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Chapter II

Education For Life

The School and Social Life

It is necessary from the very beginning to have an idea of what we intend by an education for life that starts from birth and even before birth. It is necessary to go into detail about this question, because recently, for the first time, a leader of the people has formulated the necessity not only of extending education to the whole course of life, but also of making ‘defense of life’ the center of education. I say for the first time when I refer to a political and spiritual leader, because science has not only expressed the necessity of it, but from the beginning of this century it has given positive contributions which show that the conception of extending education to the whole life can be done with certainty of success. Education, as a help and protection to life, is an idea which certainly has not entered the field of action of any ministry of education, neither in America North or South nor in Europe. Education as conceived up to today is rich in methods, in social aims and finalities, but it takes hardly into any consideration whatever life itself. There are many official methods of education adopted by different countries, but no official system of education considers life itself or sets out to protect development and help the individual from birth. If education is protection to life, you will realize that it is necessary that education accompany life during its whole course. Education as conceived today prescinds from both biological and social life. If we stop to think about the question we soon realize that all those who are undergoing education are isolated from society. Students must follow the rules established by each institution and adapt themselves to the syllabus recommended by the ministry of education. If we think about it we find also that in these schools no consideration is given to life itself. If the high school student for instance has not enough food, that is no concern of the school. In the recent past if there were children who were partly deaf, they were marked out by their receiving lower marks because they were unable to hear what the teacher said, but the defects of the child were not taken into consideration. If a child was defective in sight he also received bad marks because he could not write as beautifully as other children. Physical defects have not been taken into consideration until very lately and when this was done, it was from the point of view of hygiene. Even now, however, no one worries about the danger there is for the mind of the student, danger due to defects in the methods of education adopted. What school worries about the kind of civilization the children are forced to live in? The only thing officialdom is bothered about is whether or not the syllabus has been followed. There are social deficiencies apt to strike the spirit of young men attending the university and which do strike them, but what is the official admonition? “You students should not concern yourselves with politics. You must attend to your studies and after you have formed yourselves, then go into the world,” Yes. That is quite so, but education today does not form an intelligence capable of visualizing the epoch and the problems of the times in which they live. Scholastic mechanisms are foreign to the social life of the times: its study does not enter the realm of education. Who has ever heard of any ministry of education that is called upon to solve any social problem acutely felt in the country? Never has such a case occurred because the world of education is a sort of retreat where the individuals, for the whole of their scholastic life, remain isolated from the problems of the world. They prepare themselves for life by remaining outside of life.

There may be, for instance, a university student who dies of tuberculosis. That is very sad indeed. But as a university, what can be done? At the most it can provide to be represented at the funeral. There are many individuals who are extremely nervous; when they go into the world, they will be useless not only to themselves, but will be a cause of trouble to their family and to their friends. That may be so, but I, as authority, am not concerned with peculiarities of psychology. I am only concerned with studies and examinations. Who passes them will receive a diploma or a degree. That is as far as the schools of our times go. Those who study sociology or problems of society have said that the people who come from school or university are not prepared for life, not only that, but most are diminished in their possibilities. Sociologists have compiled statistics and have found that there are many criminals, many mad and many more who are considered ‘strange’: they conclude by saying that the schools must do something to remedy this.

This is a fact. The school is a world apart and if there are social problems the school is expected to ignore them. It is the sociologists who say that schools must do something, but the school itself has not the possibility of doing so, because the school is a social institution of long standing and its rules cannot be modified unless there is some outside power which enforces this modification. These are some of the deficiencies that accompany education and therefore the life of all who go to school.

The Pre-School Age

What about the child from birth to the seventh year, or of the child before its birth? It is taken into no consideration whatever by the school. This age is called pre-scholastic and this means it falls outside the concern of the school. And as to people who are just born what could the school do about them? Wherever institutions have been created for children of pre-school age, these are hardly ever governed by the ministry of education. They are controlled by municipalities or private institutions who dictate their own rules and regulations. Who is concerned as a social problem with the protection of the life of the small child? No one! Society says that small children belong to the family and not to the state. Today great importance is given to the first years of life. But what is it that is being recommended? A modification of the family, a modification in the sense that mothers must be educated. Now, the family does not form a part of school, but of society. So we see how the human personality or the care of the human personality is broken into pieces. On one side there is a family which is one part of society, but is generally isolated from society, from social care. On the other the school, also kept apart from society, and then the university. There is no Unitarian conception of the social care of life. There is one piece here, one piece there and each one ignores the other. Even those new sciences that reveal the harm of this isolation such as social psychology and sociology are themselves isolated from the school. So nowhere is there a reliable system of help for the development of life. When a statesman says that education must be a help to life, we realize the importance of it. It is, as I mentioned before, nothing new to abstract science, but socially it is something that does not yet exist. It is the next step to be taken by civilization. Everything is prepared however: criticism has revealed the errors of the existing conditions, others have shown the remedy to be applied at different stages of life. Everything is ready for the construction. The contributions of science may be compared to the stones cut and ready for the building, but what is necessary is some one who takes the stones and puts them together to make the new building necessary for civilization. That is why the resolution of this Indian leader is of such great importance. It is a step that will permit civilization to rise higher and it is to the building of this step, that in the field of applied science, we strive and work.

