Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/231

 fact that they will thereby deserve well of the community, we can assure them that they will themselves gain very much. All the knowledge which they carry away with them from the usual university teaching, and which is often so dead, will become clear and living in the atmosphere of general observation into which they come here. They will learn to reproduce and use their knowledge with skill. Since all the features of mankind appear pure and clear in the child, they will acquire a store of true knowledge of mankind that alone deserves the name; they will be introduced to the great art of life and action, in which the university usually gives no instruction.

175. If the State does not undertake the proffered task, so much the greater glory for the private persons who do. Far be it from us to anticipate the future with surmises, or strike the note of doubt and distrust. We have stated clearly what we wish for first. We may, however, be permitted to say that, if the State and the princes should in fact leave the matter to private persons, this would be in accordance with the usual course of German development and culture, which has been already mentioned and proved by examples, and which would continue so to the end. In this case, too, the State will follow in its own time; at first like an individual, wanting just to do its part, until later it reflects that it is not a part, but the whole, and that it is its duty, as well as its right, to care for the whole. From that moment onwards, all the independent efforts of private persons cease and are subordinated to the State’s general scheme.

Should the matter take this course, the intended reformation of our race will certainly proceed but slowly, and without the possibility of a definite and fixed survey and estimate of the whole. But let us not be deterred by this from making a start! It is the very nature of the thing