1896年，當(dāng)弗里德里希?尼采被授予巴塞爾大學(xué)古典文獻(xiàn)學(xué)教授職位的那一刻，他喜不自禁，歡歌雀躍。那會(huì)他才24歲——比25歲就成為悉尼大學(xué)希臘語(yǔ)教授的伊諾克?鮑威爾還小一歲！尼采期待著一份前途無(wú)量的學(xué)術(shù)生涯！
三年后，他呈現(xiàn)了六場(chǎng)演講，演講的主題是——“反思教育：論我國(guó)教育機(jī)構(gòu)之未來(lái)”，當(dāng)時(shí)他就已經(jīng)流露出反思醒悟的跡象。他的教學(xué)職責(zé)包括在當(dāng)?shù)氐拇髮W(xué)預(yù)科（就相當(dāng)于德國(guó)的高中）工作六小時(shí)，然而，他對(duì)那里所見(jiàn)所聞一點(diǎn)兒都打不起興趣。對(duì)于每一個(gè)熱衷于跟風(fēng)議論英國(guó)學(xué)?？宓舻臉?biāo)準(zhǔn)的人來(lái)說(shuō)，尼采的抱怨對(duì)他們不過(guò)是故技重施。因?yàn)榍败囍b可以追溯到1969年問(wèn)世的“黑皮書(shū)”，甚至更久之前，
施教者能力有限，受教者認(rèn)知不夠，課程設(shè)置甚至遠(yuǎn)不如雜志和報(bào)紙上，給平民老百姓看的“文化版面”。不由說(shuō)分，尼采被所謂的高級(jí)中學(xué)，所提供的古典教育要求徹底激怒了。
我從未在德國(guó)中學(xué)發(fā)現(xiàn)任何可以被稱為“古典教育”的蛛絲馬跡，對(duì)此尼采嗤之以鼻。與他自己所接受的“真正教育”相去甚遠(yuǎn)——雖然，罅隙時(shí)分，有的人會(huì)帶著樂(lè)觀心態(tài)回顧自己的學(xué)生時(shí)代，但尼采坦言之，該黃金時(shí)代的存在還不足區(qū)區(qū)十年。
據(jù)哲學(xué)家說(shuō)，終其究竟，其根源自于，德國(guó)中學(xué)在試圖與國(guó)家工作人員的不斷增長(zhǎng)的需求保持同步而擴(kuò)張得過(guò)于快了。他們?cè)噲D開(kāi)展大眾教育，而非精英教育，而這不可避免的導(dǎo)致了對(duì)普通學(xué)生智能荒謬激進(jìn)化的告急。
他抱怨道：他們認(rèn)為每一個(gè)學(xué)生都擁有自由性，允許對(duì)最關(guān)注的人和事表達(dá)意見(jiàn)，而對(duì)于年輕人判斷力的獨(dú)立性，“真正的教育”會(huì)窮極一生地去鼓勵(lì)，而不是對(duì)天才一味地施以桎梏。
當(dāng)尼采抱怨德國(guó)中等教育的衰落，他不僅表示出對(duì)希臘詩(shī)人和哲學(xué)家足夠的尊重，而且敬慕歌德和席勒，尤其是他們的語(yǔ)言運(yùn)用能力?！叭缃瘢總€(gè)人都是如此機(jī)械麻木、庸俗鄙陋著使用德語(yǔ)，以至于德語(yǔ)只能存活于德國(guó)報(bào)紙化的時(shí)代”他朝記者打趣道，同時(shí)做了一個(gè)輕蔑無(wú)奈的表情，“只有當(dāng)?shù)聡?guó)精神得到深入徹底的革新，那么革新后的學(xué)校才能重獲新生！”
尼采的“反教育”演講言論中，很多處都采取了夸張的武裝呼吁，所以可以想象，當(dāng)人們看到一個(gè)27歲的年輕人譴責(zé)德國(guó)教育的衰退，觀眾是如何的一番吃吃竊笑。但這一次人們錯(cuò)了。這番言論中，包含著一個(gè)強(qiáng)有力的批判原則，即，在世界各地的現(xiàn)代民主國(guó)家，普遍的公共教育將被很快建立?？紤]到公共財(cái)政支出的成本，教育的目標(biāo)是不是不可避免的將成為國(guó)家諸多目標(biāo)下的附庸？如果學(xué)校被期望去教育所有的孩子，而不只是那些具備特殊能力的孩子時(shí)，如何避免課程的貶值？
如果這些問(wèn)題繼續(xù)爭(zhēng)論不休，可以肯定的是，因?yàn)槟岵稍谶@六個(gè)講座中所提出的問(wèn)題至今還未得到滿意的答案。
（于路譯）
附上英語(yǔ)原文如下——
When Friedrich Nietzsche was offered a professorshipin classical philology at the University of Basel in 1869 he was so happy heburst into song. He was only 24 at the time — a year younger than Enoch Powell,who became a professor of Greek at the University of Sydney aged 25 — andlooked forward to a brilliant academic career.