The Task of Education and Society

What is the conception of education that takes life as the center of its own function? It is a conception that alters all previous ideas about education. Education must no longer be based upon a syllabus but upon the knowledge of human life. Now, if this is so and it has to be so the education of the new-born acquires a sudden great importance. It is true that the new-born cannot do anything, cannot be taught in the ordinary sense, it can only be observed, it can be studied so as to find out what are the needs of the new-born life. Observation has been carried out by us with a view of discovering what are the laws of life, because if we wish to help life the first thing we must do is to know the laws governing life. Not- only this, because if it were merely knowledge that we sought then we would remain in the field of psychology; but if we are concerned with education our action cannot be limited merely to knowledge. This knowledge must be spread, for all must know what is the psychic development of the child. Education then acquires a new dignity, a new authority, because education will then tell society: “These are the laws of life. You cannot disregard them and you must act in this way.”

Indeed if society wishes to give compulsory education it means that education must be given, practically, otherwise one cannot call it compulsory; and if education is to be given from birth, then it is necessary for society to know what are the laws of the development of the child. Education can no longer remain isolated from society but must acquire authority over society. Social machinery must arrange itself around what is to be done so that life be protected. All must be called upon to collaborate: mothers and fathers must, of course, do their part well, but if the family has not sufficient means, then society must give not only knowledge, but enough means to educate the children. If education means care of the individual and if society recognizes that such and such a thing is necessary for the child for its development and the family is not capable of providing for it, then it must be society which provides for the child. The child must not be abandoned by the state. Thus education, instead of remaining apart from society, is bound to acquire authority over society. It is evident that society must have control over the human individual, but if education is considered as a help to life, this control will not be one of restraint and oppression, but a control of physical help and psychic aid. It will be realized by these few words that the next step for society is that of allotting a great deal of money to education.

Step by step the needs of the child during the years of growth have been studied scientifically and the results of this study are being given out to society. The education conceived as a help to life takes in every one not only the child. That means that social conscience must take over responsibility for education and that education will spread its knowledge to the whole of society in every step it takes, instead of remaining isolated from society as it does today. Education as protection to life affects not only the child, but the mothers and fathers as well as the state and international finance. It is something which moves every part of society, indeed it is the greatest of social movements. Education as it is today! Can we imagine anything more immobile, stagnant and indifferent? Today if economy is to be made in a state, education is the first victim. If we ask any great statesman about education he will tell us: “I do not know anything about education. Education is a specialization. I have even entrusted the education of my children to my wife and she has given them to the school.” In future it will be absolutely impossible for any head of the state to answer in this fashion when one speaks about education.

The Child Builder of Man

Now, let us take another point. Let us take the statements made by different psychologists who have studied small children from their first year of life. What conception does one derive from them? Generally that from now on instead of growing haphazardly, the individual will grow scientifically, with better care. He will achieve better development and growth. This is the common idea: “The individual will grow stronger, the individual will grow more balanced in mind and have a stronger character,” In other words the extreme conception is that besides being provided with physical hygiene, the growing child will be provided with mental hygiene. But this cannot be all. Let us suppose that science has made some discoveries about this first period of life, and this is not merely a supposition. .Indeed there are powers in the small child that are far greater than is generally realized, because it is in this period that the construction, the building-up of man takes place, for at birth, psychically speaking, there is nothing at all zero! Indeed not only psychically, for at birth the child is almost paralytic, he cannot do anything, he cannot speak, even though he sees all that happens around him. And behold him after a while; the child, talking, walking and passing on from conquest to conquest until he has built up man in all his greatness, in all his intelligence. If we consider this we begin to have a glimpse of reality. The child is not an empty being who owes whatever he knows to us who have filled him up with it. No, the child is the builder of man. There is no man existing who has not been formed by the child he once was. In order to form a man great powers are necessary and these powers are possessed only by the child. These great powers of the child which we have described for long, and which at last have attracted the attention of other scientists, were hitherto hidden under the cloak of motherhood, in the sense that people said that it is the mother who forms the child, the mother who teaches him to talk, walk etc., etc. But I say that it is not the mother at all. It is the child himself who does all these things. What the mother produces is the new-born babe, but it is this babe who produces the man. Suppose the mother dies, the child grows just the same. Even if the mother is not there, and even if the mother has not the milk necessary to feed him, we give other milk to the child and that is how he continues to grow. It is the child who carries out the construction and not the mother. Suppose we take an Indian child to America and entrust him to some Americans. This child will learn the English language and not an Indian language. By English, we mean American English. So it is not the mother that gives the knowledge. He takes it himself and if these Americans really treated the child as one of their own, this Indian child would acquire the habits and customs of the American people and not those of the Indian people. So none of these things is hereditary. The father and mother cannot claim the credit: it is the child who, making use of all that he finds around him, shapes himself for the future.

