i
On the education of children depends the future of nations.
To consider the education of children is to prepare for future
generations. The heart of a child is like a photographic plate
without any impressions on it, ready to reflect all that it
is exposed to. All the good qualities, which help to fulfill
the purpose of life, are the natural inheritance that every
soul brings to earth. Almost all the bad traits that mankind
shows in its nature are as a rule acquired after birth. This
shows that goodness is natural and badness is unnatural. Therefore
the child who has not yet had the opportunity of acquiring bad
traits in life can, if helped, develop the natural goodness
that is in its soul.
Education is not necessarily a qualification for making one's
life successful, nor for safeguarding one's own interests. It
is really a qualification for a fuller life, a life of thought
for oneself and of consideration for others. Education is that
which gradually expands in its length and breadth, horizontally
and perpendicularly. We may further explain this as being the
knowledge of oneself and one's surroundings; the knowledge of
others, both those who are known to us and those who are unknown
and away; the knowledge of the conditions of human nature and
of life's demands; and the knowledge of cause and effect, which
leads in the end to the knowledge of the world within and without.
No doubt it is difficult to think of vast knowledge of life
in connection with a child, but we must remember that as a rule
the grown-ups underestimate the capacity of a child's mind,
which is very often more eager to understand and more capable
of comprehension than that of a grown-up person. Although you
cannot start with a deep subject at the beginning of a child's
education, you can always keep before you the large design you
have in view and wish to reach.
The reason why the earliest remembrances of childhood have
such a peculiarly vivid significance is that we repeat after
coming to the earth the same process through which the soul
has passed. As the child grows it loses its innocence, so that
it seems removed from the world of the angels. Infancy is still
expressive of the angelic sphere; childhood expresses the sphere
of the jinns; youth is the expression of the human world.
And when one goes on one comes closer again to higher spheres.
The child is more open to perceive, as its mind is free from
worries and the excitement of life. The child is more willing
to believe, for its mind is free from any pre-conceived idea.
The child can look at things rightly, because its mind is not
yet fixed on strong likes and dislikes. The child has already
an inclination towards friendship, for animosity is unknown
to it; and therefore the moral which should be the central theme
of education, and which from beginning to end teaches the lesson
of friendship, has full scope in the heart of a child.
The great fault of modern education has been that, with all
its advanced methods of training children, it has missed what
is most important; namely the lesson of unselfishness. Man thinks
that an unselfish person is incapable of guarding his own interests
in life; but however much it may appear so it is not so in reality.
A selfish person is a disappointment to others, and in the end
a disadvantage to himself. Mankind is interdependent, and the
happiness of each depends upon the happiness of all, and it
is this lesson that humanity has to learn today as the first
and the last lesson.
Music is the basis of the whole of creation. In reality the
whole of creation is music, and what we call music is simply
a miniature of the original music, which is creation itself,
expressed in tone and rhythm. The Hindus call tone, or sound,
Nada Brahma, which means Sound-Creator. No scientist
can deny the truth that the entire creation is movement. The
nature of movement is expressed in tone and rhythm. There is
no movement which is not also a sound, although it may not be
audible to the human ear, and there is no movement without rhythm;
for there cannot be a movement unless it marks two, just as
no straight line can be without two ends. With every movement
one counts its first activity as one and the next as two. As
the conductor's baton marks time for the orchestra: one-two,
one-two, so one can mark the movement of every activity.
The whole of nature, in the change of seasons and of night
and day, expresses rhythm; and the entire cosmic system shows
in its working the law of rhythm. The ever-moving sea and the
tides are examples of nature's rhythm. The entire universe being
created on these two principles, the greatest appeal that can
be made to a living creature is by means of tone and rhythm.
The whole mechanism of man's body and the pulsation of his heart,
all follow rhythm; this proves that every activity of like is
an expression of tone and rhythm. Tone and rhythm constitute
music; therefore music should be the principal means of perfecting
the education of a child.
