Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/220

 no special training is required for such salvation, and that a nursery for heaven, like the Church, whose power has at last been handed over to the State, should not be permitted, for it only obstructs all good education, and must be dispensed with. On the other hand, the State must see that education for life on earth is very greatly needed; from such a thorough education, training for heaven follows as an easy supplement. The more enlightened the State thought it was before, the more firmly it seems to have believed that it could attain its true aim merely by means of coercive institutions, and without any religion and morality in its citizens, who might do as they liked in regard to such matters. May it have learnt this at least from recent experiences—that it cannot do so, and that it has got into its present condition just because of the want of religion and morality!

167. As for the State’s doubt whether it can meet the cost of a national education, would that one could convince it that by this one expenditure it will provide for most of the others in the most economical way, and that, if only it undertakes this, it will soon have no other big expenditure to make! Up to the present, by far the largest part of the State’s income has been spent on the maintenance of standing armies. We have seen the result of that expenditure; that is sufficient; it is beyond our plan to go more deeply into the special reasons for that result, which lie in the organization of those armies. On the other hand, the State which introduced universally the national education proposed by us, from the moment that a new generation of youths had passed through it, would need no special army at all, but would have in them an army such as no age has yet seen. Each individual is exercised thoroughly in every possible use of his physical powers, and