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"EVERY CHERISHED EFFORT MUST EXTEND ITS POWERS TO OTHER SOULS. IS THERE ANYTHING MORE CHERISHED THAN THE MIND OF MAN? WE MUST EXPEND THIS FACULTY IN THE CAUSE OF HUMAN UNION, FOR WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF ONE FATHER. A DELICATE SPIRITUAL POWER IS EVER EXERCISING AN INFLUENCE OVER THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF MEN. WHY SHOULD WE ABANDON THE HOLY POWER WHICH BINDS US TOGETHER AND CLEAVE TO THE BARBAROUS TRADITIONS WHICH KEEP US APART?"
| VOL. 18 | No. 6 |
of the teachings of all the Prophets . . . These holv words and teachings are the remedy for the body-politic, the divine prescription and real cure for
the disorders which afflict tho world.—'Abdu'l-BaháIN COUNTRIES so far apart as Russia, America, India and Germany, Bahá'ís are already to be numbered by the thousands. Christians, Jews, Moslems, people of every religion, and people of no religion, are joining this brotherhood in large numbers, dropping their age-long prejudices and animosities in order to unite in working for coming of God's Kingdom upon earth.
The Bahá'í Movement has shown its power to change men's hearts and lives, making them new creatures. It has provided a basis on which people of all religions, races, nations and classes may unite, and are uniting, into one great harmonious family. It has revealed the means by which can be built up a new civilization in which co-operation shall replace competition, amity take the place of enmity, and devotion to God's Will be substituted for selfish and worldly desires.
The same relation as the fruit has to the flower and the bud—it is their development and fulfillment. Bahá'u'lláh teaches that all the great religions are parts of one divine plan for the education and salvation of mankind. All the great Prophets and Religion-Rounders have taught one and the same religion, which consists in the worship and service of the One and Only God, but each has presented the teaching in the form best adapted for the age and the people to whom He came. There never was want of harmony between the Prophets. It is their blind followers who have fallen into quarrels and disagreements. Now, through the work of Christ and all the Holy Prophets, man has reached a stage of development at which he is ready for a Universal Teaching, which shall consummate a previous Revelations and reconcile all differences. This New Revelation will inaugurate that age of "peace on earth, good will towards men," which has been foretold in the Holy Books of all religions.
Through railways and steamships, postal system and press, telegraph and telephone, airplanes and wireless, the mechanical means have been provided for the unification of humanity. Through the invention of Esperanto, an easy and adequate language medium has likewise been provided for the communication of ideas between the people of all countries. But these things cannot of themselves bring about Unity. The change of heart is needed, which only religion can accomplish.
A new era in religion is always initiated by a Prophet or Mediator, who is the bearer of the New Divine Message. Bahá'u'lláh appears at this epoch pregnant with destiny, to proclaim such a Message for the New Era on which human is now entering. As such He is not a rival much less is He an enemy to Christ or any previous Divine Messenger or Manifestation. On the contrary, He fulfills their promises and carries on their work.
| VOL. 18 | SEPTEMBER, 1927 | NO. 6 |
| Page | |
Editorial, Stanwood Cobb | 163 |
The Task of Self-Education, Dale S. Cole | 166 |
The Montezuma Method, William John Meredith | 170 |
Some Informal Opinions on Education, Keith Ransom-Kehler | 176 |
New Ideals of Education, Shahnaz Waite | 182 |
The Unexpected Happens, Florence Evelyn Schopflocher | 186 |
Seventh Congress of World Associations, Martha L. Root | 191 |
of Mi'rza Ahmad Sohrab and Dr. Zia M. Bagdadi: preserved, fostered and by them turned over to the National Spiritual Assembly, with all
valuable assets, as a gift of love to the Cause of God.STANWOOD COBB | Editor |
MARIAM HANEY | Associate Editor |
ALLEN B. MCDANIEL | Business Manager |
Subscriptions: $3.00 per year; 25 cents a copy. Two copies to same name and address, $5.00 per year. Please send change of address by the middle of the month and be sure to send OLD as well as NEW address. Kindly send all communications and make postoffice orders and checks payable to Baha'i News Service, 706 Otis Building, Washington, D. C., U. S. A. Entered as second-class matter April 9, 1911, at the postoffice at Washington, D. C., under the Act of March 3, 1897. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103 Act of October 3, 1917, authorized September 1, 1922.
--PHOTO--
| VOL. 18 | SEPTEMBER, 1927 | No. 6 |
material and divine education. * * * Divine education is the sum total of all development. It is the safeguard of humanity.”
WE LIVE IN a new day. This is as true of education as it is of religion, science, and mechanical progress. A new theory and technique of education is rapidly developing, which makes the child rather than the curriculum the center of attention. The progressive educator today sees and treats the child as a spiritual unity, not an intellectual machine. Not only are the physical, emotional, social and spiritual qualities developed pari passu with the intellectual, but in every act of the child unity, sincerity, is permitted and encouraged.
What does unity mean as applied to the activity of the child? It means that kind of activity which is an expression of the child’s own desire and inner nature. When a child performs a task simply because this is required of it by the adult world, it performs this task with divided interest, with a split psyche. This division between the child’s own natural and legitimate interests and the seeming interests of the adult world around it often produces consequences that are valueless or even injurious.
Such a compulsory and arbitrary system of education is comparable to the attempt to develop moral character by compulsion. Even God does not attempt to develop man’s soul by such means. It is only as we freely and voluntarily meet and adapt ourselves to circumstances that we develop character. There must be the same unfolding from within on the part of the child. The progressive educator has sufficient faith in the child to allow it and aid it to unfold in its own natural way.
It is not true that the child is naturally lazy and indifferent to knowledge. On the contrary, the child has the same germinating power of the intellect as it has of the soul. It instinctively seeks to develop, to grow, to express its mental powers, to reach out for and acquire knowledge, to develop skills, to initiate and create. The new type of education gives freedom for this native and God-given force to evolve according to its own laws, aiding it, helping it when necessary much as a gardener helps the plant to arrive at its highest station of fruition.
The results of such an educational system are amazing. Joyousness, sincerity, intellectual eagerness, creative powers, are some of its fruits for the child. Thus, as the child develops and unfolds in such a favorable atmosphere, under the guidance and protection of the ideal teacher, we see what appears to be a new race evolving. The old self-consciousness, priggishness, puerility, artificial adoption of adult behavior before adult motives and powers are arrived at—all these vanish, and the child appears and stands out as itself, as that naive, creative force of which Christ spoke when He said, “A little child shall lead them.”
WHILE THE child has within it the potentiality of arriving at a high spiritual station, and an innocence and charm due to its lack of experience with evil, it is not to be thought that left to itself it will naturally evolve into beauty and strength of character. ’Abdu’l-Bahá shows us very clearly the need of moral and spiritual training for the child. Mere intellectual culture is by no means sufficient. In order that the child shall develop into the stature of perfect manhood as we understand manhood to be in its true essence, there must be a spiritual force working within to said the germinating of those qualities by which perfect man must be characterized.
According to the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, the real station of man is a lofty one, not attained by mere birth into the human world and haphazard maturing. “Verily,” He says, “Man is not called man until he be imbued with the attributes of the Merciful. He is not man because of wealth and adornment, learning and refinement.” To develop these divine qualities in the child is the first duty of the educator.
Unfortunately in democratic America diversity of religions prevents spiritual instruction and training in the public schools. This is a lamentable condition. It means that by far the most important element of education is being omitted. What will be the result of the maturing of a generation of children without spiritual guidance?
It is hard enough for man by spiritual aid to overcome those grave faults belonging to the animal side of his nature which express themselves in selfishness, aggression, exploitation, crime. With no spiritual training it is to be feared that evolving generations will grow more and more lawless and immoral. Such a condition is even now appearing. The following analysis by a noted psychologist, of the hectic and immoral pleasure-seeking, the nervous breakdowns, the suicides, the wave of crime characterizing so much of the life of today is well worth reading and pondering over.
“WHAT ARE THE causes of crime?” asks Prof. William McDougall in the April (1927) Forum. “The causes of crime are obvious enough. They are the natural impulses of the human heart, common to men of all times and all places: such impulses as greed, anger, lust, jealousy, envy, revenge. * * * The essential condition of the rising tide of crime in America is the progressive weakening of the influence of tradition and of the community opinion which gives the moral tradition its hold on men.
“A rising tide of neurosis [nervous disorders] has run parallel with the rising tide of crime. * * * Neurosis in all its forms is the consequence of moral conflict; it expresses a lack of harmony and integration of the forces of character, the impulses of the human heart.
“Nothing tends so strongly to promote harmony and integration of character as a clear-cut moral tradition brought to bear on each man with all the force of unanimous community sentiment and unquestioned community sanctions. Under such conditions each man knows what is right and what is wrong (or believes he does) and acts accordingly.
“But where traditions are diverse and weakened * * * men are thrown back on themselves and are perpetually called upon to make moral decisions; and in the absence of clear guidance and sanction from community opinion, this is too great a task for most of us. The decisions are never made; and in the moral sense such men live from hand to
mouth. Thus they become the seat of unresolved moral conflicts.
“In this modern age we no longer grow up under some one well-defined moral system supported by the authority of unquestioned religion. * * * In such a world crime and divorce increase alarmingly, children grow scarce, the family disintegrates, and young men ask, Is life worth living?”
