Notes on Nietzsche, F. (2009) [1910] On the
Future of Our Educational Institutions.
Trans Oscar Levy. Ebook, via Gutenberg
Dave Harris
Nietzsche begins by denying that he is there to
produce any direct plan for the future of
education, and he also says he's not going to
pretend to be a prophet. He's not talking
about the specific institutions in Basle, but
means mostly German institutions. He warns
that he is going to be controversial. He
expects the readers to read his work slowly and
thoughtfully, to try and stand outside their
normal cultural reactions, and to continue to
think about what he has said [in other words, to
pursue a writerly approach]. The main themes
that he is going to address turn on two issues:
first, should education be expanded to the maximum
possible, or restricted to a few; second, should
it be obliged to follow the main purposes of the
state, or be allowed to be entirely independent.
He suggests that one set of options is underpinned
by nature while the other set can only produce a
false culture. [I think we can probably guess
where his own preferences are going to lie].
First lecture 16 January 1872
A rather chatty and long winded introduction
to an initial discussion of the main themes.
I have included the chatty bits in case they are
parables, metaphors,aphorisms or something else.
The discussion proceeds through Nietzsche
recollecting an episode when he was a student and
he had gathered with his friends had to pursue a
particular project of generating artistic work and
then having it criticized by friends.
Nietzsche and his friends had been at university
for a year, but had so far resisted any notion
that they might become interested in a career in
the state bureaucracy. Instead, they enjoyed
dabbling in various cultural areas, and even
prided themselves on not doing anything
useful. During one of their gatherings,
which happened to be outdoors, they overheard a
conversation between an elderly philosopher and
his student. They abandoned their pastime of
pistol shooting [!] and sat quietly out of sight.
The theme of the conversation was the relation
between mass education and culture, the purpose of
education being to produce a few men [sic] of
genuine culture. This purpose was being
combined with and diluted by the state's reason
for expanding education which was to produce mere
functionaries. Academic culture had also
been much restricted by the development of various
kinds of specialism, so that scholars who were
adepts in one specialism ['scholars'] found
themselves no better than the ordinary man in any
other field. Journalism has had a pernicious
influence too. There is even a hint that should
the masses become interested in education, they
would only receive this specialized and
utilitarian version and dismiss anything else as
elitist. The old guy warned his students that
pursuing the goal of being a man of culture would
produce isolation and misunderstanding. This is
one of the problems which confronts teachers and
it is understandable that the young man has had
second thoughts -- but teaching is important!
Second lecture 6 February 1872 [I have more
detailed notes here because it makes all the
arguments - -the others just repeat and embellish
them]
The student says he has withdrawn because
the current state of education is so depressing.
Why struggle on against so much anti-educational
pressure, like that in journalism? The philosopher
agrees and says most educated men know how awful
it is, especially in the public schools,
even though they know it is important to submit to
it. Pedagogy has been dominated by the
excessively 'practical' people and their
broad brush approaches, where what is needed is a
combination of insight and practice. But we should
cheer up because there are signs of change.
In the meantime, let us think what we might do
with the teaching of German. This will be the key
to developing artistic tastes generally. Teachers
should rigorously expel sloppy habits and new
unhelpful words ( with a list), many of them
popularized by newspapers [a footnote says they
are solecisms]. A rigorous approach is needed,
even if this produces 'fear' in the less
gifted: it will produce 'great enthusiasm' in the
others. We should favour formal education,aimed at
developing mental faculties, rather than
'material' education aimed at the acquisition of
facts: most schools, however, aim at scholarship
at best, maybe even journalism. We need 'severe
self-discipline' in learning German. We should
avoid an external 'historico-scholastic' approach
which ignores future usage and pursues an
'anatomical' approach instead of a grasp of the
vitalism, the cultural aspects. We must do
language as well as know it. Practical uses
of language in cultural matters is more
difficult, but there should be no attempt
to justify a more comfortable teaching method with
'grand pretensions and stately titles'.
More generally, we should value the cultured
few. We need a proper discussion of the
classics of German literature not the journalistic
accounts of them, for example when they vulgarize
and make laughable even Schiller. We should revive
composition, regardless of the fact that only
the most gifted [sic] kids are enthusiastic.
German composition appeals to the individual and
releases talents. Compositions must be about
suitable subjects, however, not just describing
life and development, for example. This
'premature demand for personal work—for the unripe
procreation of thoughts' can lead to suffering and
neglect. It is a 'pedagogic original sin
against the intellect'. It is a premature
way to direct the first moments of self
reliance. The literary form is one of the
best examples of the pleasures of becoming self
reliant, especially combined with an invitation to
converse. The first compositions should be
properly treated by teachers. Instead, they
tend to criticize what is excessive or individual,
often necessarily appearing in a crude way.
