We Philologists, Volume 8 | Page 8

the last
subjects which a student would take up; and would not this position of
antiquity in the curriculum of a school be more honourable for it than
the present one?--Antiquity is now used merely as a propædeutic for
thinking, speaking, and writing; but there was a time when it was the
essence of earthly knowledge, and people at that time wished to acquire
by means of practical learning what they now seek to acquire merely by
means of a detailed plan of study--a plan which, corresponding to the
more advanced knowledge of the age, has entirely changed.
Thus the inner purpose of philological teaching has been entirely
altered; it was at one time material teaching, a teaching that taught how
to live, but now it is merely formal.[2]
32
If it were the task of the philologist to impart formal education, it
would be necessary for him to teach walking, dancing, speaking,
singing, acting, or arguing · and the so-called formal teachers did
impart their instruction this way in the second and third centuries. But
only the training of a scientific man is taken into account, which results

in "formal" thinking and writing, and hardly any speaking at all.
33
If the gymnasium is to train young men for science, people now say
there can be no more preliminary preparation for any particular science,
so comprehensive have all the sciences become. As a consequence
teachers have to train their students generally, that is to say for all the
sciences--for scientificality in other words; and for that classical studies
are necessary! What a wonderful jump! a most despairing justification!
Whatever is, is right,[3] even when it is clearly seen that the "right" on
which it has been based has turned to wrong.
34
It is accomplishments which are expected from us after a study of the
ancients: formerly, for example, the ability to write and speak. But
what is expected now! Thinking and deduction . but these things are
not learnt from the ancients, but at best through the ancients, by means
of science. Moreover, all historical deduction is very limited and unsafe,
natural science should be preferred.
35
It is the same with the simplicity of antiquity as it is with the simplicity
of style: it is the highest thing which we recognise and must imitate;
but it is also the last. Let it be remembered that the classic prose of the
Greeks is also a late result.
36
What a mockery of the study of the "humanities" lies in the fact that
they were also called "belles lettres" (bellas litteras)!
37
Wolf's[4] reasons why the Egyptians, Hebrews, Persians, and other
Oriental nations were not to be set on the same plane with the Greeks

and Romans: "The former have either not raised themselves, or have
raised themselves only to a slight extent, above that type of culture
which should be called a mere civilisation and bourgeois acquirement,
as opposed to the higher and true culture of the mind." He then explains
that this culture is spiritual and literary: "In a well-organised nation this
may be begun earlier than order and peacefulness in the outward life of
the people (enlightenment)."
He then contrasts the inhabitants of easternmost Asia ("like such
individuals, who are not wanting in clean, decent, and comfortable
dwellings, clothing, and surroundings; but who never feel the necessity
for a higher enlightenment") with the Greeks ("in the case of the
Greeks, even among the most educated inhabitants of Attica, the
contrary often happens to an astonishing degree; and the people neglect
as insignificant factors that which we, thanks to our love of order, are in
the habit of looking upon as the foundations of mental culture itself").
38
Our terminology already shows how prone we are to judge the ancients
wrongly: the exaggerated sense of literature, for example, or, as Wolf,
when speaking of the "inner history of ancient erudition," calls it, "the
history of learned enlightenment."
39
According to Goethe, the ancients are "the despair of the emulator."
Voltaire said. "If the admirers of Homer were honest, they would
acknowledge the boredom which their favourite often causes them."
40
The position we have taken up towards classical antiquity is at bottom
the profound cause of the sterility of modern culture; for we have taken
all this modern conception of culture from the Hellenised Romans. We
must distinguish within the domain of antiquity itself: when we come
to appreciate its purely productive period, we condemn at the same
time the entire Romano-Alexandrian culture. But at the same time also

we condemn our own attitude towards antiquity, and likewise our
philology.
41
There has been an age-long battle between the Germans and antiquity,
i.e., a battle against the old culture. It is certain that precisely what is
best and deepest in