CAN ANYTHING short of a universal religion solve this grave problem? According to this scientist of the mind and soul just quoted “nothing tends so strongly to promote integration of character as a clear-cut moral tradition brought to bear on each man with all the force of unanimous community sentiment and unquestioned community sanctions.”
Where, we ask, can there be found a clear-cut moral tradition, a unanimous community sentiment, and unquestioned community sanctions, except in a common, universal religion under whose aegis shall grow up a definite moral code having all that binding force which comes from a belief in the Divine Source and Divine Law?
“In this modern age,” Professor McDougall goes on to say, “we no longer grow up under some well-defined moral system supported by the authority of an unquestioned religion.” And speaking conversely, it is absolutely essential for the moral tone and character of humanity that it do grow up under the moral system and authority of an unquestioned religion. What a powerful argument this is for the need of a universal, comprehensive, definite and authoritative religion such as the Bahá’í Movement offers!
NOT UNTIL all the schools of the world include such definite spiritual training in the education of children will humanity arrive at that perfection destined for it, without which perfection civilization will surely disintegrate and perish.
such a way that they will avoid and shrink from perpetrating crimes, so that the crime itself will appear to them as the greatest chastisement, the utmost condemnation and torment. Therefore no crimes which require punishment will be committed. * * *
“In this marvelous cycle the earth will be transformed and humanity arrayed in peace and beauty. Disputes, quarrels and murders will be replaced by harmony, truth and concord; among the nations, peoples, races and countries, love and amity will appear. Cooperation and union will be established. The world will be filled with science, with the knowledge of the reality of the mysteries of beings, and with the knowledge of God. * * *
“I pray earnestly that the Light in this advanced age will so illumine the world that all may rally under the banner of unity and receive spiritual education.”
“The will and plan of God is that each individual member of humankind shall become illumined like unto a lamp, radiant with all the destined virtues of humanity, leading his fellow creatures out of natal darkness into the heavenly Light. Therein rests the virtue and glory of the world of humanity.”—’Abdu’l-Bahá.
WHEN it is realized that the future progress of the world with its millions of inhabitants depends upon the spiritual advancement of the individual, education becomes of more personal concern than if it be considered as a necessity in the aggregate.
As in many phases of life today, there are so many theories regarding education and educational methods that the panorama may be a bit confusing. The average individual, not in intimate contact with the work of education, is quite prone to sit back complacently and allow educators to carry on, feeling that as an average individual he or she has no part to play but to turn over the rising generation to be trained according to the latest theory. In this attitude is not the average person evading the issue? Perhaps there is some misunderstanding as to just what education is.
Dr. Millikan in “Evolution in Science and Religion” asks the stimulating question: “Indeed, is not the main purpose of education to enable one to know the truth of the present and to understand the truth of the past; in a word, to enable one to estimate correctly his own place and that of his contemporaries in the ever-expanding ocean of knowledge, for only with such knowledge can he shake off the inhibitions of the conventional, free himself from emotional futility of the radical, and put forth constructive effort for the real betterment of the world?”
Perhaps we are, in many cases, confusing education with the purpose of education, for certainly the above question suggests that the main purpose of education concerns first and foremost the individual.
To know the truth of the present and understand the truth of the past is a difficult task. It presupposes some means of knowing what truth is, and there never was a more controversial subject.
Probably truth in its essence is unchangeable, but our finite human minds are not capable of grasping or understanding the whole truth and so we only become cognizant of certain aspects of it, and the aspects which we can now change. For instance, there was a time when it was thought that the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around it. Can we censure a thinker of that time for embracing such a view as the truth? Such things seemed to be true as gauged by the methods of the day, and yet the time came when it was definitely known that the earth was not flat nor the center of the solar system. Likewise in the last century it was thought that the laws of the conservation of energy and matter were absolutely and undeniably true. Advances in science have proven that this is not the case. They are true within the limited sphere of our daily experiences but conditions exist under which they no longer hold. It was thought that the chemical elements were immutable and radioactivity has proven that they are not. And so, what may seem to be the truth in one day may not seem so in another and later day, and thus it is that we must not only be able to know the truth of the present but to understand yesterday’s truth, or aspects of it, if we are to be really educated today.
Truth is a word to be used sparingly and carefully in view of the fact that we can only appreciate it in part. It is a much used and abused word. When a human being grasps a ray of truth he is often mislead into thinking it to be the whole truth and to be dazzled by his discovery. It is also human to rise in defence of a personal opinion, and such inclination is the basis of many misunderstandings. It leads to controversy and wasted effort. When a fact is generally recognized as true it needs no defence. It is the doubtful points which are often debated most heatedly.
The rate at which human knowledge is increasing is truly astounding, and yet it is one of the acquired characteristics which probably cannot be handed down from father to son. As the colloquialism has it, “we can’t learn our children anything,” but we can teach them where and how to attain knowledge for themselves. Learning is a matter for each individual to work out for himself, and if we are to find our places in this complex life and increasing “ocean of knowledge” we must reduce the obligation of education to one of self-education first.
We are adrift today in an ocean of knowledge. There are currents and counter-currents. There are winds and shoals. There are fogs and storms. If we are to navigate to that station where we will be able to know the truth of the present and understand the truth of the past we must have the assistance of the Great Teachers.
We are told that “the root of all knowledge is the knowledge of God: Glory be to him! And this Knowledge is impossible save through His Manifestations.”
Thus is the Source clearly defined. If we seek the Light of the Sun of Truth we are instructed to free our minds “from tales of the past,” to adorn our heads with “the crown of severance” and our temples “with the robe of virtue.” Hearts must become free “from the fire of superstitions.” Such are the instructions as to preparation for seeking the Light of the Sun of Truth. If we find rays of light we will indeed be fortunate, for we cannot hope to arrive at ultimate Truth with our human endowments, for as Christ suggested years ago He had many things to tell seekers but they were not in condition to bear them, to receive or understand; and so today we seek the Light of the Sun of Truth in an ocean of knowledge.
There need be no cause for discouragement if we but receive a flash of the Light of the Sun of Truth now and then. Indeed, he who attains this much is rarely blessed, and yet how many become down-hearted at the apparent slowness of their progress in searching for truth! In the degree in which we deserve to receive the Light it will be vouchsafed, but is it not logical to suppose that we must comply with instructions? That we must free our minds from tradition, adorn our heads with the crown of severance, and our temples with the robe of virtue? And it is important to note that each of these are personal admonitions which apply to the individual. This sort of education which is fundamental cannot be applied collectively. It requires great individual effort, and so the real purpose of education can only be attained by each one striving for his own advancement toward the Light of the Sun of Truth.
It is certainly well known that there have been and are individuals who can inspire others to great endeavor in the search for Light, but in the final analysis each one has to see the Light with his own eyes and experience it in his own being. No one else can do this for us.
Many feel that life is so strenuous today that there is not time for deep thinking, and yet there are many instances where the Light has been received without conscious deep thinking. It has come by following directions. Does it necessarily follow that we must think deeply to cast overboard tales of the past to attain the crown of severance and the robe of virtue? No, rather, such achievements come from humbly making our feeble wills synchronize with the will of God.
’Abdu’l-Bahá once told a story about the man who was always happy. When questioned as to why he was always happy, the man replied: “Because all the existing things move according to my wish. Therefore I do not find anything contrary to my desire. Thus I have no sorrow. There is no doubt that all the beings move by the will of God, and I have given up my own will, desiring the will of God. Thus my will becomes the will of God, for there is nothing of myself. All are moving by His will, yet they are moving by my will. In this case, I am very happy.”
What a contrast to the situation in which many find themselves in striving to keep up with the material advancement of their neighbors! ’Abdu’l-Bahá has pointed out the way to happiness, and it does not necessarily entail a lot of deep thinking, which may require time. It requires a simple step of renouncing the individual will and trying to do the will of God.
To follow these instructions toward happiness is a step in self-education which will surely lead to that position where the purpose of education will be fulfilled, where we will be able to see at least some of the Light of the Sun of Truth and to understand in a measure the knowledge of the past.
Part of the program of self-education is patience. Great blessings may come slowly and only after a period of preparation. We have been told that we have but to knock and “it will be opened to us,” but we must know when, where and how to knock. Perhaps we must be in the proper circumstances to know when the door is opened. If our vision and susceptibilities are fogged with useless tradition, supersitition and prejudice it may possibly be that we will not be able to appreciate when the door is opened. Great benefits come in consequence of capacity, and capacity is dependent upon the Bounty of God. So is it not rather more to the point to supplicate for capacity before we supplicate for too much light? Should we not possess our souls in patience the while seeking to educate ourselves so that we will be capable of recognizing the Light of the Sun of Truth and of appreciating it and assimilating it into our lives?
Self-education is a constant and unremitting process which to be most effective must be carried into every minute of our lives either consciously or subconsciously. In these busy days we can at least carry with us an undercurrent of reverence and worship, even though our minds be occupied externally.
Were this generation to assume the obligation of self-education based on the knowledge that “the root of all knowledge is the Knowledge of God!” the children would be reared in an atmosphere of sincere search for the Light of the Sun of Truth. Their characters and future would be influenced in such manner that they would not be handicapped with many of the unsound beliefs that this generation has been forced to abandon. They would start on the road much further along than the parents, and progress more rapidly. Does such a possibility not presuppose a better world, one in which much more of the Light would be
recognized because capacities would be greater? Is this not one of the fundamental aims of education?
