But I--I
only wanted to train up free, thinking, independent men! Now who wants
to be, or who cares to suffer another to be, a free-thinking,
independent man? If it was folly to talk about educating persons as
Germans, what was it to talk about educating them as men? The education
of Germans was felt to be something extraordinary and farfetched; the
education of men was a mere shadow, a deceitful image, a blind
enthusiasm.[104]
From this digression I now return, to continue my attempt at making
myself known to you, as far as is possible, in a letter; by which I mean
my real inner self, as manifested in my endeavours and my hopes.
Permit me, therefore, to go a step nearer towards what lies deepest in
my soul, at least that of it which is communicable to another person. I
have started by stating my position from the side of knowledge, now let
me state it also from another side. My experience, especially that
gained by repeated residences at the university, had taught me beyond a
doubt that the method of education hitherto in use, especially where it
involved learning by rote, and where it looked at subjects simply from
the outside or historically, and considered then capable of
apprehension by mere exercise work, dulled the edge of all high true
attainment, of all real mental insight, of all genuine progress in
scientific culture, of self-contemplation, and thus of all real
knowledge, and of the acquisition of truth through knowledge.
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