The infant begins its first activity in life by making a
noise, trying to speak or moving its hands and legs to show
a certain rhythm. If the same faculty which every infant shows
naturally is taken as the basis of his education, one can educate
even an infant. The education given at the earliest age is invaluable
to the child, for as the child grows, it acquires certain habits
by itself; and once it has become fixed in its way of looking
at things and thinking and behaving, these habits are hard to
change. It is like letting the rainwater make its own way instead
of digging a canal to take the water to the farm or garden.
In this way a child's tendency to learn and to act can be used
to the best advantage, if the parents only know how. The Indians
say that the mother is the first Guru; this should be realized
by all parents. Education begins at home, and it is this first
education which is the foundation of all that a child may learn
in the future.
Health depends upon the music of one's life. When the mechanism
of the body is regular in its rhythm and true in its tone, that
is what is called health; and it is irregularity of rhythm and
dissonance of tone which is called illness, and which physicians
examine by counting the pulse, the beating of the heart, and
by sounding the back and listening to the tone. They do these
things in their capacity as physicians, not as musicians whose
ears are trained to test the rhythm and tone.
The seer, the deep thinker, the knower of human nature, acts
also as a musician by finding in people's actions their tone
and rhythm. He notices in an untimely action, caused by ignorance
or impatience, the irregularity of the rhythm; and in a word
or action that has a harder or softer effect than it should
have he sees the false tone, the false note. He also feels consonant
or dissonant chords. When two people meet the dissonant chord
of their evolution keeps them distant from one another in thought,
although they may be sitting near together; and often a third
person comes who either harmonizes the dissonant chord or produces
disharmony in the consonant chord.
This shows that the whole of life is music. Wagner said,
' Who knows the sound knows all things.' If music could be the
foundation of the training of children, every life would be
built on a good foundation. Life is rhythm and life is tone;
and so is music. When a child learns music it learns the divine
language; whatever be its work later in life if the child has
intuition it will express in some way or other what has been
the foundation of its character. It is not necessary for every
child to be trained as a musician, for many musicians are not
an ideal example to humanity, although in the East there was
a time when kings chose musicians to be their companions. It
was not that they enjoyed only their music, but also what was
expressed in their lives, in their feelings, thought, manner
and action as an outcome of their constant contemplation of
music. Also in the Western world the company of true musicians
has always been an attraction.
Man is the fruit of the whole of creation, the source of
which is absolute beauty. The purpose of creation is beauty.
Nature in all its various aspects develops towards beauty, and
therefore it is plain that the purpose of life is to evolve
towards beauty. In giving education to children the first consideration
should be that the seeds of beauty are sewn in their hearts.
When the plant grows it must be tenderly reared. The thriving
of the plant is to the credit of the gardener; so the children's
development is in the first instance to the credit of their
parents.
The parents must themselves learn to be examples for their
children. No theory has influence without practice. It is natural
that parents, however taken up in the wickedness or folly of
life, should wish their children to be different and better
than themselves. But it is difficult; the child is impressionable
and it develops that impression which it first received. Once
the child sees in its parents a tendency towards drink or any
other form of degeneration, it takes for granted as it grows
up that it must be the right or natural thing; for it says,
'If these things were not right my parents would not have done
them.' In life the wrong thing attracts quickly, though the
seeking of the soul is for what is right.
Parents are often anxious to collect wealth or property for
their children; but there cannot be a greater wealth nor a better
property than the impression they have left behind on the hearts
of their children. The love and kindness they have spread in
their circle of life multiplies in time, like the interest in
the bank, and comes to the help of their children when they
grow up in the form of love, kindness, and goodness from all
sides.
The first education a child needs is to harmonize its thought,
speech and action. All things external have their reaction in
one's inner life, and the inner has its reaction on the exterior.
