Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/225

, and may expect that there will be no change until the end of time. In so far as these statesmen are among those who either consider any education an unnecessary luxury, with which people should be supplied as scantily as possible, or see in our proposals only a daring new experiment with humanity, which may or may not succeed, they are to be praised for their conscientiousness. Those who are filled with admiration for the existing state of public education and with delight at the perfection which it has reached under their direction cannot really be expected now to agree with something which they do not already know. Not one of them is of any use for our purpose, and it would be deplorable if the decision in this matter were to rest with them. But statesmen might be found and consulted on this matter who, above all things, have educated themselves by a deep and thorough study of philosophy and science, who are in real earnest about their business, have a definite idea of man and of his vocation, and are capable of understanding the present and of judging what is absolutely necessary for mankind at this time. If such men perceived from those preliminary conceptions that education alone can save us from the barbarism and relapse into savagery that is otherwise bound to overwhelm us, if they had a vision of the new human race which would arise through this education, if they were themselves inwardly convinced of the infallibility and certainty of the proposed remedy, they might be expected to have realized at the same time that the State, as the supreme administrator of human affairs and the guardian of those who are its wards, responsible only to God and to its own conscience, has a perfect right even to compel the latter for their welfare. For where is there a State to-day which doubts whether it has the right to compel