position to nature into a natural
necessity. Spirit subjects the individual (1) to the rule of the family
as naturally spiritual; (2) to the rule of the caste as to a principle
in itself spiritual, mediated through the division of labor, which it
nevertheless, through its power of being inherited, joins again to the
family; (3) to the abstract self-determination of the monkish quietism,
which turns itself away as well from the family as from work, and
constitutes this flight from nature and history, this absolute
passivity, into an educational ideal.

--We shall not here enter into the details of this system, but simply
endeavor to remove from their differences the want of clearness which is
generally found involved in any mention of them, so that the phrases of
hierarchical and theocratical education are used without any historical
accuracy.--

I. _Family Education._

Sec. 185. The Family, as the organic starting-point of all education, makes
the beginning. The nation looks upon itself as a family. Among all
unorganized people education is family-education, though they are not
conscious of its necessity. Identical in principle with these people,
but distinguished from them in its consciousness of it, the Chinese
nation, in their laws, regulations, and customs, have constituted the
family the absolute basis of their life and the only principle of their
education.

Sec. 186. The natural element of the family is found in marriage and
relationship; the spiritual, in love. We may call the nature of family
feeling which is the immediate unity of both elements, by the name of
Piety. In so far as this appears not merely as a substantial feeling but
at the same time as law, there arises from it the subordination of the
abstract obedience of the woman as wife to the husband, of children to
the parents, of the younger children to the elder. In this obedience man
first renounces his self-will and his natural roughness; he learns to
master his passions, and to conduct himself with deferential gentleness.

--When the principle ruling the family is transferred to political
relations, there arises the tyranny of the Chinese state, which cannot
be fully treated here. We find everywhere in it an analogical relation
to that of parents and children. In China the ruler is the father and
mother of the country; the civil officers are representatives of a
paternal authority, &c. It follows that in school the children will be
ranked ac