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This lecture is taken from the Neue Folge der Vorlesungen zur Einfuhrung in die Psychoanalyse. It is addressed to a very lay public and only touches on the surface of the matters dealt with. Freud begins by stating that the present hostile attitude of the general public towards psycho-analysis is the aftermath of the initial opposition of the scientific world, Time has, however, also brought with it a buffer layer set between psycho-analysis and its extreme opponents; these men choose arbitrarily what they take and what they leave. Freud touches on those schools of psychology, the leaders of which belonged originally to the psycho-analysts and on the accusation that psycho-analysts lack 'broadmindedness', because they abide by what they believe in.
Psycho-analysis began as a therapy, but its borders have expanded to encompass most of the mental activities of man. Of these perhaps the most important is its application to education. Child life was unveiled by the analysis of adults; as the psycho-neuroses and character disturbances begin in early childhood, the question arose how analysis could be used to help pedagogy. What Freud had neglected in this matter was made up for by the work of his daughter Anna Freud, who worked out the necessary changes in the technique for use in the analyses of children. But all children cannot be analysed, so the best form of prophylaxis would be a study of analysis by educators which would include the analysis of the pedagogue himself. In this way a body of people could be formed who could try to work out an optimum between the Scylla of permission and the Charybdis of prohibitions. Freud opposes one suggestion that has been brought forward. It holds that as education is fundamentally political its aim is to maintain the present state of society. If, therefore, we are convinced of the many evils of the present state of society, we should not place an educational system based on psycho-analysis, at its service. Freud holds