THE VALUE OF EDUCATION

1 Education is not an end, but a means to an end. In other words, we do not educate children only for the purpose of educating them; our purpose is to fit them for life. As soon as we realize this fact, we will understand that it is very important to choose a system of education which will prepare children for life. It is not enough just to choose the first system of education one finds or to continue with one's old system of education without examining it to see whether it is in fact suitable or not.

2 In many modern countries it has for some time been fashionable to think that, by free education for all---whether rich or poor, clever or stupid---one can solve all the problems of society and build a perfect nation. But we can already see that free education for all is not enough; we find in such countries are far larger number of people with university degrees than there are any jobs for them to fill. Because of their degrees, they refuse to do what they think "low" work; and in fact work with the hands is thought to be dirty and shameful in such countries.

3 But we have only to think a moment to understand that the work of a completely uneducated farmer is far more important than that of a professor: we can live without education, but we die if we have no food. If no one cleaned our streets and took the rubbish away from our houses, wee should get terrible diseases in our towns. In countries where there are no servants because everyone is ashamed to do such work, the professors have to waste much of their time doing housework.

4 In fact, when we say that all of us must be educated to fit us for life, it means that we must be educated in such a way that, firstly, each of us can do whatever job is suited to his brain and ability, and, secondly, that we can realize that all jobs are necessary to society and that it is very bad to be ashamed of one's work or to scorn someone else's. Only such a type of education can be called valuable to society.

----L. A. Hill and R.D.S Fielden

SONNET 116

1 Let me not to the marriage of true minds

2 Admit impediments. Love is not love

3 Which alters when alteration finds.

4 Or bends with the remover to remove.

5 O, no it is an ever-fixed mark

6 That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

7 It is the star to every wandering bark,

8 Whose worth's unknown, although his height but taken.

9 Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

10 Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

11 Love alters not his brief hours and weeks,

12 But bears it out ev’n to the edge of doom---

13 If this be error, and upon me proved,

14 I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

----- William Shakespeare

MAGNIFICENCE by Estrella Alfon

There was nothing to fear, for the man was always so gentle, so kind. At night when the little girl and her brother were bathed in the light of the big shaded bulb that hung over the big study table in the downstairs hall, the man would knock gently on the door, and come in. He would stand for a while just beyond the pool of light, his feet in the circle of illumination, the rest of him in shadow. The little girl and her brother would look up at him where they sat at the big table, their eyes bright in the bright light, and watch him come fully into the light, a dark little man with protuberant lips, his eyes glinting in the light, but his voice soft, his manner slow. He would smell faintly of sweat and pomade, but the children didn't mind although they did notice, for they waited for him every evening as they sat at their lessons like this. He'd throw his visored cap on the table, and it would fall down with a soft plop, then he'd go around to them, look at the paper on which they were solving a problem or writing down phrases, and he'd nod his head to say one was right, or shake it to say one was wrong.

It was not always that he came. They could remember perhaps two weeks when he remarked to their mother that he had never seen two children looking so smart. The praise had made their mother look over them as they stood around listening to the goings-on at the meeting of the neighborhood association,of which their mother was president. Two children, one a girl of seven, and a boy of eight. They were both very tall for their age, and their legs were the long gangly legs of fine spirited colts. Their mother saw them with eyes that held pride, and then to partly gloss over the maternal gloating she exhibited, she said to the man, in answer to his praise, but their homework. They're so lazy with them. And the man said, I have nothing to do in the evenings, let me help them. Mother nodded her head and said, if you want to bother yourself. And the thing rested there, and the man came in the evenings therefore, and he helped solve fractions for the boy, and write correct phrases in the language for the little girl.

MY FATHER GOES TO COURT by Carlos Bulosan

When I was four I lived with my mother and brothers and sisters in a small town on the island of Luzon. Father's farm had been destroyed in 1918 by one of our sudden Philippine floods, so for several years afterward we all lived in the town, though he, preferred living in the country. We had a next-door neighbor, a very rich man, whose sons and daughters seldom came out of the house. While we boys and girls played and sang in the sun, his children stayed inside and kept the windows closed. His house was so tall that his children could look in the window of our house and watch us as we played, or slept, or ate, when there was any food in the house to eat.

Now, this rich man's servants were always frying and cooking something good, and the aroma of food was wafted down to us from the windows of the big house. We hung about and took all the wonderful smell of the food into our beings. Sometimes, in the morning, our whole family stood outside the window of the rich man's house and listened to the musical sizzling of thick strips of bacon or ham. I can remember one afternoon when our neighbor's servants roasted three chickens. The chickens were young and tender and the fat that dripped into the burning coals gave off an enchanting odor. We watched the servants turn the beautiful birds and inhaled the heavenly spirit that drifted out to us.

Some days the rich man appeared at a window and glowered down at us. He looked at us one by one, as though he were condemning us. We were all healthy because we went out in the sun every day and bathed in the cool water of the river that flowed from the mountains into the sea. Sometimes we wrestled with one another in the house before we went out to play.

We were always in the best of spirits and our laughter was contagious. Other neighbors who passed bu our house often stopped in our yard and joined us in our laughter.

Laughter was our only wealth. Father was a laughing man. He would go into the living room and stand in front of the tall mirror, stretching his mouth into grotesque shapes with his fingers and making faces at himself; then he would rush into the kitchen, roaring with laughter.

There was plenty to make us laugh. There was, for instance, the day one of my brothers came home and brought a small bundle under his arm, pretending that he brought something to eat, maybe a leg of lamb or something as extravagant as that, to make our mouths water. He rushed to Mother and threw the bundle into her lap. We stood around, watching Mother undo the complicated strings. Suddenly a black cat leaped out of the bundle and ran wildly around the house. Mother chased my brother and beat him with her little fists, while the rest of us bent double, choking with laughter.

Another time one of my sisters suddenly started screaming in the middle of the night. Mother reached her first and tries to calm her. My sister cried and groaned. When Father lifted the lamp, my sister stared at us with shame in her eyes.

"What is it?" Mother asked.
"I'm pregnant!" she cried.
"Don't be a fool!" Father shouted.
"You are only a child," Mother said.
"I'm pregnant, I tell you!" she cried.

Father knelt by my sister. He put his hand on her belly and rubbed it gently. "How do you know you are pregnant?" he asked.

"Feel it!" she cried.

We put our hands on her belly. There was something moving inside. Father was frightened. Mother was shocked.

"Who's the man?" she asked.
"There's no man," my sister said.
"What is is, then?" Father asked.