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The Desire to Learn

Time is the most limited blessing that we have on earth. Books help us to find meaning, if not answers, to our eternal questions: Who am I? Where am I going? The teacher’s influence reaches eternity, no one ever knows where it ends. – HENRY ADAMS

INTEREST MEASUREMENT TEST

1 Do you believe that you really have a desire to learn, or would you, had you been left alone from birth, be totally primitive and beastlike in your thoughts and feelings?

2 Do you believe that circumstance and environment can prevent a person from learning if the desire is strong enough?

3 Do you want an education enough that you would work and pay for it yourself?

4 Why do you want an education?

5 What will your education really be when you get it?

Outside the wind swept through the giant trees that dwarfed the cabin. Inside the cabin a little figure lay on the boards of the loft. He listened. Below him voices spoke of strange things: places he had not seen; things he did not know about; the savage toll of the wilderness and the struggle those below were enduring. What was happening? Years later one of the greatest Americans we have yet produced was to write:

I can remember going to my little bedroom after hearing the neighbors talk of an evening with my father, and spending no small part of the night walking up and down and trying to make out what was the exact meaning of their, to me, dark sayings. I could not sleep, though I often tried to, when I got on such a hunt after an idea, until I had caught it; and when I thought I had got it, I was not satisfied until I had repeated it over and over, until I had put it into language plain enough, as I thought, for any boy I knew to comprehend.¹

Of all the incidents in Lincoln’s life, this has always seemed to me the most remarkable. That a boy of his years should have felt so keenly the burden of the inexpressible, and should have spent sleepless hours in attempting to free himself from this burden, seems at first glance to remove Lincoln from the class of normal men. We think of him as peculiar, as apart from others, as not so representative as he would have been had he gone straight to bed and not bothered himself about putting into definite words the thoughts that were busy in his brain.²

But, explain it as we may, here was the desire for expression in clear words. Here was the desire to learn. Lincoln had it to a greater degree than most mortals. But we all have it. We are often not conscious of it. The desire to learn enabled Lincoln to say in many speeches and letters what others were beginning to feel but could not express. He became one of the great masters of English prose, although he had no one to teach him how to study and very little material with which to study. He became a leader of men because he interpreted them to themselves. He gave back as rain what he received as mist. He received his knowledge as mist, because he had so little time to learn. No one provided him with books and classes and study halls. He snatched his study periods between hours of hewing away the wilderness and fighting hunger.

A biographer of our times, reflecting upon the education of Lincoln, says:

Mastery of language may have been that ultimate factor without which he would have failed. For the self-taught man who once would have given all he owned and gone into debt for the gift of lyric utterance had touched the summits of eloquence. Yet this, like his other achievements, had not come by mere chance. Patient self-training, informed reflection, profound study of a few great works of English literature, esteem for the rhythmic beauty that may be coaxed from language, all these had endowed him with the faculty to write well and to speak well, so that at last, when profound emotions deep within him had felt the impulse of new-born nobility of purpose, they had welled forth—and would well forth once more—in imperishable words.³

If you cannot find within your heart and soul the desire to learn, then you need not expect help from without. You are the only person who can awaken the desire. Without it you will gather bits of information here and there, but you will miss the greatest of all that life offers—the advantages for your life which are with you. In all that goes into the making of your life—play, work, Latin, history, economics, law, medicine, plans, dreams—you are given the purposes and endowments for the wonderful, sometimes confusing and demanding, experience which we call life.

You will never be so foolish as to pursue a fool’s futile route toward the mythical treasure at the end of a rainbow, for you have been endowed with gifts far surpassing the dream-chests of gold at the base of many rainbows. These gifts are ever available to help you develop your life in every way. They also make possible the acquisition of additional gifts if they are used fully. If you ignore or neglect them you will be sorry when later in life you have need of them. If you exploit them for false purposes and questionable values you will live to regret it; and perhaps most tragically of all, the world will judge you a person of little consequence. Here, briefly, are some of the gifts which were given you, and which make you responsible—to a very great degree—for the person you are to become.

