Thoughts on the Aims of Education
Daisaku Ikeda

Presented at the general meeting of the education division, appearing in the Seikyo Shlmbun, August 25, 1984.

Not a day goes by without serious discussion concerning the lamentable state of our educational system. The problem has reached nationwide proportions. Such phenomena as juvenile delinquency, violence at school, truancy and prevailing lethargy among the young constitute no more than the tip of the iceberg. In spite of the fervent attempts being made both at home and in the schools to deal with it, because of the breadth of the issue, so far no general remedy has been prescribed.

As one person earnestly desiring the wholesome growth and development of youth, I cannot help being anxious. Since I am not a specialist in the field, I have no intention of discussing individual educational methods or the various aspects of the educational system that require reform. All of these things must be handled with wisdom and in the light of world trends and the situation in Japan. Avoiding hastiness, qualified people must approach these problems, remaining fully aware that cultivating today's youth will determine the fate of tomorrow's Japan.

Restoring Humanity to Education

I would like to say, however, that politics must not be allowed to take the lead in educational reforms. In all ages, political power has tended to subjugate education and everything else to its own purposes, as was vividly illustrated by modern Japanese education after the establishment, in 1872, of a system dominated by political aims and giving first priority to the achievement of nationalist goals. Slogans such as "increase production and promote industry" and "enrich the country and strengthen the military" were hoisted aloft like imperial banners to which education was obliged to give service. Though this policy may have been partly justified on the basis of the desire to catch up with the Western powers, we must not avert our eyes from the loss it entailed.

Nor can it be said that the Constitution and the Fundamental Law on Education adopted after World War II succeeded in avoiding the same pitfalls since, generally speaking, it was politics again that took the lead in the postwar democratic education system. Education was once again called on to serve nationalistic aims with the difference that postwar efforts to become a great economic power replaced prewar and wartime efforts to become a great military power. Under such circumstances, when the national aim collapses, educational aims are left dangling in the air. It is therefore by no means coincidental that the dark cloud of educational devastation which has engulfed our country from the 1970's into the 1980's coincides with Japan's record of high-rate economic growth and its attendant frustrations.

The true goal of education should be the cultivation of the individual character on the basis of respect for humanity. We must admit, however, that in modern Japan education has been used as a means for cultivating people who will be of value to the nation and big business; that is, people who will function effectively within the national and economic structure.

For some time I have advocated the establishment of a fourth branch of government--that of education--independent of the present three branches--legislative, executive and judiciary--as a method of dealing with the ills and distortions created by education being dominated by politics. The thing that has been lost in the modern Japanese system of education, led as it has been since the late nineteenth century by political considerations, is humanity.

On the basis of his many years of practice and study in teaching, the late Tsunesaburo Makiguchi,1 first president of the Soka Gakkai, defined education concisely and clearly in the following way. The goal of education must not be set by scholars and must not be taken advantage of by other parties. The goal of education must be one with the goal of life. And this means that it must enable children to attain a life of happiness.

Putting to good use his more than thirty years' experience in practical education and adding to that his astute observations of society, Makiguchi developed a definition of happiness in the form of his original theory of value. He was able to achieve this because, throughout his life, he kept an enlightened eye turned always on humanity.

In this connection, I am always deeply moved by a passage from the writings of Victor-Marie Hugo, the great romanticist who devoted himself to the establishment of the autonomy of education, to relieving poverty, and to ensuring freedom for all:

Light that makes whole. Light that enlightens. All fruitful social impulses spring from knowledge, letters, the arts, and teaching. We must make whole men, whole men . . . (Les Miserables)

Next year is the centennial of Hugo's death. But I do not think we need his words to realize that the main significance of education is to make "whole men." I insist that all future educational reforms must be made for the sake of humanity, not politics. I further insist that nostalgia--which is sometimes expressed today--for the nationalistic Japanese education of the past is stimulated by doubt concerning the situation of the present and represents the refusal to learn from history.

The question has been argued, and studies and proposals have been made on it from many different angles. But, in my opinion, educational reforms dominated by considerations of humanity must not be made within the framework of the established system but must be guided by these three principles: totality, creativity and internationalization.

