superior to all others, to determine also the other objects of Education or the method of treating them. The technical acquisitions of Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, Drawing and Music, the Natural Sciences, Mathematics, Logic, Anthropology and Psychology, the practical sciences of finance and the municipal regulations, have no direct relation to religion. If we attempt to establish one, there inevitably appears in them a morbid state which destroys them; not only so, but piety itself disappears, for these accomplishments and this knowledge are not included in its idea.

-Such treatment of Art and Science may be well-meant, but it is always an error. It may even make a ludicrous impression, which is a very dangerous thing for the authority of religion. If a church has established schools, it must see to it that all which is there taught outside of the religious instruction, i.e. all of science and art, shall have no direct connection with it as a religious institution.

134. The Church, as the external manifestation of religion, is concerned with the absolute relation of man, the relation to God, special in itself as opposed to his other relations; the State, on the contrary, seizes the life of a nation according to its explicit totality. The State should conduct the education of all its citizens. To it, then, the church can appear only as a school, for the church instructs its own people concerning the nature of religion, partly by teaching proper, that of the catechism, partly in quite as edifying a way, by preaching. From this point of view, the State can look upon the church only as one of those schools which prepare for a special avocation. The church appears to the State as that school which assumes the task of educating the religious element. Just as little as the church should the state attempt to exercise any influence over Science and Art. In this they are exactly alike, and must acknowledge the necessity which both Science and Art contain within themselves and by which they determine themselves. The laws of Logic, Mathematics, Astronomy, Morals, Esthetics, Physiology, &c., are entirely independent of the state. It can decree neither discoveries nor inventions. The state in its relations to science occupies the same ground as it should do with relation to the freedom of self-consciousness. It is true that the church teaches man,

but it demands from him at the same time belief in the truth of its dogmas. It rests, as the real church, on presupposed authority, and sinks finally all contradictions which may be found in the absolute mystery of the existence of God. The state, on the contrary, elaborates its idea into the form of laws, i.e. into general determinations, of whose necessity it convinces itself. It seeks to give to these laws the clearest possible form, so that every one may understand them. It concedes validity only to that which can be proved, and sentences the individual according to the external side of the deed (overt act) not, as the church does, on its internal side-that of intention. Finally, it demands in him consciousness of his deed, because it makes each one responsible for his own deed. It has, therefore, the same principle with science, for the proof of necessity and the unity of consciousness with its object constitute the essence of science. Since the state embraces the school as one of its educational organisms, it is from its very nature especially called upon to guide its regulation in accordance with the manifestation of consciousness.

-The church calls this "profanation." One might say that the church, with its mystery of Faith, always represents the absolute problem of science, while the state, as to its form, coincides with science. Whenever the state abandons the strictness of proof-when it begins to measure the individual citizen by his intention and not by his deed, and, in place of the clear insight of the comprehending consciousness, sets up the psychological compulsion of a hollow mechanical authority, it destroys itself.

§ 135. Neither the church nor the state should attempt to control the school in its internal management. Still less can the school constitute itself into a state within the state; for, while it is only one of the means which are necessary for developing citizens, the state and the church lay claim to the whole man his whole life long. The independence of the school can then only consist in this, that it raises within the state an organ which works under its control, and which as school authority endeavors within itself to befriend the needs of the school, while externally it acts on the church and state indirectly by means of ethical powers. The emancipation of the school can never reasonably mean its abstract isolation,

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or the absorption of the ecclesiastical and political life into the school; it can signify only the free reciprocal action of the school with state and church. It must never be forgotten that what makes the school a school is not the total process of education, for this falls also within the family, the state, and the church; but that the proper work of the school is the process of instruction, knowledge, and the acquirement, by practice, of skill.