Instead, teachers aim at 'an unoriginal decent
average'. Although originality is demanded,
the ,most usual shape for it in the young is
rejected. There is an assumption that every
one can develop literary talents and that their
opinions are worth discussing. Instead, the
young should be encouraged in 'obedience to the
sceptre of genius'. Exercises in diction
should aim at removing barbarism. Hasty and
vain literary production is greeted with
flattering remarks, and it's not surprising that
literary tastes decline in later life, as seen in
journalism.
In fact very few are justified in calling
themselves literary, and only a few recognize this
fact. Other efforts should be greeted with
'homeric laughter'. We should not let
individual personalities flourish if they are not
based on proper intellectual habits and
views. Above all, the teacher of
German language must be tied to German
culture. Teachers should raise their game
and not encourage 'outrageous and irresponsible
scribbling', nor treat their mother tongue merely
as 'a necessary evil or a dead body'.
Current notions of classical education are highly
doubtful. The Greeks and the Romans had a
much better stance towards the language, and
should be properly understood as a model.
Current notions of classical education are simply
used to justify the purpose of public
school. They are slogans in a strategy to
dispel criticism, and claiming to do formal or
scientific education are others. A proper
classical education is actually unattainable in
current public schools. Formal education [of
the intellect] is a clumsy phrase, ill defined and
with no obvious opposite. Scientific
education is not compatible with the others and
should not be pursued to their exclusion. In
practice, it is difficult to find any actual
examples of the teaching of German which looks
anything like classical antiquity and its
methods. Formal education has really become
a matter of developing the 'free personality',
itself a sign of 'barbarism and anarchy'.
Scientific education is actually poorly connected
to actual science, which develops mostly through
the activities of individual university
professors.
In this way, the public school has neglected real
culture. The proper grasp of the importance
of the classics can only be obtained after 'stern,
artistic, and careful discipline and habit'[which
reminds me of the pieces in A Thousand Plateaus
on how creativity requires discipline and
sobriety]. The situation has been covered
sometimes by the aesthetic hobbies of a few
teachers, but great poetry has always had to
follow a hard path. Discipline is required
for an elegant style, and the development of
taste. It is far more important than trivial
issues about who is a real poet. It is
necessary to have a 'physical loathing', disgust,
at tasteless work. Everything starts with a
self disciplined approach to the mother tongue. It
is like joining the army as a recruit and having
to learn how to walk in a particular way.
Learning to march helps us to realize to
appreciate walking fluently and elegantly
afterwards.
'Severe and genuine culture', 'obedience and
habituation' should be the object of public
schooling. Specialism should be avoided,
especially if it is in science, because specialist
scholarship can go together with barbarous taste
or even journalism. Very few of us obtain
the same standards as the greats. The great
men should be seen as 'preparatory leaders and
mystogogues of classical culture'. It should
all start with fluency in the mother tongue.
Great leaders and tutors are required to instil
the love of form. Ancient Greece should be
the focus. The legacy of Greece has not been
grasped in public schools, and classical education
has too often turned into philology. Instead
everyone should testify to the uplifting influence
of reading Homer or Sophocles. A proper
appreciation of Greece is the exception in the
current age, which is sensationalist, skeptical of
dead civilizations, relativist in its taste for
literature. Classical education should not
be evaluated according to its utility. It
requires discipline to understand it, a compulsory
element.
We can judge the quality of modern institutions in
terms of the earnestness with which they studied
Latin and Greek languages, and learned the
rules. Everyone knows what a mistake is in
those fields There is no need to justify
forms against modern variants. Translating
from classical into current languages is
particularly useful, as long as it is done with
enough strictness and dignity. The classical
tongues should be applied as well as just
known. Scholasticism should not be allowed
to dominate over the cultivation of the
pupil. The original impulse to study the
classics in public schools should be
revived. In modern public schools, the main
point has been missed: the teachers themselves
should develop the right stance and not be
distracted by Scholasticism.
Attacking classical German culture also destroyed
a suitable foundation [German culture has become
'almost foreign or cosmopolitan']. The
German spirit must be revived or excavated from
beneath the modern ruins. It is not just
equated with modern culture, which is a
cosmopolitan aggregate, related to classical
culture as journalism is to the great works of
literature. There has been an undue
influence from France, which has been merely
copied uncritically into a particular literary
style. Literature survives much better in
France and Italy, still connected to a social
order, although it still has it struggles.
