Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/233

 rejected obtain through this rejection the sole privilege of founding a new race, if they bring the blessing of education to the children of those who would not mix with them, and if they become the ancestors of our future heroes, sages, lawgivers, and saviours of mankind.

177. For the first establishment capable teachers and educators above all are needed. Pestalozzi’s school has trained such people, and is always ready to train more. An important thing to keep in mind at the beginning will be that every institution of the kind should regard itself also as a training school for teachers, where, round the teachers who are already trained, a number of young men may gather to learn and, at the same time, to practise teaching, and by practice to learn it better and better. This, too, will greatly facilitate the supply of teachers, in case the institutions have at first to struggle against poverty. Most of them will be there to learn; let the sole return asked of them be to apply for a time what they have learnt to the benefit of the institution where they learnt it.

Moreover, such an institution needs a building, initial equipment, and an adequate piece of land. It seems evident that, as these institutions develop, they will contain a relatively large number of growing youths of an age at which, under the existing arrangement, they earn as servants not only their maintenance but also a yearly wage. To these the children of more tender age can be entrusted, and by diligence and wise economy, which in any case are necessary, these institutions will be mainly self-supporting. At first, so long as there are none of these older pupils, the institutions will need rather large contributions. It is to be hoped that people will be more disposed to make contributions, when they see the prospect of an end to them. Let us not be