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CHAPTER III - The Next Step in the Mental Development of Humanity - Part 1

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CHAPTER III

The Next Step in the Mental Development of Humanity

The Present Transition Period

There are three immediate steps ahead of the educational systems of the world, and some progress has already been made towards taking them.  Bear in mind that under the evolutionary urge such steps are often made without any understanding of the true objectives, or any real grasp of the emerging significance and purpose.  They are simply made because the need of the time makes them the obvious next step, because the old system is failing to accomplish its intended purpose, because the results are patently undesirable, and because some man of vision works out a newer method and imposes his will upon those around him in order to demonstrate the new ideal.  These three immediate steps are:

First: The development of more adequate means of understanding and studying the human being.  This will be made possible in three ways:

1. The growth and the development of the Science of Psychology.  This is the science of the essential man, and is at this time being more generally recognised as useful to, and consistent with, the right development of the human unit.  The various schools of psychology, [70] so numerous and separative, will each eventually contribute its particular and peculiar truth, and thus the real science of the soul will emerge from this synthesis.

2. The growth and the development of the Science of the Seven Rays.  This science will throw light upon racial and individual types; it will clearly formulate the nature of individual and racial problems, it will indicate the forces and energies which are struggling for expression in the individual and in the race; and when the two major rays and the three minor rays (which meet in every man) are recognised and studied by the educator in connection with the individual, the result will be right individual and group training, and correct vocational indications.

3. The acceptance of the Teaching anent the Constitution of Man given by the esotericists, with the implied relation of soul and body, the nature of those bodies, their qualities and purpose, and the interrelation existing between the soul and the three vehicles of expression in the three worlds of human endeavour.

In order to bring this about, the best that the East has to offer and the knowledge of the West will have to be made available.  The training of the physical body, the control of the emotional body, and the development of right mental apprehension must proceed sequentially, with due attention to the time factor, and also to that period wherein planned coordination of all aspects of the man should be carefully developed.

Second: The recognition of the facts of Esoteric Astrology.

When this becomes possible there will be an opportunity to train the child from its earliest breath.  A careful record will be kept of that exact moment, the moment of birth, or [71] of the first breath, often accompanied by the first cry.  Character delineations will be noted and compared with the developing subject and also with the ray chart, and the relation of these two—the horoscope and the ray chart—will be subjected to a careful analysis every seven years.  These processes will guide the educator in the necessary steps which should be taken wisely to hasten the child's unfoldment.  Modern ordinary astrology, with its prevision factor, its emphasis upon the nonessential points and upon the physical concerns of the incarnated soul, will be gradually superseded by the recognition of relationships, of life objectives, of basic character predispositions and of the soul purpose, and much will then become possible to the wise friend and guide of youth—which is what every educator should aim to be.

Third: The admittance of the fact of the Law of Rebirth as a governing, natural process.

This will serve as a determining factor in the racial life and will bring much light into the educational Field.  The tracing and relating of basic trends to past racial unfoldments and to ancient racial episodes will prove of interest and of import, and though the recovery of past lives will be of no interest, the recognition of characteristics which have been inherited from the past will serve real purpose.  Young people will then be studied from the standpoint of their probable point upon the ladder of evolution, and will be grouped as:

a. Lemurians, with physical predispositions.

b. Atlanteans, with emotional dominance.

c. Aryans, with mental tendencies and inclinations.

d. New race, with group qualities and consciousness and idealistic vision.

The time factor (from the angle of present attainment and possible goal in the immediate life) will be carefully considered, [72] and in this way there will be no lost motion; the boy or girl will meet with understanding help and with analysis, but not with ignorance and criticism; they will be safeguarded and not punished; they will be stimulated and not held back; they will be occultly recognised, and therefore will not constitute a problem.

It will be obvious to you that some decades must elapse before such a state of affairs can become possible and usual, but you will note that I have said "decades" and not "centuries."  The earlier experiments along this line will become possible only in small schools of specially selected children or small colleges with a picked and trained faculty, cautiously ready to experiment.  It is only by the demonstration of the advantage of the above methods of studying and training children that national educational authorities will be convinced of the light which these modes of approach to the delicate task of fitting the human being for life, can throw upon the problem.  At the same time, it is essential that such schools and colleges preserve as much of the ordinary demanded curriculum as is possible, so as to be able to demonstrate their adequacy when in competition with other recognised educational systems.

