demands are quite different; what is required above all is 'rapid
education,' so that a money-earning creature may be produced with all
speed; there is even a desire to make this education so thorough that
a creature may be reared that will be able to earn a _great deal_ of
money. Men are allowed only the precise amount of culture which is
compatible with the interests of gain; but that amount, at least, is
expected from them. In short: mankind has a necessary right to
happiness on earth--that is why culture is necessary--but on that
account alone!"

"I must just say something here," said the philosopher. "In the case
of the view you have described so clearly, there arises the great and
awful danger that at some time or other the great masses may overleap
the middle classes and spring headlong into this earthly bliss. That
is what is now called 'the social question.' It might seem to these
masses that education for the greatest number of men was only a means
to the earthly bliss of the few: the 'greatest possible expansion of
education' so enfeebles education that it can no longer confer
privileges or inspire respect. The most general form of culture is
simply barbarism. But I do not wish to interrupt your discussion."

The companion continued: "There are yet other reasons, besides this
beloved economical dogma, for the expansion of education that is being
striven after so valiantly everywhere. In some countries the fear of
religious oppression is so general, and the dread of its results so
marked, that people in all classes of society long for culture and
eagerly absorb those elements of it which are supposed to scatter the
religious instincts. Elsewhere the State, in its turn, strives here
and there for its own preservation, after the greatest possible
expansion of education, because it always feels strong enough to bring
the most determined emancipation, resulting from culture, under its
yoke, and readily approves of everything which tends to extend
culture, provided that it be of service to its officials or soldiers,
but in the main to itself, in its competition with other nations. In
this case, the foundations of a State must be sufficiently broad and
firm to constitute a fitting counterpart to the complicated arches of
culture which it supports, just as in the first case the traces of
some former religious tyranny must still be felt for a people to be
driven to such desperate remedies. Thus, wherever I hear the