"On Education" by Einstein

IDEAS AND OPINIONS, “On Education,” by Albert Einstein (Three Rivers Press, NY: 1954, 1982), pp. 62-63 “Darwin's theory of struggle for existence and the selectivity connected with it has by many people been cited as authorization of the encouragement of the spirit of competition. Some people also in such a way have tried to prove pseudo-scientifically the necessity of destructive economic struggle of competition between individuals. But this is wrong, because man owes his strength in the struggle for existence to the fact he is a socially living animal. As little as a battle between single ants of an ant hill is essential for survival, just so little is the case with the individual members of a human community. “Therefore one should guard against preaching to the young man success in the customary sense as the aim of life. For a successful man is he who receives a great deal from his fellowmen, usually incomparably more than corresponds to his service to them. The value of a man, however, should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive. “The most important motive for work in the school and in life is the pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community. In the awakening and strengthening of those psychological forces in the young man, I see the most important task given by the school. Such a psychological foundation alone leads to a joyous desire for the highest possessions of men, knowledge and artist-like workmanship.... “Such a school demands from the teacher that he be a kind of artist in his province. What can be done that this spirit be gained in the school? For this there is just as little a universal remedy as there is for an individual to remain well. But there are certain necessary conditions which can be met. First, teachers should grow up in such schools. Second, the teacher should be given extensive liberty in the selection of the material to be taught and the methods of teaching employed by him. For it is true also of him that pleasure in the shaping of his work is killed by force and external pressure.... “Thus the wit was not wrong who defined education in this way: 'Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything he learned in school.'...”