If a true understanding of the seven ray types, of the constitution of man and of astrology, plus a right application of a synthetic psychology is of any use at all, it must demonstrate itself in the production of a correctly coordinated, wisely developed, highly intelligent and mentally directed human being.

The trouble with the majority of the previous attempts to impose a form of the new age education upon the modern child has been of a twofold nature:

First, there has been no compromise between the present form of education and the desired ideal; there has been no scientific bridging done; and no attempt has been made to correlate the best of the present methods (probably well adapted to the child of the period) and some of the more [73] appropriate methods embodied in the new vision, particularly those which can be easily approximated to those in use.  Only in this way can the sequential steps be taken, until the new education is an accomplished fact and the old and the new techniques are welded into one appropriate whole. The visionary idealist has hitherto held the field and thus slowed up the process.

Second, the new methods can be tried out successfully only through the medium of most carefully selected children.  These children must be watched from babyhood, their parents must be willing to cooperate in the task of providing right early conditions and right atmosphere, and their lives (their case histories) must be studied along the lines suggested earlier in this instruction.

Visionary, mystical hopes and dreams are useful in so far as they indicate a possible goal; they are of small use in determining process and method.  The imposition of the new age ways in education, upon a child who is basically Atlantean or early Aryan in his consciousness, is a fruitless task and will do little really to help him.  It is for this reason that a careful analysis of the child must be made from the very moment of birth.  Then, with as full information as possible, the educator will endeavour to meet the need of the three major types of children: The Atlantean, or basically emotional, sensuous type; the early Aryan, or emotional-mental type; the later Aryan or early New Age type, which will be predominantly mental, and at the same time idealistic, brilliant, coordinated, and a personality.

The question here arises: How can such methods be employed without the whole process appearing too much like a laboratory experiment in which the child is regarded as a specimen—or a sample child—to be subjected to certain types of impression in which he is deprived of that free scope to be himself—an individual (which seems at all times so desirable and necessary)—and in which the entire process appears as an infringement of the dignity which is the [74] heritage of every human being?  Such educational questions and objectives sound important and fine and imposing, but what do they really mean?

I have suggested that the textbooks be rewritten in terms of right human relations and not from the present nationalistic and separative angles.  I have also pointed out certain basic ideas which should be immediately inculcated: the unique value of the individual, the beauty of humanity, the relation of the individual to the whole and his responsibility to fit into the general picture in a constructive manner and voluntarily; I have noted the imminence of the coming spiritual renaissance.  To all of these I would like to add that one of our immediate educational objectives must be the elimination of the competitive spirit and the substitution of the cooperative consciousness.  Here the question at once arises: How can one achieve this and at the same time bring about a high level of individual attainment?  Is not competition a major spur to all endeavour?  This has hitherto been so, but it need not be.

Today the average child is, for the first five or six years of his life, the victim of his parents' ignorance or selfishness or lack of interest.  He is frequently kept quiet and out of the way because his parents are too busy with their own affairs to give him the needed time—busy with nonessential matters, compared to the important and essential business of giving their child a right start upon the pathway of life in this incarnation.  He is left to his own resources or those of some ignorant nursemaid, at a stage when a destructive little animal should be developed into a constructive little citizen.  He is sometimes petted and often scolded.  He is dragged hither and thither, according to his parents' whims and interest, and he is sent to school with a sense of relief on their part, in order to get him occupied and out of the way.  At school, he is frequently under the care of some young, ignorant though well-meaning person whose task it is to teach him the rudiments of civilisation—a certain superficial [75] attitude and form of manners which should govern his relations to the world of men, an ability to read and write and figure, and a smattering (rudimentary indeed) of history and geography and good form in speech and writing.

