Addresses to the German Nation
Johann Gottfried Fichte
1807-1808

The link provides a compilation of Fichte's addresses to the Germans. Fichte played a key role in establishing the Prussian education system, which was seen as a model for education reform by some Americans.

"The particular utopia American believers chose to bring to the schoolhouse was Prussian. The seed that became American schooling, twentieth-century style, was planted in 1806 when Napoleon's amateur soldiers bested the professional soldiers of Prussia at the battle of Jena. When your business is renting soldiers and employing diplomatic extortion under threat of your soldiery, losing a battle like that is pretty serious. Something had to be done.

The most important immediate reaction to Jena was an immortal speech, the Address to the German Nation by the philosopher Fichte-one of the influential documents of modern history leading directly to the first workable compulsion schools in the West. Other times, other lands talked about schooling, but all failed to deliver. Simple forced training for brief intervals and for narrow purposes was the best that had ever been managed. This time would be different." - John Taylor Gotto