76. Collegium Logicum

In the session of the Prussian House of Representatives on March 13 (1899), Representative Virchow said that, as an examiner, he had made the sad observation of a decided decline in the general education of our secondary school students. In particular, he missed the ability to think logically, which is absolutely necessary for the proper pursuit of scientific studies. In the past, for example, medical students were required to attend a logical college at the beginning of their studies. Today this is no longer considered necessary. It is believed that healthy thinking does not require knowledge of logical rules. They are considered by many to be old hat. And it was in this spirit that the Minister of Spiritual and Educational Affairs replied to Mr. Virchow. He said that during his student days, logic was still a compulsory course and he remembers how this collegium logicum was ridiculed. Because everything that was taught there as logic, the students already knew from their German lessons at grammar school; and then the treatment was also strange. What was there in the common textbooks? said the minister. And he quoted the well-known conclusion: "All Cretans are liars," says a Cretan; but if a Cretan says that, it must be a lie itself; therefore not all Cretans are liars." Mephistopheles' saying in Goethe's Faust haunts the minister's mind: "I therefore advise you first to attend the Collegium Logicum. - There your mind will be well trained, - laced into Spanish boots, - that it may more deliberately - henceforth - creep along the path of thought. - What you would otherwise do in one fell swoop - driven, like eating and drinking freely, - one, two, three would be necessary." But there is another Goethean saying that seems to have been less contrary to the Minister: "Your good thoughts, in other people's veins, will immediately quarrel with yourself." - If someone experiences that a cobbler makes bad boots, he will hardly vote for the abolition of boots and for walking barefoot. That would be illogical. But what else does the minister do with logic? He is doing exactly the same thing as someone who walks barefoot because he has fallen foul of a bad cobbler. Has he not just proved the necessity of logical training with such illogicality? Just take a look at the current scientific literature. The lack of logical training is outrageously obvious. Yes, one can go even further. Today one can perceive that researchers who are masters in their specialty put forward theories and results of their studies on all sorts of occasions that cause physical discomfort to a logically trained thinker. Our whole spiritual life suffers as a result. Those who follow scientific literature in any field often have to go through a real ordeal. He has to read thick books because he must know the actual results they contain. But he often has to pick out a few bits and pieces from a jumble of useless, illogically constructed theories.

The Minister of Education said that if the entire education is logical, then logical thinking will be achieved even without a logical college. Such an assertion is like saying that one can become a musician through mere musical feeling without first learning the theory of music. Thinking is an art and has a technique like any other art. If this technique is taught in the old logics in a plaited manner, then one should seek to improve these old logics. Anyone who follows the course of intellectual life just a little will know that outstanding achievements have been made in the field of logic in recent years. If the more recent results of this science were made usable for general education, much could be achieved.

There is an urgent need for everyone who deals with any branch of science to do so on the basis of a very general education. All individual knowledge only sheds the right light when it is considered in connection with the common goals of all knowledge. Only those who have acquired a general education can do this. And this can only be achieved if a sum of philosophical knowledge is offered as the basis for all specialized scientific training. Such knowledge is provided by logic, psychology and certain general branches of philosophy in general. Without being initiated into them, someone can handle the methods of any specialized science, but he cannot understand the intentions of spiritual striving. He cannot impart his knowledge to us in such a way that we can see it in the context of the whole development of culture.

It would be sad if there were no sense of such simple truths at all in the leading positions of the subordinate administrations. No one should teach at a grammar school or any other higher educational institution who does not know what the branch of knowledge he teaches means for the totality of human intellectual life. The history teacher should know how historical knowledge relates to mathematical and scientific knowledge in the human soul. To do this, he must firstly know the logical methods according to which all sciences proceed, and he must understand psychology so that he knows how to bring his individual science into a correct relationship with the overall formation of the human soul.

These things are more important than a complete education in a specialized science. For gaps in individual branches of knowledge can be filled if necessary. This is not the case with the general basis of all scientific education. If a teacher of history does not have the details of the Thirty Years' War at hand in case of need, he may sit down and learn them. But general education must permeate his whole being. He cannot catch up on it if he has not acquired it at the right time.

Virchow has touched on an important question. This question has nothing at all to do with which view one takes on the question of grammar school education. One can be of the opinion that our grammar schools are outdated. General education has enough sources in modern cultural life. Today, in order to acquire such an education, one does not need to be tormented for eight or nine years with the study of Greek and Latin. But all secondary schools must be organized in such a way that they offer a general education. And the specialized studies at universities and other institutions of higher learning must be built on a general philosophical foundation.