WHY ARE DIPLOMAS AND CERTIFICATES
NOT GIVEN TO THE STUDENTS OF
THE CENTRE OF EDUCATION?*

For about a century mankind has been suffering from a disease which seems to be spreading more and more, and in our days, it has become most acute, it is what we may call "utilitarianism". Things and persons, circumstances and activities seem to be viewed and appreciated exclusively from this angle alone. Nothing has any value unless it is useful. It goes, of course, without saying that what is useful is better than what is not so. But one must first of all understand what one calls useful — useful to whom, to what, for what?

    Indeed, more and more, the races which considered themselves civilised have been naming as useful that which serves to bring, to acquire or to produce money. Everything is judged from this monetary angle. That is what I call utilitarianism. And this disease is very contagious, for even children do not escape from it. At an age when one should have dreams of beauty and greatness and perfection, perhaps too sublime for ordinary common sense, but certainly higher than this dull good sense, they dream of money and worry how to earn it.

    So when they think of their studies they think above all of what can be useful to them, so that later on when they grow up, they can earn a great deal of money.

    And the thing that becomes most important for them is to prepare to pass examinations with success; for it is with

    * Reproduced from the Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo international Centre of Education (Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry), Aug. 1960.

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diplomas and certificates and titles that they will be able to get good positions and earn much.

    For them study has no other purpose, no other interest.

    To learn in order to know, to study in order to have the knowledge of the secrets of Nature and of life, to educate oneself in order to increase one*s consciousness, to discipline oneself in order to be master of oneself, to overcome one*s weakness, one's incapacity and ignorance, to prepare oneself in order to progress in life towards a goal that is nobler and vaster; more generous and more true ... they hardly think of that and consider all that as mere utopia, the only important thing is to be practical, to prepare and to learn how to earn money.

    Children who are affected with this disease are not in their place in the Centre of Education of the Ashram. And it is to demonstrate this to them that we do not prepare them for any official examination and competition and do not give them diplomas or titles which may serve them in the outside world.

    We want to have here only those who aspire for a higher and better life, who are eager for knowledge and perfection, who look ardently towards a more wholly true future.

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