Schools and Press

[Rollercoaster1]

This paragraph is taken from the essay written by 'Albert Einstein'. Do the last words 'schools' and 'Press' mean 'institutions' and 'force'?

This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that does by the name of patriotism--how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. And yet so high, in spite of everything, is my opinion of the human race that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago, had the sound sense of the nations not been systematically corrupted by
commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press.

 

[Tarheel]

This paragraph is taken from an essay written by Albert Einstein. [Quotation marks round the author's name were incorrect.]

Do the last words 'schools' and 'Press' mean 'institutions' and 'force'?

Schools are institutions of education. The press is the print media or sometimes it's used to refer to both the print media and the electronic media.

 

[Rollercoaster1]

Schools are institutions of education. The press is the print media or sometimes it's used to refer to both the print media and the electronic media.

Can you please explain this to me in plain words?

And yet so high, in spite of everything, is my opinion of the human race that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago, had the sound sense of the nations not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press.

 

[Tarheel]

He's against war, and he thinks politicians and some businessmen (commercial interests) are what keep it going.

 

[emsr2d2]

Rollercoaster, I've fixed the layout of the text in both your posts. When you post, please make sure that your text stretches all the way across to the right-hand side of the text box.

 

[probus]

If Einstein's prose seems a bit unnatural, rollercoaster1, that is because he spoke or wrote in his native German and the translator kept the German word order, regrettably in my opinion.