by Yael Tamir
scriptures into the vernacular in order to allow believers to under-
stand what was being read to them, democracy demanded that
people read and write in their own language in order to become
effective political agents. Once self- rule was granted on the
basis of “one man, one vote,” it became clear that knowledge
must be evenly distributed. The establishment of public educa-
tion thus became a necessity. States used schools to spread the
narrative and the heritage of the nation, teach the national lan-
guage, and instill attachment to the state and its symbols. Every
child facing the American flag at the beginning of every school
day and pledging allegiance to the republic for which it stands—
“one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all”— is partaking in a national ritual of asserting the unity and
values of the nation.
78 • Chapter
11
In their formative moments, states comprised mainly of im-
migrants, like the United States and Australia, as well as states
formed by joining together different regions, provinces, or eth-
nic groups, like Italy, France, or Germany, all embarked on an
educational journey intended to transform inhabitants into fel-
low nationals. Education was the melting pot merging individu-
als into a national whole, claimed James H. Smart, president of
the National Education Association (1881):
The American school- room is the place in which that wonderful
change takes place, by which the children of every land and every
tongue, of every religious creed and of every political faith, are trans-
formed by subtle assimilating processes, from aliens and strangers,
into a sympathetic membership in the greatest and best political
organization the world has ever seen.1
So important was education for the formation of a functional
modern state that it turned from a right into an obligation. For
the first time in human history, acquiring personal skil s became
a duty.
At the end of the nineteenth century liberals were terrified of
giving political rights to people who had no political knowledge.
The British philosopher John Stuart Mill did not hesitate to argue
that knowledge is a precondition to exercising the right to self-
rule and suggested a system of “plural voting.”
If every ordinary unskilled laborer had one vote, a skilled laborer,
whose occupation requires an exercised mind and knowledge of
some of the laws of external nature, ought to have two. A foreman
or superintendent of labor, whose occupation requires something
more of general culture and some moral as well as intellectual quali-
ties should perhaps have three. A farmer, manufacturer, or trader,
who requires a still larger range of ideas and knowledge, and
Subjects into Citizens • 79
the power of guiding and attending to a great number of various
operations at once, should have three or four. A member of any
profession requiring a long, accurate, and systematic mental
cultivation— a lawyer, a physician or surgeon, a clergyman of any
denomination, a literary man, an artist, a public functionary (or, at
all events, a member of every intellectual profession at the thresh-
old of which there is a satisfactory examination test) ought to have
six. A graduate of any university, or a person freely elected a mem-
ber of any learned society, is entitled to at least as many.2
However, he added, “if there existed such a thing as national edu-
cation or a trustworthy system of general examination, educa-
tion might be tested directly,”3 then the proposed differentiation
would become unnecessary. In order to be able to meet these
goals, national education systems were designed to transcend
“the narrow particularism of earlier forms of learning. They were
to serve the nation as a whole.”4 In their roles as citizens all in-
dividuals were alike; the purpose of public education was to em-
phasize this equality. With the spread of public education, new
groups previously excluded from the educational and the politi-
cal sphere, the poor, women, people of color, were all given the
tools necessary to demand and defend their rights.
In the newly emerging United States of America, public
education was taken to be the surest form of protection against
tyranny, anarchy, factionalism, and the disruption of law and
order. By disseminating knowledge, so it was assumed, all citi-
zens would be able to acquire a better understanding of public
affairs and be more likely to make reliable decisions. National
education was thus seen as a way of preserving the nation’s free-
dom, encouraging political participation, and fostering a sense
of brotherhood. In this spirit, George Washington stated:
“Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public
80 • Chapter
11
happiness. One in which the measures of government receive
their impression so immediately from the sense of community,
as in ours, knowledge is proportionately essential.”5
As in other spheres of life, democratic and national knowledge
were soon to be combined. Schools taught the national language,
nurtured, rehearsed, and remembered the national narrative,
venerated national heroes, celebrated the nation’s exceptionality
(leaving out— forgetting— all that could shatter the preferred
national image), fostering national consciousness, imprinting
children with the national vision.6 In his autobiographical Report
from the Interior, the American author Paul Auster describes his
school days in the United States of the 1950s:
In those early days of your childhood, you were taught to believe that
everything about America was good. No country could compare to
the paradise you lived in, your teachers told you, for this was the land
of freedom, the land of opportunity and every little boy could dream
of growing up to become president. . . . Never a word about the poor
black people in your father’s buildings, of course, and never a word
about the boots worn by the soldiers in Korea. . . . Nothing about the
boots— but scarcely a word about the Indians either.7
National education shaped the face of modern democra-
cies. It cemented the belief in equal political rights and opened
the door for a new social and political reality based not only
on the religious assumption that all men were created in God’s
image and are, therefore, equal, but also on the belief that each
adult can (and must) develop those skills that make him/her
a free agent whose judgment should be considered. And
though traces of the old Millian privileged view can be found
in the way elites try to dismiss the judgment of the less edu-
cated, no one dares argue that their vote should be less
valuable.
