Friedrich Nietzsche: Educational Critic

Philosopher, educator, and prolific writer Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a critic of nineteenth-century German culture and, concomitantly, the educational system of the time. Informed by contemporaries such as Schopenhauer and Wagner, as well as the earlier writings of Aristotle, Nietzsche saw his time’s educational system and practices as a failure. Replying to the Prussian focus on preparing students for service to the state, he argued that proper education should seek to improve the mind, guiding and preparing the student to become his best self. Drawing from diverse areas of thought such as psychology, pedagogy, and morality, writings such as On the Future of Our Educational Institutions (1872) and Schopenhauer as Educator (1874), Nietzsche questioned and critiqued the educational practices of the time. Many of his concerns revolved around the conflict between mass education and the development of the exceptional individual.