The child needs special aid in order to build man properly and society must give this its attention. Recognizing the merits of the child does not diminish the authority of the father and the mother for when they come to realize that they are not the constructors, but merely the helpers of this construction, then they will be able to do their duty better; they will help the child with a greater vision. Only if this help is well given will the child achieve a good construction, not otherwise. So the authority of parenthood is not based upon an independent loftiness but upon the help that is given to the child. Parents have no authority other than that. Let us consider another aspect. Everyone will have heard of Karl Marx who was the originator of a social reform when he made the workers realize that whatever society enjoys was due to their work and that everything we have in our environment has been made by some man or woman. Our daily life is based upon these workers and if they ceased to produce, our social and political life would cease. This is part of the theory of Karl Marx. The workers are those who really give us the possibility of carrying on our lives; they produce the environment and provide everything, food, clothing, every means of life. When people realized this, the working man no longer appeared as the poor laborer who depended for his bread on his employer; he assumed his real importance. Previous to that all importance was given only to princes, kings and capitalists, but later the merits of the workers came to light. And the real contribution of the capitalist was realized as the supplier of the means that the workers needed to carry out their work; also that the better were the conditions afforded to the worker, the better and more accurate was his product.

Let us carry this idea into our field. Let us realize that the child is the worker who produces man. The parents furnish the means of construction to the worker. The social problem confronting us then is of much greater importance, because from the children’s work, humanity itself is produced, not an object. Childhood does not produce one race, one caste, one social group, but it produces the whole of humanity. This is the reality that humanity must envisage: it is the child that society must take into consideration, this worker who produces humanity itself. The two social questions really present a striking resemblance, e.g. before Karl Marx expounded this idea, the working men were not considered. They had to do whatever they were told just as the child has to; the workers’ needs and his dignity as a man were not considered. In the work of the child, the needs of life physical and psychic are not considered, and his dignity of man is non-existent. What have socialists and communists done? They have started a movement in order to obtain better conditions of life for the working man. Also to the child, this constructor, we must give better means of life. Workers ask for more money; more money must also be given to those who produce humanity. The workers wish to free themselves from restraints and repressions. We must free childhood from repression that weighs upon it. The conditions of this constructor of man are more dramatic than those of the constructor of the environment. Bettering the conditions of life for the constructor of man will bring about a betterment in humanity. We must follow this great worker from the moment he starts, at birth, follow him until he reaches adulthood; and provide him with means necessary for a good construction. We must remember that he is going to form that humanity which with its intelligence is building civilization. The child is the builder of our intelligence, and it is our human intelligence which guides our hands and produces what we call civilization.

If life itself is taken into consideration and studied, we shall know the secret of humanity. We shall have in our hands the power of governing and helping humanity. The social vision of Karl Marx brought about a revolution. It is a revolution that we are preaching when we speak about education. It is a revolution inasmuch as everything that we know today will be changed. Indeed I consider it the last revolution. It will be a non-violent revolution because if the slightest violence is offered to the child, then his psychic construction will be faulty. This delicate construction of human normality, as it should be, needs protection; it must be carried out without the slightest violence being offered to it. Indeed all our effort has been to remove obstacles from the path of the growth of the child. We have taken away from him the dangers and misunderstandings that surrounded him.

This is what is intended by education as a help to life; an education from birth that brings about a revolution: a revolution that eliminates every violence, a revolution in which everyone will be attracted towards a common center. Mothers, fathers, statesmen all will be centered upon respecting and aiding this delicate construction which is carried on in psychic mystery following the guide of an inner teacher.

This is the new shining hope for humanity. It is not so much a reconstruction, as an aid to the construction carried out by the human soul as it is meant to be, developed in all the immense potentialities with which the new-born child is endowed.