GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

650 ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE MODERNS
the university was in theory his competence to embark
upon the course of studies which he proposed. The university
further claimed and exercised autonomy in the matter
of the organisation of its curriculum, the standards of work
which it exacted and the discipline which it imposed; in
particular, it repudiated interference on political grounds.
All these principles are denied by the Totalitarian
regime in modern Germany. The universities have become,
and are intended to become, educational barracks, closed
to all but Aryans, in which Aryan students will be taught
only by Aryans. Freedom is exercised by the universities
within a very narrow sphere. Over the universities is a
Minister of State whose decrees govern their curriculum and
whose code determines their conduct. It will not be difficult
to infer the nature of decrees and code from the principles
ofethics and politics already outlined. To take one example,
illustrating the fascist attitude to science: "the scientist"
in a fascist State I am quoting from a book by a writer
sympathetic to Fascism 1 "is only free to search for truth
as the State sees it".
The main function of the university as the apex of the
educational system is to complete the production, begun
in the schools, of citizens trained in the principles of
Totalitarianism. The education in the schools is devoted
chiefly to the production of military efficiency. An intensive
military training which leaves less and less time for other
forms of education is in contemporary Germany compulsory
for every child from the age often upwards. In December,
1936, the sixth form was permanently abolished in all
High Schools, the school-leaving age reduced from nineteen
to eighteen, and young men, thus freed from the bondage
of the mind, were required to spend a year in Nazi
labour camps before proceeding to the universities. In
order to carry out these ideals, a drastic purge of university
and scholastic staffs was in Germany found to be
neceoary. In the year immediately succeeding the assumption
of power by the Nazis, between 1,400 and 1,800
Tht Fvcut, W* SiaU aid His MM, by E. B. Athton.