Important and worthy as it is to educate the children in science, it is much more important to educate them in religious principles, remembering that by religion is meant “an attitude toward God.” Religious education can be more effective in the home than elsewhere. It is a matter requiring wisdom and personal contact, but it is not possible for a teacher to teach that whereof? he is ignorant, and so self-education becomes an obligation and duty. Not only is it an obligation and duty, but where can a person find any greater satisfaction than the comforting and inspiring feeling that he is makig progress spiritually? Those who have attained varying degrees of such education are one in extolling the utter joy of feeling in the very core of being that one is advancing toward God. However slow the journey and however difficult it may be, all is more than compensated for by a fleeting instant of the realization of the Love of God.
One of the injunctions of Bahá’u’lláh is that “man should know his own self and know those things which lead to loftiness or to baseness, to shame or to honor, to affluence or to poverty.”
This is the first task set us in a program of self-education. We must search within, analyze ourselves, that we may become fully aware of our own weaknesses. Once this knowledge is attained, a humble attitude is almost sure to follow, which will make it easier to follow the instructions recited above for preparing ourselves to seek for the Light of the Sun of Truth.
“Man must be tireless in his effort,” said ’Abdu’l-Bahá, and “once his effort is directed in the proper channel, if he does not succeed today he will succeed tomorrow. Effort in itself is one of the noblest traits of human character.” What comfort for those of us who struggle without ever seeming to make any progress!
With such assurance can we not undertake the task of self-education with a cheery heart and determination? Even the effort is in itself a reward and rewarded. So why be downcast if the effort seems, for the time being, fruitless? Sincere effort itself is progress. Let us realize that perhaps it will satisfy a part of our longing to feel some achievement as we journey along.
“Dissatisfaction with one’s self is a sign of progress. The soul who is satisfied with himself is the manifestation of Satan, and the person who is not contented with himself is the manifestation of the Clement One.”
Double comfort and inspiration is ours at the outset. If we are dissatisfied that alone is a sign of progress. If we make a sincere effort we are attaining “one of the noblest traits of human character.” How then can any one become really discouraged in attempting self-education leading to knowledge of the Light of the Sun of Truth? We do not have to wait for delayed rewards and recognition. They are ours by virtue of wanting to progress and making an effort to do so.
“The evolution of the perfect man,” says ’Abdu’l-Bahá, “is a fruit of creation just as the evolution of the trunk, branches, leaves and blossoms of the tree is the fruit thereof. Exalt your thoughts. Reflect over your affairs. Magnify your endeavors. Enlarge the circle of your ideals,” * * * for “unless man maketh spiritual progress in the world of spirit, intellect and heart he cannot gather universal results from material advancements.”
The author, Dean of the Faculty of the Montezuma Mountain School for Boys at Los Gatos, Calif., has briefly expressed what Mr. E. A. Rogers, the founder and president of this famous institution, and his associates, believe and do in connection with the training of the growing child. It is interesting to know that Mr. Rogers has been a Bahá’í for many years and that ’Abdu’l-Bahá visited his school when He was in the United States in 1912. Probably no other school in this country so definitely carries the highest ideals into the daily life of its students.–Editor.
FIRST of all it must be understood that method in education is not of the nature of a prescription. There never has been, and in the nature of things, there never could be any certain way of getting the result we call education. The process we call educating must be as various as are the souls of men, no two of which can ever be exactly alike. That does not mean that there are not broad and general principles which apply to the process and must guide the intelligent educator, nor are we to think that, within rather vague limits, there are not ways of procedure toward the general outcome desired.
In the public-school system, where organization is vitally necessary to avoid waste of time and undue taxation, to produce the more or less standardized product demanded by public opinion, and where the supply of highly qualified teachers is as yet so limited, there is much unavoidable standardization of method. Indeed, there is a growing tendency on the part of college departments of education, professors of education and city superintendents to regard the teacher’s function as analogous to that of the picture-play actress, a means to get registered the ideas of the producing director, an obedient automaton functioning as a tool to perform the work the director has in hand. Until we devise a better means of detecting and retaining teaching power in the service of the state we shall have to depend largely upon this directing and supervising to get the work done which is demanded by the public. And since the public must always be the supreme authority in all social and political relations, a change toward better methods must come slowly.
In the meantime those who wish to see results within their own lifetime must get freedom of action outside the machine. For System has an irresistible tendency to become a tyrant which bends all souls to its will, that destroys all that will not bend. So there emerges to the view of a constructive educator a clear field of endeavor in nowise conflicting with the work of the Public School System. Indeed, the broadest-minded public school and college men are most friendly toward work undertaken outside their circumscribed field. Hence it is that Montezuma has always had so many warm well-wishers in the ranks of college and public-school workers. For until the System can make provision for the study and culture of something beyond the average soul, there must always be room enough for those at Montezuma and elsewhere who would apply from day to day sound philosophical principles and harmonious methods to individuals rather than to regimented grades. And the product ought to be useful in reinforcing that always meager company of the Believers who have faith in the ever progressive perfectability of human society and human souls.
At Montezuma until recently our classes have been so small that instruction
has been a matter of committee meeting under the chairmanship of the teacher for the investigation of truth as presented in the subject matter in hand. Even with our larger classes, this has been our ideal, and the individual contribution has always been regarded less as a recitation than as a report of findings. The teacher’s part has been ideally less a matter of formal drill than of counsel in discovering relations. Of course there is a certain amount of habit-forming repetition and memorization to get automatic control of the tools of investigation, as it were, but only as a means to an end. Memory is a by-product of all mental operations and ordinarily needs little special attention. Understanding, appreciation and enjoyment are the important ends in study, so that it may eventuate in right action, in moral choices, in the educated human’s relations to his kind. It is not enough to know and to remember, there must be some sense of the values of right social behavior, and some real joy in making the right choice in any and all of the simple daily acts which make up living.
Any instruction, therefore, which has for its purpose no more than the attainment of grades and credits toward systematic promotion is as apt to be vicious as moral. To get any advancement, of any kind, that does not in some way contribute to the advantage of us all is essentially immoral and a thing to be ashamed of. For any true gain must include the gainer’s fellow men in its benefits or it must militate against their welfare. Getting ahead in the world cannot worthily mean selfish aggrandizement at the expense of one’s kind. Education, therefore, must always and in every phase be a moral development. And to be truly moral it can never be sectarian in any sense, for sectarian means cut off in some way from the universal–a narrowing instead of a broadening.
Lest any should get the idea that there is anything approaching piosity or priggishness in the ideal of practice hereinbefore set forth, let me hasten to say that the teacher whose sense of humor is so weak as to see nothing in his work but the preaching of the goody-goody, is as sadly and calamitously out of place as the cynic who sees nothing in his work but a salary. That life is real and earnest has nothing to do with longfaced holiness. Life is a joyous experience, even a hilarious experience, often and properly. What we are trying to get into the consciousness of our student associates and fellow citizens of our Montezuma democracy is that the joy of life is in the harmony of living with the universal laws of being; that lawlessness can never bring even a fleeting enjoyment to an intelligent creature, for lawbreaking is ugly, destructive, and apt to be nasty—always a challenge to the inescapable disgusts and pains which follow every departure from the laws of being.
Life at Montezuma is far from monastic. We are in the country, in the mountains, fifteen hundred feet above salt water, that on a clear day lies like a verdant-bordered silver mirror below us, but our isolation is but seeming, for the automobile will lower us in a quarter of an hour to connection with steam and electric transportation to the centers of population. But we are free from the wasteful importunity of the noise and distraction of the city, and we are continually surrounded by such a panorama of natural beauty of landscape as could hardly be found elsewhere. We live twenty-four hours a day in a self-governing
democratic-mannered community of about two hundred souls, in a climate world-famed for its equability. And we have preserved a large measure of the wholesome atmosphere of pioneering, on which is based all that is healthiest in American life. Conditions are favorable, you will say, for the success of our venture in independence of methods. Yes; and we have passed the merely experimental stage. It was never a blind eclectic trial of a mere theory, nor the propagation of a fad. It was a reasoned and careful approach to what is implicit in the very philosophy of education. Ways and means had to be devised, of course, from time to time, and it will be a sorry day for us if ever we get beyond the necessity of fitting the available means to the wished-for end, for out of invention and contrivance must be won always the real progress of any people.
We have come at length to the stage of development when we are ready to take another long step in advance, as we see it. Heretofore we have felt something of an obligation to divide our work so as to facilitate transfer to and from the graded system of the public school. Now we can, and do, announce a better and more reasonable division of our program into a Lower Division course, purely primary and preparatory, and an Upper Division course, in which the real business of the school will be carried on in covering the fields of language and literature, history and social science, mathematics, physical science and art, to the full equivalent of junior standing in the university. This is not to indicate that the function of the school is primarily preparation for college: that has always been but an incident in our work, for we know that natural capacity and conditions will always bar many boys from a college career. It is not necessary or always desirable that the extension of education should proceed by way of the collegiate route, but the commonly understood university standard has always been regarded by us as a conveniently expressed minimum of attainment.