By that time however the mischief is done and the form which his later educational processes may take, from the age of eleven onward, is of small moment.  An orientation has been effected, an attitude (usually defensive, and therefore inhibiting) has been established, a form of behaviour has been enforced or imposed which is superficial, and which is not based upon the realities of right relationships.  The true person which is found in every child—expansive, outgoing and well-meaning as are the bulk of children in infancy—has consequently been driven within, out of sight, and has hidden itself behind an outer shell which custom and tuition have enforced.  Add to this a multitude of misunderstandings on the part of loving but superficial and well-intentioned parents, a long series of small catastrophes in relation to others, and it is obvious that the majority of children get off to a wrong start and begin life basically handicapped.  The damage done to children in the plastic and pliable years is often irremediable and is responsible for much of the pain and suffering in later life.  What then can be done?  What, apart from the more technical approaches outlined by me in earlier parts of this instruction, should be the effort on the part of parents and educators?

First, and above everything else, the effort should be made to provide an atmosphere wherein certain qualities can flourish and emerge.

1. An atmosphere of love, wherein fear is cast out and the child realises he has no cause for timidity, shyness or caution, and one in which he receives courteous treatment at the hands of others, and is expected also to render equally courteous treatment in return.  This is rare indeed to find in schoolrooms [76] or in homes for that matter.  This atmosphere of love is not an emotional, sentimental form of love but is based upon a realisation of the potentialities of the child as an individual, on a sense of true responsibility, freedom from prejudice, racial antagonisms, and above everything else, upon compassionate tenderness.  This compassionate tenderness is founded on the recognition of the difficulty of living, upon sensitivity to the child's normally affectionate response, and upon a knowledge that love always draws forth what is best in child and man.

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 recognised, 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 recognised 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 emphasised them there, even while recognising 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 centres 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 civilised 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 organised 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 realise 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 recognising 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.

Education is a process whereby the child is equipped with the information which will enable him to act as a good citizen and perform the functions of a wise parent.  It should take into consideration his inherent tendencies, his racial and national attributes, and then endeavour to add to these that knowledge which will lead him to work constructively in his particular world setting and prove himself a useful citizen.  The general trend of his education will be more psychological than in the past and the information thus gained will be geared to his peculiar situation.  All children have certain assets and should be taught how to use them; these they share with the whole of humanity, irrespective of race or nationality.  Educators will, therefore, lay emphasis in the future upon:

1. A developing mental control of the emotional nature.

2. Vision or the capacity to see beyond what is, to what might be.

3. Inherited, factual knowledge upon which it will be possible to superimpose the wisdom of the future.

4. Capacity wisely to handle relationships and to recognise and assume responsibility.

5. The power to use the mind in two ways:

a. As the "commonsense" (using this word in its old connotation), analysing and synthesising the information conveyed by the five senses.

b. As a searchlight, penetrating into the world of ideas and of abstract truth.

Knowledge comes from two directions.  It is the result of the intelligent use of the five senses and it is also developed from the attempt to seize upon and understand ideas.  Both of these are implemented by curiosity and investigation.

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Education should be of three kinds and all three are necessary to bring humanity to a needed point of development.

It is.  first of all, a process of acquiring facts—past and present—and of then learning to infer and gather from this mass of information. gradually accumulated. that which can be of practical use in any given situation.  This process involves the fundamentals of our present educational systems.

It is, secondly, a process of learning wisdom as an outgrowth of knowledge and of grasping understandingly the meaning which lies behind the outer imparted facts.  It is the power to apply knowledge in such a manner that sane living and an understanding point of view, plus an intelligent technique of conduct, are the natural results.  This also involves training for specialised activities. based upon innate tendencies, talents or genius.

It is, finally, a process whereby unity or a sense of synthesis is cultivated.  Young people in the future will be taught to think of themselves in relation to the group, to the family unit and to the nation in which their destiny has put them.  They will also be taught to think in terms of world relationship and of their nation in relation to other nations.  This covers training for citizenship, for parenthood, and for world understanding; it is basically psychological and should convey an understanding of humanity.  When this type of training is given, we shall develop men and women who are both civilised and cultured and who will also possess the capacity to move forward (as life unfolds) into that world of meaning which underlies the world of outer phenomena and who will begin to view human happenings in terms of the deeper spiritual and universal values.