Subjects into Citizens • 81
Notwithstanding its deficiencies, national education was the
greatest success of the nation- state era. Free and inclusive edu-
&n
bsp; cation became the backbone of the democratic life, disseminat-
ing valuable skil s that were translated into income, social sta-
tus, and a wide range of new opportunities. Universal education
allowed for the creation of social bonds among members of the
different groups now all speaking the same language and shar-
ing some core national knowledge. Its inclusive nature sent an
important message: “the state serves more than the particular-
istic interest of the economic and political elites . . . it is built on
universal principles of promoting a ‘common good.’ ”8
Different nations formed different kinds of educational sys-
tems that reflected their own national character. England, which
had a pedigree of rights, based its education on the Magna Carta;
the United States, whose democratic ethos was defined by the
Constitution, placed liberal values at the core of its teaching.
French education shaped after the revolution emphasized its val-
ues: “Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité.” As early as 1792, a report
was written to the Revolutionary Assembly demanding the es-
tablishment of a free system of state education. The failure of the
government to establish schools for all citizens, argues the au-
thor, the Marquis de Condorcet, deprives individuals of their
right to develop their natural abilities and to acquire the knowl-
edge required for performing their civic duties, leaving them
less qualified to fulfill their political responsibilities.9 The pur-
pose of education, he stressed, was to train each individual to
“direct his own conduct, to enjoy the plenitude of his own rights
and to insure the perpetuation of liberty and equality.”10 Isaac
Beer, a Jewish merchant who was granted, in 1791, French citi-
zenship, proudly wrote to his fellow Jews: “Thanks to the Su-
preme Being and to the sovereignty of the nation, we are not
only Men and Citizens but Frenchmen! Our fate, and the fate of
82 • Chapter
11
our posterity, depends solely on the changes we shall effect in our
mode of education.”11
French education had a cultural mission, it meant to allow the
creation of many new Frances and was therefore assigned the
important mission of “protecting our language, our customs, our
ideals, the French and Latin glory, in face of furious competition
from other races, all marching along the same routes.”12 German
education had its own set of national tasks. In his wel - known
Addresses to the German Nation, the philosopher Johann Fichte
declared that only education could save the German people
from moral and political degradation, allowing them to take
up their place as leaders of the civilized world. National educa-
tion was to achieve this goal by suppressing trends of egoistic
individualism and fostering devoted loyalty and love to the
nation.13 If Germany was to be saved, Fichte argues, it must,
through a conscious control of education, “liberate all the
potentialities— moral, intellectual, physical, vocational— for
national service.”14
In a similar spirit the French philosopher Jean- Jacques
Rousseau advised the emerging Polish nation to focus on the
national education of its young:
At twenty a Pole should be nothing else; he should be a Pole.
When he learns to read, he should read of his country; at ten he
should know all its products, at twelve he should know its prov-
inces, roads and towns, at fifteen all its history, at sixteen all its
laws; there should not be in Poland a noble deed or a famous man
that he does not know and love, or that he could not describe on
the spot.15
Education, he argues, must shape children’s minds and direct
their tastes and opinions until they are patriotic by inclination,
by instinct, and by necessity.
Subjects into Citizens • 83
National education was to encompass a person’s life, offering
tools for political, cultural, and economic engagement and car-
rying a promise of equality. It turned subjects into citizens, al-
lowing for the development of a set of linguistic and symbolic
skills that facilitate communication between fellow nationals,
evoking a wil ingness to work for the benefit of a common good.
