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Education in the New Age - Chapter I - Introductory Statements
I. The Objective of the New Education Introductory Statements This presentation might be regarded as concerning itself with three different aspects of one general theme, which is that of the new and coming educational methods and ideas. The objective is to elucidate the cultural unfoldment of the race and to consider the next step to be taken in the mental development of humanity. Teaching, if true, must be in line with the past and must provide scope for endeavor in the present and must also hold out further enlightenment for those who have succeeded or are succeeding in attaining the indicated goals. There must be a spiritual future indicated. It is that which is required now. The word "spiritual" does not refer to religious matters, so-called. All activity which drives the human being forward towards some form of development - physical, emotional, mental, intuitional, social - if it is in advance of his present state is essentially spiritual in nature and is indicative of the livingness of the inner divine entity. The spirit of man is undying; it forever endures, progressing from point to point and stage to stage upon the Path of Evolution, unfolding steadily and sequentially the divine attributes and aspects. [2] The three points of our general theme are: The Technique of the Education of the Future. The Science of the Antahkarana. This deals with the mode of bridging the gap which exists in man's consciousness between the world of ordinary human experience, the threefold world of physical-emotional-mental functioning, and the higher levels of so-called spiritual development which is the world of ideas, of intuitive perception, of spiritual insight and understanding. Methods of Building the Antahkarana. This leads to the overcoming of the limitations - physical and psychological - which restrict man's free expression of his innate divinity. Here we can only prepare the ground for this third point because the subject involves advanced meditation practices which must be approached gradually. I have dealt with meditation in my other books. The question might here be asked, why it is of value to consider giving time to that which lies as yet in the future. I would reply by reminding you that "As a man thinketh, so is he." This is a truism and a platitude of occultism. Therefore, what is true of the individual is also true of the group and as a group thinks, so does it eventually react. As the group thought-waves penetrate into the mental atmosphere of humanity, men become impressed and the inaugurating of the new ways of living and of developing proceeds with increased facility. Here I seek only to give you some brief and general ideas which will serve to indicate to you the trend of my thought and the purpose which I have in mind. Perhaps the easiest way for me to do this is to formulate certain propositions which are of interest and which can carry illumination. I. Education, up to the present time, has been occupied with the art of synthesizing past history, past achievement [3] in all departments of human thought and with the attainments to date of human knowledge. It has dealt with those forms of science which the past has evolved. It is primarily backward-looking and not forward-looking. I would remind you that I am here generalizing, and that there are many and notable small exceptions to this attitude. II. Education has concerned itself primarily with the organizing of the lower mind, and a child's caliber has been largely gauged by its reaction to accumulated information (where education is concerned), collated and collected data, sequentially handed out, digested and arranged so as to equip the child to compete with the information which other people possess. III. Education to date has been largely memory training, though there is now emerging the recognition that this attitude must end. The child has to assimilate the facts that the race believes to be true, has tested in the past and found adequate. But each age has a differing standard of adequacy. The Piscean Age dealt with the detail of the endeavor to measure up to a sensed ideal. Hence we have a history which covers the method whereby tribes acquired national status through aggression, war and conquest. That has been indicative of racial achievement. Geography has been based on a similar reaction to an idea of expansion, and through it the child learns how men, driven by economic and other necessities, have conquered territory and absorbed lands. This too has been regarded, and rightly so, as a racial achievement. The various branches of science are also regarded as constituting the conquest of areas of territory, and this again is acclaimed as racial achievement. The conquests of science, the conquests of nations, and the conquests of territory are all indicative of the Piscean method, with its idealism, its militancy, and its separateness in all fields - religious, political and economic. But the age of synthesis, of inclusiveness and of understanding is upon us, and the new education of the [4] Aquarian Age must begin very gently to penetrate the human aura. IV. Education is more than memory training and more than informing a child or student as to the past and its achievements. Those factors have their place, and the past must be understood and studied, for out of it must grow that which is new, its flower and its fruit. Education involves more than the investigation of a subject and the forming of subsequent conclusions leading to hypotheses which, in their own turn, lead to still more investigation and conclusions. Education is more than a sincere effort to fit a child or adult to be a good citizen, an intelligent parent and no charge upon the state. It has a far wider application than producing a human being who will be a commercial asset and not a commercial liability. Education has other objectives than rendering life enjoyable and so enabling men and women to achieve a culture which will permit them to participate with interest in all that transpires in the three worlds of human affairs. It is all the above, but should also be much more.
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