May 1952 — Vol. 33, No. 5 —
The Beauties of Learning
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Now that universities and schools
have reached the close of another year, it is a good time
to point out that learning never ends. Continuing education
is one of the most important needs of our day, with the most
far reaching consequences.
Life is not simple. The number of things that we modern
people would have to know in order really to understand what
goes on around us has increased more rapidly than the number
of things we do know. How can we take our bearings? What are
the landmarks which will enable us to find our place in our
own time and with reference to other times?
So long as we were slaves to nature, we could allow ourselves
a slave mentality, and leave to nature decisions which now
must be ours.
The significance of continuing education is that it rescues
men and women from slave—like insignificance, from the
sense of being powerless and alone.
Too many, alas! rely wholly upon science, the marvel of
this age. Science can not, by itself, solve our major human
problems. It can not impose upon people the co—operative,
give—and—take relations we should like to see between
individuals and between nations. What we need, in continuing
education, is ennoblement of individuals through philosophy,
the arts, religion m what we refer to usually as the "humanities."
This brings adults into the education picture. It is adults,
not children, who set the tone of a community. Adulthood is
the significant period toward which life leads. It is a stage
of life which has a meaning and an importance that no other
stage can possess.
It is not enough to have learned to read, write and figure.
Canada has so few illiterates that they are not worth counting
at census—time. Skills do not give wisdom, though they
and science, technology and business management do prepare
the way toward wisdom.
There is no easy formula by which we can suddenly grow mature
in matters of the intellect and the spirit. Every year that
is given to the effort after graduation is well worth while
in the return it gives us in happiness, satisfaction and achievement.
Continuing Education
The title "adult education" doesn't at all describe what
is meant by "continuing education." There is something attached
to "adult education" which conveys to the popular mind a catching
up with arrears, a making good after forty, or some such notion.
The truth is that the person who quits learning upon leaving
university or school is giving in to an idea of limited usefulness,
limited satisfaction and limited happiness. He is contributing
to his own bewilderment and feeling of insecurity in a fast—moving
world.
All sorts of definitions have been devised for "continuing
education". They range through preparation for service to
the State, promotion of virtue, gaining dominance over things,
obtaining satisfaction of wants, and developing social efficiency.
These things may be incidental, but isn't the real purpose
of continuing education self—realization? This requires
good human relations, economic efficiency and civic responsibility.
It has to do with the conditions of life, and the art of
living in such a way as to obtain the greatest return. It
takes note of personal abilities, aptitudes and desires. It
serves needs which are inexhaustible.
What does a sincere attempt to widen our education entail?
It is not enough to seek skills in this or that, or to become
expert in something or other. Continuing education leads us
to know something of the other person's job, so as to appreciate
the part he is playing in life; it provides us with reasonably
founded opinions instead of unclarified passions and sentiment.
Our continuing education qualifies us to bring relevant
background to bear upon a current problem, to gather information
that will be pertinent to the question in hand, to grasp relationships
between this state of affairs and another, between this person's
action and his social environment; and - this is the aim and
object of it all - to make a judgment in the light of our
clearly defined values and the information we have.
A Feeling of Significance
Continuing education will, as a matter of course, give us
a feeling of significance, a sense of creativeness, and a
knowledge of our purpose as citizens in a political society.
It demands our fullest possible intellectual development,
and that means awareness of our personal responsibility in
the life of the world and in our fellowship with the whole
of mankind.
There are obstacles in our way: otherwise the effort would
not be worth while. We may find it difficult to establish
the right habits of attention; we may be tempted to procrastinate;
we may be stopped by lack of knowledge about where to begin;
we may be ridiculed as being old dogs trying to learn new
tricks.
These need not deter us. We are not taking up a course of
study to keep our minds busy. What we seek is not to escape
boredom but to do notable things. We want to progress beyond
the education that was given us at school; beyond half—baked
adulthood; into the creative surprises of an adulthood that
is truly maturing.
There are no external compulsions upon us, but plenty of
inner voices telling us not to quit learning. We are moved
by curiosity, the desire for new experience, the wish to get
along with people, and the need to be ready with wise judgments
about social, economic and political issues.
Progress Poses Problems
Seen from the point of view of no farther back than fifty
years ago, the point we have reached in ease of living today
is astonishing. But we should not be confused by the advance
in material prosperity and material knowledge. The high tide
of advance made by science, with its increase in creature
comfort, raises a very real danger that the more spiritual,
the only lasting qualities, may be submerged.
Living and moving as we do in a world of gadgets, we need
to remember that truth, loyalty, courage, and faith are the
realities that set men apart as creatures that live in the
fullest sense, and these come only to people who seek them.
As science broadens our knowledge of the material world,
we can keep our significance by continually developing our
peculiar talents and gifts as men.
This age will be remembered more by the sort of people we
were, rather than by the things we did. It is by men's attainments
that new things are wrought. This thought reminds us of the
exclamation by Miranda in Shakespeare's The Tempest:
"O, brave new world, that has such people in't."
Using the gadgets provided by our advanced technology, even
without knowing how they work, should give us time to learn
the how and the why of human behaviour. This may be said to
be the backbone of continuing education.
