Tomorrow and Tomorrow/Chapter IX

CHAPTER IX

Education

Education is one of the most important factors in the evolution of humanity. There is only one department of life more potent, and that is religion.

In epochs characterized by religious zeal and piety, religion and education work hand in hand. Together they constitute a single unifying, inspirational, guiding force which coordinates all human thought and expression within a traditionally accepted pattern. In such periods education serves what is in reality its most basic purpose—the training of character.

In general this pattern makes for progress. But toward the end of every great epoch a crystallization takes place—a civilizational sclerosis which is antiprogressive. Then, for the sake of progress, long established patterns with their strong authoritative hold upon the reverence and loyalty of mankind have to be broken up. It is the day of the iconoclast, a period of confusion and chaos.

Such is the era in which we live today. Old landmarks have disappeared. Signposts unquestioningly followed for ages have decayed and fallen. All authorities, all loyalties are subject to questioning. Apart from devotion to science and to technological progress, there is no central idea or common loyalty to guide humanity and to channel its expressions and activities. Thus it happens that there is for this generation no definite unifying goal toward which with definite assurance we can progress.

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In such an age of confusion education is also confused. It is impotent to operate with that influence upon society of which it is in reality capable. And because it has become entirely dissociated from and even suspicious of religion, education today almost entirely lacks those character-building influences which it has always exerted in strongly religious periods.

This is a tragic failure! For education, especially when harmoniously yoked with religious inspirations and loyalties, has an immense power to mold character. to inspire consecration to lofty goals and to point and lead the way to human progress.

Such is far from being the case today. The educators themselves are too much a part of the confusion of the age to be capable of leading humanity out of the bondage of technological materialism. It is a case of the blind leading the blind. In fact, education today is more an expression of the sociological “morcs” than it is a regulator of these “mores.”

Yet even in the midst of this disintegrating age we have seen some potent examples of the power education has to mould youth. Tragically enough, this influence has been evil and illusionary. Hitler, in less than a generation, made Naziism a powerful dynamic and reduced to impotence those whom he could not enlist in its loyalties. He was able to do this because he could induce, by one means or another, education to be unitary and single—visioned along the lines of an ideology which, while anti-religious, yet managed to induce in its followers those loyalties and zeals which characterize religion. Communism, where it is ardent, presents a similar phenomenon.

It is far easier, of course, to motivate loyalties to egocentric ideologies than to self-sacrificing ones; easier

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to arouse and guide a brutalizing process in humans than to induce a serviceable and noble development. In other words, men more easily become devils than they become saints. The wonder is that saints and saintliness have exerted such influences as they have throughout the history of an unregenerate humanity.

As might be expected, Bahá’u’lláh gave great prominence to education in delineating the structure of the future World Society. It is chiefly through educative influences that we must build up an ideology and loyalty consecrated to the goal of world peace. Only through education of youth and adult can the adverse and chaotic elements which now compose human society be guided and fused into that dynamically functioning world unity which we now have come to believe is the keystone of the arch of human progress.

Bahá’u’lláh had two great world aims:———to build up a spiritually regenerate humanity, and to establish a functionally united world. To both of these aims education is intrinsic.

Primary in the Bahá’í educational program, as the first step toward an intelligent and unified humanity, is the overcoming of illiteracy. Bahá’u’lláh specified the need for universal education. Illiteracy and ignorance must be eliminated from the planet. To fail in this is a sin before God; and parental carelessness must be safeguarded by governmental provision (a dictum especially needed in the Orient).

“Man is the supreme Talisman. Lack of a proper education hath, however, deprived him of that which he doth inherently possess.”

At the time Bahá’u’lláh, around 1870, gave to the world the pattern for a universal civilization, the con [Page 69]66 Tomorrow and Tomorrow

ccpt of universal free education existed in only a few countries and functioned only partially there. Since then more countries have established the means for universal education. And in the most advanced countries, universal primary education, free secondary education and the growing practice of college attendance have made a dynamic change in the educational pattern, with distinct sociological consequences. We observe here a notable rise in the level of man’s culture and an amazing progress in technological fields. Certain it is, as Bahá’u’lláh said, that education can awaken and disclose precious values in man.

Yet still, as of today, education in three—quarters of the globe is used to uphold and crystallize the traditional caste system, rather than to universalize literacy and the development of intelligence.

Only within the last two decades have all nations given at least lip service to the goal of universal literacy, until it has at last become an established part of the world’s ideology. No government, however insincere it may still be in its devotion to mass education, would dare to openly proclaim a callous indifference to the education of even its humblest citizen.

Thus it seems likely that before the end of this century, one of Bahá’u’lláh’s major goals for world civilization will have been attained. The world’s citizenry will at least be able to read and write.

But literacy is only the barest foundations for education—not education itself. What would be the important factors in such a curriculum as Bahá’u’lláh indicated?

First and foremost, as a means toward world unity and world-federation, youth must be trained in wider

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and nobler values than at present. As Bahá’u’lláh pointed out, the loyalties to family, clan, tribe and nation which have gradually evolved in human society are not enough to satisfy the wider horizons and needs of today.

