Humboldts, and of the founding of the University
of Berlin, a child of hope, born in a day of despair,
that has in many ways for a hundred years, led the
profounder thought of humanity. Most material-
istic and most spiritual were the forces of the
period which Goethe 's life covered.



254 EDUCATION

Goethe has himself pictured this life :

The epoch in which we were living might be called an epoch
of high requisitions, for every one demanded of himself and
of others what no mortal had hitherto accomplished. On
chosen spirits who could think and feel, a light had arisen,
which enabled them, to see that an immediate, original un-
derstanding of nature, and a course of action based upon it,
was both the best thing a man could desire, and also not
difficult to attain. Experience thus once more became the
universal watchword, and every one opened his eyes as wide
as he could. Physicians, especially, had a most pressing call
to labour to this end, and the best opportunity for finding it.
Upon them a star shone out of antiquity, which could serve
as an example of all that was to be desired. The writings
which had come down to us under the name of Hippocrates,
furnished a model of the way in which a man should both
observe the world and relate what he had seen, without mix-
ing up himself with it. But no one considered that we can-
not see like the Greeks, and that we shall never become such
poets, sculptors, and physicians as they were. Even granted
that we could learn from them, still the results of experience
already gone through, were almost beyond number, and be-
sides were not always of the clearest kind ; moreover had too
often been made to accord with preconceived opinions. All
these were to be mastered, discriminated, and sifted. This
also, was an immense demand. Then again it was required
that each observer, in his personal sphere and labours, should
acquaint himself with the true, healthy nature, as if she were
now for the first time noticed and attended, and thus only
what was genuine and real was to be learned. But as, in gen-
eral, learning can never exist without the accompaniment



ACCORDING TO GOETHE 255

of a universal smattering and a universal pedantry, nor the
practice of any profession without empiricism and char-
latanry, so there sprung up a violent conflict, the purpose of
which was to guard use from abuse, and place the kernel
high above the shell in men's estimation. In the execution
of this design, it was perceived that the shortest way of
getting out of the affair, was to call in the aid of genius,
whose magic gifts could settle the strife, and accomplish what
was required. Meanwhile, however, the understanding med-
dled with the matter; all it alleged must be reduced to clear
notions, and exhibited in a logical form, that every preju-
dice might be put aside and all superstition destroyed. 1

The interpretations which Goethe gives to educa-
tion are found scattered throughout his numberless
works. The autobiography of Wilhelm Meister,
however, contains possibly the most pregnant and
important parts. But from the reports of the con-
versations, covering several decades, may be drawn
forth sentiments and judgments, often embodied
in single sentences, which have large meaning.

These opinions, like Goethe's character, often
unite opposing doctrines and antagonistic intima-
tions. They are also, like his own education, fre-
quently without orderliness, filled with sentiments
which would not bear logical analyzing, yet which,
as by a sudden rift of light, give guidance in ob-

*"The Autobiography of Goethe," John Oxenford. Bell's edition,
1903, Vol. II., pp. 54, 55.



256 EDUCATION

scurity, and inspiration to indifference, in thinking.
A single verse of Faust may have as deep educa-
tional significance as a whole paragraph of the
scientific work on optics. The by-products of a
great mind, working in any field, are often indeed
more precious than the direct results of the hard
labor of a second-rate intellect.

The principles which through these diverse ma-
terials may be found and brought to light, are also
more or less contradictory, yet even possibly be-
cause of their opposing content, they may often be
joined together in a stronger and larger unity.

One of the great principles of Goethe lies in the
assurance that education consists rather in the un-
folding of the powers with which the mind is orig-
inally endowed, than in the engrafting of forces
upon the mind, however vital, from without. To
him, education is primarily subjective.

To labor for his own moral culture, is the simplest and
most practicable thing which man can propose to himself;
the impulse is inborn in him ; while in social life both reason
and love, prompt or rather force him to do so. 2

Man may seek his higher destination on earth or in heaven,
in the present or in the future, he yet remains on this account
exposed to an eternal wavering, to an influence from without
which ever disturbs him, until he once for all makes a reso-

'Ibid., p. 74.



