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Part Three - The Path of Life
Chapter 14 Wisdom
1) The Primary Ends of Education
What are the purposes oF education? classical education in all cultures of the world was concerned primarily with cultivating virtue. education was about cultivating the soul, developing a civilized character and forming good citizens. however, in today’s schooling the focus is on technical knowledge and the skills needed for the complex modern workplace. character and values get short shrift. theodore roosevelt is said to have warned, “to educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” study of the world’s scriptures leads us back to consider education’s primary ends.
Father Moon distinguishes three levels of education: first, education of heart cultivates the emotional basis for unselfish love; second, education of norm deals with the morality of good relationships; third, academic and technical education follow on these two foundations. Much of the first two levels of education is done at home as the responsibility of parents. yet schools can also play a part, particularly by providing character education and marriage education. Given that deficiencies in character and marital problems can detract from performance in the workplace, educating for these ends need not be seen as in contradiction to the career orientation of modern schooling.
1. The Primary Purpose of Education: to Cultivate Virtue
World Scripture
Knowledge is the food of the soul. Plato, Protagoras (Hellenism)
True learning induces in the mind service of mankind. Adi Granth, Asa, M.1, p. 356 (Sikhism)
The end and aim of wisdom is repentance and good deeds. Talmud, Berakot 17 (Judaism)
A faithful study of the liberal arts humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel. Ovid (Hellenism)
Confucius said, “The superior man extensively studies literature and restrains himself with the rules of propriety. Thus he will not violate the Way.” Analects 6.25 (Confucianism)
The parents of a child are but his enemies when they fail to educate him properly in his boyhood… Knowledge makes a man honest, virtuous, and endearing to society. It is learning alone that enables a man to better the condition of his friends and relations. Knowledge is the holiest of holies, the god of the gods, and commands respect of crowned heads; shorn of it a man is but an animal. The fixtures and furniture of one’s house may be stolen by thieves; but knowledge, the highest treasure, is above all stealing. Garuda Purana (Hinduism)
As soon as a child can understand what is said, nurse, mother, tutor, and the father himself vie with each other to make the child as good as possible, instructing him through everything he does or says, pointing out, “This is right and that is wrong, this honorable and that disgraceful, this holy and that impious; do this, don’t to that.” If he is obedient, well and good. If not, they straighten him with threats and beatings, like a warped and twisted plank. Later on when they send the children to school, their instructions to the teachers lay much more emphasis on good behavior than on letters or music. The teachers take good care of this, and when the boys have learned their letters… they set the works of good poets before them on their desks to read and make them learn them by heart, poems containing much admonition and many stories, eulogies, and panegyrics of the good men of old, so that the child may be inspired to imitate them and long to be like them. Plato, Protagoras 325c-e (Hellenism)
When things are investigated, knowledge is extended; when knowledge is extended, the will becomes sincere; when the will is sincere, the mind is rectified; when the mind is rectified, the personal life is cultivated; when the personal life is cultivated, the family will be regulated; when the family is regulated, the state will be in order; when the state is in order, there will be peace throughout the world. The Great Learning (Confucianism)
Because perfect wisdom tames and transforms him, wrath and conceit he does not increase. Neither enmity nor ill-will take hold of him, nor is there even a tendency towards them. He will be mindful and friendly… It is wonderful how this perfection of wisdom has been set up for the control and training of the Bodhisattvas. Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines 3.51-54 (Buddhism)
You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. Deuteronomy 11.18-19
Does not wisdom call, does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights beside the way, in the paths she takes her stand; beside the gates of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud, “To you, O men, I call, and my cry is to the sons of men. O simple ones, learn prudence; O foolish men, pay attention. Hear, for I will speak noble things, and from my lips will come what is right; for my mouth will utter truth; wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are righteous; there is nothing twisted or crooked in them. They are all straight to him who understands and right to those who find knowledge. Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold; for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.” Proverbs 8.1-11
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Moral education teaches the norm that people should place the public good ahead of self-interest. (24:212, August 17, 1969)
All people live with a desire for goodness. Therefore education should teach: “Before you love God, you must love human beings.” “Live for all humankind.” “Love people and live for their sake.” “You were born for the sake of others, not for yourself.” (64:20, October 22, 1972)
We have a general idea that people who are good-hearted and sacrificial lead a better life. Moral education everywhere in the world aims at the cultivation of character to this end. Why? In their condition of fallenness, people aspire to rise to a higher state. Yet since Heaven cannot instruct each person one at a time in detail, it resorts to implicit teachings using symbols and metaphors. Despite the diversity of human cultures, the result of Heaven’s work is that all moral instruction today tells people to do right and accumulate virtuous deeds. (65:118-19, November 5, 1972)
One does not need any education to become an evil person. If a person wants to do evil or become evil, he will do it whether you teach him or not; so what is the point of educating him? No one teaches him to do evil; still he becomes evil without thinking about it. On the other hand, it is not easy to become a good person. To become a good person, someone capable of practicing goodness throughout a lifetime, education is indispensable. How nice it would be if we could walk that road easily! However, since good and evil travel in exactly opposite directions, the path to goodness is not easy at all. (39:23, January 9, 1971)
Conventional schools do not teach about marriage, even though it is a very significant matter. Marriage education is not given much space in the curriculum compared to the seriousness of its problems. There is a lack of education about the needs and aspirations of the opposite sex. There is a lack of education concerning the issues that typically arise after marriage. The schools disregard questions of how to build happy marriages or how to properly educate children. Instead, they focus on teaching science and mathematics. This is certainly an aberration. (Tongil Segye 108, March 9, 1978)
Let us create children’s educational materials about keeping purity before marriage.2 Let us create educational materials on how to make good fraternal and peer relationships, educational materials on marriage and on parenting, and educational materials on developing ideal families, extended families and clans. (233:336, August 2, 1992)
The family is the school of love; it is the most important school in life. Within the family, children cultivate the depth and breadth of their heart to love others.3 It is education of love and emotion that only parents can provide, and it becomes the foundation stone to form the children’s character. The family is also the school teaching virtues, norms and manners. It is the way of Heaven that people receive academic education, physical education and technical education on the foundation of this primary education of heart and norm. (271:80, August 22, 1995)
Children surely need to be educated about love. They do not necessarily need their parents to educate them in knowledge, but their parents are essential to educate them about love. Are they providing an education about love when the mother and father fight? Parents should teach by example how two people can become one with each other. Hence, the mother and father should be pleasing to Heaven; the father should be pleasing to the mother and the mother pleasing to the father. They should like each other and be parents whom the children like. Likewise, both parents should like all their children—it should not be the case that the father likes only some children and not others…
That is why we must receive an education about love in the presence of God and centering on God’s love. This education does not begin with human beings. God is their Heavenly Parent, so God should educate human beings about love. God would want to continue this education until people can fully grasp all the values of their Heavenly Parent; at that point they can be said to have reached maturity.
But is it recorded in the Bible that Adam and Eve grew up receiving God’s love? There is nothing about their receiving love; instead the Bible begins with an unpleasant story about their Fall. (51:172-73, November 21, 1971)
Koreans know well how to face death because they have been well educated about it. Teaching people how to conclude their lives well is the essence of education. (25:158, October 3, 1969)
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