As stated in the requisites for “World Peace and World Federation,” there must be a new and more universal loyalty to mankind itself as a whole, a “oneworl ” zeal and dedication. Loves of family, of clan, of nation are praiseworthy and will continue to hold their legitimate place in the social pattern. But unless and until a greater love is bred in humans———love of one’s world a United Nations cannot successfully function.

Bahá’í parents all over the world inculcate in their children from infancy, as a spiritual law, the unprejudiced attitude that they are members of one human family. The first loyalty is to God; the next is to humanity; and then follows national and family loyalties. It is an all-inclusive attitude, containing the lesser and particular, rather than a particular working toward selective exclusion.

Textbooks and courses in social sciences of the future will reveal the oneness of human life upon the planet. They will aim to develop a sincere appreciation of other cultures, religions and folk—aspirations. The beauty and value of variety will be stressed. Prejudices of color, race, religion will be eliminated by spiritual as well as intellectual indoctrination.

The rise of science as a usurper of men’s loyalties and the secularization of education are two of the most notable factors of modern civilization. These two factors are causally connected. It was because religion challenged and opposed at every hand the findings of

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science that intellectuals revolted from the Church and from Church influence in education.

Conversely, it may be stated that no system of education in the future will satisfactorily spiritualize its curriculum until it is able to harmonize religion with science. This is so important and pressing a need for humanity that Bahá’u’lláh made it one of the major principles of the New World Order, as described in the previous chapter. He envisaged, as we have seen, this harmonization taking place, and the spiritual factors of human existence being taught in a scientific way.

A deep respect for law will be engendered in each citizen by inculcation of spiritual values. In fact, law itself rests ultimately upon spiritual foundations. Had we no spiritual training we should be unaware of Justice, Mercy and Wisdom. The very prerequisite of formulating laws to govern society is an understanding of these spiritual qualities. Had we no concept of right and wrong we would have no criterion of Justice upon which to base law. Did we not realize what mercy is, our application of law would deny humane consideration or extenuating circumstances for a wrongdoer. If wisdom were not our spiritual endowment the formation and application of laws would be short sighted and restricted.

Our juvenile delinquency problem, our divorce problem, our crime problem, all witness the lack of stress in spiritual character building in our educational systems.

When in 1913 the writer was in Paris in connection with a travel school for boys, he was invited to call upon ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, leader of the Faith, who was residing there for a few months. In the course of the conversation he was asked what subjects I taught. “Algebra, Geometry and Latin,” was the reply. Fixing his deeply luminous eyes upon his visitor, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá gravely asked, “Do you teach the spiritual verities?” The writer, embarrassed how to explain why spiritual subjects were

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not on the college preparatory curriculum, answered briefly, “No, there is no time for that.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá made no comment. He did not need to. The writer, out of his own mouth, had condemned himself and his generation. “No time for spiritual truth!” Time for everything else,—for science in all its broad scope; for culture such as could be absorbed by youth; for amusement and recreation. But no time for the spirit!

Bahá’u’lláh’s emphasis on the spiritual foundations of citizenship would correct this fatal lack in modern education. By such spiritual training a character would be formed more capable of meeting the strains and temptations of life; more resolute in enterprise; more fertile in creative imagination; more responsible to the calls of duty; more worthy and capable as a true citizen of world democracy.

In various utterances on education Bahá’u’lláh strongly upholds the value of the intellect—“The brightest gem in the reality of man." Our intellectual capacity has raised us to the summit of existence physically. We have not only freed ourselves from limitations imposed by nature; we have even conquered nature and become ruler over it—over everything except ourselves and our animal inclinations. We are monarchs‘ with immense power, but without a sufficiently regal nature to rightly use that power.

The proper orientation of our intellectual powers, like our behavior as citizens in other fields of endeavor, is achieved by the upholding of moral standards in our educational curriculum. It is the primary goal of the education Bahá’u’lláh advocated.

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His suggested curriculum was even more practical and more vocational in aspect than the most progressive of modern colleges:—“Teach not those subjects that begin in words and end in words, but those subjects that pertain to human welfare.”

There is a growing tendency now to eliminate much dead wood in modern curricula—less attention to traditional classic education and greater stress on physical and social sciences. Language study will be greatly simplified in course of time by the development of a universal auxiliary language. Then, everywhere in the world, only one other language than the native tongue will need to be studied. This auxiliary language, begun in primary grades, will be so thoroughly mastered as to open to the student all the world’s important cultural and scientific literature.

But education is not complete until each student is prepared by such training to earn a livelihood. This practical slant is very strong in the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh. Work done in the right spirit is considered equivalent to worship——i.e., it is a service to God as well as to man. Consequently, all must be equipped for a vocational or professional career, some trade or science or art. To be idle when one is able to work is a sin. “Verily the most despised of men before God is he who sits and begs.” Any tyne of economic parasite is thus denounced. For youth to emerge from secondary schools or colleges unequipped for a career is a fonnidable error, according to Bahá’u’lláh’s educational program.

Perhaps the most revolutionary statement coming when and where it did of Bahá’u’lláh regarding education was the advocation of the education of women. For an Oriental to propound such a prin [Page 74]Education 71

ciple, and at a time when the Occident was barely aware of its soundness, was extraordinary. His reasons are widely different from and far more fundamental than the reasons that since then have brought educational opportunity even to western women.