There are no such roots in German culture, merely
scholars and journalists. Even the Russians
have borrowed French culture to better
effect. The German spirit showed itself in
the Reformation and in German music, in German
philosophy and in the loyalty of German soldiers
in the recent war, and schools must develop an
enthusiasm for it.
Reforming and purifying public schools will be
difficult. We must find a connection with
the genius of Greece, to yearn for Greece, to see
it as did Schiller and Goethe, to treat it as the
Mecca of the best and most gifted. This
alone will revive classical education and public
schools and provide them with a firm base, against
which to evaluate other forms of culture and
education.
Third lecture 27 February 1872
The philosopher and his student continue to
discuss the failures of state education, in
Prussia especially. The student says he has been
persuaded by the philosopher to continue. They
begin by reminding us that proper access to
classical culture is likely to be impossible for
all but a few, which implies that we only need a
few universities, and, possibly, only a few people
going to public school. Obviously, only a
few will be able to teach adequately. This implies
that those who intend to offer the right sort of
classical education will face a terrible struggle
with their peers and with the public, including
journalists, who will laugh and argue derisively
at them and their pretensions. Proper
teaching is no career for fainthearts who expect
recognition.
Our speakers don't seem to offer much for the
masses to persuade them why they should put up
with such a system, but they do suggest that the
education system is already offering something
different for them. Prussia, apparently, is
developing a credentialist system, where diplomas
of various kinds are increasingly required before
one can enter state employment. The state is
also perfectly well aware that this will help to
defuse mass resentment at educational expansion,
although there is no suspicion as yet that the
middle classes will be able to bend the system to
their own requirements. Meanwhile, standards
are laughably low, and dumbing down proceeding
apace. Prussia is widely admired by other
countries for its vigour and its advances in music
and literature, but none of this is being
maintained by the current education system.
We can see this with the current state of
philology, which although it reads Greek texts
tends to treat them entirely instrumentally, as a
linguistic system, or as bearers of linguistic
structures of various kinds [not that well
developed, it seems, in Germany in the 1870s, but
consisting of a series of apparently abstract
formulae that you can apply to understand Greek
verse]. The way philology is taught is
similarly dull, with a lot of drills and
practices. Nowhere does the substantial
classical content of the Greeks appear. As a
result, we get a 'pseudo culture'.
Fourth lecture 5 March, 1872
[Lots more repetition]. Public schools
[presumably elite ones] do not offer true culture,
aristocratic and confined to a few. Their
poor pedagogies at least means that pupils don't
acquire much reprehensible culture as well!
It is all down to state intervention. The
true German spirit no longer applies. This
is not to urge us to go back, but to think of a
new route back to the Greeks. Of course, a
good deal of useful learning does go on, devoted
to the world of necessity and the development of
individualism, but this should not occupy all our
efforts. Immortality awaits the seeker of
true culture, but the usual routes have been
turned into a means to gratify insatiable
egoism. Art might be sought for
entertainment or diversion, but not to contemplate
egoism and self centredness. True culture is
not to be confused with more instrumental culture,
aimed at bread winning or gratifying personal
needs. Our current schools develop this sort
of culture quite well, leading to effective civil
servants, officers, or people in other
professions, but they do not develop true
culture. [All this is fine as long as you
have a suitable pension of course]
As an example, young people often develop a
particular immediate and personal relation with
nature, and if they progress, they might even come
to 'feel the metaphysical unity of all things' and
be able to focus on the eternal. Most of us
learn instead to try to subdue nature, against our
instincts. This is why the truly cultured
man can remain faithful to the instincts of
childhood. Of course science and the secular
subjects are very valuable, and may even become
accepted at university, on an equal basis.
Even if this happens, it will be at the expense of
educational institutions aimed at culture,
however. Of course these lower ambitions are
necessary. But there is a sense of betrayal
when it comes to consider public schools, that
they have become dreary and sterile, only
pretending to aim at culture. Alternative
approaches are deemed to be more realistic, but
this only shows a telling ignorance about what
reality is, and implies we should master it.
There is an unbridgeable contradiction between
those institutions that teach culture and those
that teach us how to succeed in life, with all
present institutions opting for the second.
The two younger ones listening to this
conversation suddenly saw the light, that they had
been pursuing the wrong kind of culture.
Both went up to congratulate the philosopher, but
his dog bit them [!] [a limited metaphor ensues
seeing the dog is equivalent to the ignorant,
leading to the diatribe below]. They swap
favourite quotations. The philosopher is
unimpressed and accuses them of having
'zig-zagging inclinations' [Deleuze likes this
zigzag path of course]. They both regret
that common men are more like reptiles, unlikely
to be impressed, but our two friends are, and
promised to pursue a suitable goals for the higher
nature. The philosopher's companion says the
same, but then says he is constantly drawn back to
real life which makes high culture meaningless.