I have spoken or written on these topics many times in the past. "Totality" was discussed at the first general meeting of the Soka Gakkai women's division in February 1969; in August 1970, at the summer course of the senior high school division; and in my book Watakushi no Zuisoshu (Collection of My Random Thoughts). "Creativity" was taken up at the same meeting of the women's division; at the third entrance ceremony of Soka University in April 1973; at the fourth Soka University entrance ceremony the following year; at the general meeting of the Kanto young men's division in March 1973; at the fourteenth general meeting of the student division; and with special emphasis in my books Watakushi no Jinseikan (Informal Essays on Life) and Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. The subject of "internationalization" was the lead article in the journal Daibyakurenge2 (Great White Lotus) in 1966; and I also spoke on the subject at the thirty-sixth annual general meeting of the Soka Gakkai in 1973; at the eighth entrance ceremony of Soka University in 1978; I also took it up in my book Collection of My Random Thoughts, in which I mentioned the importance of cultivating people with a broad, international outlook.

Fortunately, it seems that my statements on these topics have become a current in the general demand of our times. A certain intellectual recently spoke on internationalization, creativity and respect for humanity. As one who has respect for the dignity of life, I have stated my position concerning respect for humanity hundreds of times.

On this occasion, I should like to discuss the path education should follow by way of summarizing my ideas on these three topics.

Totality of Wisdom

When I speak of totality I mean interrelation. No thing or event exists in isolation; everything is interrelated in some way with everything else to produce one great total image. To take an immediately apparent example, I might cite the human body itself in which the head, hands, torso, legs and internal organs, and all individual cells are intimately intermeshed to form the whole. And we cannot overlook the connection between the physical and spiritual. Modern depth psychology and ecology show that interrelations expand infinitely to connect human beings with each other, with the world of nature, and with the entire universe. Inseparably bound together, the microcosm and the macrocosm work together in wondrous rhythm.

In the words of Goethe's Faust:

Lo, single things interwoven, made to blend.

To work in oneness with the whole, and live

From ancient times, the ability to perceive the invisible threads interweaving all things has been considered a kind of wisdom. But modern civilization has turned its back on this wisdom and has pursued instead a continual course of fragmentation. Though perhaps an inevitable part of the development of human knowledge, this tendency, while producing noteworthy results in the physical realm, has created a condition in which the cords that once bound man and man, to say nothing of man and nature, have been severed and the individual man himself groans in the small, enclosed and lonely space to which he has been driven.

In terms of learning and education, this state of affairs can be compared to the way in which mankind has ignored the totality of wisdom and instead has allowed the departmentalization of learning to exist for its own sake. Unrelated to the values of human happiness and a better way of life, learning goes its own way, reaching ever higher proportions.

The great educator, Yukichi Fukuzawa (1835-1901), who lived during the time when modernization was the major trend in Japan, saw this from a very early date.

"This informed person is informed about things but not about the connections among them and is ignorant of the principle mutually connecting this and that. Learning consists solely in understanding mutual relations among things. Learning that does not take such relations into consideration serves no useful purpose."

Further, he observed: "The informed person who does not know connections among things differs from a dictionary only in that he eats and the dictionary does not."

In other words, the person who, like a dictionary, is a compendium of unrelated information knows much but ignores interrelations and is therefore useless and nonconstructive.

Of course, Fukuzawa, who was the author of An Encouragement of Learning and who studied much himself and stimulated others to do the same, is not attacking learning, but only learning and knowledge for their own sakes. Nor do I think his words reflect pragmatism and practicality alone.

Fukuzawa speaks of connections among things (the Japanese word en which he uses in this meaning is found in such famous Buddhist terms as engi, the pivotal doctrine of causal origination). Determining what connection study and learning have with oneself--that is, what meaning they have--represents an inclination toward the kind of totality I have been speaking of, the same kind of inclination that can be seen in the philosophy of Henri Bergson, who made the famous statement, "Living comes first of all."