ACCORDING TO GOETHE 257

lution to declare that that is right, which is suitable to him-
self."

For he too was a child of nature, he too had worked his
way upwards. What others had been compelled to cast away,
he had never possessed ; relations of society from which they
would have to emancipate themselves, had never fettered him.
Thus might he be regarded as one of the purest disciples
of that gospel of nature, and in view of his own persevering
efforts and his conduct as a man and son, he might well
exclaim, ' ' All is good as it comes from the hands of nature ! ' '
But the conclusion, "All is corrupted in the hands of man!"
was also forced upon him by adverse experience. 4

Let man, we say, learn to think of himself as being with-
out any enduring external relation ; let him seek for consist-
ency not in his surroundings but in himself: there he will
find it; cherish and foster it with love; he will form and
educate himself so as to be everywhere at home. He who
devotes himself to what is most necessary, goes everywhere
most surely to his goal. Others, on the contrary, seeking what
is higher, more subtle, have, even in the choice of their road,
to be more circumspect."

To speak it in a word; the cultivation of my individual
self, here as I am, has from my youth upwards been con-
stantly though dimly my wish and my purpose. The same
intention I still cherish, but the means of realizing it are now
grown somewhat clearer. I have seen more of life than thou
believest, and profited more by it also. Give some attention

Ibid., Vol. I., p. 400.
4 /&td., VoL II., p. 6.

Wilhelm Meister's " Wander jahre, " Edward Bell. Bell's edition,
1892, p. 366.



258 EDUCATION

then to what I say, though it should not altogether tally with
thy own opinions.

Had I been a nobleman, our dispute would soon have been
decided ; but being a simple burgher, I must take a path of
my own; I know not how it is in foreign countries; but in
Germany, a universal, and if I may say so, personal cultiva-
tion is beyond the reach of any one except a nobleman. A
burgher may acquire merit ; by excessive efforts he may even
educate his mind ; but his personal qualities are lost, or worse
than lost, let him struggle as he will. Since the nobleman,
frequenting the society of the most polished, is compelled to
give himself a polished manner; since this manner, neither
door nor gate being shut against him, grows at last an uncon-
strained one; since, in court or camp, his figure, his person,
are a part of his possessions, and it may be the most neces-
sary part, he has reason enough to put some value on them,
and to show that he puts some. A certain stately grace in
common things, a sort of gay elegance in earnest and im-
portant ones, becomes him well ; for it shows him to be every-
where in equilibrium. He is a public person, and the more
cultivated his movements, the more sonorous his voice, the
more staid and measured his whole being is, the more per-
fect is he. If to high and low, to friends and relations, he
continues still the same, then nothing can be said against
him, none may wish him otherwise. His coldness must be
reckoned clearness of head, his dissimulation prudence. If
he can rule himself externally at every moment of his life,
no man has aught more to demand of him ; and whatever else
there may be in him or about him, capacities, talents, wealth,
all seem gifts of supererogation. 6

Wilhelm Meister's "Lehrjahre," Thomas Carlyle. Centenary edi-
tion, Vol. I.j pp. 327, 328.



ACCORDING TO GOETHE 259

But, in the sum and substance of Goethe's ex-
periencing mind, one easily finds a high place given
to what are called the classics. Early did Goethe
surrender himself to the ancient masters. He
says:

But a leading conviction, which was continually revived
within me, was that of the importance of the ancient tongues ;
since from amidst this literary hurly-burly, thus much con-
tinually forced itself upon me, that in them were preserved
all the models of oratory, and at the same time everything
else of worth that the world has ever possessed. Hebrew,
together with biblical studies, had retired into the back-
ground, and Greek likewise, since my acquaintance with it did
not extend beyond the New Testament. I therefore the more
zealously kept to Latin, the master-pieces in which lie nearer
to us, and which, besides its splendid original productions,
offers us the other wealth of all ages in translations, and
the works of the greatest scholars. I consequently read much
in this language, with great ease, and was bold enough to
believe I understood the authors, because I missed nothing
of the literal sense. Indeed I was very indignant when I
heard that Grotius had insolently declared "he did not read
Terence as boys do. ' ' Happy narrow-mindedness of youth !
nay, of men in general, that they can, at every moment of
their existence, fancy themselves finished, and inquire after
neither the true nor the false, after neither the high nor the
deep, but merely after that which is suited to them.

