in this gathering2 for they may still be frequently heard from the lips of noble and artistically gifted men--as even an upright philologist must feel them1 and feel them most painfully1 at moments when his spirits are downcast4 ,for the single individual there is no deliverance from the dissensions referred to2 but what we contend and inscribe on our banner is the fact that classical philology1 as a whole1 has nothing whatsoever to do with the quarrels and bickerings of its individual disciples4 ,the entire scientific and artistic movement of this peculiar centaur is bent1 though with cyclopic slowness1 upon bridging over the gulf between the ideal antiquity--which is perhaps only the magnificent blossoming of the ,teutonic longing for the south--and the real antiquity2 and thus classical philology pursues only the final end of its own being1 which is the fusing together of primarily hostile impulses that have only forcibly been brought together4 ,let us talk as we will about the unattainability of this goal1 and even designate the goal itself as an illogical pretension--the aspiration for it is very real2 and ,i should like to try to make it clear by an example that the most significant steps of classical philology never lead away from the ideal antiquity1 but to it2 and that1 just when people are speaking unwarrantably of the overthrow of sacred shrines1 new and more worthy altars are being erected4 ,let us then examine the so-called ,homeric question from this standpoint1 a question the most important problem of which ,schiller called a scholastic barbarism4 ,the important problem referred to is the question of the personality of ,homer4 ,we now meet everywhere with the firm opinion that the question of ,homer's personality is no longer timely1 and that it is quite a different thing from the real ,homeric question4 ,it may be added that1 for a given period--such as our present philological period1 for example--the centre of discussion may be removed from the problem of the poet's personality2 for even now a painstaking experiment is being made to reconstruct the ,homeric poems without the aid of personality1 treating them as the work of several different persons4 ,but if the centre of a scientific question is rightly seen to be where the swelling tide of new views has risen up1 i4e4 where individual scientific investigation comes into contact with the whole life of science and culture--if any one1 in other words1 indicates a historico-cultural valuation as the central point of the question1 he must also1 in the province of ,homeric criticism1 take his stand upon the question of personality as being the really fruitful oasis in the desert of the whole argument4 ,for in ,homer the modern world1 ,i will not say has learnt1 but has examined1 a great historical point of view2 and1 even without now putting forward my own opinion as to whether this examination has been or can be happily carried out1 it was at all events the first example of the application of that productive point of view4 ,by it scholars learnt to recognise condensed beliefs in the apparently firm1 immobile figures of the life of ancient peoples2 by it they for the first time perceived the wonderful capability of the soul of a people to represent the conditions of its morals and beliefs in the form of a personality4 ,when historical criticism has confidently seized upon this method of evaporating apparently concrete personalities1 it is permissible to point to the first experiment as an important event in the history of sciences1 without considering whether it was successful in this instance or not4 ,it is a common occurrence for a series of striking signs and wonderful emotions to precede an epoch-making discovery4 ,even the experiment ,i have just referred to has its own attractive history2 but it goes back to a surprisingly ancient era4 ,friedrich ,august ,wolf has exactly indicated the spot where ,greek antiquity dropped the question4 ,the zenith of the historico-literary studies of the ,greeks1 and hence also of their point of greatest importance--the ,homeric question--was reached in the age of the ,alexandrian grammarians4 ,up to this time the ,homeric question had run through the long chain of a uniform process of development1 of which the standpoint of those grammarians seemed to be the last link1 the last1 indeed1 which was attainable by antiquity4 ,they conceived the ,iliad and the ,odyssey as the creations of one single ,homer2 they declared it to be psychologically possible for two such different works to have sprung from the brain of one genius1 in contradiction to the ,chorizontes1 who represented the extreme limit of the scepticism of a few detached individuals of antiquity rather than antiquity itself considered as a whole4 ,to explain the different general impression of the two books on the assumption that one poet composed them both1 scholars sought assistance by referring to the seasons of the poet's life1 and compared the poet of the ,odyssey to the setting sun4 ,the eyes of those critics were tirelessly on the lookout for discrepancies in the language and thoughts of the two poems2 but at this time also a history of the ,homeric poem and its tradition was prepared1 according to which these discrepancies were not due to ,homer1 but to those who committed his words to writing and those who sang them4 ,it was believed that ,homer's poem was passed from one generation to another viva voce1 and faults were attributed to the improvising and at times forgetful bards4 ,at a certain given date1 about the time of ,pisistratus1 the poems which had been repeated orally were said to have been collected in manuscript form2 but the scribes1 it is added1 allowed themselves to take some liberties with the text by transposing some lines and adding extraneous matter here and there4 ,this entire hypothesis is the most important in the domain of literary studies that antiquity has exhibited2 and the acknowledgment of the dissemination of the ,homeric poems by word of mouth1 as opposed to the habits of a book-learned age1 shows in particular a depth of ancient sagacity worthy of our admiration4 ,from those times until the generation that produced ,friedrich ,august ,wolf we must take a jump over a long historical vacuum2 but in our own age we find the argument left just as it was at the time when the power of controversy departed from antiquity1 and it is a matter of indifference to us that ,wolf accepted as certain tradition what antiquity itself had set up only as a hypothesis4 ,it may be remarked as most characteristic of this hypothesis that1 in the strictest sense1 the personality of ,homer is treated seriously2 that a certain standard of inner harmony is everywhere presupposed in the manifestations of the personality2 and that1 with these two excellent auxiliary hypotheses1 whatever is seen to be below this standard and opposed to this inner harmony is at once swept aside as un-,homeric4 ,but even this distinguishing characteristic1 in place of wishing to recognise the supernatural existence of a tangible personality1 ascends likewise through all the stages that lead to that zenith1 with ever-increasing energy and clearness4 ,individuality is ever more strongly felt and accentuated2 the psychological possibility of a single ,homer is ever more forcibly demanded4 ,if we descend backwards from this zenith1 step by step1 we find a guide to the understanding of the ,homeric problem in the person of ,aristotle4 ,homer was for him the flawless and untiring artist who knew his end and the means to attain it2 but there is still a trace of infantile criticism to be found in ,aristotle--i4e41 in the naive concession he made to the public opinion that considered ,homer as the author of the original of all comic epics1 the ,margites4 ,if we go still further backwards from ,aristotle1 the inability to create a personality is seen to increase2 more and more poems are attributed to ,homer2 and every period lets us see its degree of criticism by how much and what it considers as ,homeric4 ,in this backward examination1 we instinctively feel that away beyond ,herodotus there lies a period in which an immense flood of great epics has been identified with the name of ,homer4 ,let us imagine ourselves as living in the time of ,pisistratus3 the word ,homer then comprehended an abundance of dissimilarities4 ,what was meant by ,homer at that time8 ,it is evident that that generation found itself unable to grasp a personality and the limits of its manifestations4 ,homer had now become of small consequence4 ,and then we meet with the weighty question3 ,what lies before this period8 ,has ,homer's personality1 because it cannot be grasped1 gradually faded away into an empty name8 ,or had all the ,homeric poems been gathered together in a body1 the nation naively representing itself by the figure of ,homer8 ,was the person created out of a conception1 or the conception out of a person8 ,this is the real ,homeric question1 the central problem of the personality4 ,the difficulty of answering this question1 however1 is increased when we seek a reply in another direction1 from the standpoint of the poems themselves which have come down to us4 ,as it is difficult for us at the present day1 and necessitates a serious effort on our part1 to understand the law of gravitation clearly--that the earth alters its form of motion when another heavenly body changes its position in space1 although no material connection unites one to the other--it likewise costs us some trouble to obtain a clear impression of that wonderful problem which1 like a coin long passed from hand to hand1 has lost its original and highly conspicuous stamp4 ,poetical works1 which cause the hearts of even the greatest geniuses to fail when they endeavour to vie with them1 and in which unsurpassable images are held up for the admiration of posterity--and yet the poet who wrote them with only a hollow1 shaky name1 whenever we do lay hold on him2 nowhere the solid kernel of a powerful personality4 ,for who would wage war with the gods3 who1 even with the one god8 asks ,goethe even1 who1 though a genius1 strove in vain to solve that mysterious problem of the ,homeric inaccessibility4 ,the conception of popular poetry seemed to lead like a bridge over this problem--a deeper and more original power than that of every single creative individual was said to have become active2 the happiest people1 in the happiest period of its existence1 in the highest activity of fantasy and formative power1 was said to have