Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/223

 Germans, and get them to see that it is education alone that can save us from all the ills that oppress us. I rely especially on necessity having made us more inclined to attention and to serious reflection. Other countries have other consolations and other resources; it is not to be expected that they will give any attention to the thought of education, or have any faith in it, should it ever occur to them. I hope rather that it will be a rich source of amusement to the readers of their papers, when they learn that anyone expects such great things from education.

169. May the State and its advisers not let themselves become more loath to take up this task by the consideration that the result hoped for is remote! If among the numerous and highly complicated reasons for our present fate one wanted to single out that for which our governments alone are peculiarly to blame, it would be found that, although they above all others are bound to look the future in the face and master it, they have never tried, in spite of the urgency of the great events of their time, to do more than get out of the difficulty of the immediate moment as well as they could. In regard to the future, however, they have reckoned, not on their present age, but on some piece of good luck which should sever the fixed chain of cause and effect. But such hopes are deceptive. A motive power which is once allowed to enter the flow of time continues and completes its course; once the first careless act has been committed, belated reflection cannot arrest it. Our fate has for the moment removed from us the possibility of making the first mistake, that of providing merely for the present; the present is no longer ours. Let us not repeat the second, that of hoping for a better future from anything but ourselves. Indeed, the present can afford no