Knowledge obtained by cramming will not produce the inventive qualities, but only that which is inspired by talent ; no one, however, in Germany attaches any value to that to-day ; nothing but the crying need for it will call it out.
Here is another educative task for the national State. It is not its duty to confine deciding influence in the hands of an existing class of society but it is its duty to draw the most competent brains forward out of the total mass of the nation and promote them to place and dignity. It is the State’s obligation to give certain defined education in the national school to the average child, but it must also offer to talent the oppor¬ tunity which it ought to enjoy. It should consider it its highest duty to open the doors of the higher State educational establishments, without distinction, to talent of every sort, in whatever class it appears.
There is a further reason why the State should give its attention to this matter. In Germany, especially, the intellectual class is so rigidly shut up in itself away from the rest of the world that it has no living ties with the classes below it. There are two ill-effects from this : first this class has neither understanding for or sympathy with the mass of the people. It has been cut off from all connection with them too long for it still to possess the needful psychological comprehension of the people. It has become a stranger to them. Secondly, this upper class lacks the essential will-power ; for this is always weaker among the intelligentzia than in the primitive masses. God knows that we Germans have never failed in the department of knowledge, that we have failed all the more in will-power and determination. The more intellectual our statesmen, for instance, were, the weaker most of them were in real accomplishment. Our political preparation for war and our technical armaments were insufficient not because the brains governing our nation were too little educated, but rather because our rulers were too highly MY STRUGGLE I7I educated, stuffed with knowledge and intellect, and empty of sound instinct and utterly wanting in energy and boldness. It