Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/232

 that it can never perish, but, once set in motion, it lives on of itself and spreads, ever gaining fresh ground. Everyone who has received this education becomes a witness for it and a zealous propagator. Everyone will pay his debt for the teaching received by becoming a teacher himself, and by making as many disciples as he can, who will also in turn some day become teachers. This must continue until the whole community without exception is affected.

176. If the State should not undertake the matter, private enterprise has this to fear; that those parents who are at all well-to-do will not give up their children to this education. In that case, in God’s name let us turn with full confidence to the poor orphans, to the wretched street-children, and to all those whom the adult world has cast out and rejected. Formerly, especially in those German States where the piety of ancestors had greatly increased and richly endowed the public educational institutions, many parents let their families have instruction, because along with it, as in no other occupation, they found maintenance at the same time. Let us, therefore, since it is necessary, reverse this order, and give bread to those to whom no one else gives it, in order that, along with the bread, they may receive mental culture also. Let us not fear that the misery and wildness of their former condition will hinder our purpose! If only we snatch them away from it suddenly and completely, bring them into an entirely new world, and leave nothing to remind them of the past, they will themselves forget and be like newly-created beings. Our course of instruction and daily routine must guarantee that only good is engraven on this clean new tablet. It will be a testimony against our age and a warning to all posterity if the very ones whom it has