created those immeasurable poems4 ,in this universality there is something almost intoxicating in the thought of a popular poem3 we feel1 with artistic pleasure1 the broad1 overpowering liberation of a popular gift1 and we delight in this natural phenomenon as we do in an uncontrollable cataract4 ,but as soon as we examine this thought at close quarters1 we involuntarily put a poetic mass of people in the place of the poetising soul of the people3 a long row of popular poets in whom individuality has no meaning1 and in whom the tumultuous movement of a people's soul1 the intuitive strength of a people's eye1 and the unabated profusion of a people's fantasy1 were once powerful3 a row of original geniuses1 attached to a time1 to a poetic genus1 to a subject-matter4 ,such a conception justly made people suspicious4 ,could it be possible that that same ,nature who so sparingly distributed her rarest and most precious production--genius--should suddenly take the notion of lavishing her gifts in one sole direction8 ,and here the thorny question again made its appearance3 ,could we not get along with one genius only1 and explain the present existence of that unattainable excellence8 ,and now eyes were keenly on the lookout for whatever that excellence and singularity might consist of4 ,impossible for it to be in the construction of the complete works1 said one party1 for this is far from faultless2 but doubtless to be found in single songs3 in the single pieces above all2 not in the whole4 ,a second party1 on the other hand1 sheltered themselves beneath the authority of ,aristotle1 who especially admired ,homer's divine nature in the choice of his entire subject1 and the manner in which he planned and carried it out4 ,if1 however1 this construction was not clearly seen1 this fault was due to the way the poems were handed down to posterity and not to the poet himself--it was the result of retouchings and interpolations1 owing to which the original setting of the work gradually became obscured4 ,the more the first school looked for inequalities1 contradictions1 perplexities1 the more energetically did the other school brush aside what in their opinion obscured the original plan1 in order1 if possible1 that nothing might be left remaining but the actual words of the original epic itself4 ,the second school of thought of course held fast by the conception of an epoch-making genius as the composer of the great works4 ,the first school1 on the other hand1 wavered between the supposition of one genius plus a number of minor poets1 and another hypothesis which assumed only a number of superior and even mediocre individual bards1 but also postulated a mysterious discharging1 a deep1 national1 artistic impulse1 which shows itself in individual minstrels as an almost indifferent medium4 ,it is to this latter school that we must attribute the representation of the ,homeric poems as the expression of that mysterious impulse4 ,all these schools of thought start from the assumption that the problem of the present form of these epics can be solved from the standpoint of an sthetic judgment--but we must await the decision as to the authorised line of demarcation between the man of genius and the poetical soul of the people4 ,are there characteristic differences between the utterances of the man of genius and the poetical soul of the people8 ,this whole contrast1 however1 is unjust and misleading4 ,there is no more dangerous assumption in modern sthetics than that of popular poetry and individual poetry1 or1 as it is usually called1 artistic poetry4 ,this is the reaction1 or1 if you will1 the superstition1 which followed upon the most momentous discovery of historico-philological science1 the discovery and appreciation of the soul of the people4 ,for this discovery prepared the way for a coming scientific view of history1 which was until then1 and in many respects is even now1 a mere collection of materials1 with the prospect that new materials would continue to be added1 and that the huge1 overflowing pile would never be systematically arranged4 ,the people now understood for the first time that the long-felt power of greater individualities and wills was larger than the pitifully small will of an individual man2#a they now saw that everything truly great in the kingdom of the will could not have its deepest root in the inefficacious and ephemeral individual will2 and1 finally1 they now discovered the powerful instincts of the masses1 and diagnosed those unconscious impulses to be the foundations and supports of the so-called universal history4 ,but the newly-lighted flame also cast its shadow3 and this shadow was none other than that superstition already referred to1 which popular poetry set up in opposition to individual poetry1 and thus enlarged the comprehension of the people's soul to that of the people's mind4 ,by the misapplication of a tempting analogical inference1 people had reached the point of applying in the domain of the intellect and artistic ideas that principle of greater individuality which is truly applicable only in the domain of the will4 ,the masses have never experienced more flattering treatment than in thus having the laurel of genius set upon their empty heads4 ,it was imagined that new shells were forming