Undeniably, the pursuit of learning for learning's sake has been a great driving force in the development of modern science. But, in the light of such results as the development of

nuclear weapons and environmental pollution, we are compelled to examine the scientist's social responsibility. In other words, the scientist is forced to ask himself what connection his learning has with his own fate and with that of all mankind.

On the more practical plane of actual education, I often hear of students who no longer read great classics and literary masterpieces but content themselves with digests giving all the information they need to pass literature-course examinations. They know no more than the digests tell them and have no desire to learn further. Even in this age of audiovisual technology and mass media, this is cause for concern.

Information learned from a digest for nothing but the purposes of passing an examination is certainly nothing but knowledge for knowledge's sake. Reading great literature is an opportunity to make connections with the spirits of outstanding writers, and in this way to improve and broaden one's self for the sake of further development. Such spiritual improvement comes only from direct contact and cannot be obtained through digests. Although it may be possible to obtain much superficial information without going through the labor of actually reading great books, people who choose this path become spiritually shallow and biased.

Not only in literature, but in all other branches of learning as well, educators and students alike must make unceasing and diligent efforts to establish connections between compartmentalized learning and the totality of wisdom. Obviously abuses in the educational system--like excessive emphasis on examinations--must be corrected. But, even if the system remains imperfect, as long as such efforts are made, students will become people of sufficient ability to transcend its faults. Such people will go beyond petty egoistic thinking to become total human beings who, while considering the whole of wisdom, relate their own lives to the fate of all mankind. I am firmly convinced that cultivating excellent human beings of this caliber is the true purpose of education.

Creativity: Badge of Humanity

Creativity could be called the badge, or proof, of our humanity. Human beings are the only creatures capable of striving positively and dynamically, day after day, to create newer, higher values.

Creativity is the womb from which individuality blossoms. All humans are different. Each has a unique personality. But often the personality withers in the bud, before it has a chance to come to full flower. In different terms, before coming into individual radiance, personalities frequently freeze at the stage where they are characterized by mere idiosyncrasies. Creativity is a stimulus operating from within to thaw this imbalance and allow the personality to grow and bloom more fully. Buddhism describes the flowering of the personality which emanates from the depths of life with the statement that each person's individuality is as unique as cherry, plum, peach or apricot blossoms.3

Accordingly, creativity is a brilliant force rising from within. This is what Alfred N. Whitehead (I861-1947) had in mind when, addressing a group of English students about to leave school in the devastation following World War I, he said that they had all the essential sources of growth within themselves. Knowledge can be obtained from without, but creativity and imagination must be activated from within. Schools and other institutions of learning today seem to me to fail most sadly in stimulating and cultivating creativity.

Young people may be oriented toward good or evil. It is of primary importance for people concerned with education on the broader scale to believe in the creativity of each young person with whom they come in contact and to cultivate it warmly, and persistently endeavor to enable it to bloom brilliantly.

I do not deny that, in this case too, abuses in the system--like being absorbed in acquiring the methods to pass examinations--constitute a great barrier to improvement. But it would be irresponsible to lay all the blame at the system's door because exchanges between human beings are the soil in which creativity grows. Creative vitality gushes forth like a fountain as a consequence of spiritual exchanges--sometimes severe, sometimes warm--between human beings who share complete trust given with no thought of reward.

In this connection, I am vividly reminded of a passage in the famous Epistles of Plato. About people who claimed to know the subjects which he had seriously studied, whether as students of his or other teachers, or from their own discoveries, Plato said, "It is impossible, in my judgment at least, that these men should understand anything about this subject." He then explained, "For it does not at all admit of verbal expression like other studies, but, as a result of continued application to the subject itself and communion therewith, it is brought to birth in the soul on a sudden, as light that is kindled by a leaping spark, and thereafter it nourishes itself."

In this extremely acute comment, by "this subject," Plato no doubt refers to the quintessence of his own philosophy projected against the background of what he learned under his great teacher Socrates. It is equally certain that the important thing is of a lofty spiritual nature.