-The confusion of the idea of Instruction with that of Education in general is a common defect in superficial treatises on these themes. The Radicals among those who are in favor of so-called "Emancipation," often erroneously appeal to "free Greece" which generally for this fond ignorance is made to stand as authority for a thousand things of which it never dreamed. In this fictitious Hellas of "free, beautiful humanity," they say the limits against which we strive to-day did not exist. The histories of Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Diagoras, Socrates, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and of others, who were all condemned on account of their "impiety," tell quite another story.—

§ 136. The inspection of the school may be carried out in different ways, but it must be required that its special institutions shall be embraced and cared for as organized and related wholes, framed in accordance with the idea of the state, and that one division of the ministry shall occupy itself exclusively with it. The division of labor will specially affect the schools for teaching particular avocations. The prescription of the subjects to be studied in each school as appropriate to it, of the course of study, and of the object thereof, properly falls to this department of government, is its immediate work, and its theory must be changed according to the progress and needs of the time. Niemeyer, Schwarz, and others, have made out such plans for schools. Scheinert has fully painted the Volkschule, Mager the Bürgerschule, Deinhard and Kapp the Gymnasium. But such delineations, however correct they may be, depend upon the actual sum of culture of a people and a time, and must therefore continually modify their fundamental Ideal. The same is true of the methods of instruction in the special arts and sciences. Niemeyer, Schwarz, Herbart, in their sketches of Pedagogics, Beneke in

his Doctrine of Education, and others, have set forth in detail the method of teaching Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, Languages, Natural Science, Geography, History, &c. Such directions are, however, ephemeral in value, and only relatively useful, and must, in order to be truly practical, be always newly laid out in accordance with universal educational principles, and with the progress of science and art.

-The idea that the State has the right to oversee the school lies in the very idea of the State, which is authorized, and under obligation, to secure the education of its citizens, and cannot leave their fashioning to chance. The emancipation of the school from the State, the abstracting of it, would lead to the destruction of the school. There is no difficulty in Protestant States in the free inter-action of school and church, for Protestantism has consciously accepted as its peculiar principle individual freedom as Christianity has presented it. For Catholic States, however, a difficulty exists. The Protestant clergyman can with propriety oversee the Volkschule, for here he works as teacher, not as priest. In the Protestant church there are really no Laity according to the original meaning of the term. On the contrary, Catholic clergymen are essentially priests, and as such, on account of the unconditional obedience which, according to their church, they have to demand, they usurp the authority of the State. From this circumstance arise, at present, numberless collisions in the department of school supervision.

HAMLET.

By D. J. SNIder.

In our last essay we attempted to give the essential elements of Hamlet's character. Upon this character a series of external circumstances are brought to bear, the object of which is to incite him to action. The course of the drama is therefore to exhibit these circumstances and their influence upon Hamlet, and consequently we have now to take the poem in hand and to watch its gradual development. We shall consider these different influences separately, and try to

point out their order and gradation. Possibly, too, there may be often found between them a logical connection.

The first of these external influences which are brought to bear upon Hamlet is the conduct of his mother. Her marriage, especially with such a man as Claudio, so soon after her husband's death, has touched to the very core the profound ethical nature of Hamlet, who feels that therein the family relation is essentially annihilated. He has to deny to his own mother all true womanhood, and hence the moral world seems to him to be falling into chaos. As Hamlet's whole being is wrapped up in this moral world, he feels that he possesses no bond which can tie him to existence; hence he is continually contemplating suicide, from which however that same ethical nature holds him back. Besides, he has, as before stated, a foreboding of something still worse which is soon to be revealed.

The second of these external influences which come upon Hamlet is the Ghost, for which preparation is made in the very first scene of the play. It tells the terrible tale of his father's murder, and enjoins the still more terrible revenge. The motives for action are now complete, presentiment has become knowledge. But just here arises a question which is probably destined to be a matter of doubt, and hence a subject of discussion as long as the play is read by human eyes. What is the significance of the Ghost? The easiest way of getting rid of the difficulty is no doubt to take the apparition just as it is, without further troubling ourselves about the matter. But as one cannot well suppose that Shakspeare believed in ghosts, every thinking man must demand some explanation. It may be held that it is employed as a species of poetical machinery, somewhat as Virgil used the Grecian Mythology. Still this will not do. Nearly all close readers of Shakspeare have the firmest faith that he never introduces supernatural forms without a profound spiritual signification. Another theory is that the Ghost was gotten up by somebody, say Horatio, or the soldiers or persons not mentioned in the play; and there are several passages which, being read with such an opinion in view, are sufficient to excite an impression to this effect. Again, it is supposed by some that the Ghost is a typical representation