Kitabı oku: «On the Future of our Educational Institutions – Homer and Classical Philology», sayfa 7

The philosopher seemed to be speaking very heatedly. We begged him to walk round with us again, since he had uttered the latter part of his discourse standing near the tree-stump which had served us as a target. For a few minutes not a word more was spoken. Slowly and thoughtfully we walked to and fro. We did not so much feel ashamed of having brought forward such foolish arguments as we felt a kind of restitution of our personality. After the heated and, so far as we were concerned, very unflattering utterance of the philosopher, we seemed to feel ourselves nearer to him – that we even stood in a personal relationship to him. For so wretched is man that he never feels himself brought into such close contact with a stranger as when the latter shows some sign of weakness, some defect. That our philosopher had lost his temper and made use of abusive language helped to bridge over the gulf created between us by our timid respect for him: and for the sake of the reader who feels his indignation rising at this suggestion let it be added that this bridge often leads from distant hero-worship to personal love and pity. And, after the feeling that our personality had been restored to us, this pity gradually became stronger and stronger. Why were we making this old man walk up and down with us between the rocks and trees at that time of the night? And, since he had yielded to our entreaties, why could we not have thought of a more modest and unassuming manner of having ourselves instructed, why should the three of us have contradicted him in such clumsy terms?

For now we saw how thoughtless, unprepared, and baseless were all the objections we had made, and how greatly the echo of the present was heard in them, the voice of which, in the province of culture, the old man would fain not have heard. Our objections, however, were not purely intellectual ones: our reasons for protesting against the philosopher's statements seemed to lie elsewhere. They arose perhaps from the instinctive anxiety to know whether, if the philosopher's views were carried into effect, our own personalities would find a place in the higher or lower division; and this made it necessary for us to find some arguments against the mode of thinking which robbed us of our self-styled claims to culture. People, however, should not argue with companions who feel the weight of an argument so personally; or, as the moral in our case would have been: such companions should not argue, should not contradict at all.

So we walked on beside the philosopher, ashamed, compassionate, dissatisfied with ourselves, and more than ever convinced that the old man was right and that we had done him wrong. How remote now seemed the youthful dream of our educational institution; how clearly we saw the danger which we had hitherto escaped merely by good luck, namely, giving ourselves up body and soul to the educational system which forced itself upon our notice so enticingly, from the time when we entered the public schools up to that moment. How then had it come about that we had not taken our places in the chorus of its admirers? Perhaps merely because we were real students, and could still draw back from the rough-and-tumble, the pushing and struggling, the restless, ever-breaking waves of publicity, to seek refuge in our own little educational establishment; which, however, time would have soon swallowed up also.

Overcome by such reflections, we were about to address the philosopher again, when he suddenly turned towards us, and said in a softer tone —

"I cannot be surprised if you young men behave rashly and thoughtlessly; for it is hardly likely that you have ever seriously considered what I have just said to you. Don't be in a hurry; carry this question about with you, but do at any rate consider it day and night. For you are now at the parting of the ways, and now you know where each path leads. If you take the one, your age will receive you with open arms, you will not find it wanting in honours and decorations: you will form units of an enormous rank and file; and there will be as many people like-minded standing behind you as in front of you. And when the leader gives the word it will be re-echoed from rank to rank. For here your first duty is this: to fight in rank and file; and your second: to annihilate all those who refuse to form part of the rank and file. On the other path you will have but few fellow-travellers: it is more arduous, winding and precipitous; and those who take the first path will mock you, for your progress is more wearisome, and they will try to lure you over into their own ranks. When the two paths happen to cross, however, you will be roughly handled and thrust aside, or else shunned and isolated.

"Now, take these two parties, so different from each other in every respect, and tell me what meaning an educational establishment would have for them. That enormous horde, crowding onwards on the first path towards its goal, would take the term to mean an institution by which each of its members would become duly qualified to take his place in the rank and file, and would be purged of everything which might tend to make him strive after higher and more remote aims. I don't deny, of course, that they can find pompous words with which to describe their aims: for example, they speak of the 'universal development of free personality upon a firm social, national, and human basis,' or they announce as their goal: 'The founding of the peaceful sovereignty of the people upon reason, education, and justice.'