His statement that "it is brought to birth in the soul on a sudden, as light that is kindled by a leaping spark, and thereafter it nourishes itself" is an idea widely applicable to modern education. Recognizing each student as a unique personality and transmitting something through contacts between that personality and the personality of the instructor is more than a way of implanting knowledge: it is the essence of education.

In certain parts of Japan, child education is called ko yarai, a term that means allowing the child to stand on his own, out in front, while the parent or educator pushes him from behind. In the words of the famous folklorist Kunio Yanagita (1875-1962), this is exactly the opposite of the modern educational tendency to stand in front of the child and attempt to pull him forward. The ko-yarai philosophy has something important to say to contemporary educational thought, which considers a child less than a complete, or mature, human being until he has completed a prescribed curriculum. Recognition in the field of anthropology of the three elements that modern civilization has overlooked--the primitive, the subconscious and the childlike--is called one of the great discoveries of the twentieth century. Undeniably, education today stands at a turning point in relation to discovering children in the sense of attempting to learn ways to recognize and appreciate the individual personalities of young people.

Educators must make the effort to call forth the creative powers latent in their students. In this undertaking, they require endurance, courage and affection. To cultivate others, an educator must have a glowing, appealing personality. Socrates' power to move others was compared to the shock of a stinging ray. When told this, Socrates said that the ray stings others because he is himself stung. Similarly, the teacher himself must be constantly creative if he is to evoke creativity from his students. If he is not, all his talk of creativity will remain nothing but empty words.

There is nothing wrong with keeping in step with advances in the computer age by introducing all kinds of new equipment to make education more convenient and efficient. But no amount of equipment compensates for the absence of those old, but forever new, virtues of effort, endurance, courage and affection. When these things have dried up, the situation becomes very grave; relying on the latest technology to alleviate it is to put the cart before the horse.

There is no rank or station when it comes to learning. Nor is there any in education. This is why, with courage and compassion as the bases of all their encounters, members of our education division deserve sustained applause for their achievements in humanistic education and society.

International Outlook

The third element is internationalization. In this age, when the pace of internationalization is accelerating throughout the world, the future of Japan can well be said to depend on the ability to cultivate and foster capable people with truly international perspectives.

For better or worse, Japan has become one of the economic leaders of the world, and, as the recent trade friction demonstrates, what Japan does has an immense influence on what the world at large does. Dr. Henry Kissinger, whom I have met on several occasions, says history offers no reason why an economic superpower will not develop into a military superpower. From my own standpoint, however, no matter what past history may have been like, to continue to enjoy peace and prosperity, Japan must follow a course other than militarization. And if that path has never before been trodden, Japan must be courageous and take pride in blazing it.

The path I speak of is that of a nation devoted to culture. As an outcome of my many private attempts and undertakings, I have come to clearly see that, whereas it may seem modest and inconspicuous, mutual understanding achieved through cultural exchanges is very powerful.

An episode from the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 that I read recently in a certain book is pertinent to this topic. As the war was drawing to a close, Japan was looking about for a nation to serve as mediator. In strict secrecy the Japanese government dispatched two envoys: Kentaro Kaneko, a government official, to the United States and Kencho Suematsu, a politician and scholar, to England.

Perhaps to some extent because the two men had been classmates at Harvard, Kaneko was able to convince President Theodore Roosevelt to assist him. The president, however, asked Kaneko to give him information that would help him explain the Japanese viewpoint to the American people. Kaneko gave Roosevelt a copy of a book, written in English by Inazo Nitobe, called Bushido, the Spirit of Japan, in which the code of the warrior is explained as the basis of Japanese moral education. The president read the book in an evening, found it convincing, and agreed to serve as mediator between Japan and Russia.

Suematsu, on the other hand, attended English salons, where he spoke boastfully of Japan as being a land as much on the way up as the rising sun--in other words, he used an approach similar to Japan's boasting recently about such things as the gross national product (GNP)--and was laughed at.

This episode illustrates the way in which culture--like that explained in Nitobe's book--can prove more influential than economic bragging. Unfortunately, after the Russo-Japanese War, Japan pursued a headlong course of militarization. And, today, we will find ourselves in a very dangerous predicament unless we strive to make culture the base of our economic power.

