Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/215

 against, I will not say the scholar trained in the new school, but even against the ordinary man produced by it. However, I want to speak now, not of that, but of the scholar’s education according to the new method.

According to its principles, the future scholar, too, must have gone through the universal national education and have received completely and clearly its first part, the development of knowledge by sensation, perception, and whatever is connected with the latter. Permission to take up this profession can be granted by the new national education only to the boy who shows an excellent gift for learning and a conspicuous inclination for the world of ideas. It must, however, grant this permission to every boy who shows these qualities, without exception and without regard to so-called difference of birth. For a man is not a scholar for his own convenience; every talent of that kind is a precious possession of the nation, and may not be taken from it.

162. The person who is not a scholar is destined to maintain the human race at the stage of culture it has reached, the scholar to advance it further according to a clear conception and with deliberate art. The scholar with his conception must always be in advance of the present age, must understand the future, and be able to implant it in the present for its future development. For this purpose he needs a clear survey of the previous condition of the world, unlimited skill in pure thought independent of phenomena, and, in order that he may be able to communicate his thoughts, control of language down to its living and creative root. All this necessitates mental self-activity, without guidance from others, and solitary reflection, in which, therefore, the future scholar must be exercised from the moment his profession is decided; it does not mean, as in the case of the person