"An educational establishment for the other and smaller company, however, would be something vastly different. They would employ it to prevent themselves from being separated from one another and overwhelmed by the first huge crowd, to prevent their few select spirits from losing sight of their splendid and noble task through premature weariness, or from being turned aside from the true path, corrupted, or subverted. These select spirits must complete their work: that is the raison d'être of their common institution – a work, indeed, which, as it were, must be free from subjective traces, and must further rise above the transient events of future times as the pure reflection of the eternal and immutable essence of things. And all those who occupy places in that institution must co-operate in the endeavour to engender men of genius by this purification from subjectiveness and the creation of the works of genius. Not a few, even of those whose talents may be of the second or third order, are suited to such co-operation, and only when serving in such an educational establishment as this do they feel that they are truly carrying out their life's task. But now it is just these talents I speak of which are drawn away from the true path, and their instincts estranged, by the continual seductions of that modern 'culture.'

"The egotistic emotions, weaknesses, and vanities of these few select minds are continually assailed by the temptations unceasingly murmured into their ears by the spirit of the age: 'Come with me! There you are servants, retainers, tools, eclipsed by higher natures; your own peculiar characteristics never have free play; you are tied down, chained down, like slaves; yea, like automata: here, with me, you will enjoy the freedom of your own personalities, as masters should, your talents will cast their lustre on yourselves alone, with their aid you may come to the very front rank; an innumerable train of followers will accompany you, and the applause of public opinion will yield you more pleasure than a nobly-bestowed commendation from the height of genius.' Even the very best of men now yield to these temptations: and it cannot be said that the deciding factor here is the degree of talent, or whether a man is accessible to these voices or not; but rather the degree and the height of a certain moral sublimity, the instinct towards heroism, towards sacrifice – and finally a positive, habitual need of culture, prepared by a proper kind of education, which education, as I have previously said, is first and foremost obedience and submission to the discipline of genius. Of this discipline and submission, however, the present institutions called by courtesy 'educational establishments' know nothing whatever, although I have no doubt that the public school was originally intended to be an institution for sowing the seeds of true culture, or at least as a preparation for it. I have no doubt, either, that they took the first bold steps in the wonderful and stirring times of the Reformation, and that afterwards, in the era which gave birth to Schiller and Goethe, there was again a growing demand for culture, like the first protuberance of that wing spoken of by Plato in the Phaedrus, which, at every contact with the beautiful, bears the soul aloft into the upper regions, the habitations of the gods."

"Ah," began the philosopher's companion, "when you quote the divine Plato and the world of ideas, I do not think you are angry with me, however much my previous utterance may have merited your disapproval and wrath. As soon as you speak of it, I feel that Platonic wing rising within me; and it is only at intervals, when I act as the charioteer of my soul, that I have any difficulty with the resisting and unwilling horse that Plato has also described to us, the 'crooked, lumbering animal, put together anyhow, with a short, thick neck; flat-faced, and of a dark colour, with grey eyes and blood-red complexion; the mate of insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip or spur.'⁸ Just think how long I have lived at a distance from you, and how all those temptations you speak of have endeavoured to lure me away, not perhaps without some success, even though I myself may not have observed it. I now see more clearly than ever the necessity for an institution which will enable us to live and mix freely with the few men of true culture, so that we may have them as our leaders and guiding stars. How greatly I feel the danger of travelling alone! And when it occurred to me that I could save myself by flight from all contact with the spirit of the time, I found that this flight itself was a mere delusion. Continuously, with every breath we take, some amount of that atmosphere circulates through every vein and artery, and no solitude is lonesome or distant enough for us to be out of reach of its fogs and clouds. Whether in the guise of hope, doubt, profit, or virtue, the shades of that culture hover about us; and we have been deceived by that jugglery even here in the presence of a true hermit of culture. How steadfastly and faithfully must the few followers of that culture – which might almost be called sectarian – be ever on the alert! How they must strengthen and uphold one another! How adversely would any errors be criticised here, and how sympathetically excused! And thus, teacher, I ask you to pardon me, after you have laboured so earnestly to set me in the right path!"

"You use a language which I do not care for, my friend," said the philosopher, "and one which reminds me of a diocesan conference. With that I have nothing to do. But your Platonic horse pleases me, and on its account you shall be forgiven. I am willing to exchange my own animal for yours. But it is getting chilly, and I don't feel inclined to walk about any more just now. The friend I was waiting for is indeed foolish enough to come up here even at midnight if he promised to do so. But I have waited in vain for the signal agreed upon; and I cannot guess what has delayed him. For as a rule he is punctual, as we old men are wont, to be, something that you young men nowadays look upon as old-fashioned. But he has left me in the lurch for once: how annoying it is! Come away with me! It's time to go!"

At this moment something happened.

FIFTH LECTURE

(Delivered on the 23rd of March 1872.)