Moreover, cultural and linguistic consolidation had an economic
and political role; as the group of users of a language or a culture
grows larger, more and more consumers join the national pool,
improving the payoff of each creative endeavor.
In the nation- state, political communications and official mat-
ters, as well as economic exchanges and cultural affairs, were all
handled in the vernacular. The power of Latin and other lan-
guages spoken by the elites was first eroded then eliminated, a
process that allowed the simple citizen to be as politically effec-
tive as a member of the elite. For the first time in intellectual
history the division between high and low culture was erased,
replaced by a new national culture whose boundaries overlapped
those of the state. Those who acquired the skills necessary to
enter the circles of citizenship, the modern workforce, as well as
the national cultural and creative sphere, would never look back.
It is striking to think that only 150 years ago the legitimacy of
political power was totally detached from the people. The
descendants of Queen Victoria and Christian IX (king of
Denmark) occupied the thrones of eight different countries:
Denmark, Greece, Norway, Germany, Romania, Russia, Spain,
and England. Needless to say, their ties with the royal elites of
Europe were much stronger than with the subjects of their own
countries. The marriage of nationalism and democracy changed
the rules of the game. The rulers had to become acquainted with
the people, listen to their voices, speak their language, and very
often dress and act like them.
84 • Chapter
11
In a society of orders, Greenfeld argues, the claim to status or
self- respect “was the privilege of the few, a tiny elite placed high
above the rest. The lot of the rest was humility and abnegation,
which they tried to rationalize and make tolerable in one way or
another, and sometimes even mange to enjoy, but could never
escape.”16 Nationalism changed this reality, opening new venues
for mobilization and new means for acquiring social status.
For those lacking an aristocratic background, who were es-
tranged from high culture and social etiquette, the emergence
of a unified national culture and language was one of national-
ism’s greatest gifts. New entrance routes to nobility were opened
up, and entry tickets were gained by achievements in a variety
of fields. Pop singers, actors, soccer players, athletes, artists, and
designers were awarded with MBEs and OBEs, even knighted
in return for their outstanding services to the nation. The cer-
emony of Queen Elizabeth knighting Sir Paul McCartney
captured this moment of change. In this
new age of modern
nationalism it became conceivable that when she goes to bed,
rather than humming some religious hymn in Latin the queen
quietly chants to herself: “She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah.”
12
A Short History of the
Cross- Class Coalition
We have already seen how nationalism erased the difference
between high and low culture by creating a unifying language;
how national culture cemented social bonds and made people
feel closer to one another; how national narratives sealed this
partnership by nurturing a set of social and political points of
view grounded in a shared national consciousness. We followed
the way nationalism created a unifying narrative, understanding
the economic implication of such a move. Teaching the national
language and spreading a shared culture prepared the ground
for the emergence of the modern economy. In traditional agrar-
ian societies, “each occupation could develop its own idiosyn-
cratic culture by which the skills, the ‘secrets,’ and the ethical
codes were transmitted from one generation to another.”1 Diver-
sity of language had not, therefore, caused particular problems;
it could even support social stability by providing a clear sign of
the position occupied by each and every member.
The close affinity of class, occupation, and language is well il-
lustrated in George Bernard Shaw’s classic play, Pygmalion.
Eliza, the flower girl, comes to Professor Higgins to learn proper
English so that she can get a better job: “I want to become a lady
in a flower shop stead of sel ing at the corner of Tottenham Court
Road. But they won’t take me unless I can talk more genteel.”2
86 • Chapter
12
By the end of the play, Eliza has acquired linguistic skil s that de-
fine her new identity; she can no longer go back:
I can’t. I could have done it once; but now I can’t go back to it. Last
night, when I was wandering about, a girl spoke to me; and I tried
to get back into the old way with her; but it was no use. You told
me that when a child is brought to a foreign country, it picks up the
language in a few weeks, and forgets its own. Wel , I am a child in
your country. I have forgotten my own language, and can speak
nothing but yours.3
National education made a heroic attempt to erase (or reduce)