Education should be the process whereby youth is taught to reason from cause to effect, to know the reason why certain actions are bound inevitably to produce certain results and why (given a certain emotional and mental equipment, plus an ascertained psychological rating) definite life trends [83] can be determined and certain professions and life careers provide the right setting for development and a useful and profitable field of experience.  Some attempts along this line have been undertaken by certain colleges and schools in an effort to ascertain the psychological aptitudes of a boy or a girl for certain vocations but the whole effort is still amateurish in nature.  When made more scientific it opens the door for training in the sciences; it gives significance and meaning to history, biography and learning and thus avoids the bare impartation of facts and the crude process of memory training which has been distinctive of past methods.

The new education will consider a child with due reference to his heredity, his social position, his national conditioning, his environment and his individual mental and emotional equipment and will seek to throw the entire world of effort open to him, pointing out that apparent barriers to progress are only spurs to renewed endeavour and thus seeking to "lead him out" (the true meaning of the word "education") from any limiting condition and train him to think in terms of constructive world citizenship.  Growth and still more growth will be emphasised.

The educator of the future will approach the problem of youth from the angle of the instinctual reaction of the children, their intellectual capacity and their intuitional potentiality.  In infancy and in the earlier school grades, the development of right instinctual reactions will be watched and cultivated; in the later grades, in what is equivalent to the high schools or the secondary schools, the intellectual unfoldment and control of the mental processes will be emphasised, whilst in the colleges and universities the unfoldment of the intuition, the importance of ideals and ideas and the development of abstract thinking and perception will be fostered; this latter phase will be soundly based upon the previous sound intellectual foundation.  These three factors—instinct, intellect and intuition—provide the keynotes for the three scholastic institutions through which every [84] young person will pass and through which, today, many thousands do pass.

In the future, education will make a far wider use of psychology than heretofore.  A trend in this direction is definitely to be seen.  The nature—physical, vital, emotional and mental—of the boy or girl will be carefully investigated and his incoherent life purposes directed along right lines; he will be taught to recognise himself as the one who acts, who feels and who thinks.  Thus the responsibility of the central "I," or the occupant of the body will be taught.  This will alter the entire present attitude of the youth of the world to their surroundings and foster, from the earliest days, the recognition of a part to be played and a responsibility to be assumed and that education is a method of preparation for that useful and interesting future.

It, therefore, becomes increasingly apparent that the coming education could be defined in a new and broader sense as the Science of Right Human Relations and of Social Organisation.  This gives a comparatively new purpose to any curriculum imparted and yet indicates that nothing hitherto included need be excluded, only a better motivation will be obvious and a nationalistic, selfish presentation avoided.  If history is, for instance, presented on the basis of the conditioning ideas which have led humanity onward and not on the basis of aggressive wars and international or national thievery, then education will concern itself with the right perception and use of ideas, of their transformation into working ideals and their application as the will-to-good, the will-to-truth and the will-to-beauty.  Thus a much needed alteration of humanity's aims from our present competitive and materialistic objectives into those that will more fully express the Golden Rule will come about and right relations between individuals, groups, parties, nations and throughout the entire international world will be established.

Increasingly, education should be concerned with the [85] wholes of life as well as with the details of daily individual living.  The child, as an individual, will be developed and equipped, trained and motivated and taught then his responsibilities to the whole and the value of the contribution which he can and must make to the group.

It is perhaps a platitude to say that education should occupy itself necessarily with the development of the reasoning powers of the child and not primarily—as is now usually the case—with the training of the memory and the parrot-like recording of facts and dates and uncorrelated and ill-digested items of information.  The history of the growth of man's perceptive faculties under differing national and racial conditions is of profound interest.  The outstanding figures of history, literature and art and of religion will surely be studied from the angle of their effort and their influence for good or evil upon their period; the quality and purpose of their leadership will be considered.  Thus the child will absorb a vast amount of historical information, of creative activity and of idealism and philosophy not only with the maximum of ease but with permanent effect upon his character.

The continuity of effort, the effects upon civilisation of ancient tradition, good and evil happenings and the interplay of varying cultural aspects of civilisation will be brought to his attention and the dry-as-dust information, dates and names will fall into the discard.  All branches of human knowledge could, in this way, become alive and reach a new level of constructive usefulness.  There is already a definite tendency in this direction and it is good and sound.  The past of humanity as the foundation for present happenings and the present as the determining factor for the future, will increasingly be recognised and thus great and needed changes will be brought about in human psychology as a whole.

