Chapter 14
Wisdom The Primary Ends of Education WHAT ARE THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION? Classical education in all cultures of the world was concerned primarily with cultivating virtue. Education was about cultivating the soul, developing a civilized character and forming good citizens. However, in today’s schooling the focus is on technical knowledge and the skills needed for the complex modern workplace. Character and values get short shrift. Theodore Roosevelt is said to have warned, “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”1 Study of the world’s scriptures leads us back to consider education’s primary ends. Father Moon distinguishes three levels of education: first, education of heart cultivates the emotional basis for unselfish love; second, education of norm deals with the morality of good relationships; third, academic and technical education follow on these two foundations. Much of the first two levels of education is done at home as the responsibility of parents. Yet schools can also play a part, particularly by providing character education and marriage education. Given that deficiencies in character and marital problems can detract from performance in the workplace, educating for these ends need not be seen as in contradiction to the career orientation of modern schooling.
1. The Primary Purpose of Education: to Cultivate Virtue Knowledge is the food of the soul. Plato, Protagoras (Hellenism)
True learning induces in the mind service of mankind. Adi Granth, Asa, M.1, p. 356 (Sikhism)
The end and aim of wisdom is repentance and good deeds. Talmud, Berakot 17 (Judaism)
A faithful study of the liberal arts humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel.
The parents of a child are but his enemies when they fail to educate him properly in his boyhood… Knowledge makes a man honest, virtuous, and endearing to society. It is learning alone that enables a man to better the condition of his friends and relations. Knowledge is the holiest of holies, the god of the gods, and commands respect of crowned heads; shorn of it a man is but an animal. The fixtures and furniture of one’s house may be stolen by thieves; but knowledge, the highest treasure, is above all stealing. Garuda Purana (Hinduism)
Ovid (Hellenism)
Confucius said, “The superior man extensively studies literature and restrains himself with the rules of propriety. Thus he will not violate the Way.” Analects 6.25 (Confucianism)
As soon as a child can understand what is said, nurse, mother, tutor, and the father himself vie with each other to make the child as good as possible, instructing him through everything he does or says, pointing out, “This is right and 705
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