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, – If you have lent a sympathetic ear to what I have told you about the heated argument of our philosopher in the stillness of that memorable night, you must have felt as disappointed as we did when he announced his peevish intention. You will remember that he had suddenly told us he wished to go; for, having been left in the lurch by his friend in the first place, and, in the second, having been bored rather than animated by the remarks addressed to him by his companion and ourselves when walking backwards and forwards on the hillside, he now apparently wanted to put an end to what appeared to him to be a useless discussion. It must have seemed to him that his day had been lost, and he would have liked to blot it out of his memory, together with the recollection of ever having made our acquaintance. And we were thus rather unwillingly preparing to depart when something else suddenly brought him to a standstill, and the foot he had just raised sank hesitatingly to the ground again.

A coloured flame, making a crackling noise for a few seconds, attracted our attention from the direction of the Rhine; and immediately following upon this we heard a slow, harmonious call, quite in tune, although plainly the cry of numerous youthful voices. "That's his signal," exclaimed the philosopher, "so my friend is really coming, and I haven't waited for nothing, after all. It will be a midnight meeting indeed – but how am I to let him know that I am still here? Come! Your pistols; let us see your talent once again! Did you hear the severe rhythm of that melody saluting us? Mark it well, and answer it in the same rhythm by a series of shots."

This was a task well suited to our tastes and abilities; so we loaded up as quickly as we could and pointed our weapons at the brilliant stars in the heavens, whilst the echo of that piercing cry died away in the distance. The reports of the first, second, and third shots sounded sharply in the stillness; and then the philosopher cried "False time!" as our rhythm was suddenly interrupted: for, like a lightning flash, a shooting star tore its way across the clouds after the third report, and almost involuntarily our fourth and fifth shots were sent after it in the direction it had taken.

"False time!" said the philosopher again, "who told you to shoot stars! They can fall well enough without you! People should know what they want before they begin to handle weapons."

And then we once more heard that loud melody from the waters of the Rhine, intoned by numerous and strong voices. "They understand us," said the philosopher, laughing, "and who indeed could resist when such a dazzling phantom comes within range?" "Hush!" interrupted his friend, "what sort of a company can it be that returns the signal to us in such a way? I should say they were between twenty and forty strong, manly voices in that crowd – and where would such a number come from to greet us? They don't appear to have left the opposite bank of the Rhine yet; but at any rate we must have a look at them from our own side of the river. Come along, quickly!"

We were then standing near the top of the hill, you may remember, and our view of the river was interrupted by a dark, thick wood. On the other hand, as I have told you, from the quiet little spot which we had left we could have a better view than from the little plateau on the hillside; and the Rhine, with the island of Nonnenwörth in the middle, was just visible to the beholder who peered over the tree-tops. We therefore set off hastily towards this little spot, taking care, however, not to go too quickly for the philosopher's comfort. The night was pitch dark, and we seemed to find our way by instinct rather than by clearly distinguishing the path, as we walked down with the philosopher in the middle.

We had scarcely reached our side of the river when a broad and fiery, yet dull and uncertain light shot up, which plainly came from the opposite side of the Rhine. "Those are torches," I cried, "there is nothing surer than that my comrades from Bonn are over yonder, and that your friend must be with them. It is they who sang that peculiar song, and they have doubtless accompanied your friend here. See! Listen! They are putting off in little boats. The whole torchlight procession will have arrived here in less than half an hour."

The philosopher jumped back. "What do you say?" he ejaculated, "your comrades from Bonn – students – can my friend have come here with students?"

This question, uttered almost wrathfully, provoked us. "What's your objection to students?" we demanded; but there was no answer. It was only after a pause that the philosopher slowly began to speak, not addressing us directly, as it were, but rather some one in the distance: "So, my friend, even at midnight, even on the top of a lonely mountain, we shall not be alone; and you yourself are bringing a pack of mischief-making students along with you, although you well know that I am only too glad to get out of the way of hoc genus omne. I don't quite understand you, my friend: it must mean something when we arrange to meet after a long separation at such an out-of-the-way place and at such an unusual hour. Why should we want a crowd of witnesses – and such witnesses! What calls us together to-day is least of all a sentimental, soft-hearted necessity; for both of us learnt early in life to live alone in dignified isolation. It was not for our own sakes, not to show our tender feelings towards each other, or to perform an unrehearsed act of friendship, that we decided to meet here; but that here, where I once came suddenly upon you as you sat in majestic solitude, we might earnestly deliberate with each other like knights of a new order. Let them listen to us who can understand us; but why should you bring with you a throng of people who don't understand us! I don't know what you mean by such a thing, my friend!"

We did not think it proper to interrupt the dissatisfied old grumbler; and as he came to a melancholy close we did not dare to tell him how greatly this distrustful repudiation of students vexed us.

