Theosophy - Notes on Theosophy and Education by Bertram Keightley - as originally published in Lucifer and then in Theosophical Siftings of 1892
NOTES ON THEOSOPHY AND EDUCATION
by BERTRAM KEIGHTLEY
(Reprinted from Lucifer?)
and reproduced in Volume 5 of "Theosophical Siftings" of 1892
THEOSOPHY claims to be the Science of Life, and must therefore
have a direct bearing upon all those great problems which
are agitating men's minds in these closing years of the 19th
century. Among such problems, one of the most important,
in its bearing upon the whole future of our race, as well
as upon the next generation — to which will fall the
task of carrying on the Theosophical movement till the last
quarter of the coming century — is certainly that of
Education. Hence it may not be amiss to call the attention
of the readers of Lucifer, especially of those belonging
to the Theosophical Society, to the bearing of Theosophical
teaching upon this question. One fact alone need be pointed
to in order to show how intimate and vital is the connection
between Theosophy as embodied in the present Theosophical
movement and the whole subject of Education. In every phase
of human history, it is the ideal current among the people
of any race as to the purpose and meaning of human life on
earth, which is the most potent factor in determining the
character and guiding spirit of the education given to the
young generations of that nation. The education received
by the young exercises an influence in moulding their conceptions
of life and duty, and thus reacts upon the ideals of their
mature years, and so upon future generations.
A passing glance along the galleries of human history may
serve to illustrate this statement. [Page 18]
The earliest educational system of which we have
any record is that of ancient India, embodied in the caste
system. Under this régime the nation was divided into
four main classes engaged, respectively: the Brahmans, in
spiritual, religious, and scientific studies and pursuits;
the Kshatriya, or warrior caste, in the pursuit of arms,
politics, administration, in short the conduct and management
of the outer national life generally; the Vaisya, or merchant
caste, in commercial pursuits; while the Sudra, or " out
caste" class, embraced all not included in one or other
of these three.
This system, in one aspect, was an educational one, based
upon a knowledge of the laws of Karma and Reincarnation.
In accordance with these, it provided for the reincarnating
Ego a determinate sphere of duties in accord with the Karmic
affinities it had engendered in past incarnations. In each
caste, the children were educated in accordance with the
duties they would have to perform in adult life; the ideal
expressing itself through the entire system being that each
human being has his own specific sphere of duty to fill,
a duty as necessary for the welfare of the nation as that
of any other unit. The supreme ideal was that of duty, of
national welfare on all planes, spiritual and intellectual
as well as material. This, of course, applies strictly only
to India in the days when it was still ruled by the occult
hierarchy; though how deeply this ideal was impressed on
the national mind may be judged from the language of the
Bhagavad-gita. [The above statements and remarks must be
understood to apply only to the India of the earliest times,
when the nation was still ruled by the occult hierarchy,
and the caste system, instead of being a burden and an evil,
as it is at present, was a sound and useful institution.
Today, it is needless to say, the caste system is an almost
unmixed evil, having degenerated into a matter of pure superstition
and lost all its real, inner significance. But the good that,
even in decay, it has wrought may be seen in the fact that
the highest castes in India represent, even now, almost the
finest and highest types of Aryan humanity in point of intellect
and spirituality]
Leaving India for Egypt, we know only that its educational
system was very complete and played a most important part
in the national life.
In Greece, the division of education under the two heads
of Music and Gymnastics, corresponded to, and expressed the
nation's ideal of human life when that ideal existed in its
purity. Perfect harmony and balance, whence result grace,
beauty and truth, physical, intellectual and moral, was the
goal of their striving, and this was the ideal which moulded
the life of the race at its noblest and best.
For the Roman, Rome, her power and greatness, was the ideal
to which life was to be devoted. Educated in the Forum and
the Senate House, the palmy days of Roman history show us
a series of heroic figures expressing the national ideal
in the life of the camp, the conduct of the state, and the
sterner virtues of private life. [Page 19]
Carried away by the torrent of reaction, against
the corruption and materialism of the decaying Roman Empire,
Christianity stamped upon the early centuries of our era
the ideal of a selfish other-worldliness. A narrow, individualistic,
unhuman ideal, exhibiting itself in the utter want of any
true education characterizing that period.
But even such an ideal, purely individual and tainted by
selfishness as it was, was surely after all preferable to
the baseness of the Mammon-worship, the making of Gold-getting
the end, aim and object of life, which is so rapidly becoming
the ruling spirit of our own age. It is this ideal, this
utterly selfish and material conception of the purpose of
life, this regarding of our existence here as having for
its sole object pleasure and self-gratification, for the
attainment of which money is the means — it is this spirit
which is rapidly permeating the whole educational system
of Europe, and especially of England.
But Theosophy holds up before the men and women of this
generation a new ideal, to impress which upon the spirit
of our time is the real task of the Theosophical Society,
the true object for which the Theosophical movement was set
in motion. This ideal is the Universal Brotherhood of Mankind,
conceived not as an arbitrary assertion, not on any one plane
of nature alone, but realized as a basic, fundamental fact
in nature, on each and every plane, realized as implying
the actual, real, solidarity of each human unit with all
others, the inextricable interweaving of the pain and pleasure,
the success and failure, the happiness and misery of each
with all. It is to stamp this ideal in lines of radiant light
on the consciousness of men that the Theosophical movement
was called into existence, not to teach occult anthropology
or to gratify curiosity concerning the hidden forces of nature.
With such a mission before it, Theosophy must obviously
have a direct and most important bearing upon education,
some thoughts upon which may be of interest as suggesting
lines of effort and of practical work to the earnest student,
who desires to put his Theosophy into practice.