Three years devoted to intensive preparation in the primary arts of reading, writing, number and the habits of attention we believe will be a far better point of departure for scholastic experience than the usual cramming of a smattering of all subjects into baby minds lest they drop out without any acquaintance with the world of schooling-rather-than-the-world-of-life. With habits of study well inaugurated and in possession of the tools of attack upon the printed page and the open book of nature, we should be able in the following nine years of the Upper Division to get such a mastery of the several fields of research as to approximate the best attainments of European or American scholarship. Beyond that, beyond any consideration of mere scholarship, we should produce a type of citizenship intelligent and active, wise and well intentioned, efficient and happy, progressive and humane beyond the ordinary possibilities of convention and system.
Our “Language Plan” is especially for the grammar school. Whenever the subject of geography is taken up, say in the fourth grade, we give the same pupils a conversational course in Esperanto. They will soon develop this into a reading and writing course and begin correspondence with children in other countries. Supposing one boy asked to make a study of India, he would write letters in Esperanto to boys in India, and from the data received would make a scrapbook with his own comments
--PHOTO--
Camera, glimpses of the interesting and healthful life at “Montezuma.”
and illustrations. This is real motivation for geography besides making a practical application of Esperanto. We have already carried out this plan with marked success.
The next step would be conversational French, which is a natural transition from the Esperanto roots. This in turn is followed by Latin or German as a child’s needs develop. In this way we do not seek the recognition credit for Esperanto as must be done by the high school. I use the terms referring to grades above, but in reality we have dispensed with all such groupings.
For the past four or five years we have been conducting the regular classes in the high school as well as in the grades, giving it full credit for graduation. As far as results are concerned let me give you just one incident. Some years ago, after the great earthquake in Japan, our pupils wished to send some money to the sufferers. Instead of sending it through the Red Cross, they wrote directly to the Esperanto delegate in Japan. He replied assuring them that he would be most happy to distribute whatever they sent besides giving them a report. The pupils sent him about sixty-five dollars, and the letter of tenderness and thanks which they received from those poor Japanese sufferers was a most convincing proof to our boys of the universality of human kindness and good will. It was a most enlightening fact to the Japanese that the California boys, whom they had been led to believe hated all Japanese, were sending their love and money to help them in their dire need.
A lifetime is little enough to exhibit the results of any training. However, the following may be cited to illustrate how our method works out in development of character:
C––– came to us a most unprepossessing little scrub in appearance, the product of neglect and deprivation. After a time, however, he fell into our way of doing things and slowly began to win the recognition of certain members of the faculty. It developed that he had gained an advocate when his case came up for discussion. That was his first victory. Responsibility was put upon him and he responded to the stimulus with intelligence and loyalty. He served the school as chore boy, as petty officer in the student body, later as pupil-teacher, commissioner and office secretary. He finished the high-school standard, was admitted to one of our neighboring small colleges, transferred to the university, made a record as scholar and athlete, returned to us after graduation for service on the faculty, married, became a father, went to one of the Eastern States, entered the employ of the greater corporations, and now holds a fine position far beyond his years. He is honored in his community as a leader in such activities as have come his way. Needless to say we are very proud of him.
P––– was a shy little immigrant, barely able to make his wants known in our language. Industry and cheerful acceptance of trust was his best recommendation from the first. After two years he was removed from the school, just when our affections had been fastened upon him for his faithfulness in whatever duty was laid upon him. He remained loyal to the code of the school, visiting us from time to time until the middle of his junior year in college, when he returned to us to become secretary and special deputy to the head of the school. Since then he has served acceptably as member of the faculty, completing his college
course in summer session bit by bit. He is indispensable to us.
B––– spent several years in our grammer grades, plodding along without distinction, handicapped, in fact, by certain boyish faults and excessive timidity. Throughout his high-school course he was industrious but developed no leadership. His college career was interrupted by military service, but he gained steadily in strength of character and held true to the school code. Since graduation he has distinguished himself as a post-graduate student in two great Eastern institutions of learning. He also is a credit to us and no one is more loyal to the school.
There come to mind three others who are doing well in the upper classes in universities, having overcome diffidence, wrong habits of body and mind, distinguished themselves as school officers and won the admiration of their fellows and the respect of the faculty.
Certain activities outside the classroom have contributed to the development of our boys. During three terms a volunteer group of students from all classes labored on the building of a pioneer log cabin, which was dedicated to the senior class as Ruflog Hut, now one of the treasured assets of the school. Trails and bridges constructed by the boys now figure as monuments of bygone years, to which the “old boys” make pilgrimage on the return from the ends of the earth, for our little community now has representatives in many a foreign land or voyage back and forth over the highways of ocean commerce.
The school has always been noted for its broad interest in international affairs, through travel and correspondence as well as through classroom discussion of politics and religion and other world relations. Greater freedom in such interests and expression than elsewhere has always been the policy and the pride of the school.
teaching plays the most important role, carrying with it the heaviest responsibilities and most subtle influences. A teacher is like unto a gardener. Just as a gardener sows the seeds and watches carefully over their sprouting, looks after their growth and progression, so also a teacher must watch over the education of the children and inculcate in their young lives the highest ideals of truth and justice. * * *
“By every means at their disposal they must inculcate into their growing bodies, souls, minds and spirits, the principles of sincerity, love, trustfulness, obedience, true democracy, and kindness toward all races; thus hereafter the world of civilization may flow in one mighty current and the children of the next generation may make secure the foundations of human solidarity and goodwill.”
’ABDU’L-BAHÁ places side by side the cultivation of the mind and the cultivation of the heart. This is a complete departure in religious teaching. As Amiel points out, religion and philosophy have occupied mutually exclusive fields: religion teaches salvation through the consecration of the will; philosophy through the emancipation of the mind; the former would enlighten by making men better; the latter would make men better by enlightening them. It is the difference between Jesus and Socrates. Psychologically the difference between paganism and Christianity is that the pagan takes an intellectual attitude toward the emotions; the Christian an emotional attitude toward the intellect.
But in the Bahá’í dispensation both methods are to be used. While we are to reject those things that attenuate the mind, debauch the will or sophisticate the emotions, we are to subject to the most scrupulous investigation every claim of a supernatural order. If it be contrary to the rational procedure of the universe it has no place in a sane religion; but any rational claim that relegates to a region of superstition and illusion the spiritual order must be just as resolutely countered by those findings of science, philosophy, and history that establish its indubitable place in the field of reality.
Bahá’u’lláh gives to the modern world a new trinity: religion, science and reason as the three essentials required to bring our great human adventure safe to shore. We are accorded at last the right to explore Reality, unhampered by the tyranny of creed and dogma on the one hand, or by the even more infallible tyranny of science on the other, for the oppression and dogmatism of science is today as great as that of religion has ever been. Every scientist enjoys the story of Galileo’s inviting potentates, rulers and princes of the church to look through his new opera glasses (which he dignified by the name, telescope) and view the moons of Jupiter. They indignantly declined on the basis that, first of all, Jupiter had no moons; and that, secondly, if they looked, the Devil would make them see moons. But the scientific sense of humor fails entirely to see an analogy in its own position; which, when invited to observe, in the postulates of science itself, an inexhaustible and transcendent Source of Energy in the universe, refuses to look on two counts: first that there is no God or transcendent Source of Power; and second, that if they looked, the myth-making faculty of the subconscious mind would make them see a God.
To this very present there have been three distinct and entirely separated institutions entrusted with human education: the law educated man’s actions, the church his emotions and the school his mind. With the establishment of the House of Justice1 and the building of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkárs2 with their affiliated institutions, these three distinct forms of education will at last be motivated from the same Source—Bahá’u’lláh.
It is useless to say that in the Middle Ages Rome exercised a similar
1 An institution of future Baha'i organization. 2Baha'i Temples of Worship.
authority, for while she did control the law, worship and learning of the time, remaining for centuries the only bulwark against anarchy, her source nevertheless was not the immediate teaching of her Founder, Jesus, but Roman imperialism. For history clearly discloses the Church mounting the throne of the Caesars and substituting an ecclesiastical for a secular rule.
This new departure which places material and spiritual education side by side, and invites the independent investigation of reality, calls not only for new methods, but for entirely new instruments of investigation—a new mind, new emotions, a new will. How are these to be developed?
Orthodox education gives the child at eight what it needs at eighteen, deprives it consistently of the proper mental nurture during its plastic years, and never gives it at any time what it needs at forty-five or fifty. The fragmentary, dissipated and unregimented methods of established teaching leave the most informed men quite ignorant outside the focus of their own interests. Our engineers build marvelous bridges, but in spite of college degrees, are often quite illiterate. Scientists—those transfigured acolytes of patience–usually have crude conceptions of art. Philosophers and artists generally lack a realization of the stupendous amount of energy required to accomplish even the simplest tasks in this world—milking for mankind, cobbling for mankind, pumping up tires for mankind—while politicians, instead of thinking, as their business properly requires, about the next generation, seldom think beyond the next election.
It is a recognized fact that the degree to which any civilization, or any individual for that matter, advances, is the degree to which future considerations outweigh present ones; and still our general education serves only the immediate needs of either society or the individual. If the type of education that we receive when we are twenty is not going to be adequate to our needs when we are eighty, or at any moment between, it has no right to be called education. There are a few fundamental requirements for a free, disciplined, noble and responsive life, at whatever age—to be able to think clearly and systematically, and to focus every consideration under the lens of such reasoning; by a constant distillation of all impurities from one’s taste, to become increasingly sensitive to the great endowment of beauty; to be able to react adequately to real situations; and finally–without this the rest is nothing—to cultivate that intense inner yearning for the Good-Pleasure of God that finds its true effloresence in human service, and that frees us from the play of the great destructive passions.