Are there no intermediate degrees between the
enlightened few were and the degraded mass?
How can we distinguish high and vulgar
culture? How might educational
establishments cater for the former—surely the
elite do not require educational
institutions? What about past German
geniuses—how did they get an adequate
education? Lessing and Winckelmann,
Beethoven, Schiller or Goethe?. The
philosopher is unimpressed by these arguments, and
accuses his listeners of being into self
understanding again [which has attracted his ire
before]. He points out angry that the great
men have been suffocated and crushed [see the
entry on Winckelman in Wikipedia
, for example]. All of them had to
struggle. It does not follow that the path
to genius requires no assistance in
schooling. The great men created despite the
attentions of the German public, and all of them
suffered as a result. Hegel can be blamed
for arguing that everything that happens is
'reasonable'[does that mean indicating the ruse of
Reason, or is it another example of beautiful
souls?]. All genuine scholars see this
resistance and become exhausted by it . It
is no good just praising cultural ttainment as an
ideal without grasping the oppressive reality.
Anyone who knows anything can distinguish between
culture and vulgar culture [convenient and rather
circular, of course. Let's hear it for the
habitus and its unconscious judgments].
The listeners were not downhearted, but saw a
deeper bond linked them to the philosopher.
They even came to pity him as old and unduly
challenged. They realized that their
challenges really were egoistic, that they were
worried about where they fitted personally.
Personal commitment, however should not be a part
of argument. They realized they had
developed their own little oases inside
educational establishments. The philosopher
urges them to carry on thinking about the issue,
and to choose the right path: one leads to the
world and to all its rewards, but at the expense
of joining the rank and file; the other offers few
companions and a lot of mockery. Consider
how an educational institution could deal with
this choice: obviously they would opt for the
former, although they would cover what they're
doing with 'pompous words' such as developing
universal freedom or the sovereignty of the
people. Any institution choosing the second
path would first have to fight for survival, and
constantly encourage their select spirits.
It would rise above present issues and subjective
elements, aiming at the eternal and
immutable. All participating would have to
cooperate to maintain its purity. It's
possible to manage such commitment with episodes
of normal life, but there is danger of being
seduced by it.
Temptation is everywhere and is constant.
Rewards including the applause of public opinion
will be offered. To resist requires not only
talent, but 'moral sublimity, the instinct towards
heroism, towards sacrifice'[Nazi undertones
again], and a positive need for culture, itself
acquired through obedience and submission to
genius. There is an undoubted appeal, and
occasionally a popular demand for the soul of
culture as well. Plato inspired us first, and he
was right to criticize the common people as
insolent and proud.
The younger ones agree that they now need an
institution to support them, not just a feeling
that they are pursuing an ideal in splendid
isolation. The temptations of popular
culture are everywhere.
Fifth lecture 23 March, 1872
The philosopher says he wants to walk away from a
useless discussion. Then he sees a signal
from the companion that he is expecting. He
asks the young ones to reply by firing their
pistols. They were distracted by shooting
stars. They heard a chorus of voices, and
saw people carrying torches—it is their
friends. The philosopher hopes that his
companion is not among students, and despairs at
the thought that his companion might deliberately
have sought such company. The others are fed
up with this contempt for students. They
remind him that he was once popular with students
as a lecturer. Maybe he saw something in his
encounters that others did not? The
philosopher is asked to talk about his experience
in universities.
The discussion begins with the official aim of the
public school to prepare students for universities
in a way which will make them independent and self
reliant. The flaws of the public school can
be forgiven if it leads to such independence, by
providing preliminary skills. Deeper
intellectual interests will be awakened at
university. The philosopher says this
independence is misleading, and the students are
hardly perfect or mature. The same might be
said about university professors: they also claim
to be independent, but when we look at methods, we
get a different picture. Students are
expected only to listen, and become independent
only in his own company. Students choose
what to listen to and what to take notes about,
and can simply ignore anything he does not wish to
hear. 'This is the " acroamatic" method of
teaching' [apparently Aristotelian,meaning
esoteric stuff intended only for followers
--reminds me of Bourdieu on academic discourse
and its veiled allusions and silences etc]
Thoughts are more difficult to convey. Most
professors want a lot of listeners, and like to
retain their independence of the people listening:
this is called '"academical freedom"'. Both
speaker and listener are allowed to say and listen
to what they wish, but the State supervises
them. Indeed, this is a pedagogic technique
that the state recommended.