1 The gift of individuality. This may be surprising to you, since you have spent much time trying to “be different.” This is a natural part of growth toward maturity, but you need not fear—you are different. You will develop along lines which will be distinctly your own. You will adapt standard methods of study to your own individual needs. But in your development it is wise to remember always that applying experiences that have aided others in no way impairs your own individuality. Without the application of such experience we would never have progressed beyond savagery.

2 The gift of willpower. Lincoln willed to learn and nothing was able to turn that willpower to accept something easier—like remaining an itinerant rail-splitter or a river stevedore. Feeling, thinking, and willing have been called the three primary functions of the mind. You may feel and think that something is worthwhile, but unless you will to make it so, it will never get beyond the dream stage.When Louis Pasteur was nineteen he wrote in a letter: “To will is a great thing, for action and work follow will, and almost always work is accomplished by success.” As a student, and during his busy and fruitful life for the whole of mankind, Pasteur kept a small placard posted above his desk. On it were inscribed the words, “Will, Work, Wait.” These words directed his life. The gift of willpower is yours to be used for that most important of all accomplishments—determining your life.

3 The gift of memory. Memory provides you with the foundation stones from which you build your house of life. Memory, a storehouse not available to any other creatures, at least to any extent, is the source from which you draw previous experiences of the human race. It is through memory that you are able to compare before you select, and select wisely those experiences which have proved of value. In another chapter of this book there is notice given of what the human condition would become in a second were memory to be taken away. It is worth reflecting upon.

Only three of your multiple gifts have here been considered, mainly because they are so vital and basic to stimulating your desire to learn. But you have many more gifts: self-confidence, conscience, imagination, humility, time, and the privilege of putting all to work.

But what is it, you ask, that I desire to learn, and what are the skills for it, and what are the tools? The answer to your question is not so difficult as it might, at first glance, appear.

What you desire to learn is to perceive the world around you, to be able to think about it, and to communicate your ideas about it to others and to receive their ideas. These constitute the three basic reasons for all education: (1) perception, (2) thought, and (3) communication.

Perception is the means whereby you become acquainted with the world around you. You study science to perceive the world of facts. You look at the world of values through the study of religion and philosophy. You look at the world another way through the study of mathematics or history. Perceptive power is the principal dynamic of growth and achievement for the individual.

Thought is the means whereby you measure that which has been perceived. It is through thought that judgments can be made as to what is possible. Experiences and observations are weighed and evaluated, refined or amplified, and accepted or rejected. By thought the problems of existence are solved, and only by thought is the world which you have perceived given directed purpose and action beyond the native instincts of animals.

“Only the individual can think,” wrote Dr. Albert Einstein, “and thereby create new values for society…. Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community.”⁴

Communication is the means whereby the memory of mankind is made articulate. It is, without question, the principal factor that raised us above the beasts and gave us dominion over them. The ability to communicate touches every minute of our lives—the answer to a question, whether or not you are able to sell your product—be it a new type of toothbrush or an ideal affecting the whole of mankind. By communication you receive from others and by communication you, depending upon your ability to communicate, will give, successfully or unsuccessfully, to others.

There are three basic skills in education: (1) the skill of finding what you want, (2) the skill of fixing it in your mind, and (3) the skill of organizing it for use. The ability to use the card index to find a book in the library immediately comes to mind. But you begin to practice the skill of finding what you want when you first reached through the playpen to get a ball that had rolled outside. The skill of finding what you want will develop and increase as long as you nourish it. The skill of fixing it in your mind requires the development of good study habits, habits which will drive you to expend your whole energies in training and disciplining your mind and will to the point where success from hard work becomes your greatest pleasure. In another part of this book we will go into the methods for the development of this skill. The skill of organizing for use is the golden metamorphosis of education, for by this skill knowledge is transformed into wisdom.