Therefore some knowledge of tone and rhythm is essential in
the beginning of a child's education. A child should be taught
the elements of music with regard to the pitch in which it should
get in touch with its friends, with strangers, with its parents,
while playing or at the table; in every varying condition it
should feel that the pitch is different. The child should be
taught how to make its choice of words when speaking to different
people, to strangers, to its friends, to its parents, to the
servants of the house; making the voice softer or louder must
be done with understanding.
The child is most energetic when it is growing, and every
action, sitting, standing, walking, or running, every movement
it makes should be corrected and directed towards harmony and
beauty. For the nature of life is intoxicating, and every action
deepens the intoxication of life in a child, who is still ignorant
of the outcome of every action; it knows little of the consequences
and is only interested in the action. By nature a child is more
enthusiastic and excitable than a grown-up person, and if its
actions are not corrected or controlled it will mostly speak
and act without consideration of harmony and beauty; for the
nature of the child is like water which runs downwards and it
needs a fountain to raise it upwards. Education is that fountain.
ii
A child should be taught to speak and act according to the
conditions prevailing at the moment: laughter at the time of
laughter, seriousness at the moment when seriousness is required
of it. In everything it does it must consider the conditions;
it must watch for the opportunity to say and do the things it
wishes. For instance if a child makes a noise when the parents
are at work or when friends are visiting them, if a child brings
its complaints to its parents when it ought to be silent, if
it cries or laughs at the wrong moment, it commits a fault against
the law of rhythm. Rhythm is the consideration of time and condition,
and this is most necessary. It is a great pity that at this
present time, when the cry for freedom seems to be so dominant,
people often think, 'Why should not the children have their
freedom?' But it must be understood that it is not the path
of freedom which leads to the goal of freedom. Liberty is not
an ideal to begin life with, it is a stage of perfect freedom
which must be kept in view in order to arrive at the desired
end. Narrow is the way and straight is the gate, says the Bible
of the road leading to the goal of freedom.
Next, a child must be taught to understand the beauty of
word and action; which action is agreeable to itself and to
others, and which is disagreeable; what word is pleasing and
what word is displeasing. This is the true sight-reading and
ear-training a child needs. It should be taught to sense its
words and the words of others; whether they are graceful or
devoid of grace. It must be able to recognize what action is
beautiful, which manner is graceful; it must know and feel when
its movements or manners are not up to the mark. In short it
should be educated to be its own judge and to dislike what is
ungraceful in itself; yet it should tolerate the lack of beautiful
manner in others by realizing that it is itself subject to errors,
and that annoyance on its part would in itself be bad manners.
If the child does not show interest in beauty it is only
because something is closed in it. In every soul, however wicked
it might seem, however stupid it might seem, beauty is hidden;
and it is trust and confidence that will help us to draw out
this beauty. However, the difficulty for everyone is to have
patience. The lack of beauty in some people strikes us so hard
that we loose patience because of it. In doing so we encourage
them to become still worse; but if we could have the patience
to endure and trust them, we could dig that beauty out; and
some day we will, by the Fatherhood of God.
By trusting in the goodness of every person we will develop
that beauty in ourselves. We do not however, develop that beauty
by thinking, 'I have it, but the other one has not!' but by
forgetting ourselves and realizing that another person has got
beauty in him although we do not always see it. And it is a
weakness to turn our back upon anyone, child or grown-up, who
seems to be lacking in the beauty that we expect. By opening
ourselves to beauty we shall find it coming to life.
Consideration is the greatest of all virtues, for in consideration
all virtues are born. Veneration for God, courtesy towards others,
respect for those who deserve it, kindness to those who are
weak and feeble, sympathy with those who need it, all these
come from consideration.
All complaints that are made by friend about friend, or in
the relations between husband and wife, master and servant,
or between partners in business, show want of consideration.
Everything a man does which is called wrong, evil or sin, is
nothing but inconsiderateness. Consideration is a faculty which
it is most necessary to develop in the child from the beginning;
for once it has become inconsiderate, it is difficult to give
it the sense of consideration. Consideration cannot be taught;
it must come by itself; but the duty of the parents is to help
it to rise in the child. They can very well accomplish this
in a pleasant manner, without becoming a bore to the innocent
mind of the child, by showing it where consideration is needed
in different situations of life.
