[412] and an ability to look on THIS basis into the humanistic^a values with a new^b eye. And we PERFORMED this, to a certain extent--it was possible to understand what happens in Greece or in Rome MUCH better in the light of the conflicts of the social situation in the twenties and, before that, in Germany^c and Europe generally. Nevertheless the shortcoming remained, namely the limitation to upper classes. And how strong this limitation was, I only learned when I came to this country, where the opposite difficulty seems to prevail. The second, [education] for skills, has a danger that it becomes an education of adjustment.

And it is not by chance that it was invented by the absolute state--the absolute state which wanted to have skillful soldiers and skillful industrial population. Absolutism introduced, from above, industrial activities into the respective countries, and of course it needed people who were able to be taught the activities they had to perform in the context both of the military and the industrial activities, and in the higher form also of some low administrative activities. The higher administration was still in the hands of those who were educated humanistically. I say the danger of this education is that it becomes an education to adjustment. Adjustment^d

has two meanings: to overcome a-social tendencies which are simply negative, in a pupil; and to introduce the pupil into the norms and conventions of a given society. The danger is that while the teachers, especially in this country, try to adjust the children into the necessities of life, the unconditional necessities--not to become an outlaw, etc., which is right--THEY ALSO adjust to the conventions and take away from them the possibility to say No to ANY convention,