I had thus learned Latin, like German, French and Eng-
lish, merely by practice, without rules, and without concep-
tion. Whoever knows the condition of school instruction then,



260 EDUCATION

will not think it strange that I skipped grammar as well
as rhetoric; all seemed to me to come together naturally; I
retained the words, their forms and inflexions, in my ear
and mind, and used the language with ease in writing and
in chattering. 7

He also affirms in particular that the great forces
of civilization are found in the Bible, in Plato and
in Aristotle.

In the history of the development of knowledge the Bible,
Aristotle, and Plato have been the dominant factors; and to
these three bases we must always return. Neo-platonists, they
say; well, that means coming back to Plato.

Scholasticism, and that Kant is bringing back scholasticism ;
that is, Aristotle. And of course one returns to the Bible. 8

Yet, while emphasizing the value of the ancient
classics, by parity of earnestness and of reasoning
he commends the modern sciences.

For more than a century now the humanities have ceased
to influence the minds of those who pursue them, and it is
fortunate that Nature has stepped in, drawn the interest
to herself, and opened to us from her threshold the road of
humanity.

That the humanities do not shape morals! It is by no
means necessary that everyone study the humanities, those
knowledges historical antiquarian, belletristic, and artistic
that have come to us out of antiquity and belong to it

f "The Autobiography of Goethe," etc., Vol. I., p. 200.
"Conversations," Weimar, 1808, F. V. Biedermann, Vol. I., p. 520.



ACCORDING TO GOETHE 261

are by this time so diffused that they need no longer be de-
rived immediately from the ancients, unless one wished to put
his whole life-time upon it. Then culture of this sort becomes
again one-sided, which has no advantage over any other one-
sided culture, indeed, falls below it, because it cannot be nor
become productive.*

What a world of treasures lies in the sciences, how ever
increasingly rich one finds them to be! How much that is
wiser, greater, nobler than we, has lived, and we mortals
imagine that we alone are wise! A people that possesses
a morning paper, a fashionable journal, a free-lance organ
(Preimiitigen) is already quite lost. How much better is
the so-often decried reading of novels, which has produced
such a tremendously broad, even if not sound, culture. 10

To Goethe, self-education has many values.
Self-discipline may be very real, not only in will,
but also in intellect. His beliefs are largely a
transcript of his own educational experiences.

Only that I may not have to pursue any thing as a voca-
tion! I will do all that I can playingly, whatever comes to
me and as long as the inclination to it lasts. So I played un-
consciously in youth ; and so I will continue consciously
through the rest of my life. Useful use, that is your affair.
You want to use me ; but I cannot adjust myself to sale and
demand. What I can do and understand, that you shall use,
as soon as you wish and have need. I will not give myself
up as a tool ; and every profession is a tool, or, if you wish
it expressed more elegantly, an organ. 11

Ibid., Vol. II., p. 6. "Ibid., p. 10.

""Conversations," Weimar, 1807, etc., Vol. I., p. 472.



262 EDUCATION

It is, therefore, an education, which, in modern
phrase, we call broad, in which Goethe believed. It
was an education as wide as humanity, as diverse
as the qualities of the human mind, as high and as
deep as human achievements, and as the forces out
of which these achievements are made. The classi-
cist may claim him as a disciple, and the scientist
may also declare him to be his apostle. The culture
which he embodied and promulgated lay, like the
kingdom of Heaven, four square. Although the
mind and sentiments of Goethe are fundamentally
unlike those of John Stuart Mill, yet the German
and the Englishman are united in the belief that
the human intellect and character are worthy to re-
ceive, and should accept, a training as high as
divinity can inspire, as broad as life can embrace,
and as deep as destiny can fathom.

Yet although Goethe's conception of education
is as broad as man's nature, it is still to be adjusted
to man's specific needs. Goethe affirms and argues
that education is to be devoted to special ends.
These ends are often of a character which proves
that they arise from more immediate wants.
Goethe would educate man for his place, for his
times, for his station in society, and for the fulfill-
ing of his duty to his family, and to the state.



