Der Professor ist die deutsche Nationalkrankheit
The Professor Is the German National Disease
Gaston Raphael
A Kind of Massacre of the Innocents of Bethlehem
Some years ago there appeared in Germany a book whose impact was very great. An anonymous author published under the title Rembrandt as Educator a comprehensive study of the German school system and its influence on all of German life. Full of verve and bias, of judicious observations and banalities, of attacks both just and overly violent, the work took sharp aim at this system of education and cried out a warning to all who would listen. It ceaselessly repeated its leitmotif: “The professor is the national disease of Germany… The present education of German youth is a kind of new Massacre of the Innocents of Bethlehem.”
These warnings were heeded. Since the book’s appearance, criticisms directed at the German school multiplied. In truth, they had always been made. For from the day when an educated slave, or a professor, was charged with the education of a child, the child and his parents complained about the educator. Germany was no exception to this rule. One could write the history of criticisms directed at every era at the German school. But it seems that rarely were they as numerous and bitter as in the recent years following the appearance of the anonymous author’s book. It was like a general uprising in which professionals joined with laypeople to storm another Bastille. Meetings and congresses resounded with unanimous grievances. Pamphlets, books, and journal articles on this subject became innumerable. The agitation soon reached the novel and the theater. “At this moment there is no more beloved theme than the mistreatment inflicted by parents devoid of intelligence and heart on sons or daughters with noble aspirations; than the martyrdom imposed by tradition-encrusted pedagogues on young people eager for free and personal thought. In assemblies and education congresses the horrors of this system are displayed, showing how the most capable and most original minds are persecuted, tortured to exhaustion, until the corpses of unfortunate students are fished out of the water.”
In their hatred, the adversaries of the school did not shrink from the most ferocious solutions. “The simplest and most radical means would be to assemble all our Classical Philologists on some pedagogical Mount Carmel, and there to cut them all down as Elijah did the priests of the dead gods.” Or else, holding the school responsible for all the defects of German civilization, they claimed to use it as a universal panacea. “We lack artistic sense? Well then! Teach art in school. — But the school can barely manage its work as it is. — Why not? There’s still plenty of room in the curriculum. — What good is it to inscribe in the curriculum subjects that can’t be studied? — The devil take the professors!” And further on: “An economist has calculated that too many mushrooms rot in the forests. Well! the school. Lessons on mushrooms! Fruit trees could produce far more: the school! Lessons on fruit trees! Elections are bad: lessons on the social question! Mission collections don’t bring in enough: missions in the school! People are getting too cheeky: lessons on cheekiness!” And another concludes: “Everywhere societies for the protection of children are being formed. It is not without shame that one notes that the societies for the protection of animals preceded them.”
These last remarks and proposals strongly resemble buffoonery. One could without difficulty find a host of others of the same kind. They would not deserve…
[Note: The source OCR text of this cahier runs to nearly 3,500 lines, heavily degraded by OCR artifacts. The readable text comprises Gaston Raphael’s extended essay on the crisis of German education at the turn of the twentieth century, examining: the revolt against the classical Gymnasium system; criticisms by authors including Julius Langbehn (Rembrandt as Educator), Ellen Key (The Century of the Child), and Friedrich Paulsen; the debate over classical versus modern education; the problems of overwork and student suicide; the question of physical education and military drill in schools; comparisons with French and English educational systems; and reflections on what Germany might learn from educational reform movements abroad. A full translation will require dedicated attention to the complete readable text.]