For example, from reading Ernest Hemingway’s novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, you learn that no man is an island unto himself, and that when one man dies a little bit of each of us dies. This is information (knowledge). It is transformed into wisdom when we apply it to our own lives, which in this case would mean ceasing to think of life in terms of our own selfish interests, but broadening our outlook to include our fellowmen. Therefore, it becomes very plain that without the development of this skill in education, the first two have little meaning.

The three basic tools of education are: (1) time, (2) books, and (3) teachers. Time is the most limited blessing that we have on earth. Time is one of the great responsibilities that life places before us. In life you will meet few people, indeed, who have learned the value of time. People fail to finish allotted tasks; they are late for appointments, meetings, and classes. These are the people who have developed little or no appreciation of their most limited blessing on earth.

School work and the activities connected with school make heavy demands upon your time. If you are not careful, you will find yourself unable to do the things you are particularly eager to do. School life is planned this way in order to force you to budget your time and become a master of yourself, so that you may reap the full reward of this most responsible discipline. “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Psalms 90:12).

In school work, as in sports, business ventures, and military campaigns, it is essential to have a plan of action. The student who develops system and regularity in study habits, budgets one’s time properly, and then adheres to the system and schedule has doubled the effectiveness of work and eliminated the worry and anxious anticipation from this, the most formative and important part of life. A schedule that is steadily followed soon becomes the easy and natural routine of the day. Constant repetition makes a good habit a part of the person who practices it. By following carefully the study schedule which you prepare, you can acquire that most precious of all knowledge—the power to work. You must build your schedule for work (and play) upon tangible and intangible factors: What are your capabilities? What are your limitations? What are your strengths? What are your desires? What are your aims? Only you can determine the value of system and schedule, only you can build within yourself an appreciation of the value of time, only you can determine a proper method of attack, only you can achieve system and regularity, and only you can realize the reward from time properly allotted.

The second basic tool in education is books. In another part of this book a whole chapter is devoted to this important tool. A brief acquaintance here, however, seems necessary. Books are the memory of mankind. They are one of the several important things without which our race would not be what we call “human,” as distinguished from what we call “animal.” This tool of education, this memory of mankind, this great legacy, this lever that lifted us out of savagery, this enables us to find ourselves. Here the aims of education and its purposes for us are made clear by the hopes, aspirations, conflicts, experiences, successes, and failures of people in time and space who are one with us. In books we become a part of the great drama which we call life. Without books education would possess no articulate spirit, and our function would be survival rather than aspiration.

The third tool in education is teachers. In a broad sense we are all teachers; by example we are teaching those around us. Here we are concerned with the teachers who serve as your partners in the greatest endeavor and undertaking of your life—your education. How must you use this tool? You can be shown “the high, white star of Truth,” and bidden to “gaze and there aspire.” You must be keenly aware that a partnership exists between you and your teacher. So often, students speak of doing an assignment, writing a paper, preparing a test, for ____, the teacher. You are not doing these things for ____; you are doing them for yourself. The great enterprise is yours; the teacher is a minor partner in the enterprise. The teacher can open windows of vision and point to horizons beyond, but the horizons belong to you. The teacher can be “as the shadow of a mighty rock in a weary land,” but only you can find shelter from sun, wind, and sand in the shadow of the mighty rock. The teacher is the guidepost for the journey, but the journey is yours. The teacher can light the lantern and put it in your hand, but you must walk into the dark.

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1 What are some of your natural gifts always ready to stimulate your desire to learn?

2 What are the three basic reasons for education?

3 Explain briefly what is meant by each of the basic reasons for education.

4 What are the three basic skills in education? Explain the third.

5 What are the three basic tools of education? Which is the most limited?

¹John G. Nicolay and John M. Hay (eds.), The Collected Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1894, IV, p. 61.

²The author is indebted to the late Dr. C. Alphonso Smith, a great teacher, for the material in this paragraph.

³Benjamin P. Thomas, Abraham Lincoln, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1950, p. 500.

⁴Albert Einstein, The World as I See It, Philosophical Library, 1940, p. 9. Quoted by permission of the Albert Einstein estate.