142 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



tion introduced for all those whose schooling extended 

 beyond their thirteenth or fourteenth year. One of its 

 most important results is to be found in the complete 

 destruction of that difference of class which clung to 

 the few older and celebrated classical schools. These 

 resembled in some ways the public schools of England, 

 through which class distinctions are still intentionally 

 or unintentionally upheld. 1 



For the moment this subject is for us only of 

 collateral importance, our present object being to follow 

 the critical spirit in its various developments. That, 

 applied to the study of the classical authors, it led to 

 the establishment of a rigid method and a strict 

 discipline was one of its chief recommendations in the 

 eyes of educationalists. This brought about its wide- 

 spread introduction in the learned schools. In the 

 year 1872, thirty - eight headmasters and thirty - six 

 professors were counted as belonging to the school 

 of Bitschl. 2 But at that time the critical spirit 



1 The difference of class which in I and extraordinary personal influ- 

 England is expressed by the term I ence both at Bonn and later in 

 higher and middle class was, : Leipzig, a full account is given in 

 through the teaching at the older Otto Ribbeck's ' Life of Ritschl ' 

 Fiirstenschulen of Saxony, exhib- j (2 vols., 1879-1881 ; see especially 

 ited rather in the distinction be- j vol. ii. pp. 42, 299, 408, &c., also 

 tween classical and non-classical edu- the long list of eminent classical 

 cation ; the absence of a thorough scholars who were trained in 

 knowledge of Latin in reading, Hitachi's seminary, p. 560, &c.) A 

 writing, and poetical composition | very interesting and spirited 

 being considered by many as ' picture of Ritschl's personality and 

 equivalent to an absence of real influence during the heyday of his 

 culture. This standard shut out career is to be found in the Bio- 

 not only the uneducated, the | graphy of Fr. Nietzsche by his 

 industrial, and the tradesman, but sister E. Forster-Nietzsche (3 vols., 

 also those who possessed merely 1895-1904). It is, however, in- 

 literary attainments such as polite j texesting to note that Nietzsche, 

 learning and proficiency in modern in spite of his admiration for 

 languages. Ritschl, had some misgivings that 



2 Of Ritschl's enormous activity the value of the method might 



