it. It is a very complex and difficult task to find
the border-line which joins the heart of the Germanic spirit with the
genius of Greece. Not, however, before the noblest needs of genuine
German genius snatch at the hand of this genius of Greece as at a firm
post in the torrent of barbarity, not before a devouring yearning for
this genius of Greece takes possession of German genius, and not
before that view of the Greek home, on which Schiller and Goethe,
after enormous exertions, were able to feast their eyes, has become
the Mecca of the best and most gifted men, will the aim of classical
education in public schools acquire any definition; and they at least
will not be to blame who teach ever so little science and learning in
public schools, in order to keep a definite and at the same time ideal
aim in their eyes, and to rescue their pupils from that glistening
phantom which now allows itself to be called 'culture' and
'education.' This is the sad plight of the public school of to-day:
the narrowest views remain in a certain measure right, because no one
seems able to reach or, at least, to indicate the spot where all these
views culminate in error."

"No one?" the philosopher's pupil inquired with a slight quaver in his
voice; and both men were silent.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] It is not practicable to translate these German solecisms by
similar instances of English solecisms. The reader who is interested
in the subject will find plenty of material in a book like the Oxford
_King's English_.

[4] German: _Formelle Bildung._

[5] German: _Materielle Bildung._

THIRD LECTURE.

(_Delivered on the 27th of February 1872._)

Ladies and Gentlemen,--At the close of my last lecture, the
conversation to which I was a listener, and the outlines of which, as
I clearly recollect them, I am now trying to lay before you, was
interrupted by a long and solemn pause. Both the philosopher and his
companion sat silent, sunk in deep dejection: the peculiarly critical
state of that important educational institution, the German public
school, lay upon their souls like a heavy burden, which one single,
well-meaning individual is not strong enough to remove, and the
multitude, though strong, not well meaning enough.

Our solitary thinkers were perturbed by two facts: by clearly
perceiving on the one hand that what might rightly be called
"classical education" was now only a far-off ideal, a castle in the
air, which could not pos