It is easy to accuse a child of inconsiderateness, but that
does not always profit it. On the contrary, the child will often
become annoyed at such accusations and hardened in its faults,
defending its actions against the accusations of others, which
is a natural human tendency. The way of the wise is to show
appreciation whenever that child shows consideration, and to
make it conscious of that virtue, so that it may be able to
enjoy its beauty. This develops in the child a taste for virtue;
it feels happy to act rightly, instead of always being forced
to do so. It is on strength of mind that the entire life of
the child depends, and strength of mind can be developed in
the child by making it self-confident all it thinks, says, or
does; it must get to know something instead of being forced
to believe it. Faith, which is taught as the most important
lesson in may religions, does not necessarily mean faith in
what another person says, thinks, or does, but in what one says,
thinks, or does oneself. True faith is self-confidence. Every
effort should be made to help the child have confidence in itself.
This can be done by removing from its nature confusion, indecision,
and doubt, for these are the cause of all failure in life. Self-confidence
and single-mindedness are the key to all success. The child
should be encouraged to think or act not only because it is
taught to do so, but because it knows already that it is right
to think, speak, or act in a certain way; otherwise it will
lonely be a machine which works without knowledge of the purpose
or result of the work. The whole tragedy of life is that so
many minds work mechanically like machines; only rarely some
few act with knowledge, certainty and self-confidence.
The child's mind is naturally more active than a grown-up
person's, for two reasons. Firstly, the child's mind is growing
with great energy, which makes it active during its growth.
Furthermore, energy is active in its rise and loses power in
its descent; it is for this reason that the child is restless
in its thought and action. One child in the room can make one
feel there are a hundred children. The child is never still
it delights in occupying its mental and physical energy in some
way or other all the time.
It must be remembered that no time in man's life is so productive
of action, both mental and physical, as childhood; but usually
it happens that his most important period of the life man is
wasted in play which mostly brings no result. If this activity
of mind and body which is exerted in play were used in educating
the child without in the least straining its mind or body, it
would be of great value in its life. But what we generally find
in the world is quite the contrary. People say that early childhood
is the time for a child to play. No doubt this is true; but
it must be remembered that in every action, work or play, one
spends a certain amount of energy; the difference is that work
is what one is obliged to do and play what one does for one's
pleasure.
But it is altogether a wrong principle, for children as well
as for grown-ups, to divide work and play thus. Play should
be useful and should be work at the same time; and work should
be made like play, in order that it may not be a tedious task
but a pleasure in life. If this idea were worked out well it
would solve a great many labor problems which disturb the peace
and order of humanity so much today.
It can be best done by teaching children to play and work
at the same time, so that when they are grown-up work and play
will continue to be the same. All that one does with pleasure
is done well and produces a good effect. Doing depends on the
attitude of the mind. When the mind is not in a good state,
whatever be the work, however interesting, it will not be well
done. To bring about peace and order in the world it is necessary
that all work should be made pleasant, and that all pleasure
should be turned into work, so that in taking pleasure no work
is lost and there is pleasure in working. The central theme
in the education of children should be the occupying of every
moment of their life in doing quite willfully something which
is pleasurable and at the same time useful. Life is a great
opportunity, and no moment of life should be lost.
The great fault of the modern system of education is that
it only qualifies a man to obtain what he desires in life; and
he tries to obtain this my every means, right or wrong, often
with no regard for what losses or pain he causes others. The
consequence of this is that life has become full of competition
in trade, in the professions, and in the State. In order that
one may gain another must surely lose. In this way the shadow
changes its position from morning to evening; in the end the
shadow must prove to be only a shadow, and one realizes it matters
little which direction the shadow takes.