To achieve this, the most important thing is to educate people so that they are broadly cultivated and have the mastery of languages. Because this is presently being realized, Japanese linguistic education, which has in the past been criticized as useless, is now, I am happy to say, being reappraised. I want to make it clear, however, that, though an essential element, linguistic proficiency alone does not make a person truly international. As I have said, this requires broad cultivation, not only practical expertise in politics and economics, but also an understanding of one's own culture and tradition and those of other peoples as well. Unlike the knowledge of what Yukichi Fukuzawa calls the "informed," the kind of cultivation I have in mind must be so deeply ingrained that it manifests itself in behavior and deportment. As T. S. Elliot says, culture is living. It is not a mere surface accretion but is acquired only when it has been bred into a person since the time of childhood training in manners. Consequently, a nation devoted to culture must be a nation devoted to education.

In commenting on the need for what he called two-legged scholars, the great writer Ogai Mori (1862-1922) said, "I divide modern Japanese scholars into those with one and those with two legs. The new Japan is a whirlpool in which the cultures of the East and the West combine. Some scholars stand in the Eastern one and others in the Western one, but both kinds are one-legged The age needs scholars with two legs, one planted in each culture. Truly moderate debate is possible only with such people who are the elements of harmony necessary at the present time."

The problem here indicated by Mori, who was himself a man of great cultivation in Japanese, Chinese and Western cultures, remains unresolved to this day. I think we can expand his meaning of two-legged to represent not merely knowledge of the cultures of East and West, but also wide and well-balanced cultivation in general. Today, as internationalization continues to advance, we are in greater need than the people of Mori's time of such "elements of harmony."

In relation to the need for balance and harmony, I should like to mention something that has recently been on my mind. The attitude of the Japanese people toward their own tradition and the traditions of the rest of the world seems to me to have swung, pendulum-like, too wide and too fast in the last fifty years or so. Before World War II, when we were taught that Japan is a divine nation, total rejection of everything un-Japanese was taken for granted. Since World War II, on the other hand, the Japanese tradition--even the best parts of it--has been despised and ignored. Recently, the pendulum seems to be swinging back in the opposite direction again. If this change of attitude is part of an arrogance born of economic success, I am deeply afraid that it could lead Japan in the wrong direction. Rejection and adoration of the foreign are two sides of the same coin, and both indicate a lack of self-confidence and independence. Vacillation and imbalance are the outcome of a lack of self-confidence. People who persist in such a condition can never be called truly international, no matter how much they may pretend to turn their view outward.

Economic and military power can breed arrogance but not self-confidence, which can be fostered only through cultural development. This is why, in Japanese schools, I think it would be a good idea to place more stress on the proper use of the Japanese language and on the study of such aspects of our irreplaceable heritage as great literature and the traditional arts. Without the mature knowledge of one's own language, foreign-language studies cannot produce maximum results. From all that I have seen or heard, people who excel in international contacts are bright and appealing as Japanese personalities. Cultivation in one's own culture as well as in other cultures is what it takes to be truly cosmopolitan; I think our institutions of learning ought to set as one of their goals the development of such internationally-minded people.

Although, as I have said, I am no specialist, I have enumerated these three points--totality, creativity and internationalization--because I think a profound understanding of their importance is essential to the reforms that must be made in our current educational system.

In addition, on the basis of a new interpretation of youth and its growth and development, I would like all of us to join in the evolution of a new theory of education suited to the needs and circumstances of today.

Our own Soka Gakkai education division has a splendid tradition based on the work of our first and second presidents. First President Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, who had unrivaled enthusiasm for teaching, arranged his philosophy of its practice in a scientific manner in his book Jinsei Chirigaku (The Geography of Human Life)
and subsequently in his most significant work Soka Kyoikugaku Taikei (The System of ValueCreating Pedagogy), compiled from random notes and jottings accumulated during the course of two decades of teaching at elementary schools. Second President Josei Toda too was an outstanding educator with abundant experience in public teaching and in the Jishu Gakkan, a private tutoring school that he founded himself. He compiled his educational theories in a work entitled Suirishiki Shido Sanjutsu (Deductive Guide to Arithmetic).

