Kant: A Biography

228 Kant: A Biography

was later to be severely criticized by Kant for his obscurantism, argued

in 1776:

The vocations of men are in most cases so incompatible with the all-around develop¬

ment of their faculties [advocated by Basedow] that I would almost say that one can¬

not start early enough to encourage the atrophy of two-thirds of those faculties; for

most men are destined for vocations where they cannot use them in later life. Why do

you castrate oxen and colts when you prepare them for the yoke and the cart, yet wish

to develop the totality of human powers in men similarly condemned to the yoke and

the cart? They will jump the furrow if you give them the wrong preparation, or kick

against the traces until they die.^148

The cynicism of Schlosser's position is unpalatable, but it was not uncom¬
mon. Many believed that
it suffices for the ordinary rustic of the countryside and the ordinary artisan of the
cities - the two groups of people who compose the majority of Prussian subjects - that
their education give them correct conceptions of religion and of their duties as sub¬
jects... and that it remove prejudices which might prove disadvantageous to the
effective performance of their traditional occupation. Knowledge of 'higher things'
can only prove harmful to them.^149
Knowledge of more than what religion and the government required might
make ordinary people discontented and rebellious. Consequently, they
would be better off not knowing.
Kant was opposed to such thinking. Indeed, he endorsed the method of
the Philanthropinum. In 1776, he wrote at the request of Motherby, "a lo¬
cal English merchant and my dear friend," to Wolke, then the director of
the school, asking that Motherby's son be admitted to that school. He also
volunteered that "Mr. Motherby's principles agree completely with those
upon which your institution is founded, even in those respects in which it
is furthest removed from ordinary assumptions about education." After
describing in great detail what the boy could and could not do, he pointed
out that in "matters of religion, the spirit of the Philanthropinum agrees per¬
fectly with that of the boy's father." He did not want the boy to be taught
"devotional exercises directly," but only indirectly, "so that he might even¬
tually do his duties as if they were divinely inspired." No wooing of favor
or flattery in prayer should be encouraged. Righteousness should be the only
concern. It is for this reason that "our pupil has been kept ignorant of
religious service."^150 Kant, who together with Green was invited every Sun¬
day to the house of Motherby, probably had a hand in teaching this pupil,
and the expression "our pupil" was not a slip of the pen.
The Philanthropinum needed students. It was in constant need of money.