The creative aptitude of the human being should also, under the new era, receive fuller attention; the child will be spurred on to individual effort suited to his temperament [86] and capacity.  Thus he will be induced to contribute what he can of beauty to the world and of right thought to the sumtotal of human thinking; he will be encouraged to investigate and the world of science will open up before him.  Behind all these applied incentives, the motives of goodwill and right human relations will be found.

Finally, education should surely present the hypothesis of the soul in man as the interior factor which produces the good, the true and the beautiful.  Creative expression and humanitarian effort will, therefore, receive a logical basis.  This will not be done through a theological or doctrinal presentation, as is today the case, but as presenting a problem for investigation and as an effort to answer the question:  What is man; what is his intrinsic purpose in the scheme of things?  The livingness of the influence and the proclaimed purpose behind the constant appearance of spiritual, cultural and artistic world leaders down the ages will be studied and their lives subjected to research, both historical and psychological.  This will open up before the youth of the world the entire problem of leadership and of motive.  Education will, therefore, be given in the form of human interest, human achievement and human possibility.  This will be done in such a manner that the content of the student's mind will not only be enriched with historical and literary facts but his imagination will be fired, and his ambition and aspiration evoked along true and right lines; the world of past human effort will be presented to him in a truer perspective and the future thrown open to him also in an appeal for his individual effort and personal contribution.

What I have written above in no way implies an indictment of past methods except in so far that the world today itself presents an indictment; it does not either constitute an impractical vision or a mystical hope, based on wishful thinking.  It concerns an attitude to life and the future which many thousands of people hold today, and among them [87] many, many educators in every country.  The errors and mistakes of the past techniques are obvious but there is no need to waste time in emphasising them or in piling up instances.  What is needed is a realisation of the immediate opportunity, plus the recognition that the required shift in objectives and change in methods will take much time.  We shall have to train our teachers differently and much time will be lost as we grope for the new and better ways, develop the new textbooks and find the men and women who can be impressed with the new vision and who will work for the new civilisation.  I have sought only to emphasise principles and I do this with the recognition that many of them are by no means new but that they require new emphasis.  I have endeavoured to show that now is the day of opportunity, for everything has to be built up again, for everything has been destroyed in the greater part of the world.  The war has demonstrated that we have not taught aright.  A better educational system should, therefore, be worked out which will present the possibilities of human living in such a manner that barriers will be broken down, prejudices removed and a training given to the developing child which will enable him, when grownup, to live with other men in harmony and goodwill.  This can be done, if patience and understanding are developed and if educators realise that "where there is no vision, the people perish."

An international system of education, developed in joint conference by broadminded teachers and educational authorities in every country, is today a crying need and would provide a major asset in preserving world peace.  Steps towards this are already being taken and today groups of educators are getting together and discussing the formation of a better system which will guarantee that the children of the different nations (beginning with the millions of children now demanding education) will be taught truth, without bias or prejudice.  World democracy will take form when men everywhere are regarded in reality as equal; when boys [88] and girls are taught that it does not matter whether a man is an Asiatic, an American, a European, British, a Jew or a Gentile but only that each has an historical background and history which enables him to contribute something to the good of the whole, and that the major requirement is an attitude of goodwill and a constant effort to foster right human relations.  World Unity will be a fact when the children of the world are taught that religious differences are largely a matter of birth; that if a man is born in Italy, the probability is that he will be a Roman Catholic; if he is born a Jew, he will follow the Jewish teaching; if born in Asia, he may be a Mohammedan, a Buddhist, or belong to one of the Hindu sects; if born in other countries, he may be a Protestant and so on.  He will learn that the religious differences are largely the result of man made quarrels over human interpretations of truth.  Thus gradually, our quarrels and differences will be offset and the idea of the One Humanity will take their place.

Much greater care will have to be given in picking and training the teachers of the future.  Their mental attainments and their knowledge of their particular subject will be of importance, but more important still will be the need for them to be free from prejudice and to see all men as members of a great family.  The educator of the future will need to be more of a trained psychologist than he is today.  Besides imparting academic knowledge, he will realise that his major task is to evoke out of his class of students a real sense of responsibility; no matter what he has to teach—history, geography, mathematics, languages, science in its various branches or philosophy—he will relate it all to the Science of Right Human Relations and try to give a truer perspective than in the past upon social organisation.