At last the philosopher's companion turned to him and said: "I am reminded of the fact that even you at one time, before I made your acquaintance, occupied posts in several universities, and that reports concerning your intercourse with the students and your methods of instruction at the time are still in circulation. From the tone of resignation in which you have just referred to students many would be inclined to think that you had some peculiar experiences which were not at all to your liking; but personally I rather believe that you saw and experienced in such places just what every one else saw and experienced in them, but that you judged what you saw and felt more justly and severely than any one else. For, during the time I have known you, I have learnt that the most noteworthy, instructive, and decisive experiences and events in one's life are those which are of daily occurrence; that the greatest riddle, displayed in full view of all, is seen by the fewest to be the greatest riddle, and that these problems are spread about in every direction, under the very feet of the passers-by, for the few real philosophers to lift up carefully, thenceforth to shine as diamonds of wisdom. Perhaps, in the short time now left us before the arrival of your friend, you will be good enough to tell us something of your experiences of university life, so as to close the circle of observations, to which we were involuntarily urged, respecting our educational institutions. We may also be allowed to remind you that you, at an earlier stage of your remarks, gave me the promise that you would do so. Starting with the public school, you claimed for it an extraordinary importance: all other institutions must be judged by its standard, according as its aim has been proposed; and, if its aim happens to be wrong, all the others have to suffer. Such an importance cannot now be adopted by the universities as a standard; for, by their present system of grouping, they would be nothing more than institutions where public school students might go through finishing courses. You promised me that you would explain this in greater detail later on: perhaps our student friends can bear witness to that, if they chanced to overhear that part of our conversation."

"We can testify to that," I put in. The philosopher then turned to us and said: "Well, if you really did listen attentively, perhaps you can now tell me what you understand by the expression 'the present aim of our public schools.' Besides, you are still near enough to this sphere to judge my opinions by the standard of your own impressions and experiences."

My friend instantly answered, quickly and smartly, as was his habit, in the following words: "Until now we had always thought that the sole object of the public school was to prepare students for the universities. This preparation, however, should tend to make us independent enough for the extraordinarily free position of a university student;⁹ for it seems to me that a student, to a greater extent than any other individual, has more to decide and settle for himself. He must guide himself on a wide, utterly unknown path for many years, so the public school must do its best to render him independent."

I continued the argument where my friend left off. "It even seems to me," I said, "that everything for which you have justly blamed the public school is only a necessary means employed to imbue the youthful student with some kind of independence, or at all events with the belief that there is such a thing. The teaching of German composition must be at the service of this independence: the individual must enjoy his opinions and carry out his designs early, so that he may be able to travel alone and without crutches. In this way he will soon be encouraged to produce original work, and still sooner to take up criticism and analysis. If Latin and Greek studies prove insufficient to make a student an enthusiastic admirer of antiquity, the methods with which such studies are pursued are at all events sufficient to awaken the scientific sense, the desire for a more strict causality of knowledge, the passion for finding out and inventing. Only think how many young men may be lured away for ever to the attractions of science by a new reading of some sort which they have snatched up with youthful hands at the public school! The public school boy must learn and collect a great deal of varied information: hence an impulse will gradually be created, accompanied with which he will continue to learn and collect independently at the university. We believe, in short, that the aim of the public school is to prepare and accustom the student always to live and learn independently afterwards, just as beforehand he must live and learn dependently at the public school."

The philosopher laughed, not altogether good-naturedly, and said: "You have just given me a fine example of that independence. And it is this very independence that shocks me so much, and makes any place in the neighbourhood of present-day students so disagreeable to me. Yes, my good friends, you are perfect, you are mature; nature has cast you and broken up the moulds, and your teachers must surely gloat over you. What liberty, certitude, and independence of judgment; what novelty and freshness of insight! You sit in judgment – and the cultures of all ages run away. The scientific sense is kindled, and rises out of you like a flame – let people be careful, lest you set them alight! If I go further into the question and look at your professors, I again find the same independence in a greater and even more charming degree: never was there a time so full of the most sublime independent folk, never was slavery more detested, the slavery of education and culture included.

"Permit me, however, to measure this independence of yours by the standard of this culture, and to consider your university as an educational institution and nothing else. If a foreigner desires to know something of the methods of our universities, he asks first of all with emphasis: 'How is the student connected with the university?' We answer: 'By the ear, as a hearer.' The foreigner is astonished. 'Only by the ear?' he repeats. 'Only by the ear,' we again reply. The student hears. When he speaks, when he sees, when he is in the company of his companions when he takes up some branch of art: in short, when he lives he is independent, i. e. not dependent upon the educational institution. The student very often writes down something while he hears; and it is only at these rare moments that he hangs to the umbilical cord of his alma mater. He himself may choose what he is to listen to; he is not bound to believe what is said; he may close his ears if he does not care to hear. This is the 'acroamatic' method of teaching.

