Consider that minds like Plato, Aristotle, Da Vinci, Galileo, Copernicus, and Sir Isaac Newton did not learn under this system. Neither did any of the founding fathers of the United States of America.
Appeal to Authority Fallacy: This is extremely common.
jk, good stuff.
If I'd had said that Plato, and Aristotle, and others did it THIS WAY and thus we should do that then that would be an appeal to authority.
I was actually using them as examples of people that were not going through the regimented "you must do it this way" type of system. They all predate how we do things.
You could actually choose pretty much ANY great mind before the Prussian system and they would work just as well. Those were just the few I could think of rapidly as I wrote that sentence.
I did see your JK though. ;)
EDIT: For clarification. If I was using those examples to imply that because they didn't follow the Prussian System that proved it was wrong then yes that would be an Appeal to Authority fallacy.
In case someone reads it that way. My intent was to show that great minds happened and used many different approaches without requiring this system. There have also been great minds that went through this system. Some of them succeeded. Though a lot of the great minds also dropped out of the Prussian system and then went on to do great things.
The biggest problem with the Prussian System in my mind is the two fallacies I pointed out.
How it makes people more susceptible to those.