ACCORDING TO GOETHE 263

The capabilities that lie in men can be divided into gen-
eral and special ; the general are to be regarded as activi-
ties in a state of balanced repose, which are aroused by cir-
cumstances, and directed accidentally to this or that end.
Man's faculty of imitation is general: he will make or form
in imitation of what he sees, even without the slightest inward
and outward means to that end. It is always natural, there-
fore, that he should wish to do what he sees to be done : the
most natural thing, however, would be that the son should
embrace the occupation of his father. In this case it is all
in one, a decided activity in an original direction, with prob-
ably an inborn faculty for a special end; then a resultant
and gradually progressive exercise and a developed talent,
that would have compelled us to proceed upon the beaten
path, even if other impulses are developed within us, and
a free choice might have led us to an occupation for which
nature has given us neither capacity nor perseverance. On
the average, therefore, those men are the happiest who find
an opportunity of cultivating an inborn, family talent in the
domestic circle. We have seen painter-pedigrees of this sort:
amongst them there have been feeble talents, it is true, but in
the meantime, they have brought to light something useful,
and perhaps better than they would have achieved with mod-
erate powers in any other department of their own choice. 12

"Your universal culture," said he, "and all institutions
for that end, are foolishness. The thing is, that a man should
understand something quite definitely, do it with an excel-
lence which scarce anyone else in the immediate neighbour-
hood could attain ; and in our association particularly this is
a self-evident matter. You are just of an age when a man
forms any plan with intelligence, judges what lies before him

"Wilhelm Meister's " Wanderjahre, " etc., pp. 269-270.



264 EDUCATION

with discernment, grapples with it from the right side, and
directs his capacities and abilities to the right end. ' ' 13

But the main thing will be, when shall we find ourselves
at the place and spot ? 14

He was, for a time at least, convinced that education ought
in every case to be adapted to the inclinations: his present
views of it I know not. He maintained that with man the
first and last consideration was activity, and that we could
not act on anything, without the proper gifts for it, without
an instinct impelling us to it. ' ' You admit, ' ' he used to say,
"that poets must be born such; you admit this with regard
to all professors of the fine arts ; because you must admit it,
because those workings of human nature cannot very plausi-
bly be aped. But if we consider well, we shall find that every
capability, however slight, is born with us: that there is no
vague general capability in men. It is our ambiguous dissi-
pating education that makes men uncertain: it awakens
wishes, when it should be animating tendencies; instead of
forwarding our real capacities, it turns our efforts towards
objects which are frequently discordant with the mind that
aims at them. I augur better of a child, a youth who is
wandering astray on a path of his own, than of many who
are walking aright upon paths which are not theirs. If the
former, either by themselves, or by the guidance of others,
ever finds the right path, that is to say, the path which suits
their nature, they will never leave it ; while the latter are in
danger every moment of shaking off a foreign yoke, and aban-
doning themselves to unrestricted license." 18

"/&*., p. 282.
M Ibid., p. 383.
"Wilhelm Meister'a "Lehrjahre," etc., Vol. II., p. 100.



ACCORDING TO GOETHE 265

In this education which is at once broad and spe-
cial, are to be united what we now call the practical
and the theoretical. The deed and the thought are
to be joined. The deed without the thought may
be illogical, arbitrary, harmful, disastrous. The
thought without the deed, is vain and unavailing.
Life in thought and for action was his ideal. In the
Travels is this double activity often commended.

Thinking and Doing, Doing and Thinking, from all time
admitted, from all time practised, but not discerned by every
one. Like expiration and inhalation, the two must for ever
be pulsating backwards and forwards in life; like question
and answer, the one cannot exist without the other. Who-
ever makes for himself a law which the genius of human
understanding secretly whispers into the ear of every new-
born child to test Doing by Thinking, Thinking by Doing,
he cannot go astray; and if he does go astray, he will soon
find himself on the right way again. 16

Many-sidedness prepares, in point of fact, only the ele-
ment in which the one-sided man can work, who just at this
time has room enough given him. Yes, now is the time for
the one-sided; well for him who comprehends it, and who
works for himself and others in this mind. In certain things
it is understood thoroughly and at once. Practise till you are
an able violinist, and be assured that the director will have
pleasure in assigning you a place in the orchestra. Make
an instrument of yourself, and wait and see what sort of place
humanity will kindly grant you in universal life. Let us
break off. Whoso will not believe, let him follow his own

"Wilhelm Meister's " Wander jahre, " etc., p. 264.