For purposes of free investigation the development of the reasoning faculty becomes the very first requirement of education. And it is and has been at all times in the history of civilized and uncivilized man the last thing to be cultivated. Moreover, it not only is not cultivated but is of all horrors to which men are ever subjected the most resented. The average person is infuriated when confronted with reason. We will go to any extreme to avoid thinking our way through to conclusions and exercising the will! We toss a coin, consult a fortune-teller, or permit ourselves to be swayed by the weakest sentiments, rather than undergo the dreaded rigors of reason.
The new Symbolic or Algebraic Logic, essential alike to the science and to the philosophy of a changed outlook, formulates laws underlying the association of ideas, as the formal logic of Aristotle is unable to do.
Thought like everything else in the world is a process of generation.
Dewey, in a fascinating analogy, likens the large, quiescent, immobile background of thought which constitutes the content of consciousness, to the feminine, and the immediate problem or question, small, isolated, motile, to the masculine.
Now the conventional steps assigned to the reasoning process are: judgment, which means that the situation to be met or the problem to be solved is compared to everything of a like nature held in the content of consciousness; inference, which means that, based upon the experiences and the knowledge of the past, a certain course would meet the situation or solve the problem; proof, which justifies the inference, and confirms the judgment, in case the inference will work, or repudiates the process, in case it does not work. In other words, if the question or problem impregnate that particular portion of the mind to which it is legitimately related, it is fecund and begets a virile offspring—i.e., a course of action that will meet the situation and solve the problem-but if the reasoning be unsound, if the suggested solution be not legitimately related to the problem, the conclusion is sterile or at best the offspring is hybrid.
Even in the Aristotelian Logic, whereas there are some five hundred and twelve combinations possible in the fundamental relationship of classes which he outlines, of these only twenty-four are logical! Four hundred and eighty-eight fallacies out of a possible five hundred and twelve conclusions! Small wonder that the average person bats a thousand in illogical thinking.
The classic fallacies (begging the question, the General and the Particular, Ignoratio Elenchi, for example) still leap at one with undiminished vigor from platform, editorial, pulpit and thesis. The judgment of Darius who, asked to pass upon the legality of a large man’s exchanging by force a large coat which he took from a small man, compelling the small man to accept his own small coat, justified it on the basis that now each was fitted, is a fallacy (Ignoratio Elenchi) that has corrupted not only the crown but the populace long before and long since his time. For he was asked to pass judgment not upon the expediency but upon the justice of the case, and entirely disregarded his premise in his conclusion.
Where is the educational institution that is teaching its students to think? Not to think that they think or to think about thinking, but continually to produce those inferences that work? The present ideal of college education is codified information, and the average “arts-course” student is not interested in life unless it conforms to literature.
That vigorous, continuous and vigilant inspection of mental processes and of mental conclusions that alone can articulate the mental structure into a perfect organism of reason is conspicuously lacking in the practice, however important it may be in the theory, of existing education.
Another fundamental step in teaching should be the differentiation of good taste that sets the soul forever trembling upon the confines of Beauty. The response to Beauty is the supreme challenge to the materialist, who believes that human consciousness is merely a development in the biologic series, an outgrowth of the nervous system. The aim of the biologic struggle is personal survival—the sine qua non of the aesthetic experience is perfect impersonalism. The first definition of Beauty is that it is totally useless from any selfish or material point of view. However transforming the
scene from a hilltop, the man who is inspecting it with a view to subdividing has no part in the spiritual purgation that accompanies lovliness. Beauty contributes in no way to the aggrandizement of the self (although it is the indispensable nurture of the soul), and therefore does not conform to the biologic requirement.
In no college or university with which I have been associated directly or indirectly is any course offered or any influence exerted that helps the average student to erect a general canon of taste. Is there anywhere in the universe a fundamental and abiding reason why Amiens Cathedral is good architecture and Milan bad; why Whitman is a great poet and Longfellow mediocre; why Puvis de Chavannes is excellent and Bouguereau inferior; as to what constitutes the essential difference between Brahms and Chopin; why this earthern bowl from the Ming dynasty or that tile from a Persian tomb is precious and this Dresden vase spurious; why Cervantes and Shakspeare are immortal and their contemporaries Lopez de Vega and Ben Jonson quite secondary in importance; why the “Novum Organum” (the inspiration of the scientific method) is practically unread, while the “Ode on the Death of Lesbia’s Sparrow” has been perused with joy by cultivated men for nearly twenty centuries; or any law that tells us whether Matisse and Branuschi mark the orient of a new art form or are merely decadent; in fine, what should I like and why should I like it?
Surely some course should be formulated to present to the individual student the answer to these questions. Not in literature alone, in music alone, in painting alone, in any one of the arts as detached from the complete domain of Beauty; but a consistent and applicable synthesis of the rules of æsthetics to give him first an appreciation and next an evaluating standard of the Beautiful.
We should be far from imagining that such instruction would reduce the world to a dead level of artistic performance or curtail those essais toward new art forms that enrich and stimulate both creation and appreciation. It would not, for example—it could not force me to enjoy Amiens, but it would most clearly put into my grasp the knowledge as to why it is good architecture; and it would likewise show me just as clearly that the final unity that must of necessity underlie the æsthetic experience is entirely dissipated in the tedious reiterations of that sublimated wedding-cake at Milan.
It could not force me to like Shelley, any more than it could Matthew Arnold, who saw in him only a “beautiful ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings—in vain”; but it certainly would reveal authoritatively the basis for his security amongst the immortals, and compel, however unwillingly, an involuntary awe before one who could hold unswervingly to a great ideal of life that he never once saw exemplified in any human being.
Such training would also make us suspicious of condemning the new. To me the finest of César Franck’s compositions is that symphony based on the Beatitudes (I don’t recall the number). Still, after its first performance, the faculty of the Conservatoire generally agreed that it was a failure, because Franck had used the cors Anglais in an unprecedented fashion. To reject Gaugin and Matisse merely because they present something untried is to reject the early Italian school because it introduces perspective.
New art forms voice new cultures. Spengler points out the affiliation of sculpture and the relationship of organ music to Greek and to Mediæval life, respectively; while James Howard Kehler* pleads that business
* Published in some current magazine about 1917. References are inaccessible at this time.
be made the art form of modern civilization. Naturally this would involve a fundamental change from trade and commerce as it exists today.
Taste (using the word to mean the criterion of Beauty, just as we use the word Truth to mean the criterion of Reality) is in the same case today that Truth was at the time of the Sophists. Democritus and Protagoras boldly upheld that man is the measure of all things; that there are as many truths as there are individuals; that what is true for me is not necessarily true for you. Of course a Truth that is merely relative is no truth at all. (“This fellow Paul declares that handmade gods are not gods at all.”—Acts 19:26.) Into this disorganized and chaotic condition Socrates first held up the serpent in the wilderness by showing that back of all individual opinion, mighty and serene, stands the concept entirely unchanged by what we happen to think about it. And out of this Plato evolved the Universal or the Idea that gave thought an unshakable permanence. It was he who humorously pointed out that if truth is a matter of personal opinion and nothing is finally true, then of course that statement is not true.
To know nothing about art “but know what we like” reduces us at once to the level of beetles and angleworms, who share the same magnificent certainty. Surely mankind will be left to wander no longer in this sophistical maze that abandons even people of wide capacity to an unchartered labyrinth of meager personal conclusions. Through the sense of Beauty lies one of the great avenues of escape into a nobler abundance of life—a loftier atmosphere of experience. There is nothing more truly unifying than æsthetic enjoyment—a divine democracy that knits soul to soul both slave and emperor. It touches that deep remedial force that underlies all nature and restores to mind-sick men their hearts again. One of the most prevalent Names for Bahá’u’lláh in the Orient is Jamal Mabarak (the Blessed Beauty).
If the first requirement of human progress be to think accurately, surely the second is to feel nobly, to live above the base ignoble ends of lawless emotionalism. Good taste restrains quite as much as moral precept.
The two, it seems to me, must become an integral part of the education of the future; not elective courses, not something apart from education, but the basis of education. No human being in a truly educated society would ever be left at large in the world without having done advanced laboratory work in some one of the sciences. Nothing conduces more perfectly to nicety and exactitude of thought; whilst the expert mechanic who hears in Beethoven’s fifth symphony merely measured noise would be equally rejected.
So much for the training of the mind and of the senses. The training of the will and of the heart are so explicitly set forth in the writings of Bahá’u’lláh and of ’Abdu’l-Bahá that it would be presumptuous to add anything to Their definite and persuasive Utterances. The Blessed Beauty (Bahá’u’lláh) says that He has come to teach our souls a new flight—a flight into that larger social consciousness that will make of us one blood and one kindred to dwell upon the face of the earth. Knowledge can be acquired from men, but unity can be learned only of God. Therefore for that spiritual education that constitutes man’s true development, we must turn to the Divine Teachings of the Manifestation who has made education one of the great principles upon which the future of humanity is to rest.
