this digression I now return, to continue my attempt at making
myself known to you, as far as is possible, in a letter; by which I mean
my real inner self, as manifested in my endeavours and my hopes.

Permit me, therefore, to go a step nearer towards what lies deepest in
my soul, at least that of it which is communicable to another person. I
have started by stating my position from the side of knowledge, now let
me state it also from another side. My experience, especially that
gained by repeated residences at the university, had taught me beyond a
doubt that the method of education hitherto in use, especially where it
involved learning by rote, and where it looked at subjects simply from
the outside or historically, and considered then capable of
apprehension by mere exercise work, dulled the edge of all high true
attainment, of all real mental insight, of all genuine progress in
scientific culture, of self-contemplation, and thus of all real
knowledge, and of the acquisition of truth through knowledge. I might
almost go further, and say that its tendency was towards rendering all
these worthy objects impossible.

Therefore, I was firmly convinced, as of course I still am, that the
whole former educational system, even that which had received
improvement, ought to be exactly reversed, and regarded from a
diametrically opposite point of view--namely, that of a system of
development. I answered those who kept asking what it was that I really
did want after all, with this sentence: "I want the exact opposite of
what now serves as educational method and as teaching-system in
general." I was, and am, completely convinced, that after this fashion
alone genuine knowledge and absolute truth, by right the universal
possessions of mankind, shall find once again, not alone single students
here and there, but the vast majority of all our true-hearted young men
and of our professors spreading far and wide the elements of a noble
humanised life. To bring this into a practical scheme I held to be my
highest duty, a duty which I could never evade, and one which I could
never shake off, since a man cannot shake off his own nature.

Our greatest teachers, even Pestalozzi himself not excepted, seemed to
me too bare, too empirical,[105] and arbitrary, and therefore not
sufficiently scientific in their principles--that is, not sufficiently
led by the laws of our being; they seemed to me in no wise to recognise
the Divine element in scie