Johann Fichte (1762-1814)
Brief context
Battle of Jena 1806 - Napoleon's French army crushed Frederick William III of Prussia's army causing a great embarrassment leading to the Prussian Reform Movement. This led to the reforms of National Compulsory Schooling and military reforms, such as conscription.
Johann Fichte Addresses To The German Nation
Military academies, Prussian Staff College and schools were reformed in.
"By means of the new education we want to mould the Germans into a corporate body, which shall be stimulated and animated in all its individual members by the same interest." Johann Fichte Addresses To The German Nation Page 15
"the new education must be able surely and infallibly to mould and determine according to rules the real vital impulses and actions of its pupils." Johann Fichte Addresses To The German Nation Page 20
"I should reply that the very recognition Of, and reliance upon, free will in the pupil is the first mistake of the old system and the clear confession of its impotence and futility… The new education must consist essentially in this, that it completely destroys freedom of will in the soil which it undertakes to cultivate, and produces on the contrary strict necessity in the
decisions of the will, the opposite being impossible" Johann Fichte Addresses To The German Nation Page 20
"If you want to influence him at all, you must do more than merely talk to him ; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than you wish him to will." Johann Fichte Addresses To The German Nation Page 21
"That power to create spontaneously images, which are not simply copies of reality, but can become its prototypes, should be the starting-point for the moulding of the race by means of the new education" Johann Fichte Addresses To The German Nation Page 24
"The essential feature of the proposed new education, so far as it was described in the last address, consisted in this, that it is the sure and deliberate art of training the pupil to pure morality." Johann Fichte Addresses To The German Nation Page 36
"Now, of the changes which have been indicated, the first, the change of home, is quite unimportant. Man easily makes himself at home under any sky, and the national characteristic , far from being changed by the place of abode, dominates and changes the latter after its own pattern." Johann Fichte Addresses To The German Nation Page 54
"The German art of the State understands that it cannot create this spirit by reprimanding adults who are already spoilt by neglect, but only by educating the young, who are still unspoilt" Johann Fichte Addresses To The German Nation Page 116
"Not until a generation has passed through the new education can the question be considered, as to what part of the national education shall be entrusted to the home." Johann Fichte Addresses To The German Nation Page 164
"One reason is that all who get through only the universal national education are intended for the working classes, and training them to be good workmen is undoubtedly part of their education." Johann Fichte Addresses To The German Nation Page 181
"Hitherto the State has had to do a great deal, and yet has never been able to do enough, for law and police institutions. Convict prisons and reformatories have caused it expense. Finally, the more that was spent on poor-houses, the more they required ; indeed, under the prevailing circumstances, they seemed to be institutions for making people poor. In a State which makes the new education universal, the former will be greatly reduced, the latter will vanish entirely." Johann Fichte Addresses To The German Nation Page 191
"Early discipline is a guarantee against the need in later years of reformation and penal discipline, which are very doubtful, measures, while in a nation so trained there are no poor at all" Johann Fichte Addresses To The German Nation Page 192
"Our constitutions will be made for us ; our alliances and the employment of our fighting forces will be prescribed to us ; a code of law will be given to us ; even justice and judgment and their administration will sometimes be taken from us. For the immediate future we shall be spared the trouble of these matters. It is only of education that no one has thought ; if we are looking for an occupation, let us seize this!" Johann Fichte Addresses To The German Nation Page 192
"Moreover, compulsory military service, too, will thereby be ended, because those who are thus educated are all equally willing to bear arms for their Fatherland" Johann Fichte Addresses To The German Nation Page 196
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