And yet, in a broader sense, the preeminence of Germany is due in far greater measure to two men whose names are not so frequently to be found inscribed upon towers and monuments.  In the very midst of the havoc and devastation wrought by the Napoleon wars,—­at the very moment when the German people seemed hopelessly crushed and defeated,—­an intellect more penetrating than that of Bismarck grasped the logic of the situation.  With the inspiration that comes with true insight, the philosopher Fichte issued his famous Addresses to the German people.  With clear-cut argument couched in white-hot words, he drove home the great principle that lies at the basis of United Germany and upon the results of which Bismarck and Von Moltke and the first Emperor erected the splendid structure that to-day commands the admiration of the world.  Fichte told the German people that their only hope lay in universal, public education.  And the kingdom of Prussia—­impoverished, bankrupt, war-ridden, and war-devastated—­heard the plea.  A great scheme that comprehended such an education was already at hand.  It had fallen almost stillborn from the only kind of a mind that could have produced it,—­a mind that was suffused with an overwhelming love for humanity and incomparably rich with the practical experiences of a primary schoolmaster.  It had fallen from the mind of Pestalozzi, the Swiss reformer, who thus stands with Fichte as one of the vital factors in the development of Germany’s educational supremacy.

The people’s schools of Prussia, imbued with the enthusiasm of Fichte and Pestalozzi,[3] gave to Germany the tremendous advantage that enabled it so easily to overcome its hereditary foe, when, two generations later, the Franco-Prussian War was fought; for the Volksschule gave to Germany something that no other nation of that time possessed; namely, an educated proletariat, an intelligent common people.  Bismarck knew this when he laid his cunning plans for the unification of German states that was to crown the brilliant series of victories beginning at Sedan and ending within the walls of Paris.  William of Prussia knew it when, in the royal palace at Versailles, he accepted the crown that made him the first Emperor of United Germany.  Von Moltke knew it when, at the capitulation of Paris, he was asked to whom the credit of the victory was due, and he replied, in the frank simplicity of the true soldier and the true hero, “The schoolmaster did it.”

And yet Bismarck and Von Moltke and the Emperor are the heroes of Germany, and if Fichte and Pestalozzi are not forgotten, at least their memories are not cherished as are the memories of the more tangible and obvious heroes.  Instinct lies deeply embedded in human nature and it is instinctive to think in the concrete.  And so I repeat that we cannot expect the general public to share in the respect and veneration which you and I feel for our calling, for you and I are technicians in education, and we can