President Bliss of the American College of
Beirut, Syria, at Haifa, Palestine.)THE universities and colleges of the world must hold fast to three cardinal principles:
“First. Whole-hearted service to the cause of education, the unfolding of the mysteries of nature, the extension of the boundaries of science, the elimination of the causes of ignorance and social evils, a standard universal system of instruction, and the diffusion of the lights of knowledge and reality.
“Second. Serivce to the cause of morality, raising the moral tone of the students, inspiring them with the sublimest ethical ideals, teaching them altruism, inculcating in their lives the beauty of holiness and the excellency of virtue, and animating them with the graces and perfections of the religion of God.
“Third. Service to the oneness of the world of humanity; so that each student may consciously realize that he is a brother to all mankind, irrespective of religion or race. The thoughts of universal peace must be instilled in the minds of all the scholars, in order that they may become the armies of peace, the real servants of the body politic—the world. God is the Father of all. Mankind are His children. This globe is one home. Nations are the members of one family. The mothers in their homes, the teachers in the schools, the professors in the colleges, the presidents in the universities, must teach these ideals to the young from the cradle to maturity.”
“Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”—2 Cor. 5:17. “A year is the expression of a cycle of the sun; but now is the beginning of a cycle of Reality, a new cycle, a new age, a new century, a new time, and a new year. Therefore it is very blessed.”—’Abdu’l-Bahá.
THE old method of education, from the without, in, has given place to the new and illumined one which works from the within, out. Education today represents the unfoldment of the inner consciousness, as the rosebud unfolds. The latent potentialities are developed through the Light of Knowledge. Self-expression is the keynote of the new process. No longer is the child’s mind forced into an iron mould of uniform shape and all originality obliterated; the wise teacher of today acts as a gardener, who studies the plants he is given to cultivate, understands their needs for growth, and supplies them.
A new system for teaching music which is meeting with marvelous results is founded upon a reversal of the old method and might well be applied to other lines of the child’s education. The old method was: First, drill; second, reason; third, inner feeling. It began with the physical, next mental, and last the finer sensibilities of the inner feelings, if any remained after so uninspirational a process. The new system begins with inner feeling. A keen sense of rhythm is aroused, and this by marking the time as the child repeats a verse, such as “twinkle, twinkle little star,” etc., spatting each measure with the hands. Next the value of the notes is gained through rhythmic measures. With no association with the keyboard or the printed music, this foundation is laid. Next the reasoning faculties are awakened. It learns why certain forms are used and it begins from the very first to think melodically, and to write its musical thoughts; to set simple verses to original music. The love of self-expression is cultivated; then the dreaded drill of the old method becomes an interesting means of technical ability, whole-heartedly and eagerly done daily. A deep muscial appreciation of the classics follows, brilliantly performed through the perfect development of inner feeling, reason, and drill, and always the creative talent through original compositions is expressed.
A prominent teacher of this new method recently said: “I should feel as ashamed of my child’s education if she could not compose and write her own compositions as she went from grade to grade, as I would if she went through school and had learned to read all of the best literature, yet could not write a word or express an original thought. All drill, with little reason and no development of the inner feelings, produces such results musically as this.”
There are many new ideals to be found in the Bahá’í Teachings that will establish a sure foundation for the future educational methods of the world. ’Abdu’l-Bahá has said: “The most important of all matters in question and that with which it is most specially necessary to deal effectively, is the promotion of education, and no freedom or salvation can be imagined in the case of any nation which has not progressed in this greatest and most important point; just as the greatest cause of degradation and decadency of every nation is bigotry and ignorance.
“Another characteristic of progress consists in the earnest and
sincere development of public education; in teaching all of the useful sciences and in encouraging the people to adopt modern inventions; in extending the spheres of arts and commerce; and endeavoring to induce them to adopt methods by which the country may be enriched. If necessary make the education compulsory, for not until the veins and tendons of the nation stir with life will any study and adoption of improvements be of any avail, because the nation is like unto the body, zeal and resolution are like unto the soul, and a soulless body cannot move.
“In the scheme of human life the teacher and his system of teaching plays the most important role, carrying with it the heaviest responsibilities and most subtle influences. A teacher is like unto a gardener. Just as a gardener sows the seeds and watches carefully over their sprouting, looks after their growth and progression, so also the teacher must watch over the education of the children and inculcate in their young lives the highest ideals of truth and justice.”
There is a threefold principle which enters largely into the new methods of education described by ’Abdu’l-Bahá as follows: “Every great cause in this world of existance findeth a visible expression through three means: First, Intention; second, Power; third, Action. The realization of everything in the contingent world dependeth upon these three principles.” Is not this quite like the inner feeling, reason and drill of the new school of music already mentioned? The intention touches the wells of inner feeling; the power touches the realms of the intelligence, or reason; and action or drill follows. This method quickens the latent potentialities and applies to the mental and spiritual unfoldment of man. “Every creature,” said ’Abdu’l-Bahá, “has an innate degree of perfection to which he must attain. The Divine Teacher desires man to be educated, that he may attain to the high rank of his own reality.”
In the universities of the New Cycle which is just dawning upon the world, the spiritual development will go hand in hand with the physical and mental—nay, it will precede it and be the foundation upon which true education will be built. “The Word of God is the first instructor in the university of existence and the primal emanation of God.”
Let us compare the Great Essence of God, which is infinite, unknowable, beyond mention, description or utterance of human mind, to the essence of electricity. Electricity is not light, but manifests as light through a material conductor. Let us consider the Manifestation of God as the Receiver of this divine light, the Storehouse of the Divine Word: “The Word of God is the Storehouse of all good, all wisdom and all power. It awakens within us that brilliant intuition which makes us independent of all tuition and endows us with an all-embracing power of spiritual understanding.”
Next let us consider man as a material conductor, which must be constructed with a positive and negative wire, these wires connecting with the Divine Power-house (the Word of God): “The First Bestowal of the Almighty is the Word, and the receiver and accepter is the understanding.”
Next let us look upon the positive wire as the human mind, thought, word; the negative, or receptive wire as the heart, the intentions, the emotions, and these two wires forming a circuit which manifests as the Light of knowledge, and action. If the word or thought wire is free and alive, and the heart—the inner feeling wire—is dead, when through
the will, which is the focus of human understanding, the button is pressed, there is no light. Words alone, or mental power does not suffice; “the letter killeth.” Likewise when the heart or emotion is overly active, zeal without wisdom, emotional force without understanding of the principles and the teachings of the Word, and the wire of intelligence is dead, again no light is manifested–the real Light of knowledge. And no acting without the heart and the mind cooperating can pass as light. But when the word, thought, and mind, together with the heart and emotions, are equally free and conductive, the Divine Essence proceeding from the Word streams through the human instrument or conductor, and the Light manifests. This is the Light of which Christ said: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.”
’Abdu’l-Bahá has described this system of study and of attaining to this light of knowledge in these words: “The principles of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh must be carefully studied one by one until they are understood and realized in mind and heart, then will you be strong followers of the Light—truly spiritual, heavenly soldiers of God acquiring and spreading the true civilization throughout the world. Then will come the paradise on earth when all mankind will gather together under the Tent of Unity in the Kingdom of Glory.”
This is the new method which will bring about true education, that will develop mind and heart, understanding and realization, unfold the latent possibilities and potentialities, and raise humanity to the “high rank of its own reality.”
Another essential principle which the new ideals of education emphasize is that of faith. Heretofore faith in many instances has been a blind
belief, void of demonstration, and created largely through superstition and imagination; but in this day of Light a blind belief must pass away. “The light of knowledge hath appeared, before which the darkness of every superstitious fancy shall be annihilated.” A blind belief in the principle of mathematics gives no power of demonstration; without the understanding of that invisible principle which is back of the science no example can be worked out. To pray to the principle to do the work for one is useless; only through the light of knowledge which gives birth to understanding can the pupil solve his problem.
Today faith is defined by ’Abdu’l-Bahá as “first, conscious knowledge, and second, the practice of good deeds.” A noted minister of the West recently defined faith in his sermon on “The Faith of the New Age” as “That inner spiritual assurance of the unseen reality based upon the knowledge of the reality of the thing seen.” The inner spiritual" assurance of the unseen Reality of the Essence of God–the divine principle of life based upon the knowledge of the reality of the thing seen (the Manifestation of God, the Word made flesh)—this is the faith upon which the new ideals of education must rest. “First, conscious knowledge”; then that knowledge demonstrated. This rule applies to both the mental and the spiritual development of both man and child and results in the unfoldment of both “mind and heart.”
Let us meditate upon these words of ’Abdu’l-Bahá in the light of what has been written:
“Today nothing but the Power of the Word of God, which encompasses the realities of all things, can bring thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits under the shade of One Tree.” And this Tree produces the fruits of the New Cycle, one branch of which is Universal Education.
“THERE IS A POINT on which the philosophers and the Prophets differ. The philosophers make education the test of knowledge, holding that any man who receives sufficient education can attain a state of perfection. That is to say man possesses the potentiality for every kind of progress, and education enables him to bring this into the court of objectivity.
“The Prophets say that something else is necessary. It is true that education transforms the desert into a rose garden, the virgin forest into an orchard, saplings into trees, and single flowers into double and treble flowers, but there is a fundamental difference in men. You may know ten children of one country, in the same school, under the same master, treated and fed in the same way. One of these children may make great progress, others may remain stationary. In the innate nature there are differences of memory, perception and intelligence. There is a superior, a middle and an inferior degree which corresponds to the difference in the fundamental estates of creation. While recognizing the influence of education, we must also become acquainted with the innate disposition.
