=1 "The virtue of being a child"

The virtue of being a child

The greatest reproach one can direct at our education in general is that it very early destroys the capacity of the child to be a child. The essential virtue in being a child and the cosmic reason for being a child are simply to be a child, which means being open, being able to marvel, being full of optimism, with the certitude that everything is possible.

The aim of official education seems to be exactly the opposite. It tries to transform the child as quickly as possible into a respectable gentleman. It fills him with rules for thinking and rules for action – all prejudices. It puts into his mouth famous words of famous old men. It tries to convince the child of his ignorance and impotence while pretending to teach him something. At an age when a young man feels ready to kill a dragon or find a holy grail, he has to sit in the lecture rooms of a university, do his military service, or sell vegetables in his father's store. The older generation always imposes its own limitations as taboos on his activity, serving as a damper on his vitality, his hopes and his highest aspirations.

A true educator will not stamp the child with all the seals of the past, will not ask him to look around, on his way forward, at the Sodoms and Gomorrahs man has left behind. He will rather show him the radiant perspectives of an evolving universe and invite him to navigate on the great currents of evolution. He will not only teach him time and space, but how to conquer infinity and eternity. He will show him the infinite capacities of man, his powers of creation, of transformation, of transmutation and transubstantiation. He will make him face a future in which all the problems the past generation was unable to solve can be solved with a minimum of intelligence and goodwill, and where there is nothing impossible which he will not, one day, be able to realize.

An old scientist is someone who has tried everything and nothing worked. That is the reason why the old man has to die and forget and be reborn, in order to be able to see the world again with the faith, enthusiasm and enchantment of youth.

To possess the faith that we live in a universe so prodigious that one can try anything and anything will be possible – that is to be a child with the virtue of a child, a virtue which once lost is nearly impossible to regain. It is the capacity to live in a world which is perpetually new.