Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/191

 one common source, the confusion and opposition of two things; on one side, the paltry and limited end originally aimed at, namely, to lend such aid as is absolutely necessary to those children from among the people who are the most neglected, on the supposition that the whole people will remain as it is; and on the other side, the means leading to a far higher end. One is saved from all error and obtains a completely consistent conception by dropping the former and everything that results from its consideration, and keeping only to the latter and carrying it out consistently. Undoubtedly it was solely the desire to release from school as soon as possible the very poorest children for bread-winning, and yet to provide them with a means of making up for the interrupted instruction, that gave rise in Pestalozzi’s loving heart to the over-estimation of reading and writing, to the setting up of these as almost the aim and climax of popular education, and to his simple belief in the testimony of past centuries, that this is the best aid to instruction. For otherwise he would have found that reading and writing have been hitherto just the very instruments for enveloping men in mist and shadow and for making them conceited. That same desire of his is undoubtedly the source of several other proposals that are in contradiction to his principle of direct perception, and especially his utterly false notion of language as a means of raising our race from dim perception to clear ideas. For our part, we have not spoken of the education of the people in opposition to that of the higher classes, because we no longer want to have the word “people” used in the sense of vulgar common populace, nor can German national interests tolerate this sense of the word any longer; but we have spoken of national education. If it shall ever come to this, the miserable wish that education shall