A child should begin to learn rivalry in goodness and competition
in charity. Life is the outcome of reciprocity and reciprocity
can be created by changing the attitude from selfish to an unselfish
one. The only hope of creating in the future a better spirit
in the world, is to teach the ideal of unselfishness to the
children, making this the spirit of the coming world.
The education of children should be considered from five
different points of view: physical, mental, moral, social, and
spiritual. If one side is developed and not the other sides,
naturally the child will show some lack in its education.
There ought to be a standard of education for everyone in
the country, rich or poor. It is the principal thing necessary
for the order and peace of the community and the nation. No
one, however poor his circumstances, should be deprived of education
in his childhood, which is the only opportunity in life for
a soul to acquire knowledge. It should be considered that every
child is the child of the community. The idea that only the
rich can afford to educate their children will not prove satisfactory
in this epoch, for it shows the selfishness and negligence of
one part of the community towards another part. The neglected
part must sooner or later rebel against it, as soon as they
realize that they have been kept back by those with means, so
that they cannot receive education and be prosperous in their
lives. It is this revolt which has brought about a feeling of
bitterness and indignation in the people; and this feeling will
increase, to the great disadvantage of society, if not sufficient
attention is given to public education.
The State is certainly responsible for the education of the
people. It should be arranged that one and the same education
be given to the rich and poor alike in a course which consists
of the five above-mentioned aspects of knowledge. Once that
a course is finished, then the children may take up any profession
they like. If they want further education they may receive it
from their private means if they can afford it, but the necessary
education must be given to every child of the community. The
course of education can certainly be compressed and made into
a course of general education; the child should not only be
taught to read and write but to have an all-round idea of life
and how it can best be lived.
iii
Physical education can be given, even from infancy, with
the help of music. An infant should be made to move his hands
and feet up and down, and as it grows it should be taught to
do it rhythmically. When a child grows up, when it can dance
and play different games, gymnastics should be taught, in such
a way that the child may benefit by them but that they do not
become a tedious work but a recreation.
Regularity is desirable in the building up of the personality
of a child. It is habit which forms nature, but nature has no
habit. It is always beneficial for a child to eat when hungry,
rest when tired. In this way the child makes its own nature
instead of becoming subject to habits. Pure and nourishing food
is necessary for a child while it grows. It needs all kinds
of food to nourish its growth; also a child must have good long
hours of sleep according to the needs of each child. At the
same time a certain part of the day must be kept for the child
to rest, and it must be done in such a manner that the child,
whose natural tendency is to be active, may gladly take this
rest. This can be done by telling it a story or giving it some
work of art to look at, or by letting the child hear some music.
It is a popular belief that the childhood diseases most children
go through are more or less inevitable. This is not so; they
are caused by the artificiality of life.
A great deal of excitement, crying or laughing naturally
upsets the rhythm of a child's body and mind. It is always wise
to give the child, for its equilibrium, scope for action and
reaction in everything it does. If a child is afraid of something,
the best way to help it is to make it acquainted with the thing
it is afraid of.
It is not advisable that the child should be taught always
in the house, nor always at school. The study should be divided,
partly indoors and partly outdoors. The teaching given to a
child indoors should be different than the study given out of
doors. The outdoor study should concern all that the child sees;
one can then include the practice or the experience of what
it has learned indoors. In short, a child's health must be considered
as part of its education; study and health go together.
Together with physical culture, mental training is very necessary
for a child. There are two things which ought to be remembered:
one is to develop the mental power of the child, the other to
give fineness to a child's mentality. Very often the development
in a certain direction hinders the progress in some other direction.
In the first place, to make its mentality strong, the child
should be taught to concentrate its mind through study and play.
It should be given some enterprise which takes most of its attention
in one direction, making the child single-minded.
The child must be kept from excitement or passion of any
kind, for it is tranquility of mind which gives a child strength,
balance, self-control, self-confidence, and determination. It
also strengthens the child's mentality, and it is certainly
on the strength of mentality that success in life chiefly depends.