round a small kernel1 so to speak1 and that those pieces of popular poetry originated like avalanches1 in the drift and flow of tradition4 ,they were1 however1 ready to consider that kernel as being of the smallest possible dimensions1 so that they might occasionally get rid of it altogether without losing anything of the mass of the avalanche4 ,according to this view1 the text itself and the stories built round it are one and the same thing4 #a ,of course ,nietzsche saw afterwards that this was not so4--,,tr4 ,now1 however1 such a contrast between popular poetry and individual poetry does not exist at all2 on the contrary1 all poetry1 and of course popular poetry also1 requires an intermediary individuality4 ,this much-abused contrast1 therefore1 is necessary only when the term individual poem is understood to mean a poem which has not grown out of the soil of popular feeling1 but which has been composed by a non-popular poet in a non-popular atmosphere--something which has come to maturity in the study of a learned man1 for example4 ,with the superstition which presupposes poetising masses is connected another3 that popular poetry is limited to one particular period of a people's history and afterwards dies out--which indeed follows as a consequence of the first superstition ,i have mentioned4 ,according to this school1 in the place of the gradually decaying popular poetry we have artistic poetry1 the work of individual minds1 not of masses of people4 ,but the same powers which were once active are still so2 and the form in which they act has remained exactly the same4 ,the great poet of a literary period is still a popular poet in no narrower sense than the popular poet of an illiterate age4 ,the difference between them is not in the way they originate1 but it is their diffusion and propagation1 in short1 tradition4 ,this tradition is exposed to eternal danger without the help of handwriting1 and runs the risk of including in the poems the remains of those individualities through whose oral tradition they were handed down4 ,if we apply all these principles to the ,homeric poems1 it follows that we gain nothing with our theory of the poetising soul of the people1 and that we are always referred back to the poetical individual4 ,we are thus confronted with the task of distinguishing that which can have originated only in a single poetical mind from that which is1 so to speak1 swept up by the tide of oral tradition1 and which is a highly important constituent part of the ,homeric poems4 ,since literary history first ceased to be a mere collection of names1 people have attempted to grasp and formulate the individualities of the poets4 ,a certain mechanism forms part of the method3 it must be explained--i4e41 it must be deduced from principles--why this or that individuality appears in this way and not in that4 ,people now study biographical details1 environment1 acquaintances1 contemporary events1 and believe that by mixing all these ingredients together they will be able to manufacture the wished-for individuality4 ,but they forget that the punctum saliens1 the indefinable individual characteristics1 can never be obtained from a compound of this nature4 ,the less there is known about the life and times of the poet1 the less applicable is this mechanism4 ,when1 however1 we have merely the works and the name of the writer1 it is almost impossible to detect the individuality1 at all events1 for those who put their faith in the mechanism in question2 and particularly when the works are perfect1 when they are pieces of popular poetry4 ,for the best way for these mechanicians to grasp individual characteristics is by perceiving deviations from the genius of the people2 the aberrations and hidden allusions3 and the fewer discrepancies to be found in a poem the fainter will be the traces of the individual poet who composed it4 ,all those deviations1 everything dull and below the ordinary standard which scholars think they perceive in the ,homeric poems1 were attributed to tradition1 which thus became the scapegoat4 ,what was left of ,homer's own individual work8 ,nothing but a series of beautiful and prominent passages chosen in accordance with subjective taste4 ,the sum total of sthetic singularity which every individual scholar perceived with his own artistic gifts1 he now called ,homer4 ,this is the central point of the ,homeric errors4 ,the name of ,homer1 from the very beginning1 has no connection either with the conception of sthetic perfection or yet with the ,iliad and the ,odyssey4 ,homer as the composer of the ,iliad and the ,odyssey is not a historical tradition1 but an sthetic judgment4 ,the only path which leads back beyond the time of ,pisistratus and helps us to elucidate the meaning of the name ,homer1 takes its way on the one hand through the reports which have reached us concerning ,homer's birthplace3 from which we see that1 although his name is always associated with heroic epic poems1 he is on the other hand no more referred to as the composer of the ,iliad and the ,odyssey than as the author of the ,thebais or any other cyclical epic4 ,on the other hand1 again1 an old tradition tells of the contest between ,homer and ,hesiod1 which proves that when these two names were mentioned people