ldt, the gifted creator of
the Prussian system of education. As the motto of one of his writings he
adopted the words, "_Against the governmental mania, the most fatal disease
of modern governments_," and when, contrary to his own early principles,
he undertook the organisation of Prussian education he insisted that
"headmasters should be left as free a hand as possible in all matters of
teaching and organisation." But the Prussian system was too strong for him
and his successors, and his excellent principles now survive as no more
than pious opinions. The fact is that in an undemocratic and feudal State
such as Germany then was, and still largely is, respect for the personality
of the individual is confined to the upper ranks of society.

"I do not know how it is in foreign countries," says one of Goethe's
heroes,[1] "but in Germany it is only the nobleman who can secure a certain
amount of universal or, if I may say so, _personal_ education. An ordinary
citizen can learn to earn his living and, at the most, train his intellect;
but, do what he will, he loses his personality.... He is not asked, 'What
are you?' but only, 'What have you? what attainments, what knowledge, what
capacities, what fortune?' ... The nobleman is to act and to achieve.
The common citizen is to carry out orders. He is to develop individual
faculties, in order to become useful, and it is a fundamental assumption
that there is no harmony in his being, nor indeed is any permissible,
because, in order to make himself serviceable in one way, he is forced
to neglect everything else. The blame for this distinction is not to be
attributed to the adaptability of the nobleman or the weakness of the
common citizen. It is due to the constitution of society itself." Much has
changed in Germany since Goethe wrote these words, but they still ring
true. And they have not been entirely without their echo in Great Britain
itself.[2]

[Footnote 1: Wilhelm Meister's _Lehrjahre_, Book v. chapter iii.]

[Footnote 2: The contrast which has been drawn in the preceding pages, as
working-class readers in particular will understand, is between the _aims_,
not the achievements, of German and British education. The German aims are
far more perfectly achieved in practice than the British. Neither the law
nor the administration of British education can be acquitted of "neglect
for the claims of human personality." The opening words of the English
code, quoted on p. 359 above