266 EDUCATION

path: he too will succeed sometimes; but I say it is need-
ful everywhere to serve from the ranks upwards. To limit
oneself to a handicraft is the best. For the narrowest heads
it is always a craft ; for the better ones an art ; and the best,
when he does one thing, does everything or, to be less para-
doxical, in the one thing, which he does rightly, he beholds
the semblance of everything that is rightly done. 17

All life, all activity, all art must be preceded by handi-
work, that can only be acquired in a limited sphere. A
correct knowledge and practice give a higher culture than
half-knowledge in hundredfold. 18

From the Useful, through the True, to the Beautiful. 19

Regarding Goethe's relation to the most funda-
mental element, religion, the evidence is as diverse
as it is in respect to concerns less serious. Contra-
dictories abound. He sympathized with the devout
Moravians, and condemned and despised priest and
priesthood. At once he commended Voltaire and
had a large heart for the pietist. There is reason
for calling him a sceptic, and there is evidence that
he was a believer in those fundamental concepts
regarding ultimate being and destiny, which belong
to most thoughtful and reverent souls. To call him
a pantheist would be a not unjust interpretation.

But whatever his personal belief may have been,

"Ibid., pp. 32-33.
"Ibid., p. 146.
"Ibid., p. 61.



ACCORDING TO GOETHE 267

it is clear that Goethe does believe in the value of
religion in education.

The religion which rests on reverence for that which is
above us, we call the ethnical one ; it is the religion of nations,
and the first happy redemption from a base fear ; all so-called
heathen religions are of this kind, let them have what names
they will. The second religion, which is founded on that
reverence which we have for what is like ourselves, we call
the Philosophic; for the philosopher, who places himself in
the middle, must draw downward to himself all that is
higher, and upward to himself all that is lower, and only in
this central position does he deserve the name of sage. Now,
whilst he penetrates his relations to his fellows, and there-
fore to the whole of humanity, and his relations to all other
earthly surroundings, necessary or accidental, in the cosraical
sense he only lives in the truth. But we must now speak of
the third religion, based on reverence for that which is below
us; we call it the Christian one, because this disposition of
mind is chiefly revealed in it ; it is the last one which human-
ity could and was bound to attain. Yet what was not de-
manded for it? not merely to leave earth below, and claim a
higher origin, but to recognize as divine even humility and
poverty, scorn and contempt, shame and misery, suffering
and death ; nay, to revere and make lovable even sin and
crime, not as hindrances but as furtherances of holiness! Of
this there are indeed found traces throughout all time ; but a
track is not a goal, and this having once been reached, hu-
manity cannot turn backwards; and it may be maintained,
that the Christian religion . . . having once been divinely
embodied, cannot again be dissolved. 20

"/bid., pp. 155, 156.



268 EDUCATION

Two obligations, moreover, we have most strictly taken
upon us : to hold in honour every form of the worship of God ;
for they are all more or less comprised in the Creed ; secondly,
to allow all forms of government equally to hold good, since
they all demand and promote a systematic activity to em-
ploy ourselves in each, wherever and however long it may
be, according to its will and pleasure. In conclusion, we hold
it a duty to practise good morals, without pedantry and
stringency; even as reverence for ourselves demands, which
springs from the three reverences which we profess ; all of us
having the good fortune, some from youth up, to be initiated
in this higher universal wisdom. 21

But below and above religion, Goethe holds to
the value of that composite creation and creator
which we denominate character.

Character, that is, the complex of the primal human im-
pulses, of self-preservation, self-respect, etc., is that from
which the forming of the other spiritual powers departs and
upon which also it rests. 22

All education, like all life, is to be conducted
under at least three categories. They are freedom,
patience, idealism.

"0 needless strictness of morality," exclaimed he, "while