instinctively thought of two epic tendencies1 the heroic and the didactic2 and that the signification of the name ,homer was included in the material category and not in the formal4 ,this imaginary contest with ,hesiod did not even yet show the faintest presentiment of individuality4 ,from the time of ,pisistratus onwards1 however1 with the surprisingly rapid development of the ,greek feeling for beauty1 the differences in the sthetic value of those epics continued to be felt more and more3 the ,iliad and the ,odyssey arose from the depths of the flood and have remained on the surface ever since4 ,with this process of sthetic separation1 the conception of ,homer gradually became narrower3 the old material meaning of the name ,homer as the father of the heroic epic poem1 was changed into the sthetic meaning of ,homer1 the father of poetry in general1 and likewise its original prototype4 ,this transformation was contemporary with the rationalistic criticism which made ,homer the magician out to be a possible poet1 which vindicated the material and formal traditions of those numerous epics as against the unity of the poet1 and gradually removed that heavy load of cyclical epics from ,homer's shoulders4 ,so ,homer1 the poet of the ,iliad and the ,odyssey1 is an sthetic judgment4 ,it is1 however1 by no means affirmed against the poet of these epics that he was merely the imaginary being of an sthetic impossibility1 which can be the opinion of only very few philologists indeed4 ,the majority contend that a single individual was responsible for the general design of a poem such as the ,iliad1 and further that this individual was ,homer4 ,the first part of this contention may be admitted2 but1 in accordance with what ,i have said1 the latter part must be denied4 ,and ,i very much doubt whether the majority of those who adopt the first part of the contention have taken the following considerations into account4 ,the design of an epic such as the ,iliad is not an entire whole1 not an organism2 but a number of pieces strung together1 a collection of reflections arranged in accordance with sthetic rules4 ,it is certainly the standard of an artist's greatness to note what he can take in with a single glance and set out in rhythmical form4 ,the infinite profusion of images and incidents in the ,homeric epic must force us to admit that such a wide range of vision is next to impossible4 ,where1 however1 a poet is unable to observe artistically with a single glance1 he usually piles conception on conception1 and endeavours to adjust his characters according to a comprehensive scheme4 ,he will succeed in this all the better the more he is familiar with the fundamental principles of sthetics3 he will even make some believe that he made himself master of the entire subject by a single powerful glance4 ,the ,iliad is not a garland1 but a bunch of flowers4 ,as many pictures as possible are crowded on one canvas2 but the man who placed them there was indifferent as to whether the grouping of the collected pictures was invariably suitable and rhythmically beautiful4 ,he well knew that no one would ever consider the collection as a whole2 but would merely look at the individual parts4 ,but that stringing together of some pieces as the manifestations of a grasp of art which was not yet highly developed1 still less thoroughly comprehended and generally esteemed1 cannot have been the real ,homeric deed1 the real ,homeric epoch-making event4 ,on the contrary1 this design is a later product1 far later than ,homer's celebrity4 ,those1 therefore1 who look for the original and perfect design are looking for a mere phantom2 for the dangerous path of oral tradition had reached its end just as the systematic arrangement appeared on the scene2 the disfigurements which were caused on the way could not have affected the design1 for this did not form part of the material handed down from generation to generation4 ,the relative imperfection of the design must not1 however1 prevent us from seeing in the designer a different personality from the real poet4 ,it is not only probable that everything which was created in those times with conscious sthetic insight1 was infinitely inferior to the songs that sprang up naturally in the poet's mind and were written down with instinctive power3 we can even take a step further4 ,if we include the so-called cyclic poems in this comparison1 there remains for the designer of the ,iliad and the ,odyssey the indisputable merit of having done something relatively great in this conscious technical composing3 a merit which we might have been prepared to recognise from the beginning1 and which is in my opinion of the very first order in the domain of instinctive creation4 ,we may even be ready to pronounce this synthetisation of great importance4 ,all those dull passages and discrepancies--deemed of such importance1 but really only subjective1 which we usually look upon as the petrified remains of the period of tradition--are not these perhaps merely the almost necessary evils which must fall to the lot of the poet of genius who undertakes a composition virtually without a parallel1 and1 further1 one which proves to be of incalculable difficulty8 ,let it be noted that the insight into the most diverse operations of the