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"A pivotal work by Friedrich Von Schiller was Letters Upon The Aesthetic Education of Man, (Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen) which was inspired by the great disenchantment Schiller felt about the French Revolution, its degeneration into violence and the failure of successive governments to put its ideals into practice.  Instead, it had become a bloodbath. Schiller wrote that "a great moment has found a little people," and wrote the Letters as a philosophical inquiry into what had gone wrong, and how to prevent such tragedies in the future. In the Letters he asserts that it is possible to elevate the moral character of a people, by first touching their souls with beauty, an idea that is also found in his poem Die Künstler (The Artists): 'Only through Beauty's morning-gate, dost thou penetrate the land of knowledge.'"

Sorce: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Schiller