But strong mentality does not suffice for every purpose of life;
besides strength, fineness is necessary. In order to develop
this fineness in a child, every help must be given to sharpen
its wits. Wit needs and opportunity to develop and that opportunity
can be given by training a child to grasp things. A certain
amount of encouragement can also be given to stimulate the wits.
A child must be helped to perceive keenly what time is suitable
for a certain action, what it can say or do at one time and
what it should not say and do at another time. Great care should
be taken in teaching good manners to a child, so that in time
it may become natural to show in its manner the beauty hidden
in its soul. Fine mentality can be seen in keen perception,
in love of subtlety, and in the gracefulness and refinement
of manner which complete mental culture.
Moral education depends upon three things: the right direction
of love, a keen sense of harmony, and the proper understanding
of beauty. The child should be taught to make the right use
of its emotional and sentimental faculties; and the right use
is to show its charity of heart in generous actions, and first
to its immediate surroundings. The child must learn that love
means sacrifice; also it must know that love is best expressed
I service of any kind; that emotion is best used in kind action,
and sentiment in creating harmony. A child must understand that
love should be shown by being considerate, and its sentiment
must teach it respect and consideration for others.
A child is a growing plant and it needs not only bodily nourishment,
but also the nourishment of the heart; and that is best taught
by loving the child and by reciprocating its love. And yet it
must be taught balance, to keep its emotion within certain bounds
and limitations. A child must be taught the use of love through
the expression of sweetness in its thought, speech, and action.
A wrongly given love spoils the child by making it rude, vain,
and indifferent. One must not show all one's love to one's children,
especially not in any emotional form. One must have a certain
amount of reserve in one's own self, for the child to take example
by and follow. An excessive amount of reserve may imply want
of love, which is fruitless at times; a balance of love and
reserve in dealing with a child is the right thing.
It is very important to cultivate the spirit of generosity
in the child's heart. Generosity does not necessarily mean extravagance
or lack of consideration for things one possesses. The real
spirit of generosity is best expressed in charity of the heart.
Obeying, respecting, serving, learning, responding, all this
comes from charity of the heart, and it grows by developing
generosity of nature.
One must protect the child against the inclination to be
led astray by others, for a generous child is often subject
to misleading influences. Also it must be kept from being generous
with other people's things, even with the possessions of its
own parents. Generosity on the part of a child is only the opening
of the heart. When the heart of a child is closed, the child
is deprived of expression; and when once it has started in this
way its entire life develops on the same lines. It is the generosity
of the heart which is the mystery of genius, for to give expression
to art o science, poetry or music, the heart must be opened
first; and this can only be accomplished by generosity of the
heart. Tolerance, forgiveness, endurance, fortitude, are all
the outcome of this virtue.
A friendly spirit is the natural spirit of the soul. Nothing
in the child should be encouraged which forms and obstacle to
its friendly tendency; but it is the responsibility of the parents
to watch with whom the child wants to be friends, and to keep
the child always in the company of desirable children. The guardian
must not make the child feel that it is deprived of the choice
of its friends, but it should be guided in order to keep it
among desirable friends.
The freedom of the child must always be considered; it should
never be forced but only guided gently. One should produce in
a child the desire to choose as its friends those whom it feels
to be congenial. As soon as the liberty of a child is interfered
with, the child begins to feel captive and the lantern of its
conscience becomes dim. Therefore the duty of the parents is
to guide the child constantly, yet freeing it gradually to make
a choice in everything in life. Parents who do not understand
this and do not attach sufficient importance to it, very often
cause the child to go astray while trying to guide it.
A child should learn to recognize its relation and duty to
all those around it. Once should let it know what is expected
of it by its father, mother, brothers, sisters; for the recognition
of relationship is the sign of human character which is not
seen among animals. A son who has not been a good son to his
mother will not be a good husband to his wife, for he has missed
his first chance of developing thoughtfulness and the love quality.
