The Philosophy of Friedrich NietzscheMencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
Philosophy
The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900; Philosophy, German -- 19th century
The argument here is plain enough. The professional teacher must
keep to his rut. The moment he combats the existing order of things
he loses his place. Therefore he is wary, and his chief effort is
to transmit the words of authority to his pupils unchanged. Whether
he be a philosopher, properly so-called, or something else matters
not. In a medical school wherein Chauveau's theory of immunity was
still maintained it would be hazardous for a professor of pathology
to teach the theory of Ehrlich. In a Methodist college in Indiana it
would be foolhardy to dally with the doctrine of apostolic succession.
Everywhere the teacher must fashion his teachings according to the
creed and regulations of his school and he must even submit to
authority in such matters as text books and pedagogic methods. Again,
his very work itself makes him an unconscious partisan of authority, as
against free inquiry. During the majority of his waking hours he is in
close association with his pupils, who are admittedly his inferiors,
and so he rapidly acquires the familiar, self-satisfied professorial
attitude of mind. Other forces tend to push him in the same direction
and the net result is that all his mental processes are based upon
ideas of authority. He believes and teaches a thing, not because he is
convinced by free reasoning that it is true, but because it is laid
down as an axiom in some book or was laid down at some past time, by
himself.
In all this, of course, I am speaking of the teacher properly
so-called--of the teacher, that is, whose sole aim and function is
teaching. The university professor whose main purpose in life is
original research and whose pupils are confined to graduate students
engaged in much the same work, is scarcely a professional teacher, in
the customary meaning of the word. The man I have been discussing is he
who spends all or the greater part of his time in actual instruction.
Whether his work be done in a primary school, a secondary school or in
the undergraduate department of a college or university does not matter
In all that relates to it, he is essentially and almost invariably a
mere perpetuator of doctrines. In some cases, naturally enough, these
doctrines are truths, but in a great many other cases they are errors.
An examination of the physiology, history and "English" books used in
the public schools of America will convince anyone that the latter
proposition is amply true.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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