Through meetings to report on actual experiences in teaching and educational research projects and the records of teaching activities, I expect our members to go on making further progress in this field and am certain that, as one ripple stimulates others, our education activities will swell into a great tide sweeping into the twenty-first century.

World Council of Educators

I hope that next year, which, as you know, is designated as the United Nations "International Youth Year," young people with great vitality and creativity will engage in truly global contacts with others and will realize their mission as pioneers in the next century. The responsibility of educators in awakening the youth to their mission is very great. In that connection, I would like to make the following concrete proposals:

First, I propose that, next year, in Hawaii (or possibly Hiroshima), we sponsor the first world council of educators, during which time educators and their representatives from all nations would come together to hold significant discussions of present educational conditions and attempt to work out the optimum educational system for the future.

For some time now I have enthusiastically advocated the establishment of a United Nations of Education based on the idea that education should be carried out independently of the three branches of government. This is why I tentatively suggest that a conference of educators for deliberation on the formation of a United Nations of Education be formed at the first world council. An international organization like a United Nations of Education, which would represent a pooling of the wisdom of the ordinary people of the world, is especially urgently needed now in the light of the many problems facing the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Because of the complications and difficulties involved in organizing such a conference, it will no doubt be necessary to set up preparatory organizations in Europe and Asia to study regional and local conditions. The project will take time, but we must address ourselves to its accomplishment slowly, but surely. I ask all of you to persevere in your efforts toward the achievement of this goal, because eventually, underground waters surface, even though beforehand the ground may be frozen hard.

I further propose that the world council of educators adopt a declaration concerning education in the twenty-first century. The document should be the outcome of the most thorough discussions possible concerning what future education should be like in terms of both the individual human being and all humanity. The gradual expansion of the circle of endorsement of its principles, as a result of the efforts of educators in all regions, will stimulate global educational unity and further enhance the vitality of young people everywhere.

Next, I would like to make some remarks about international exchanges in this field. As the founder of Soka University, I have traveled all over the world, meeting educators and discussing problems with them. I intend to go on making the same kind of effort, but to amplify their significance and make them effective on many levels, I request even greater cooperation on the part of the teachers and educators. A group teaching the social sciences at Soka Junior and Senior High Schools recently visited China, where they traveled to the Dunhuang caves and many other parts of the country, enjoying meaningful exchanges with Chinese educators. Some members of the education division have done similar work in China and the Soviet Union; and many of them have traveled to America, Europe and Southeast Asia on related missions. In the future, I hope exchanges of this kind will be made on the widest possible scale and with the greatest possible depth.

In the future, I would like you, the members of the education division, to hold dialogues with other teachers to discuss the possibility of sending peace delegations of boys and girls to various parts of the world. Young people have many years ahead of them. And stimulating them to make friends with other peoples all over the world will lead to a brighter future for mankind.

In addition, I am entertaining the possibility of instituting a "Soka Education Prize" to recognize great achievements for the development of humanistic education.

Youth must bear the burden of the future. But it is the educators who must open the doors of the life force of the young. Whether young people will be vigorous enough to revolutionize our age depends on the attitudes of the men and women who educate them. The teachers' ways of thinking have an influence on the actions of parents and society. I hope teachers will ensure that their efforts have the very best influence by always carrying out their work with courage, enthusiasm and compassion.

Notes

1 Mr. Makiguchi advocated that the highest object of life is happiness and that the goal of life is nothing but the attainment and creation of value, which is in itself happiness. He said that education is the means whereby individuals can acquire competence as creators of value and thereby find happiness in the process. American educator Dr. Dayle M. Bethel spent many years doing research on the educational philosophy of Mr. Makiguchi, and wrote Makiguchi, the Value Creator which was published in 1973 by John Weatherhill, Inc., New York and Tokyo.

2 Daibyakurenge: A monthly study magazine of the Soka Gakkai, published by the Seikyo Press.
3 Gosho Zenshu, p. 784.