Adult Education
No farther back than a hundred years ago, education was
regarded as a dangerous explosive to be kept under guard.
When the battle for popular elementary education was won,
there still lingered prejudice against continuing education.
In fact, the Canadian Association for Adult Education is only
seventeen years old. It was in June, 1935, that a constitution
was drawn up and a council elected. A year later Dr. E. A.
Corbett began to devote his full time to the affairs of the
association as Director.
By 1946 the association was ready to state its goal, and
a committee under chairmanship of Professor H. R. C. Avison,
of Macdonald College, drew up an explicit statement. Ordinary
men and women, said the committee, have within themselves
and their communities the spiritual and intellectual resources
adequate to the solution of their problems. Adult education
should awaken people to the possibilities and dangers of modern
life; it should deal with the actual and living concerns of
actual and living people.
There are, of course, stages in this continuing education:
youths leaving school may study the same subjects as their
aging grandparents, but not from the same point of view. The
disastrous thought for anyone to have is that his present
store of knowledge, at whatever age, is sufficient.
It would be a mistake to idealize immaturity, to look upon
childhood as the most happy time and youth as the radiant
age. In reality, maturity is the golden fleece we seek. The
child lives in the minute, the youth in the day, the instinctive
man in the year, but those who attain a measure of maturity
see themselves in relation to an epoch or even eternity.
About Maturity
We need to mature our mentality so that it catches up with
our techniques, instead of getting along with a way of thinking
and feeling that were appropriate in a technically simpler
age. Only thus can we hope to pass through the middle years
of our lives without the sense of frustration and failure
that is all too common among middle—aged people.
It is not in terms of years that maturity is to be measured,
nor yet in terms of knowledge. To be mature is to use knowledge
wisely.
The mature person has learned and is learning; he has experienced
and is daily taking note of his experiences; he has achieved
the ability to weld these two, knowledge and experience, in
his own mind and to produce judgments and plans.
This is a far cry from the artificial life pictured by some
utopians. Theirs is a realm into which they escape, a sort
of childish world where things are provided with ease, if
not free, and where some benevolent power looks after every
want.
To be a mature person means accepting responsibility for
one's own part in the world. It is true that much of what
we are came down to us from our forefathers, set in motion
or completed long before we were born, but there is left to
all of us a margin for initiative.
In some way, big or little, we can contribute to the world's
progress. H. A. Overstreet says in his helpful book The
Mature Mind that the sum of our mature acts, in each of
us and in all of us, may make the difference between a world
headed for destruction and a world headed for creative fulfilment.
Seeking Culture
It is only natural that much of the learning of early years
should be devoted to making a go of practical life. Parents
sacrifice their selfish interests to provide their children
with the best education in preparation for making a living.
But there is also, even in elementary school education, a
sort of knowledge that does not contribute to making a living
but to better living. This is the door through which we enter
upon a kingdom of beauty, literature, art, and culture.
To go on learning past the schoolday period is to continue
developing taste and enjoyment. We train our eyes and our
ears and our judgment, so that we awaken the spirit of fine
perception of beauty, of generous admiration for what is noble
and true.
There are many definitions of culture, but the sort of culture
we have in mind includes three attributes.
It trains workers to have better understanding of the ins—and—outs
of their jobs, so that they know how they fit in with the
laws of production and consumption. It helps workers to develop
their true selves through intellectual or manual activity.
Culture qualifies everyone to assume his responsibilities
as a person and as a citizen, not only in his workshop, his
trade union and his family, but also in his community and
in the world community. It makes freedom more real by increasing
its scope.
Culture enables a man to develop, to the utmost of his desire
and ability, fullness of living physically, morally, intellectually
and artistically. It helps him to weed out the non—essentials,
to cleave to the significant in knowledge, and to think clearly.
It enables him to become all that he is created capable of
being.
We Seek Principles
We seek, in our continuing education, principles. They are
hardy, convertible and profitable. Principles do not change
from year to year under the vicissitudes of life; they can
be applied to different situations, and add their measure
of judgment to our thinking; and they give satisfaction because
we feel that, having added a principle to our stock we have
gained something of great value.
Good books broaden our horizon, fill our minds, enable us
to continue growing in knowledge and wisdom. They may not
teach us to make atomic bombs or more money, but they will
help us to understand the problems of war and economics. They
will show us that the puzzling questions associated with good
and evil, love and hate, happiness and misery, life and death
- these have not changed very much over the ages. What the
writers of good books said centuries ago may be the very thing
to help us find serenity today.
The voices that speak to us across the birth and death and
rebirth of nations touch every emotion of our generation.
They provide us with a sense of proportion, a standard of
values, and a profound respect for the truth.
Some Advantages
Out of continued learning there come advantages not to be
otherwise gained. One that will commend itself to many is
the ability of self—expression. Another is skill in doing
things in a creative way. These - self—expression and
making - are ways in which we can in some measure discharge
the obligation we feel as debtors to life.
Of greatest importance, perhaps, is the ability that continued
learning gives us to think straight. We are apt to drift into
a way of thinking with our hopes and our fears and our ignorance.
