Value Education

If the character is not trained, the sciences shall cause harm. Science and knowledge are laudable, if they are complemented by a praiseworthy character and behaviour. Otherwise they shall be a deadly poison, a dreadful disaster.

. . . The foundation of schools should be based primarily on training in good manners and morals, and on the development of praiseworthy conduct and behaviour.

BahaŽuŽlla hath proclaimed the university education, which is essential to the unity of mankind, that one and all may be equally educated whether girls or boys, and receive the same education. When education is universalized in all schools, perfect communication between the members of the human race will be established.When all receive the same kind of education the foundations of war and contention will be utterly destroyed.

. . . Education is the foundation of morals and praiseworthy attributes. Whatever parents in their homes teach their children or instructors in schools and universities convey to their students, and whatever the influences of the environment - such as talk they hear at home and in educational institutions, the newspapers they read, or the programmes they watch on television the morals, beliefs and characters of children and youth are being formed thereby.

Therefore, if we want men to scorn war and bloodshed, and establish peace and eliminate their useless prejudices, we should educate our children from a very early age, in all the schools of the world, in the basic unity of mankind. They should be protected against such doctrines as the inevitability of the struggle for existence which is particluar to the animal kingdom, and an exaggerated nationalism whereby the people of other countries are considered as strangers only. Instead, the love of country and mankind as a whole, without racial, national and similar prejudices, should be implanted in their hearts.

. . . The fundamental cause of all these events has been religious, national or racial prejudice. These prejudices, which are constantly reinforced in people from childhood to the end of their lives, have always succeeded in engaging men in one dispute or another . . .

Moreover, during the First World War ten million people were killed, in addition to another fifteen million who suffered various injuries. Similarly, in the Second World War thirty-two million were killed, thirty million injured, and twelve million were held in prison camps.

. . . If we wish to remove an effect, its cause has to be eliminated. To establish peace in the world, the methods of education must be changed so that future generations are imbued with a spirit of unity and concord and warned against estrangement. This utterance of BahaŽuŽlla should be the foundation of education: ŽO well beloved ones! the tabernacle of unity hath been raised; regard ye not one another as strangers. Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch.Ž