Whitehead: Morality is the Root of Education

Back in 2007 I pointed out that the Chinese scholar Chu Hsi said morality is the root of education. Now I have found Alfred North Whitehead echoing this message in his work, The Aims of Education.

As found on page 14, from Whitehead:

"The essence of education is that it be religious."

"Pray, what is religious education?"

"A religious education is an education which inculcates duty and reverence. Duty arises from our potential control over the course of events. Where attainable knowledge could have changed the issue, ignorance has the guilt of vice. And the foundation of reverence is this perception, that the present holds within itself the complete sum of existence, backwards and forwards, that whole amplitude of time, which is eternity."

Today, we would call "moral" this attitude of responsibility that Whitehead calls "religious." The type of attitude Whitehead calls religious could easily be embraced by an atheist because it is not related to any church nor belief in any god.

Even a secular education should be grounded in moral instruction. Studying Dante we can see immoral leadership is the root of the world's ills. Since our safety and prosperity depend upon moral leaders, training our leaders in morality requires we teach them in their youth.

Robert