Straight thinking is based upon knowledge. How can a man
think if he doesn't know? Dr. W. E. McNeill told at the Autumn
Convocation at Queen's University a few years ago how Charles
Darwin gathered biological facts for twenty years without
seeing any binding relationship. Then, said Dr. McNeill, while
Darwin was walking through an English country lane, the idea
of evolution came to him suddenly. That's what thinking is
- the flashing emergence of an idea after facts have been
mulled over a long time.
Intellectual curiosity can be satisfied only by continued
learning. When we learn progressively how to detect fallacy,
how to rise above superstition, how to discern what is relevant,
how to discriminate values, and how to brush aside cant and
propaganda, then we are taking long steps in continued learning.
We become more skilful, too, in solving problems, or in
discriminating between problems we can solve and those that
must be left to some other power.
Many of the vexing questions of today grow out of world
situations. We need to judge their significance, decide how
far we shall allow them to penetrate our spirits, and accommodate
ourselves accordingly. Life becomes inexhaustibly interesting,
instead of just perversely frustrating, when we continue to
learn about it.
Democracy is conditioned by the learning we do. Democracy
depends for its life upon the fact that every man will make
all the judgments he can as wisely as he can. Democracy's
only authority is reason, and its great attraction for thinking
people is the opportunity it gives for making choices.
To make choices wisely we need abundant growth of learning,
participation in community, school, church and social affairs,
an attitude of free enquiry, and the love of beauty, peace
and kindness. Upon this base, continued learning will enable
us to adapt ourselves intelligently and purposefully to social
change.
A Philosophy
Out of continued learning there is bound to grow a better
philosophy than we should be able to base upon immature thought.
We need philosophy, if for no better reason than that things
are happening politically, economically and socially which
we must take into account. No mere star—dust hope will
serve.
It may appear strange to talk of philosophy when every day
is so crowded with doing and with talking that there seems
to be no room for contemplation. But adult people who seek
to be mature must make time to search their hearts and minds
if they are to find any meaning in their lives. The alternative
is to drift aimlessly, buffeted by every shifting wind.
What is meant by philosophy involves many things, such as
seeing beyond our immediate tasks and gaining a sense of life
as a whole; making ourselves richer in thought and feeling
and beauty by drawing on our cultural heritage; taking up
as our own the good things from our rich tradition.
As Hayward Keniston said in an article he called The
Humanities in a Scientific World, it is only in the realms
of philosophy, art and religion that we may hope to find salvation
for the human spirit. Man must have faith of some sort if
he is to live as happily and as nobly as he might.
Possible for All
The sort of continued learning written about in this Monthly
Letter is possible for everyone in Canada. No matter how little
school education one may have, or at what age this continued
learning is taken up, the joys and advantages of further learning
are available.
As long ago as 1928 a book was published, called Adult
Learning, in which there was knocked down once and for
all the old idea that childhood is the time for learning and
adulthood the time of having learned. Since then it has been
said by eminent psychologists and educators that it is a threat
to our whole society to have people stop learning and sit
back in complacent unchangeability in a world that is constantly
changing.
Continued learning is essentially self—teaching. There
is no compulsion except the compulsion of one's own spirit
and the desire to participate usefully in society.
Many persons who cannot study in solitude will find it easier
to join in study groups where members raise questions, define
them, explain their elements, and try to solve or at least
to understand them. Some will find a varied programme desirable,
ranging through poetry, history, economics, psychology, philosophy
and all the other branches of knowledge.
One group read The Teachings of Epictetus, a chapter
a week, followed by discussion and an attempt to apply what
was learned from the Stoic philosopher's ideas to today's
world. Another group selects a topic a week, such as "sympathy"
or "honesty", and brings to bear upon it all that members
can contribute to clarify it and show its place in everyday
life.
When larger groups are desirable, we think of the lighted
school. There is no reason, it is often said, why schools
be unused in the evenings if there are adults eager to learn.
Public libraries in some centres are used by discussion circles.
Churches, too, are using their halls for this continued learning
by adults. The new armouries at Sault Ste. Marie, home of
a Canadian Militia regiment, is to be used as a social and
recreation centre by the whole community,
Don't Procrastinate
To continue learning is important enough to demand top place
when we are planning how we shall use our time. We are in
danger of putting off until some tomorrow the very thing that
will make tomorrow worth living.
We are so much on the go, with this and that demanding attention,
that we fail utterly to gain the serenity that should be ours,
the serenity that comes of feeling significant because of
some grace or quality or knowledge we have acquired.
We are not self—sufficient. Our physical survival depends
upon constant access to material resources outside our bodies.
In like manner, our growth into spiritual individuality depends
upon our keeping ourselves linked in one way or another with
our spiritual sources.
We must not throw up our hands in the face of events or
of pressure, and await with stoicism some impending cataclysm
to which our civilization may at times appear to be rushing.
No one need feel powerless, if he will take the trouble to
continue learning about mankind and broadening his vision.
In fact, if we learn soon enough, adversity may not fall upon
us, and the future of mankind may be happier than any part
of his past.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
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