Education And The Aim of Human Life

Written in 1961 and revised by the author in 1967, this book offers a succinct analysis of the nexus between education and the aim of human life. Examining how education is linked to the aim of human life prevalent in any age, Pavitra sees the conception of progress, born in the 17th century's Age of Enlightenment, as a shift in the focus of man's aspirations away from the traditions and ideals of the past to the promises of a better future. For hundreds of years progress then meant primarily the application of the mind to the mastery of physical nature to benefit society, and education was meant to serve that end. The modern age faces an evolutionary crisis in the apparent failure of scientific and industrial progress to bring perfection and harmony to all aspects of life. Pavitra shows how "with Sri Aurobindo, the past is luminously linked with the future" and how this ideal has led the way to the dawn of a new age and the development of a new educational system to help our children become "creators of the future".

For the last few decades a growing need of reforming the old sys-tem of education has been felt. Insufficiencies in the intellectual alertness and in the character of the students, the spread of dissatisfaction and indiscipline, defects of a method of selection almost exclusively based on examinations, have become apparent and imposed a reappraisal of the whole system.

Theoretical criticism and experimental research in new methods of teaching have been carried out in several countries with interesting but hitherto inconclusive results. This partial failure is probably due to the fact that the search has not touched the root of the problem.

The object of this essay is

1. To show that the purpose of education at a given time is closely connected with the general conception of the aim of human life prevalent at that time;

2. To analyse the conception of progress as the main drive of the modern world, and to show that, as it is generally understood, it does not satisfy all the aspirations of the human being and that this insufficiency is at the root of the present cultural crisis and the shortcomings of education;

3. To show that it is possible to arrive at an understanding of the present crisis, not primarily as convulsions of a dying age of civilization, but rather as birth pangs of a new age, thus placing be-fore man a fresh source of inspiration and a conception of progress more comprehensive and more satisfying;

4. To outline the views of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on an integral education and to show their relation to this new outlook.

**Contents and Sample Pages**