(an excerpt from my upcoming book, Yearning for Simplicity. The book is a derivative work of the 1905 book, “The Simple Life”, by Charles Wagner.)
Pride enters too many places to ever count. It bothers me especially when it takes over those with knowledge. We owe our knowledge to others as surely as we owe our wealth and power to others. Knowledge ought to be accessible to everyone, and can only be so if those with knowledge remain sympathetic to those who lack it. When knowledge is turned into a tool for ambition, it destroys itself. There is an ugly arrogance which seems to have invaded and found a home in our schools and colleges. It has displaced the sympathetic spirit with one of social and political indoctrination. The goal is to instill the teachers’ opinions and displace any previous instruction. This is not teaching! In any other venue, this can be called by another name–brainwashing. The teacher who rewards only those who agree with him in matters of opinion and preference, especially political, who attempt to humiliate and degrade those whose opinions differ from his own, creates not free-thinking adults, but mindless automatons. Keep your opinions humbly to yourself. Their obligation is to prepare these young people for life, not fill them with their guile. Strange arrogance, this pride which seeks out the non-commercial shelter of academia, having only the courage to associate with those who agree with them, and then uses their position of authority to bully students to adopt their views, agree with them about everything, they should confine themselves to debating those of equal position if they feel so compelled. Persuade your equal and you have truly persuaded. Persuade your student by force, and you are no better than is a cruel prison guard, hiding behind a gun and a badge.
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Very nice, can I get this very old book somewhere? I will search on Internet as well to find if there’s any pdf version available. If you have one, please share it.
I also agree that Pride enters in our lives almost everywhere and that’s the point where self-destruction starts. If you regard yourself higher than others then you’re bound to fall soon. The nature doesn’t like people with so much arrogance and ignorance.
I also liked the point of brainwashing by teachers, thats why it’s stressed so many times to have quality teachers rather than quantity of teachers because early in our life, we across to them and adopt their sayings etc, hence if they’re good they would teach us good things.
One must keep sharing whatever he/she has because if we don’t, we’re going against the nature which always share with us.
Regards
Mel