"The teacher, however, speaks to these listening students. Whatever else he may think and do is cut off from the student's perception by an immense gap. The professor often reads when he is speaking. As a rule he wishes to have as many hearers as possible; he is not content to have a few, and he is never satisfied with one only. One speaking mouth, with many ears, and half as many writing hands – there you have to all appearances, the external academical apparatus; the university engine of culture set in motion. Moreover, the proprietor of this one mouth is severed from and independent of the owners of the many ears; and this double independence is enthusiastically designated as 'academical freedom.' And again, that this freedom may be broadened still more, the one may speak what he likes and the other may hear what he likes; except that, behind both of them, at a modest distance, stands the State, with all the intentness of a supervisor, to remind the professors and students from time to time that it is the aim, the goal, the be-all and end-all, of this curious speaking and hearing procedure.

"We, who must be permitted to regard this phenomenon merely as an educational institution, will then inform the inquiring foreigner that what is called 'culture' in our universities merely proceeds from the mouth to the ear, and that every kind of training for culture is, as I said before, merely 'acroamatic.' Since, however, not only the hearing, but also the choice of what to hear is left to the independent decision of the liberal-minded and unprejudiced student, and since, again, he can withhold all belief and authority from what he hears, all training for culture, in the true sense of the term, reverts to himself; and the independence it was thought desirable to aim at in the public school now presents itself with the highest possible pride as 'academical self-training for culture,' and struts about in its brilliant plumage.

"Happy times, when youths are clever and cultured enough to teach themselves how to walk! Unsurpassable public schools, which succeed in implanting independence in the place of the dependence, discipline, subordination, and obedience implanted by former generations that thought it their duty to drive away all the bumptiousness of independence! Do you clearly see, my good friends, why I, from the standpoint of culture, regard the present type of university as a mere appendage to the public school? The culture instilled by the public school passes through the gates of the university as something ready and entire, and with its own particular claims: it demands, it gives laws, it sits in judgment. Do not, then, let yourselves be deceived in regard to the cultured student; for he, in so far as he thinks he has absorbed the blessings of education, is merely the public school boy as moulded by the hands of his teacher: one who, since his academical isolation, and after he has left the public school, has therefore been deprived of all further guidance to culture, that from now on he may begin to live by himself and be free.

"Free! Examine this freedom, ye observers of human nature! Erected upon the sandy, crumbling foundation of our present public school culture, its building slants to one side, trembling before the whirlwind's blast. Look at the free student, the herald of self-culture: guess what his instincts are; explain him from his needs! How does his culture appear to you when you measure it by three graduated scales: first, by his need for philosophy; second, by his instinct for art; and third, by Greek and Roman antiquity as the incarnate categorical imperative of all culture?

"Man is so much encompassed about by the most serious and difficult problems that, when they are brought to his attention in the right way, he is impelled betimes towards a lasting kind of philosophical wonder, from which alone, as a fruitful soil, a deep and noble culture can grow forth. His own experiences lead him most frequently to the consideration of these problems; and it is especially in the tempestuous period of youth that every personal event shines with a double gleam, both as the exemplification of a triviality and, at the same time, of an eternally surprising problem, deserving of explanation. At this age, which, as it were, sees his experiences encircled with metaphysical rainbows, man is, in the highest degree, in need of a guiding hand, because he has suddenly and almost instinctively convinced himself of the ambiguity of existence, and has lost the firm support of the beliefs he has hitherto held.

"This natural state of great need must of course be looked upon as the worst enemy of that beloved independence for which the cultured youth of the present day should be trained. All these sons of the present, who have raised the banner of the 'self-understood,' are therefore straining every nerve to crush down these feelings of youth, to cripple them, to mislead them, or to stop their growth altogether; and the favourite means employed is to paralyse that natural philosophic impulse by the so-called "historical culture." A still recent system,¹⁰ which has won for itself a world-wide scandalous reputation, has discovered the formula for this self-destruction of philosophy; and now, wherever the historical view of things is found, we can see such a naive recklessness in bringing the irrational to 'rationality' and 'reason' and making black look like white, that one is even inclined to parody Hegel's phrase and ask: 'Is all this irrationality real?' Ah, it is only the irrational that now seems to be 'real,' i. e. really doing something; and to bring this kind of reality forward for the elucidation of history is reckoned as true 'historical culture.' It is into this that the philosophical impulse of our time has pupated itself; and the peculiar philosophers of our universities seem to have conspired to fortify and confirm the young academicians in it.