Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/200

 art of education. Once the need for such instructions arises, through the first part being fully carried out, that philosophy will not be slow to supply it. Every pupil, even if born in the lowest class—for, in truth, the class into which children are born makes no difference to their talents—will grasp, and indeed grasp easily, the instruction in those subjects. Such instruction, indeed, comprises, if you like, the most profound metaphysics and is the result of the most abstract speculation, and those subjects at present even scholars and speculating brains find it impossible to grasp. Let no one grow weary just now, wondering how this may be possible; experience will teach this later, if only we will obey in regard to the first steps. It is only because our generation is held captive in the world of empty ideas and has not entered the world of true reality and perception at any point, that it is not to be expected that this generation should begin perception with the highest and most spiritual perception of all, and when it is already clever beyond measure. Philosophy must require it to give up its present world and to provide itself with an entirely different one. It is no wonder if such a demand proves unavailing. But, from the very beginning, the pupil of our education has been at home in the world of perception and has never seen any other. He has not to change, but only to strengthen, his world; and this takes place of itself. This education is, as we have already pointed out, the only possible education for philosophy and also the sole means of making philosophy universal.

144. Education ends with this civic and religious instruction, and the pupil is now to be released. Thus we are clear at any rate in regard to the content of the proposed education.

145. The pupil’s faculty of knowledge must never be