When the young people of the future—under the proposed application of principles—are civilised, cultured and responsive to world citizenship, we shall have a world of men awakened, creative and possessing a true sense of values [89] and a sound and constructive outlook on world affairs.  It will take a long time to bring this about, but it is not impossible as history itself has proved.

It will be only common sense, however, to realise that this integration is not possible for every student passing through the hands of our teachers.  All, however, no matter what their initial capacity, can be trained in the Science of Right Human Relations and thus respond to the major objective of the coming educational systems.  Indications of this can be seen on every hand but as yet the emphasis is not laid on it when training teachers or influencing parents.  Much, very much, has been done by enlightened groups of men in all lands and this they have done whilst studying the requirements for citizenship, whilst undertaking research work connected with correct social relations (communal, national and international) and through the many organisations which are trying to bring to the mass of human beings a sense of responsibility for human happiness and human welfare.  Nevertheless, the real work along these lines should be started in infancy so that the consciousness of the child (so easily directed) can from its earliest days assume an unselfish attitude towards his associates.  It can be started very simply if the parents so desire; it can be carried forward progressively if parents and teachers demonstrate in their own lives what they teach.  Finally the time will come, under these conditions, when in late adolescence a crisis, needed and planned, is precipitated in the young person's life, and he will then stabilise himself in the particular manner in which destiny ordains that he shall fulfil his task of right relationship through the means of vocational service.

It is bridging work which has now to be done—bridging between what is today and what can be in the future.  If, during the next 150 years, we develop this technique of bridging the many cleavages found in the human family and in offsetting the racial hatreds and the separative attitudes of nations and people, we shall have succeeded in implementing [90] a world in which war will be impossible and humanity will be realising itself as one human family and not as a fighting aggregate of many nations and people, competitively engaged in getting the best of each other and successfully fostering prejudices and hatred.  This has, as we have seen, been the history of the past.  Man has been developed from an isolated animal, prompted only by the instincts of self -preservation, eating, and mating, through the stages of family life, tribal life and national life to the point where today a still broader ideal is grasped by him—international unity or the smooth functioning of the One Humanity.  This growing idealism is fighting its way into the forefront of the human consciousness in spite of all separative enmities.  It is largely responsible for the present chaos and for the banding together of the United Nations.  It has produced the conflicting ideologies which are seeking world expression; it has produced the dramatic emergence of national saviours (so-called), world prophets and world workers, idealists, opportunists, dictators, investigators and humanitarians.  These conflicting idealisms are a wholesome sign, whether we agree with them or not.  They are definitely exploiting the human demand—urgent and right—for better conditions, for more light and understanding, for greater cooperation, for security and peace and plenty in the place of terror, fear and starvation.

It is difficult for modern man to conceive of a time when there will be no racial, national or separative religious consciousness present in human thinking.  It was equally difficult for prehistoric man to conceive of a time when there would be national thinking and this is a good thing for us to bear in mind.  The time when humanity will be able to think in universal terms still lies far ahead but the fact that we can speak of it, desire it and plan for it is surely the guarantee that it is not impossible.  Humanity has always progressed from stage to stage of enlightenment and from glory to glory.  We are today on our way to a far better civilisation [91] than the world has ever known and towards conditions which will ensure a much happier humanity and which will see the end of national differences, of class distinctions (whether based on an hereditary or a financial status) and which will ensure a fuller and richer life for everyone.

It will be obvious that very many decades must elapse before such a state of affairs will be actively present—but it will be decades and not centuries, if humanity can learn the lessons of war and if the reactionary and the conservative peoples in every nation can be prevented from swinging civilisation back on to the bad old lines.  But a beginning can immediately be made.  Simplicity should be our watchword for it is simplicity which will kill our old materialistic way of living.  Cooperative goodwill is surely the first idea to be presented to the masses and taught in our schools, thereby guaranteeing the new and better civilisation.  Loving understanding, intelligently applied, should be the hallmark of the cultured and wiser groups, plus effort on their part to relate the world of meaning to the world of outer efforts —for the benefit of the masses.  World Citizenship as an expression of both goodwill and understanding should be the goal of the enlightened everywhere and the hallmark of the spiritual man, and in these three, you have right relations established between education, religion and politics.

