al idealism (as in the Hegelian
philosophy) was just such a deliberate effort to combine the two ideas
of complete realization of personality and thoroughgoing "disciplinary"
subordination to existing institutions. The extent of the transformation
of educational philosophy which occurred in Germany in the generation
occupied by the struggle against Napoleon for national independence,
may be gathered from Kant, who well expresses the earlier
individual-cosmopolitan ideal. In his treatise on Pedagogics, consisting
of lectures given in the later years of the eighteenth century, he
defines education as the process by which man becomes man. Mankind
begins its history submerged in nature--not as Man who is a creature of
reason, while nature furnishes only instinct and appetite. Nature
offers simply the germs which education is to develop and perfect. The
peculiarity of truly human life is that man has to create himself by his
own voluntary efforts; he has to make himself a truly moral, rational,
and free being. This creative effort is carried on by the educational
activities of slow generations. Its acceleration depends upon men
consciously striving to educate their successors not for the existing
state of affairs but so as to make possible a future better humanity.
But there is the great difficulty. Each generation is inclined to
educate its young so as to get along in the present world instead of
with a view to the proper end of education: the promotion of the best
possible realization of humanity as humanity. Parents educate their
children so that they may get on; princes educate their subjects as
instruments of their own purposes.

Who, then, shall conduct education so that humanity may improve? We must
depend upon the efforts of enlightened men in their private capacity.
"All culture begins with private men and spreads outward from them.
Simply through the efforts of persons of enlarged inclinations, who
are capable of grasping the ideal of a future better condition, is the
gradual approximation of human nature to its end possible. Rulers are
simply interested in such training as will make their subjects better
tools for their own intentions." Even the subsidy by rulers of privately
conducted schools must be carefully safeguarded. For the rulers'
interest in the welfare of their own nation instead of in what is best
for humanity, will make them, if they give money for the schools, wish
to draw their plans. We have in thi