The instruction of many years, one sees, has been less useful than no instruction at all would have been. But that at last the evil is being recognized by the Americans themselves is the first step toward an improvement. In San Francisco and California a man is going to come to the helm (namely, when in a short while Mr. Bolander is elected State School Superintendent) who will apply the right cure, namely, the introduction of a rational method of instruction based on German principles of education. "Multum, non multa" is the slogan of this method. Its intention is to educate the students to independent thinking.

"The child is the father of the man." No wonder that our free schools have become the fathers of such men as the vast average number of Americans now are. All seem to be cut to the same pattern. There is something Chinese-like (learned by heart) in these heads. Everywhere one finds the same ideas, or rather, their absence, the same lack of independent thinking, the same unoriginality; and, springing from this source, this pathological mania for sensations of all kind, especially sensational and scandalous trials. In them one seeks a compensation for the lack of originality and the uneventfulness 2of the life of the average man.

The question of the method of instruction, therefore appears as the most important political and cultural question (Staats und Lebensfrage) of the United States. To solve it completely it will need by far, more energy and talent than have up to now been expended on it - more than at present are available for it.