Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/211

 the difference in the manual tasks can easily be maintained, even while the rest of the education is common. Like the larger society which they are to enter some day as perfect human beings, the smaller society in which they are trained for manhood must consist of a combination of both sexes. Both must first of all recognize and learn to love in one another their common humanity, and must have male and female friends, before their attention is directed to sex distinction and they become husbands and wives. Also, the general relationship of the two sexes to each other, stout-hearted protection on the one side and loving help on the other, must appear in the educational institution and be fostered in the pupils.

156. If our proposal should come to be realized, the first business would be to frame a law for the internal organization of these educational institutions. If the fundamental principle we have put forward once becomes thoroughly established, this is a very easy task, and we do not intend to lose time over it here.

157. It is a principal requirement of this new national education that in it learning and working shall be combined, that the institution shall appear, to the pupils at least, to be self-supporting, and that everyone shall be reminded to contribute to this aim with all his strength. This is in any case directly required by the problem of education as such, quite apart from the purpose of outward practicability and of economy, which will undoubtedly be expected of our proposal. One reason is that all who get through only the universal national education are intended for the working classes, and training them to be good workmen is undoubtedly part of their education. The special reason, however, is that a man’s well-founded confidence that he will always be able to get on in the world by his own strength, and that he requires for maintenance