instinctive and the conscious changes the position of the ,homeric problem2 and in my opinion throws light upon it4 ,we believe in a great poet as the author of the ,iliad and the ,odyssey--but not that ,homer was this poet4 ,the decision on this point has already been given4 ,the generation that invented those numerous ,homeric fables1 that poetised the myth of the contest between ,homer and ,hesiod1 and looked upon all the poems of the epic cycle as ,homeric1 did not feel an sthetic but a material singularity when it pronounced the name ,homer4 ,this period regards ,homer as belonging to the ranks of artists like ,orpheus1 ,eumolpus1 ,ddalus1 and ,olympus1 the mythical discoverers of a new branch of art1 to whom1 therefore1 all the later fruits which grew from the new branch were thankfully dedicated4 ,and that wonderful genius to whom we owe the ,iliad and the ,odyssey belongs to this thankful posterity3 he1 too1 sacrificed his name on the altar of the primeval father of the ,homeric epic1 ,homeros4 ,up to this point1 gentlemen1 ,i think ,i have been able to put before you the fundamental philosophical and sthetic characteristics of the problem of the personality of ,homer1 keeping all minor details rigorously at a distance1 on the supposition that the primary form of this widespread and honeycombed mountain known as the ,homeric question can be most clearly observed by looking down at it from a far-off height4 ,but ,i have also1 ,i imagine1 recalled two facts to those friends of antiquity who take such delight in accusing us philologists of lack of piety for great conceptions and an unproductive zeal for destruction4 ,in the first place1 those great conceptions--such1 for example1 as that of the indivisible and inviolable poetic genius1 ,homer--were during the pre-,wolfian period only too great1 and hence inwardly altogether empty and elusive when we now try to grasp them4 ,if classical philology goes back again to the same conceptions1 and once more tries to pour new wine into old bottles1 it is only on the surface that the conceptions are the same3 everything has really become new2 bottle and mind1 wine and word4 ,we everywhere find traces of the fact that philology has lived in company with poets1 thinkers1 and artists for the last hundred years3 whence it has now come about that the heap of ashes formerly pointed to as classical philology is now turned into fruitful and even rich soil4#b #b ,nietzsche perceived later on that this statement was1 unfortunately1 not justified4--,,tr4 ,and there is a second fact which ,i should like to recall to the memory of those friends of antiquity who turn their dissatisfied backs on classical philology4 ,you honour the immortal masterpieces of the ,hellenic mind in poetry and sculpture1 and think yourselves so much more fortunate than preceding generations1 which had to do without them2 but you must not forget that this whole fairyland once lay buried under mountains of prejudice1 and that the blood and sweat and arduous labour of innumerable followers of our science were all necessary to lift up that world from the chasm into which it had sunk4 ,we grant that philology is not the creator of this world1 not the composer of that immortal music2 but is it not a merit1 and a great merit1 to be a mere virtuoso1 and let the world for the first time hear that music which lay so long in obscurity1 despised and undecipherable8 ,who was ,homer previously to ,wolf's brilliant investigations8 ,a good old man1 known at best as a natural genius1 at all events the child of a barbaric age1 replete with faults against good taste and good morals4 ,let us hear how a learned man of the first rank writes about ,homer even so late as #aghc3 ,where does the good man live8 ,why did he remain so long incognito8 ,apropos1 can't you get me a silhouette of him8 ,we demand thanks--not in our own name1 for we are but atoms--but in the name of philology itself1 which is indeed neither a ,muse nor a ,grace1 but a messenger of the gods3 and just as the ,muses descended upon the dull and tormented ,boeotian peasants1 so ,philology comes into a world full of gloomy colours and pictures1 full of the deepest1 most incurable woes2 and speaks to men comfortingly of the beautiful and godlike figure of a distant1 rosy1 and happy fairyland4 ,it is time to close2 yet before ,i do so a few words of a personal character must be added1 justified1 ,i hope1 by the occasion of this lecture4 ,it is but right that a philologist should describe his end and the means to it in the short formula of a confession of faith2 and let this be done in the saying of ,seneca which ,i thus reverse-- ,philosophia facta est qu philologia fuit4 ,by this ,i wish to signify that all philological activities should be enclosed and surrounded by a philosophical view of things1 in which everything individual and isolated is evaporated as something detestable1 and in which great homogeneous views alone remain4 ,now1 therefore1 that ,i have enunciated my philological creed1 ,i trust you will give me cause to hope that ,i shall no longer be a stranger among you3 give me the assurance that in working with you towards this end ,i am worthily fulfilling the confidence with which the highest authorities of this community have honoured me4