Flashes from Swami Vivekananda - 4

Philosophy of Education - 3

Service as worship

Liberty is the first condition of growth. It is wrong,
a thousand times wrong, if any of you dares to say, 'I will
work out the salvation of this woman or child.' Hands off! They will solve their own problems. Who are you to assume that you
know everything? How dare you think that you have the right over God? For, don't you know that every soul is the Soul of God?

Look upon every one as God. You can only serve. Serve the children of the Lord if you have the privilege. If the Lord grants that you can help anyone of His children, blessed you are. Blessed you are that that privilege was given to you when others had it not. Do it only as worship!

Assimilation of ideas

Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested all your life. We must have life-building, man-making, character-making, assimilation of ideas. If you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library. If education were identical with information, the libraries would be the greatest sages in the world and encyclopedias the rishis!

Getting by heart the thoughts of others in a foreign language and stuffing your brain with them and taking some university degrees, you consider yourself educated. In this education? What is the goal of your education?

Wrong education

Either a clerkship, or being a lawyer, or at the most a Deputy Magistrate, which is another form of clerkship, isn't that all? What good will it do you or to the country at large? Open your eyes and see what a piteous cry for food is rising in the land of Bharata, proverbial for its food. Will your education fulfil this want? The education that does not help the common mass of people to equip themselves for the struggle for life, which does not bring out strength of character, a spirit of philanthropy and the courage of a lion - is it worth the name?

The needed education

We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded and by which one can stand on one's own feet. What we need is to study, independent of foreign control, different branches of the knowledge that is our own, and with it the English language and western science, we need technical education and all else that will develop industries, so that men, instead of seeking for service, may earn enough to provide for themselves and save against a rainy day.

The goal of man-making

The end of all education, all training, should be man-making. The end and aim of all training is to make the man grow. The training by which the current and expression of will are brought under control and become fruitful, is called education. What our country now wants are muscles of iron and nerves of steel, gigantic wills which nothing can resist, which can penetrate into the mysteries and secrets of the universe and will accomplish their purpose in any fashion, even if it meant going down to the bottom of the ocean, meeting death face to face. It is the man-making religion that we want. Man-making theories are that we want. It is man-making education all round that we want.