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 the 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 fulfil the purpose of life are the natural inheritance that every soul brings to the earth; and 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 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 of 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 the 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 preconceived 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 life 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 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 just 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 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 sown 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 by 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 it 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 at the beginning of the 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 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 in 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.

Vol. 3, Education

5. The Education of Children

i.

Vol. 3, Education

5. The Education of Children

i.