Jain Shwetambar Conference Herald 1909 Book 05

Author(s): Mohanlal Dalichand Desai
Publisher: Jain Shwetambar Conference

Page 320

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જૈન, કાન્ફરન્સ- હેલ્ડ
A short Note on the Modern Conception of Education.
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Man does not live by bread alone. He has certain higher necessities which must be provided for before he can rightly take his place at the head of the animate world. His physical wants in common with those of the lower. animals, though of course of the first consideration, are, strictly speaking, few and capable of being easily supplied. It is his mental and spiritual cravings that differentiate him from the inferior types, and the greater these are stimulated and properly satisfied in any particular individual, community or nation, the higher that individual, community, or nation may be said to have mounted in the scale of civilization. In other words, physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual culture form the great keystones to arch of a perfect manhood; nay they have been held to constitute the very summum bonum of human existence.
Now the question naturally arises how best to awaken and satisfy these cravings which are in a more or less degree innate in mankind. The answer undoubtedly is-by education. Judged from this standpoint, the test of all true education must be their adaptability to the realization of an all-round manhood by the simultaneous development of the physical, the intellectual, the moral and the spiritual sides of human nature. In any proper scheme of education, therefore, physical, intellectual and moral culture should each have its due place, and should be harmoniously blended together so as not to trench upon the legitimate province of one another. This is the modern conception, briefly put, of what education ought to aim at.
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So far as I am aware, Prof. Blackie is one of the best exponents of the modern ideal of education. In his excellent book on Self-Culture, he has brought out a system of education, finished and admirably balanced in all its parts. I would venture to advise my English-knowing readers to read that book attentively. They would find in it much that would advance their horizon of ideas, broaden their views and make them realize the latent possibilities of man in the realms of the mind and the spirit. Ajimganj, 28-7-09.
Kumar Sing Nahar B. A.