g which,
as it were, is only the natural and involuntary auxiliary of a culture
that is directed towards the noblest ends; but rather of that culture
which might be compared to the hypertrophical swelling of an unhealthy
body. The public schools are certainly the seats of this obesity, if,
indeed, they have not degenerated into the abodes of that elegant
barbarism which is boasted of as being 'German culture of the
present!'"

"But," asked the other, "what is to become of that large body of
teachers who have not been endowed with a true gift for culture, and
who set up as teachers merely to gain a livelihood from the
profession, because there is a demand for them, because a superfluity
of schools brings with it a superfluity of teachers? Where shall they
go when antiquity peremptorily orders them to withdraw? Must they not
be sacrificed to those powers of the present who, day after day, call
out to them from the never-ending columns of the press 'We are
culture! We are education! We are at the zenith! We are the apexes of
the pyramids! We are the aims of universal history!'--when they hear
the seductive promises, when the shameful signs of non-culture, the
plebeian publicity of the so-called 'interests of culture' are
extolled for their benefit in magazines and newspapers as an entirely
new and the best possible, full-grown form of culture! Whither shall
the poor fellows fly when they feel the presentiment that these
promises are not true--where but to the most obtuse, sterile
scientificality, that here the shriek of culture may no longer be
audible to them? Pursued in this way, must they not end, like the
ostrich, by burying their heads in the sand? Is it not a real
happiness for them, buried as they are among dialects, etymologies,
and conjectures, to lead a life like that of the ants, even though
they are miles removed from true culture, if only they can close their
ears tightly and be deaf to the voice of the 'elegant' culture of the
time."

"You are right, my friend," said the philosopher, "but whence comes the
urgent necessity for a surplus of schools for culture, which further
gives rise to the necessity for a surplus of teachers?--when we so
clearly see that the demand for a surplus springs from a sphere which is
hostile to culture, and that the consequences of this surplus only lead
to non-culture. Indeed, we can discuss this dire necessity only in so
far as the modern State is willing to discuss these thing