First, then, the basic idea itself of Theosophy — the
solidarity of the human race — demands with no uncertain
accent universal education for all, men and women, rich and
poor, alike. It requires that every human being shall have
the fullest opportunity, the largest measure of assistance
that can be given, in developing himself, in actualizing
the potentialities latent in him as completely and harmoniously
as possible. To secure such help and opportunity to all,
should be the task of the nation, as representing its component
units in their collectivity. Surely when Theosophy teaches
so forcibly the vastly greater importance of [Page 20] the
Mind over the Body, there can be no shadow of doubt for any
Theosophist, that it is our bounden duty, individually and
collectively, to work for the bringing about of a state of
things wherein every human being shall have the fullest opportunity
for harmonious mental unfoldment — harmonious, not only
in and with himself, but even more in and with that Humanity
of which he forms a part.
Here we find at once a most vital practical lesson that
Theosophy has to teach with regard to our present-day mode
of education. It is the ideals which are stamped on the minds
of the young, not only by the words of their teachers, but
far more by the methods of education, by the living influence
of the life at school, by the conversation and example of
their elders at home — it is the ideals thus formed which
practically mould and determine the character of our entire
after-lives. From story-books, from fiction, still more from
the biographies of those held up to us as "great" and "noble" men
and women, our minds receive the impressions that later will
colour all our thought and action. But the whole spirit of
modern education, of modern life, is deep dyed, through and
through, with individualistic ideals. The principle of "competition", of
the "struggle for existence", pervades every branch
of education. With every year "competitive examinations", and
the preparations for them, become more and more the dominant
idea in our educational institutions. The plan of "taking
places" in class brings the same principle into the
daily and hourly life of every boy and girl. The same ideal
is held up before their eyes in the biographies of those
whom they are incited to imitate. To be successful above
one's fellows, to hold the first place, to succeed oneself,
to conquer, surpass, out-do others in every department of
human activity, is the goal for which each is urged to strive.
This is not true emulation, for the object set before us
is not to do one's uttermost that all may be benefited;
but on the contrary that all others may stand on a lower
step, beaten and conquered. Selfishness and individualism
are thus inculcated by the strongest of all means, constant
object-lessons, from our earliest days, till we learn to
forget all about men in general, to think and work only for
ourselves and those who directly form a part of our personal
interests. Thus, in its leading ideal, its fundamental principle,
its constant practice, modern education is distinctly anti-theosophical,
and the tendency at present is to render it, with every day,
more completely so. Against these false ideals, it is the
duty of every Theosophist to strive with hand and voice.
If we believe in Universal Brotherhood, then we should bring
up all those, with whose education we have any concern, to
work their [Page 21] best, to strive unceasingly after attainment,
in order that not themselves only, but ALL MEN may be benefited.
It would be easy to bring this home to children, to make
human solidarity a living fact in their consciousness, by
rewarding the successful individual by some pleasure — a
holiday or what not — given to all his schoolmates; A
child would thus feel and experience the fact that the real
reward of his efforts and exertions comes to him through his fellows — not apart from them, as is now the case
with our system of prize-giving.
In brief; the leading idea of education from the Theosophical
standpoint, should be to teach men to use their personalities — i.e.,
their physical "selves" — as tools for the
benefit of all, instead of, as now, teaching them to consider
their personalities, their own selfish enjoyment and success,
as the end and object of exertion, of study, of life itself.
It is on this subject of the ideals inculcated upon children,
theoretically and practically, that Theosophy has the most
direct bearing. For upon the ideal held up as the highest
goal of attainment depend, obviously, the whole tone and
spirit of education. But this is not all; and the Theosophist
has at least a word to say upon the general character of
the methods adopted in our schools and colleges at present.
The tendency of the day is to overload the memory with facts
and details. Education is understood to be the cramming of
the mind with facts, with other people's thoughts and theories — to
be, in short, the cultivation of the memory rather than of
the mind proper. Such a method is contrary, one would think,
to the plainest common sense, let alone to Theosophical teaching.
Holding, as the latter does, that you cannot teach anything
the germ of which does not already exist in the pupil's mind,
a Theosophical educator would seek rather to draw out, than
to put in; to foster and develop such germs of aptitudes
and abilities as were present in the pupil, and above all
to strengthen and assist him in learning to think for himself.
The machine-made knowledge of our present schools, the endless
and meaningless array of facts, historical, political, scientific,
etc., which our children have to commit to memory, Theosophy
regards as not only useless, but as positively injurious.
To begin with, of all this memory-knowledge there remains
but an infinitesimal portion two or three years after the
examinations are passed and done with. Then this overtaxing
of the memory with idle and needless details and facts, lacking
totally organic connection, stunts the general mental growth
and wastes the mental power which [Page 22] should have been
used to promote the growth of the thinking faculty itself.
Theosophy regards a harmonious, well-balanced development
of the mental faculties, the growth and strengthening of
the power of original thought, above all, the realization
of the actual, living, organic, unity of the human race,
as the true ideal of education. "Knowledge", i.e.,
an acquaintance with facts, is necessary indeed, but should
be subordinated strictly to the power of assimilating those
facts and understanding them.
If we believe in Reincarnation, it is obvious that
what remains to us as the permanent acquisition distilled
from each personal life, is — not a knowledge of facts — but
the developed mental growth and power of understanding and
dealing with them. Here again we see how the materialistic
spirit of our age is at work in the enforcement of false
conceptions of education, and another instance is before
us of the crying need which pervades the world for the spread
and teaching of Theosophical truth.