“The Prophets are sent to educate this innate quality in humanity. They are like gardeners who sow the grain which afterward springs up in a thousand forms of advancement. The Prophets are therefore the first Educators of the world, the head-masters of the world. However much man may advance in material civilization, if he remain ignorant of the spiritual civilization, his soul is still defaced.”
“The Prophets are sent to refresh the dead body of the world; to render the dumb, eloquent; to give peace to the troubled; to make illumined the indifferent; and to set free from the material world all beings who are its captives. Leave a child to himself and he becomes ill-mannered and thoughtless. He must be shown the path, so that he may become acquainted with the world of the soul—the world of divine gifts.”
—’Abdu’l-Bahá.
This is the third in a series of travel stories by a unique teacher in the field of international relationships. The first was published in June and the second in August. In this article Mrs. Schopflocher tells of visiting Tihrán, the capital of Persia, also Hamadan, another important city, as well as other interesting experiences.—Editor.
WHEN I left the steamer at Bushire to travel over the world’s worst road to Shiraz, it was my intention to return and take the next steamer for Basrih, from which point I could airplane to Baghdad, but some irresistible force drew me onward and once again I found myself in that great city, the capital of Persia. It was my second visit to Tihrán, having “passed through” two years ago, when I came out of Russia via Baku and Tabriz. This time I found thousands ready to sacrifice comfort and everything to give me a warm welcome (entirely undeserved)—a welcome which I cannot describe.
If those who doubt the miracle of Bahá’u’lláh in melting with the love of God and the dynamic power of His Word the different religionists and of moulding them into one spiritual brotherhood could witness the unity of these Persian Bahá’ís who were formerly Jews, Muhammadans, Zoroastrians—if one could witness the harmony among themselves and their divine attitude of unity and harmony with an occidental—a Christian Bahá’í–all doubts would vanish forever. This is not an ordinary association, this meeting of the East and the West! Something the like of which was not known before has happened. “It is the light of guidance which has flooded all their souls with radiance.
- * * This is the education of His
Holiness Bahá’u’lláh. This is the training He has given them.”
The week spent among the Bahá’ís in Tihrán was like spending a week in paradise. How God has cemented the hearts! Truly “there is no bond like the love of God, for the love of God is the bond eternal.” ’Abdu’l-Bahá told us that when Bahá’í teachers go to Persia they “will find there the warmest welcome and the heartiest reception, with showers of kindness,” and this was literally fulfilled daily during my visit.
One afternoon I spoke at a garden meeting; the audience was gathered around the lotus pond and the place was crowded to the outer entrance. On the other side of this beautiful miniature lake a large chesterfield had been placed upon choice Persian rugs for the speaker and her brilliant interpreter, Mirza Abdul Naimi. When the lecture was over (I had spoken for an hour or more) the audience clamored for more news of America, India and Burma. I explained briefly that I had to leave for another speaking engagement at the other end of the city, where a group had gathered which I found later numbered over a thousand. When I arrived at this second garden, imagine my astonishment to find dozens of the faces of my earlier audience eagerly waiting, sitting cross-legged on the grass! Such is the spirit of loving appreciation and service shown to a Western sister who visits this land of Zoroaster and ancient grandeur.
As the darkest hour of night is that which precedes the dawn, so it was when Bahá’u’lláh blazed forth upon the darkness of political and religious strife With that great Light of God which illumined the hearts of
men some seventy-five years ago, and which caused a great commotion in that land of forgotten glories. Lord Curzon writes in his book, “Persia,” that “a religion which can create such unselfish devotion in the hearts of its devotees, * * * should not be put lightly aside without careful examination.”
I had previously traveled around the world, but really saw nothing of the rarer opportunities which came to me later through association With these dear spiritual friends of both sexes in Tihrán. The women are marvels of quick understanding and planned and organized splendid meetings and receptions. Often they were dressed in strictly American clothes and many wore their hair bobbed. Their kindness to me was precious and beyond any expression in words.
--PHOTO--
Street costume of Persian women under the veil.
One early morning before sunrise I literally dragged myself from their midst and motored to the aerodrome, Where I boarded a German plane for Khanehqain, located on the border of Persia and Irak. Thus it was that I said farewell to those in Tihrán.
A short time later the airplane descended for petrol at Hamadan, another city in Persia wherein reside many illumined Bahá’ís. I found myself enveloped in a cloud of black silks, which proved to be Bahá’í women who had received news that I would pass that way. Many of these charming ladies I had met on my previous visit. The British Colonel, my traveling companion in the airplane, looked a bit startled when I almost disappeared from view. Later he inquired about what secret fraternity I belonged to or what I might have in common With these veiled black-robed ladies of the East! Perhaps I was as surprised as the Colonel when this black sea moved nearer to me, and one unveiled eye leaned over and whispered the Bahá’í greeting. Again that mystical all-meaning Name! Indeed I never felt more safe than discovering myself with Oriental Bahá’ís.
Another page from my diary records the delightful dinners at the palace of Irak’s ruler, His Majesty King Feisal. These will long be remembered as gems of friendly understanding in an Eastern setting of rare charm. To dine at the palace still another time for the purpose of meeting His Majesty’s brother, King Ali, formerly King of another portion of Arabia, was likewise a very interesting experience. We in the West hardly understand the full meaning of hospitality as it is defined and lived in the East. Returning to the West after a sojourn in the land of dreamers, and even some fanatics,
--PHOTO--
A glimpse of the mountains over which airplanes pass enroute to Tihrán.
is like having an icy dip in mid-winter.
King Feisal inquired what there could be in the Bahá’í Revelation that surpassed other religions in the world and which so commanded my undivided attention. I might sum up my reply to him thus: There are three outstanding points of paramount interest to searchers after Truth. First, this is the only spiritual revelation that gives a scientific proof of the Existence of God—proof that will satisfy a rational mind. Second, it is the only spiritual teaching known to be written by the pen of the Prophet in His own handwriting, and therefore time cannot corrupt it. Third, it is the only religion in the world which offers a practical or working solution of the economic problem of the world today.
Of course it is not possible to give a detailed account in this brief article of my many interesting experiences every place I traveled. I have only attempted an outline, leaving a more complete record for another time. However, I cannot refrain from adding that the unity among different religionists, peoples and races which the Bahá’í Teachings establishes, is what I have witnessed in the actual living among the devoted followers of Bahá’u’lláh in every land. “It is the hour of unity of the sons of men”; and when humanity at large arouses itself to a full realization of this blessed truth, and the practice of it through the education of both mind and heart, we will have the peace of the world. There is no greater joy than to see this spiritual “fusion” progressing, for Bahá'ís believe “that universal love must become the dominant note of the twentieth century.”
The following appreciative expressions have been compiled from letters of Ahmed Samimi and Abdul Hussein Naimi, Bahá’ís who speak both Persian and English, and who served as interpreters for Mrs. Schopflocher.
That Mrs. Schopflocher’s first visit to the cities of northern Persia left a remarkable and ineffaceable impression upon the hearts of those who crossed her path, was most evident when, upon hearing of her return visit to that country last spring, there was great rejoicing and all anxiously looked forward to a reunion with this gifted and beloved sister and teacher. No greater tribute to her glowing influence and work could be given than the inspiring welcome accorded her every place. On this second visit some of the cities in central and southern Persia were visited for the first time by any Western Bahá’í.
Especially interesting is the fact that Persia was not part of Mrs. Schopflocher’s itinerary for this
year, but on returning from her teaching tour in India, stopping en route at Bushire, she learned that it was not a great distance from there to Shiraz. Feeling the urge so strongly to continue her travels into Persia, she spontaneously, promptly and enthusiastically turned her footsteps in the direction of Shiraz, where she remained a few days, and through her services sustained her well-merited reputation as a spiritual genius. Meetings were quickly arranged for her, and her lectures on the Bahá’í Cause were received with joy and enthusiasm. She herself possesses that trust and faith and love which enables her to inspire others with greater courage and hopefulness. But the outstanding event in Shiraz, Mr. Samimi describes in the following manner:
“The night before leaving Shiraz, Mrs. Schopflocher and a number of friends, including myself, had the great privilege of visiting the House of the Báb, where that inspired Messenger of God made His divine declaration as the Forerunner of the Great Bahá’í Cause. The real and true inspiration which everybody present felt is too precious and spiritual a thing to be conveyed in words. Mrs. Schopflocher, after talking for half an hour to the guardian of the house, asking him varied and sundry questions, said to us that she felt the presence of the same inspiration she had received while she was at the Shrines of ’Abdu’l-Bahá and the Báb on Mount Carmel.”
“The following day,” writes Mr. Samimi, “we left for the city of Isfahan, a journey of two days. En route we had the privilege of visiting Bahá’ís in some small towns and villages, such as Abádeh, where the heads of some seventy Bahá’í martyrs, who gave their lives for the Cause at its early down, are interred.
