10 - Towards a more exact definition of the German national education

Summary

Leading the pupil to make clear to himself first his sensations then his intuitions, hand in hand with a systematic art of training his body, constitutes the first main part of the new German national education. As far as the cultivation of the intuitions is concerned, Pestalozzi has provided us with a suitable method; we still lack one for the cultivation of the sensitive faculty, but he and his collaborators, who are called to solve this task in the first place, will be able to furnish it without much difficulty. A guide to the systematic development of physical strength is yet wanting: we have indicated what is required to solve this task, and our hope is that, should the nation show appetite for this solution, it will be found. This part of education as a whole is only a means and a preliminary exercise for its second essential part, civic and religious education. Whatever needs to be said in general on this matter we have already conveyed in our second and third addresses, to which we have nothing more to add. To deliver a definite guide to the art of this education is – naturally in conference and consultation with Pestalozzi's own art of education – the affair of that same philosophy which is proposing a German national education in general; and, when the need for such guidance arises after the first part has been put into practice and completed, this philosophy will not neglect to provide it.