Three years later, when he delivered the sixlectures contained inAnti-Education: On?the Future of Our Educational Institutions, he was already showing signs ofdisillusionment. His teaching duties included six hours at the local gymnasium— the German equivalent of a secondary school — and he wasn’t impressed by whathe found there. To anyone who’s followed the debate about failing standards inBritain’s schools that dates back to the publication of the first ‘BlackPapers’ in 1969 and probably long before that, Nietzsche’s complaints will havea familiar ring to them.
The teachers possess ‘limited gifts’, the studentsare of a ‘low level’ and the curriculum owes far too much to ‘the plebeian“culture pages” of magazines and newspapers’. Nietzsche is particularlyincensed by the claims of the gymnasiums to be providing a classical education.
‘I have never once found in the German gymnasium asingle gossamer thread of anything that can truly be called “classicaleducation”,’ he harrumphs. It’s all a far cry from the ‘true education’ hereceived — although, unusually for someone looking back at his own schooldaysthrough rose-tinted spectacles, Nietzsche is talking about a Golden Age thatexisted less than ten years earlier.
The fundamental problem, according to thephilosopher, is that German secondary schools have expanded too quickly in anattempt to keep pace with the growing demand for state functionaries. They’retrying to educate too many people, rather than the intellectual elite, and thishas inevitably led to the emergence of ridiculous, progressive ideas about theintellectual abilities of ordinary students.
He complains:
They treat every student as being capable ofliterature, as allowed to?have opinions about the mostserious people and things, whereas true education will strive with all itsmight precisely to suppress this ridiculous claim to independence of judgmenton the part of the young person, imposing instead strict obedience to thesceptre of the genius.
When Nietzsche complains about the decline of Germansecondary education, he doesn’t just mean that insufficient deference is shownto the Greek poets and philosophers, but also to Goethe and Schiller,particularly their command of language. ‘Everyone nowadays automatically speaksand writes in a German so vulgar and bad that it could only exist in an age ofnewspaper German,’ he scoffs, one of several disparaging references tojournalism. ‘A true purification and renewal of the gymnasium can proceed onlyfrom a deep and violent purification and renewal of the German spirit.’
Much ofAnti-Educationis taken up with these bombastic calls to arms and you can imagine his audiencesniggering at the spectacle of an excitable 27-year-old decrying the decline ofGerman education; but it would be wrong to dismiss it out of hand. At itsheart, the book contains a powerful critique of the principle of universalpublic education that was soon to become established in modern democracies allover the world. Given the cost to the public purse, isn’t it inevitable thatthe aims of education will become subordinate to those of the state? And ifschools are expected to educate all children, not just those of exceptionalability, how do you avoid the debasement of the curriculum?
If these issues continue to?be debated today, as they surely are, that is partly because the questions?posed by Nietzsche in these six lectures have yet to receive any satisfactory?answers.