There is no other training for culture.
Students are allowed to choose what they listen
to, but this is hardly self training. What
is really needed is 'dependance, discipline,
subordination, and obedience' instead of this
'bumptious' independence. Again the
implication is that the culture available is
something already self sufficient, something
external with its own demands, and the successful
student has merely to follow the same techniques
as in public schools, deprived of any further
guidance to culture. We can judge its
superficiality by pointing out that students
displayed no need for philosophy, no instinct for
arts, and no knowledge of Greek and Roman
antiquity.
There is no philosophical wonder which might
generate a more noble culture, beyond the personal
trivia of youth, and no guiding hand to point to
what is valuable in existence. [we realize
at last why 'self understanding' is anathema—it
implies some sort of immediate personal grasp of
issues?]. Philosophy is destroyed in the
very teaching of it, especially if it uses an
historical approach and celebrates irrationality
as the only real thing. It has relativized
the 'eternally recurring problems', and
personalized philosophy. It takes a literary
approach to the classical texts, or philological
one. In effect philosophy has been
banished.
There is little relation to artistic thinking, nor
a priority given to art—chairs in philosophy of
aesthetics aimed at literature are not the same
thing. Students have no experience of
'severe artistic discipline' and are allowed to
just let their art happen. It is not
surprising that they see no need to investigate in
depth the Greeks and the Romans. These are
devalued and are even more inaccessible.
Philology will not help. There are therefore
no ladders to lead us to culture, and the student
is merely 'the barbarian believing himself to be
free'. They are not to blame themselves, of
course, but accuse their teachers. They have
had to manage the threats to their independence
offered by the need for culture, and become
dependent. They seek distractions.
They fear sinking out of sight. Nothing
seems to help. Students feel they are either
working under high pressure or in a state of
'melancholy enervation'. Everything seems
vacuous. A genuine desire for self knowledge
becomes 'an ironical skepticism'. Nothing is
too degrading. And they have lost all
guidelines. That is what independence
actually amounts to! Some people thrive and
become smug, comforted by their narrow
limitations, but others suffer, and in their
failure to grasp proper culture despise
themselves. Such people are not allowed to
seek guidance from great leaders.
Pseudo culture has produced degeneracy and
shipwreck, the hatred of culture. Some of
the victims become journalists. Others
advocate some sort of youth culture. Some
have turned to aesthetic [romantic?] novels
[somebody called Gutzkow is singled out
here]. We can seen in the popularity of
these forms some corrupt acknowledgement that the
self is not sufficient, but this leads to ascetic
abstinence from culture, an attempt to annihilate
individuality. Modern novelists and writers
urge us to forget ourselves. [I think the
term modernity is specifically mentioned in the
third lecture]. Such people are 'guilty
innocents', experiencing the need for real
education and the real German spirit,but failing
and becoming degenerate. This is worse than
the old system. This pollutes proper
culture, and distorts elements of the true German
spirit. In universities, 'noble minded scholars'
have a really hard time.
The freedom and sense of liberation that emerged
from the struggle for unification [specifically
from the wars] was lost by those who
returned to the university. There they
encountered scholasticism, and 'the non German
barbarism' at its heart. There were no
leaders. Youths were abandoning themselves
to intoxication and to wild talk. The
bravest and most talented among the youth were
feared, and their attempts to construct true
educational institutions, representing all that
was earnest, stern and manly in the German spirit
was abandoned. [Nietzsche here is talking
about student fraternities expressing liberal and
national ideals, important in fostering German
unification - -the Bursenschaften].
Were these institutions defended by the
university? They should have been, since
they have represented important lessons from
battle: leaders are necessary, all culture begins
with obedience, German spirit was all. At
last philosophy can be understood, especially the
classics, and that promoted by the likes of
Schiller. No leaders were available,
however, and members became uncertain. The
institution eventually perished.
Proper culture is the opposite of academic
freedom, requiring subordination and discipline in
some sort of harmony, and 'eternal
hierarchy'. Pseudo culture always threatens
it. It dumbs down, denying hierarchy and
leaders, offering narcotics. However, there
are some breakthrough moments. Look at the
typical German orchestra and the sad specimens of
humanity that are actually playing the instruments
in a kind of parody of human activity. Those
scholastics of music are likely to see only the
labour involved, and the mistakes . Yet we
can also glimpse an occasional real genius
present, inspiring and leading the orchestra in
their labours, in a harmonic organization.
This is what universes should be like.
Note 10 tells us that the historical method under
attack is Hegel's.
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