But as the child grows it must be led to have some idea of the
further relationship between human beings. For the world is
a family, and the right attitude of a young soul must be to
see in every man his brother and in every woman his sister;
he must look on aged people as he would on his father or mother.
The betterment of the world mostly depends upon the development
of the coming generation. The ideal of human brotherhood should
be taught at home; this does not mean that the child must recognize
human brotherhood before recognizing the relationship at with
his own brothers and sisters; but the relationship at home must
be the first lesson in human brotherhood which the child may
reach by realizing the brotherhood of the nation, of the race,
of the world. It is a fault when a person does not progress
in the path of brotherhood. The child should be taught to picture
first its own town as a family, then its nation as a family,
and then the entire continent as a family, in order to arrive
at the idea that the whole world is a family.
A child should know the moral of give and take; it must know
that it should give to others what it wishes to receive from
them. The great fault of humanity today is that everyone seeks
to get the better of others, by which one is often caught in
one's own net. Fair dealing in business and in a profession
and the honoring of one's word are most necessary today. It
is the spirit of brotherhood which will solve the problems of
business and professions, as of education and politics, which
are so difficult to solve at present owing to the absence of
brotherly feeling.
The education of the younger generation needs the spiritual
ideal more than anything else. Since the world has become so
materialistic man has almost lost sight of the main object of
life, which is the spiritual ideal. Spiritual ideal does not
mean that children should necessarily be attached to any particular
faith, or that any particular Church should be forced upon them.
What is needed is simply to give some ideal to the child to
look forward to, some high ideal, yet one which the child's
mind can conceive. The divine ideal has been given to mankind
for spiritual attainment in all periods of the world's history,
and humanity will never outgrow that ideal.
Whatever be the stage of human progress, the divine ideal
will be the only ideal which will help both old and young to
steer their way through the sea of life. It is the loss of divine
ideal which causes the breakdown in the life of individuals
and of humanity in general; the cause of paralysis in modern
progress is no other than the loss of the divine ideal. Man,
revolting against existing religion or religious authority,
has naturally forgotten the divine ideal, which is really the
one yearning of his soul. A time has come when man has neither
his ancestor's religion nor a religion of his own.
A child must learn that there is some ideal; that towards
that ideal the whole world of humanity is unconsciously or consciously
progressing. The child must know that it is responsible for
all it does, not only to its fellow men, but to someone who
watches it constantly and from whom nothing can be hidden. That
however much justice may seem to be suffering in the world,
there is somewhere the balance of justice which in time must
balance things; and that death is only a bridge by which the
soul passes from one sphere to another. The child which respects
age, which is considerate for the elderly in its surroundings,
and which imagines them to be an ideal that is to be followed,
shows it has religion in itself.
Spiritual ideal is the natural inclination of every soul.
It needs no great effort to guide a child towards spirituality;
it is more difficult to keep a child from it, which many parents
do today who are anxious about their child being drawn towards
spiritual ideals. No doubt, too much religion is not good for
a child; it makes the child fixed in its ideas, and takes away
the liquidity that every soul naturally possesses. Giving the
child ideas of spirits or ghosts or of heaven and hell is not
desirable. The child's imagination should be kept within the
range of its reasoning, and yet reason must not be made an obstacle
in the way of the child's imagination. For very often the child's
imagination goes further than that of its parents, and it would
be cruel to hinder it by limiting the child to one's own religious
and material ideas. The principal thing in spirituality is genuineness
of life; in other words: sincerity. The child must be taught
to say what it means. If it is by nature artistic in its expression,
which is often seen in exceptionally intelligent children, then
the child must be kept close to reality, in order that it may
not be led astray by the art of its intelligent expression.
Before the child goes to bed, it should be taught, in some
form or other, to think gratefully of the One from whom all
goodness comes and to whom all is known. The child may also
be taught to wish good to all in the name of the One who has
created all. What a child should wish for its parents or for
others is good health, long life, right guidance from above,
prosperity, success, happiness, and love.
checked 18-Oct-2005