True Education by Edward W. Bok

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 22, 1910

True Education

By Edward W. Bok

“Education” is a word that is much misunderstood by most people. They think of it as a matter of books, of study, of schools. They have an idea that it comes from a knowledge of the accumulation of facts about the world and its doings which has been made common property by the printing-press. And yet it is possible to conceive of a well-educated person who has never opened a book or attended school. “Education, in the true sense,” says James Freeman Clarke, “is not mere instruction in Latin, English, French, or history. It is the unfolding of the whole human nature. It is growing up in all things to our highest possibility.” Home life educates; intercourse with friends and neighbors educates; travel educates; life from first to last, with its ups and downs, its joys and griefs, educates. For “education,” derived from two ancient words signifying “out” or “forth,” and “lead” or “draw,” means simply a “leading forth” or “drawing out,” nothing more and nothing less. It does not mean an unfolding of the powers of the mind alone (there is absolutely no basis for that common misunderstanding), but a drawing out and an unfolding of all those powers of head, heart, and body that will best help to develop the understanding, train the temper, cultivate the taste, and form good habits and good manners.

Education in this proper sense means learning to do things rather than reading about doing them. This meaning ought to be universally understood; for, as former President Roosevelt has lately said: “There is too much belief that education is purely a matter of books. I have met people with an excellent literary training whom I regarded as wholly uneducated in all the essentials of life; and on the other hand, I have met people thoroughly versed in these essentials who were shaky in their spelling.” In short, real education is always practical. It is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. It is not merely the acquiring of knowledge, but the application of knowledge to the best advantage in every-day life.—Edward W. Bok.