Bahá’u’lláh stated that equal educational rights should be given to women because they are the mothers of future citizens. Unless the mothers of the race are enlightened citizens, we cannot expect the world’s citizenry to be enlightened. Basic education, largely concerned with the spiritual and moral values, is the responsibility of the mother to the child, long before school age. The ancient sanctity of motherhood thus assumes its place in a re-statement keyed to an age where universal education is a must in social progress.

The Orient cannot afford to lag behind the Occident in education, and the plan of Bahá’u’lláh offers it to Oriental women on a basis perhaps more acceptable than the fashion in which the Occident predicates its achievement in the education of women. Perhaps also, this new evaluation of motherhood is something which the Occident has to re—realize. Thus Bahá’u’lláh was more modern than the moderns when he said, eighty years ago, that education must be supplied by the parents, but that if the support of the parents should be lacking, then the state must assume the education of the children, and if preference had to be exercised on economic grounds, then the preference must be given to the girl, the future mother of tomorrow's citizen.’

Bahá’u’lláh’s explanation of the psychological and spiritual factors involved in man’s acquisition of knowledge brings a new understanding of epistemology. The mystery has never yet been fully solved, of how sensa [Page 75]72 Tomorrow and Tomorrow

tions and perceptions coming to us through our nervous system can be transformed into memories and concepts. Still less explicable is our marvelous ability to cognate, to generalize, to fomi abstract ideas: a creative power which lifts us completely above the animal world and enables us to both comprehend and rule the world of nature to which, if we were mere animals, we would be conditioned and obedient.

What is the full extent of these powers we have still to learn. It is certain, however, that a more spiritual psychology would be a great stimulus to the unfolding of new and marvelous creative powers in the human race.

Man’s creative powers would then enlist, much more than at present, that strange faculty of ours which is variously designated intuition, inspiration, the subconscious. This inspirational phenomenon, according to Bahá’u’lláh, is in reality the power of the soul, which can endow man's mind with a more immediate contact with the Universal Mind. Such, briefly, is the Bahá’í explanation of that strange power of intuition which plays such an extraordinary part in the inspirations and achievements of genius.

It is this power shining through the mind which gives it a light capable of illuminating dark and perplexing areas of thought; of solving the most complex problems; and of creating dazzling achievements in art and science.

Intuition is one of the three chief qualities of genius, one of the three great factors of the creative processof which the other two are sensitivity and conceptual power.*

By fostering the sensitivity of children; by enlisting spiritual motivations and aids for the development of conceptional power; and by opening up a whole

A book now in preparation by the author, _“How Genius

Works," will devote a chapter to this subject of intuition.

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new field of theoretical and practical science revolving around a study of intuition,—-the creative power of humanity will be greatly enhanced.

No longer will educational institutions be abhorred by the genius as something to he escaped from. For the first time in the history of the human race the educational system will seek to understand genius; to aid it in its avid thirst for knowledge and power; and to make of the school a place where individuals of creative vision will feel at home.

Francis Bacon said, “I take all knowledge to be my province.” As late as the beginning of the nineteenth century Thomas Jefierson could assert a similar broad goal. But the prevailing opinion today is one of despair of any one person’s power to grasp the wealth of knowledge—spreading out into so many departments—-that science has by now brought into existence. This is the age of specialization, and humanity suffers from disparateness resulting from such a training. Are we to go on with greater and greater specialization so that there will arise classes of scientists as distinct in their mental workings as are the classifications of science under which they operate?

This is not necessary. Let it be stated with certainty that humanity cannot build up a body of knowledge which it is not capable of understanding. Every man has it within his power to comprehend all of phenomenal existence. This is a power innate in man but as yet undeveloped.

In the present state of vast complexity of knowledge, a unitary concept of being can be arrived at only through the aid of the intuition. If the intuition is understood to be a power of the soul—more im [Page 77]74 Tomorrow and Tomorrow

mediate in its operation than man’s ordinary mental powers—then it follows that through adequate use of the intuition man may grasp, in essence though not in detail, the reality of any and all fields of knowledge which man can create.

It may therefore be expected that there will arise :1 new type of thinker, capable of grasping intelligently the realities of all fields of knowledge; not by specialization in them but by a survey of all fields with the aid of the intuitional powers. Such scientific synthesizers or philosophers will be used as directors of education, of science, and of human affairs.

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Ultimately a single curriculum will characterize education all over the world—cementing world unity by means of the great cohesive force of common ideals, a common body of knowledge. a unified objective and a moral and spiritual il:il'lllolly.

The work of UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific & Cultural Organization) quietly proceeds toward the dissemination of the cultural and scientific knowledge among students of all member nations, and eventually this common body of knowledge will help to develop a universal curriculum.

The effect upon society of this new grasp of totality, this new awareness and cognition of the unity of knowledge will be immense. It will work as a more intelligent directive for human progress and happiness. It will inspire art and enrich culture. And it will confer :1 new breadth and dignity on all human enterprise and association.