Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul - Education in the New Age - III - The Present
Transition Period
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Education in the New Age - Chapter III - The Present Transition Period
2. An
atmosphere of patience, wherein the child can become, normally and naturally, a seeker
after the light of knowledge; wherein he is sure of always meeting with a quick response
to inquiry and a careful reply to all questions, and wherein there is never the sense of
speed or hurry. Most children's natures are warped by the rush and hurry of those with
whom they are perforce associated. There is no time to instruct them and to reply to their
small and most necessary inquiries, and the time factor therefore becomes a menace to
right development, and leads eventually to a life of evasions and of wrong perspectives.
Their standard of values becomes distorted by watching those with whom they live, and much
of it is brought to their attention by the impatience which is displayed towards them.
This impatience on the part of those upon whom they are so pathetically dependent, sows in
them the seeds of irritation, and more lives are ruined by irritation than can be
counted.
3. An atmosphere of ordered activity, wherein the child can learn the first
rudiments of responsibility. The children who are coming into incarnation at this time,
and who can profit by the new type of education, are necessarily on the very verge of soul
consciousness. One of the first indications of such soul contact is a [77] rapidly
developing sense of responsibility. This should be carefully borne in mind, for the
shouldering of small duties and the sharing of responsibility (which is always concerned
with some form of group relation) is a potent factor in determining a child's character
and future vocation.
4. An atmosphere of understanding, wherein a child is always sure that the reasons
and motives for his actions will be recognized, and that those who are his older
associates will always comprehend the nature of his motivating impulses, even though they
may not always approve of what he has done or of his activities. Many of the things which
the average child does are not in themselves naughty or wicked or intentionally bad. They
are frequently prompted by a thwarted inquiring spirit, by the desire to retaliate for
some injustice (based on the adult's lack of understanding his motivation), by an
inability to employ time rightly (for the directional will is often, at this age, entirely
quiescent and will not become active until the mind is beginning to function), and by the
urge to attract attention - a necessary urge in the development of self-consciousness, but
one which needs understanding and most careful guidance.
It is the older generation who foster in a child an early and most unnecessary sense of
guilt, of sinfulness and of wrongdoing. So much emphasis is laid upon petty little things
that are not really wrong but are annoying to the parent or teacher, that a true sense of
wrong (which is the recognition of failure to preserve right relations with the group)
gets overlaid and is not recognized for what it is. The many small and petty sins, imposed
upon children by the constant reiteration of "No," by the use of the word
"naughty," and based largely on parental failure to understand and occupy the
child, are of no real moment. If these [78] aspects of the child's life are rightly
handled, then the truly wrong things, the infringements upon the rights of others, the
encroachments of individual desire upon group requirements and conditions, and the hurting
or damaging of others in order to achieve personal gain, will emerge in right perspective
and at the right time. Then the voice of conscience (which is the whisper of the soul)
will not be deadened, and the child will not become anti-social. He only becomes
anti-social when he has not met with understanding and therefore does not understand or
when circumstances demand too much of him.
You might inquire here, after considering these four types of atmosphere regarded as
essential preliminary steps to the new education: How, in this case, do you make allowance
for inherited instinct, normal inclination based upon the point in evolution and character
tendencies which are determined by ray forces and astrological influences?
I have not emphasized them there, even while recognizing them as conditioning factors
which must receive attention, because I have been dealing with the unnecessary and vast
accumulation of imposed difficulties which are not innate in the child or truly
characteristic of him, but which are the result of his environment and the failure of his
home circle and existing educational agencies rightly to aid him in making his adjustments
to life and his period. When there is wise handling from infancy, when the child is
regarded as the most important concern of his parents and teachers (because he is the
future in embryo), and when, at the same time, he is taught a sense of proportion by right
integration into the little world of which he is a part, we shall see the major lines of
difficulty, the basic character trends and the gaps in his equipment emerge clearly. They
will not be hidden until the years of adolescence by the little sins and evasions and by
the petty embryonic complexes, which have been imposed upon him by others and did not form
a part of his innate equipment when he came [79] into incarnation. Then these major
difficulties can be handled in an enlightened manner, and those basic tendencies which are
undesirable can be offset through the wisdom of the educator, plus the cooperation and
understanding of the child. He will understand because he is understood and
consequently fearless.
Let us now formulate a more extended plan for the future education of the children of
the world. We have noted that in spite of universal educational processes and many centers
of learning in every country, we have not yet succeeded in giving our young people the
kind of education which will enable them to live wholly and constructively. The
development of world education has been progressively along three main lines, starting in
the East and culminating today in the West. Naturally, I am speaking only in terms of the
last two or three thousand years. In Asia, we have had the intensive training, down the
centuries, of certain carefully chosen individuals and a complete neglect of the masses.
Asia and Asia alone has produced those outstanding figures who are, even today, the object
of universal veneration - Lao Tze, Confucius, the Buddha, Shri Krishna and the Christ.
They have set Their mark upon millions and still do.
Then in Europe, we have had educational attention concentrated upon a few privileged
groups, giving them a carefully planned cultural training but teaching only the necessary
rudiments of learning to the masses. This produced periodically such important epochs of
cultural expression as the Elizabethan period, the Renaissance, the poets and writers of
the Victorian era and the poets and musicians of Germany, as well as the clusters of
artists whose memory is perpetuated in the Italian School, the Dutch and the Spanish
groups.
Finally, in the newer countries of the world, such as the United States, Australia and
Canada, mass education was instituted and was largely copied throughout the entire
civilized world. The general level of cultural attainment [80] became much lower; the
level of mass information and competency considerably higher. The question now arises:
What will be the next evolutionary development in the educational world?
Let us remember one important thing. What education can do along undesirable lines has
been well demonstrated in Germany with its wrecking of idealism, its inculcation of wrong
human relations and attitudes and its glorification of all that is most selfish, brutal
and aggressive. Germany has proved that educational processes when properly organized and
supervised, systematically planned and geared to an ideology, are potent in effect,
especially if the child is taken young enough and if he is shielded from all contrary
teaching for a long enough time. Let us remember at the same time that this demonstrated
potency can work two ways and that what has been wrought out along wrong lines can be
equally successful along right ones.
We need also to realize that we must do two things: We must place the emphasis
educationally upon those who are under sixteen years of age (and the younger the better)
and, secondly, that we must begin with what we have, even whilst recognizing the
limitations of the present systems. We must strengthen those aspects which are good and
desirable; we must develop the new attitudes and techniques which will fit a child for
complete living and so make him truly human - a creative, constructive member of the human
family. The very best of all that is past must be preserved but should only be regarded as
the foundation for a better system and a wiser approach to the goal of world
citizenship.
It might be of value at this point to define what education can be, if it is impulsed
by true vision and made responsive to sensed world need and to the demands of the times.
Education is the training, intelligently given, which will enable the youth of the
world to contact their environment with intelligence and sanity, and adapt themselves to
the [81] existing conditions. This today is of prime importance and is one of the
signposts in a world which has fallen to pieces.
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