“On April twenty-fourth we reached Isfahan, the old and famous city which used to be the capital of Persia during the Safavite dynasty. Beautiful gardens, palaces, pavilions, mosques, bazaars, splendid bridges, and above all a magnificent royal square, are some of the sights which make a wonderful appeal to the traveler. The quaint beauty of the structures will remain fixed forever in the mind. The city has a special claim upon one’s attention, as it was ranked as the metropolis of Persia from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries before Tihrán assumed its place as the capital of the Shah’s domain. Although we remained but three days in Isfahan, we visited some of these interesting places, particularly the “Chehel Sotoun” (Forty Pillars), an imposing edifice of ancient date which used to be the audience-hall of Shah Abbas the Great, the Shah of the Safavite dynasty. While there we met some Bahá’í officers of high rank, who gave us cordial welcome, and in showing us about the place pointed out the spot where the two well-known Bahá’í martyrs, Sultan Shohada and Mahboub Shohada, were executed.”
The newly established Persian weaving factory owned by one of the prominent traders of Isfahan was also visited. Ezzatullah Khan Zabih, a Bahá’í, and one of the technical managers, personally conducted the party through the establishment, and Mrs. Schopflocher declared that it ranked with any Western industrial factory of the kind.
The Bahá’ís of Isfahan, availing themselves of Mrs. Schopflocher’s presence in their city, promptly arranged Bahá’í meetings for both men and women, public as well as private. With sublime courage and conviction Mrs. Schopflocher declared the Teachings of the New Day, and her words produced such an effect that before she left the city, plans were being made for the advancement of
women, the establishment of regular classes and a definite educational program. At the meetings arranged especially for men, Mrs. Schopflocher stressed their cooperation with the women of the city for their emancipation and advancement along all lines.
As a Bahá’í who has witnessed the great work of Mrs. Schopflocher in Tihrán, Mr. Naimi writes enthusiastically and states he “cannot remain silent”; he especially makes reference to her winning personality, her eloquence in presenting the Bahá’í teachings and her power in attracting to the Cause so many who cross her path.
As soon as the Bahá’í friends and prominent people of the city heard that Mrs. Schopflocher had arrived in Tihrán, they gathered about her, and many were the invitations to meetings, large gatherings of various kinds, and dinner and luncheon parties in various homes: all for the purpose of having her speak to them about the Bahá’í Cause. These scenes cannot be adequately described. As her interpreter I can truly say she was really inspired every time she spoke. She addressed audiences of several hundred to a thousand or more at many meetings, and the ovation given her was unprecedented.
Mrs. Schopflocher’s talks covered a very interesting list of subjects like, for instance, “The Equality of Men and Women,” “The Solution of the Economic Problem,” “Universal Education,” etc., and always she especially emphasized the position of women in this age and the great part they are to have in bringing about a better social order. How she did plead for the emancipation and education of women! How courageous she was! How inspired! What a profound impression she made on her audiences, and what a powerful influence the messages she brought had upon them! Indeed, results are the criterion by which one measures effects, and when plans are immediately formulated and translated into action for the betterment of humanity, physically, mentally and spiritually, we know that a service has been effective and truly confirmed.
But what shall we say of a Western woman from a country so remote from us coming to the land which gave Bahá’u’lláh His birth, and, pleading for the adoption and inculcation of the divinely authoritative teachings which constitute the New Revelation for the guidance of humanity, gives joy and happiness to so many! Indeed, it is a great demonstration of the power of the Bahá’í teachings. She spoke also to many gatherings of non-Bahá’ís, men and women, distinguished groups of open-minded and enthusiastic listeners.
A delightful story is told of a very large gathering where Mrs. Schopflocher spoke on “The Seven Great Religions” and how the Bahá’í Revelation had come to unite them all. The audience manifested great enthusiasm, and before the close of the meeting a distinguished poet of Persia arose and chanted a poem he had composed eulogizing the work Mrs. Schopflocher had accomplished as a Bahá’í teacher. We wish the entire poem had been sent to us, but here is the first line as quoted: “A radiant star went from the West to the East”; then we are told the poem continues with brilliant references to the seeds of love, knowledge and truth which she has scattered throughout India, Persia and elsewhere.
Another gift which this indefatigable teacher seems to possess, and which is a great bounty, is the
strength which she evidences during long periods of service, for even very strong persons become exhausted and incapacitated at times, and Mr. Naimi adds, “But I must confess here that although I was doing only a part of the interpreting and for a short period of her seven days’ stay in Tihrán, I myself used to feel exhausted when I returned home at night and gathered myself together after the excitement of the day.”
In conclusion Mr. Naimi states that “Persia is thirsty for these visits of Western teachers, and if by experience and through intuition and inspiration they know how to speak to different kinds of audiences, as Mrs. Schopflocher does, the work they can accomplish is simply phenomenal—a miracle. It is peculiar but true that Western teachers find yearning and eager audiences in the East.”
One learns in letters received from Brussels that Miss Root presented to this Congress greetings from Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Bahá'í cause, and also the cordial fraternal good wishes of the Bahá'ís of the world. After her short speech on Bahá'u’lláh’s Principles for world consolidation, the Director, Dr. Otlet, extended his thanks, and then in eloquent French he spoke on the power in these Principles to establish universal peace.—Editor.
THE Seventh Congress of Associations organized by the Union of International Associations was held in Brussels, Belgium, July 17-19. It was followed by Universal University sessions, the whole continuing nine days. Summed in three short phrases the results of the congress were: (1) reconstruction of the Mondial Institute on a more enlarged basis; (2) development of the spirit of unity and syntheses among all the fields of activity and knowledge; (3) practically the Movement of Unity must have an instrument more intellectual than the League of Nations, an instrument through which all can look on all movements; an instrument through which one may urge on all governments and all people the structure of the real and new civilization based on peace, cooperation and progress. Delegates from more than twenty countries, representing nearly all the important international organizations, came together to get and give light on world cooperation.
The Director, Dr. Paul Otlet, of Brussels, an outstanding figure in any country, has a spirit so rare, a vision so like an apostle, an intellect so like Plato, and such a practical grasp of affairs that the Congress visitors gathered around him after each session to ask questions and to be happy. They felt his love, his wisdom. Really this Palais Mondial, the scene of this significant gathering, is just such a place as a twentieth century Plato might have had. It is a center of education, of intellectual union, connection, cooperation, coordination. It is a miniature of a Community of Nations. For thirty years Dr. Otlet and his splendid coworker, Dr. H. La Fontaine, have worked to build up this place. When the late Andrew Carnegie visited it in 1913, he wrote in the Visitor’s Book: “This day spent here has been one of the most interesting in my life.”
This “Mundaneum” is intended to be a World Museum, a World Library, a World University worked out by the Union of International Associations. It shows how just as Famine and Pest were obliged, yesterday, to yield before labor and science, so War in its turn can be made to yield to Peace willed and organized. It shows Spirit conquering Matter, and how the Ideal must preside over the destinies of men. It is open to all religions. All are cordially invited to come and hold Parliaments and have exhibitions; in the light of all, the truth will flash forth. It is wished to show that on one spot of the world the image and the total meaning of the world should be seen and understood; that this one spot should become a sacred place, inspirer and coordinator of high ideals and noble activities. It is wished that a treasure might be gathered there, the sum of the intellectual works to show the marvelous adventure pursued through the ages by mankind.
The work is being started in the same manner as cathedrals used to be, relying on time to continue and achieve the task. At present it is like a huge studio where thinkers, artists, men of action, humble workers intellectual and manual are cooperating. The Esperantists are welcomed and are active. July twenty-third was Esperanto Day in the Palais Mondial. Others are gathering collections, others diffuse the news that the work is growing, and others will try to muster the indispensable resources. Already it is a tremendous collective work bringing together in the unity of synthesis, the living portraits of the Nations, the religions, the masterly demonstrations of all the sciences, the marvels of all civilizations. People of any international organization may well ask themselves: “Are we making the most of this opportunity? Does our society have a permanent exhibit there where the world passes to and fro and stops to see and to hear?”
It is hoped that this Mundaneum may develop into a model universal World City where important experiments can be tried out on a small scale to prove their fitness. It would be an admirable place to demonstrate to all what Bahá’u’lláh’s new solution of the economic problem will do, so that the poor may live in comfort and every child in every country may have education.
May this Mundaneum not only be a memorial to the past, a mirror to the present, but may it be a great guide to the future!
of a Prophet of God are the deeds of beneficent accomplishment and greatness emanating from Him. If He proves to be instrumental in the elevation and betterment of mankind, he is undoubtedly a valid and Heavenly Messenger.”
THE PROMULGATION OF UNIVERSAL PEACE, being the Addresses of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in America, in two volumes. Price, each, $2.50.
LETTER AND TABLET FROM 'ABDUL-BAHÁ to the Central Organization for a Durable Peace, The Hague, a leaflet of vital importance in the consideration of the subject of Peace. Price, 10 cents.
BAHÁ'U'LLÁH AND THE NEW ERA, by Dr. J. E. Essiemont, a gifted scientific scholar of England. This is the most comprehensive summary and explanation of the Bahá'í Teachings as yet given in a single volume. Price, $1.50; paper cover. 60c.
THE WISDOM TALKS OF 'ABDUL-BAHÁ in Paris. This series of talks covers a wide range of subjects, and is perhaps the best single volume at a low price in which 'Abdu'l-Bahá explains in his own words the Bahá'í Teachings. Price, paper, 40 cents; cloth, $1.00.
BAHá'Í SCRIPTURES. This book, compiled by Horace Holley, is a remarkable compendium of the Teachings of Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá. It contains a vast amount of material and is indexed. Price, $3.50.
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