Education as Service | Page 7

said above may seem a very high ideal for the
relation between a teacher and pupil down here. Yet the difference
between them is less than the difference between a Master and His
disciple. The lower relation should be a faint reflection of the higher,
and at least the teacher may set the higher before himself as an ideal.
Such an ideal will lift all his work into a higher world, and all school

life will be made happier and better because the teacher has set it before
him.

II. DISCRIMINATION
The next very necessary qualification for the teacher is Discrimination.
My Master said that the most important knowledge was "the knowledge
of God's plan for men, for God has a plan, and that plan is evolution."
Each boy has his own place in evolution, and the teacher must try to
see what that place is, and how he can best help the boy in that place.
This is what the Hindus call Dharma, and it is the teacher's duty to find
out the boy's dharma and to help him to fulfil it. In other words, the
teaching given to the boy should be that which is suitable for him, and
the teacher must use discrimination in choosing the teaching, and in his
way of giving it. Under these conditions, the boy's progress would be
following out the tendencies made in past lives, and would really be
remembering the things he knew before. "The method of evolution," as
a great Master said, "is a constant dipping down into matter under the
law of readjustment," i.e. by reincarnation and karma. Unless the
teacher knows these truths, he cannot work with evolution as he should
do, and much of his time and of his pupil's time will be wasted. It is this
ignorance which causes such small results to be seen, after many years
at school, and which leaves the boy himself so ignorant of the great
truths which he needs to guide his conduct in life.
Discrimination is wanted in the choice of subjects and in the way in
which they are taught. First in importance come religion and morals,
and these must not only be taught as subjects but must be made both
the foundation and the atmosphere of school life, for these are equally
wanted by every boy, no matter what he is to do later in life. Religion
teaches us that we are all part of One Self, and that we ought therefore
help one another. My Master said that people "try to invent ways for
themselves which they think will be pleasant for themselves, not
understanding that all are one, and that therefore only what the One
wills can ever be really pleasant for anyone." And He also said: "You
can help your brother through that which you have in common with

him, and that is the Divine life." To teach this is to teach religion, and
to live it is to lead the religious life.
At present the value of the set moral teaching is largely made useless
by the arrangements of the school. The school day should always open
with something of the nature of a religious service, striking the note of
a common purpose and a common life, so that the boys, who are all
coming from different homes and different ways of living may be tuned
to unity in the school. It is a good plan to begin with a little music or
singing so that the boys, who often come rushing in from hastily taken
food, may quiet down and begin the school day in an orderly way.
After this should come a prayer and a very short but beautiful address,
placing an ideal before the boys.
But if these ideals are to be useful, they must be practised all through
the school day, so that the spirit of the religious period may run through
the lessons and the games. For example, the duty of the strong to help
the weak is taught in the religious hour, and yet for the rest of the day
the strong are set to outstrip the weak, and are given valuable prizes for
their success in doing so. These prizes make many boys jealous and
discourage others, they stimulate the spirit of struggle. The Central
Hindu College Brotherhood has for its motto: "The ideal reward is an
increased power to love and to serve." If the prizes for good work and
conduct and for helping others were positions of greater trust and
power of helping, this motto would be carried out. In fact, in school
honour should be given to character and helpfulness rather than to
strength of mind and body; strength ought to be trained and developed,
but not rewarded for merely outstripping the weak. Such