sists in the fashioning of an entirely new self, which may have existed before perhaps in individuals as an exception, but never as a universal and national self, and in the education of the nation, whose former life has died out and become the supplement of an alien life, to a completely new life, which shall either remain her exclusive possession or, if it must go forth from her to others, shall at least continue whole and undiminished in spite of infinite division. In a word, it is a total change of the existing system of education that I propose as the sole means of preserving the existence of the German nation.
8. That children must be given a good education has been said often enough, and has been repeated too often even in our age; and it would be a paltry thing if we, too, for our part wished to do nothing but say it once again. Rather will it be our duty, in so far as we think we can accomplish something new, to investigate carefully and definitely what education hitherto has really lacked, and to suggest what completely new element a reformed system must add to the training that has hitherto existed. After such an investigation we must admit that the existing education does not fail to bring before the eyes of the pupils some sort of picture of a religious, moral, and law-abiding disposition and of order in all things and good habits, and also that here and there it has faithfully exhorted them to copy such pictures in their lives. With very rare exceptions, however—and these were, moreover, not the outcome of this education (because otherwise they must have appeared, and that too as the rule, amongst all who received such instruction), but were occasioned by other causes—with these very rare exceptions, I say, the pupils of this education have in general followed, not those moral ideas and exhortations, but the impulses