All the work being done now is definitely transitional work and therefore most difficult.  It infers a bridging process between the old and the new, and would present almost insuperable difficulties were it not for the fact that the coming two generations will bring in those types of egos who are competent to deal with the problem.  Upon this fact those of you who are concerned with the educational system and situation, and who are bewildered by the presented vision and by the task of approximating the cherished possibilities, must rest back with confidence.  Clear thinking, much love and a sense of true compromise (note this phrase) will do much to lay the needed foundations and keep the door of the [92] future wide open.  A balancing process is going forward in this interim period, and to it the modern educator should pay due attention.

I can perhaps indicate the nature of this process.  I have stated here and elsewhere that the soul anchors itself in the body at two points:

1. There is a thread of energy, which we call the life or spirit aspect, anchored in the heart.  It uses the blood stream, as is well known, as its distributing agency and, through the medium of the blood, life-energy carries regenerating power and coordinating energy to all the physical organisms and keeps the body "whole."

2. There is a thread of energy, which we call the consciousness aspect or the faculty of soul knowledge, anchored in the centre of the head.  It controls that response mechanism which we call the brain, and through its medium it directs activity and induces awareness throughout the body by means of the nervous system.

These two energy factors, which are recognised by human beings as life and knowledge, or as living energy and intelligence, are the two poles of a child's being.  The task ahead of him is to develop consciously the middle or balancing aspect which is love or group relationship, in order that knowledge should be subordinated to the group need and interests, and that living energy should be turned consciously and with intention into the group whole.  In doing this a true balance will be achieved and it will be brought about by the recognition that the Way of Service is a scientific technique for the achieving of this balance.  Educators therefore have three things to bear in mind during this present period of transition:

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1. To reorient the knowledge, the consciousness aspect or the sense of awareness in the child in such a manner that he realises from infancy that all that he has been taught or is being taught is with the view to the good of others more than of himself.  He will therefore be trained to be definitely forward looking.  Information as to the past history of the race will be given to him from the angle of the racial growth in consciousness and not so much from the angle of the facts of material or aggressive achievement as is now the case.  As the past, in the child's mind, is correlated with the present, his capacity to correlate, unify and bridge, in the different aspects of his life and on various planes, will be developed.

2. To teach him that the life which he feels pulsing through his veins is only one small part of the total life pulsing throughout all forms, all kingdoms in nature, all planets, and the solar system.  He will learn that he shares it with all that exists, and that therefore a true "blood Brotherhood" is everywhere to be found.  Consequently, from the very start of his life, he can be taught relationship, and this the small child will be apt to recognise more quickly than will the average adult, trained in the ways and attitudes of the old age.  When these two realisations—responsibility and relationship—are inculcated in the child from infancy, then the third objective of the new education will come with greater ease.

3. The unification in consciousness of the life impulse and the urge to knowledge will lead eventually to a planned activity.  This planned activity will constitute service, and this, in its turn, will do three things for the child who is taught to practice it:

a. It will serve as a directional agency from the earliest years, finally indicating vocation and avocation and thus aiding in the choice of a life career.

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b. It will draw out the best that is in the child and will make him a magnetic radiating centre in the place where he is.  It will enable him to attract to himself those who can help him or be helped by him, those who can serve him and whom he best can serve.

c. It will therefore make him definitely creative, and so enable him to spin that thread of energy which, when added to the life thread and to the consciousness thread, will link head, heart and throat into one unified and functioning agency.

The meeting of the three aforesaid requirements will be the primary step (made on a racial scale) to the building of the antahkarana or the bridge between:

1. Various aspects of the form nature.

2. The personality and the soul.

3. The man and other human beings.

4. The man as a member of the human family, and his environing world.

You will note from this that education should be basically concerned with relations and interrelations, with the bridging or the healing of cleavages, and thus with the restoration of unity or synthesis.  The establishment of the Science of Right Relations is the next immediate step in the mental unfoldment of the race.  It is the major activity of the new education.