Education for Peace and Prosperity: Retrospect and Prospect

EDUCATION, 22 Dec 2025

Surya Nath Prasad - TRANSCEND Media Service

Problems Created by Present Education

Today education is not available for all in most of countries of the world except Russia. At present in Russia there is one hundred per cent literacy. Russia has a near-universal literacy rate, consistently at or near 100%, with recent estimates for 2025 placing it around 99.7% to 99.9%, reflecting decades of focus on education, making it one of the world’s most literate nations, though specific 2025 figures vary slightly by source.

Key Figures & Data Points:

• ~99.7% to 99.9%:Recent estimates for the total adult literacy rate for 2025.
• 100%:Recorded in 2010 and 2021 for the adult literacy rate.
• 7%:Male literacy rate reported.

99.6%: Female literacy rate reported.

 

“A generation ago the Russian people were largely illiterate. Today they are graduating nearly twice as many engineers as in the United States. In Music and Drama they have a notable record.”¹ But probably some two-thirds of the world’s population is illiterate. Available data provide only approximate estimates; taking an average for 136 countries gave a literacy rate of 56 per cent, but 13 per cent of countries had rate of 25 per cent or less.²

 

In India figures based on the 1961 census show that the percentage of literacy was only 24 per cent (34.5 among men and 13.0 among women), excluding the age group 0-5.³ In 1971 it had increased to 29 per cent. Male literacy was found to be nearly 39 per cent and female literacy was found to be about 19 per cent.⁴

 

India’s literacy rate is around 80.9% as of 2023-24, according to recent official reports (Ministry of Education, PLFS 2023-24), showing significant progress from the 74% in 2011, with a higher rate for males (around 84.7%) than females (around 70.3-77%), and Kerala consistently leading, while Bihar remains among the lowest.

 

History reminds us that ignorance leads mankind to superstition and slavery. “Half the ills of mankind” asserts Lala Hardayal, “are due to ignorance; the other half arises from Egotism.”⁵ Egotism arises from partial knowledge or specialization.

 

However, the present education is available for a few, but even then it is not continued life-long. It is simply limited to schooling, instruction and training. It is continued till becoming an expert or specialist of a particular discipline. Thus the present education helps merely in becoming an expert. To become an expert does not mean to attain peace and prosperity, as Krishnamurti rightly observed; “Present-day education is a complete failure because it has over-emphasized technique. In over-emphasizing technique we destroy man…. The exclusive cultivation of technique has produced scientists, mathematicians, bridge builders, space conquerors; but do they understand total process of life? Can any specialist experience life as a whole? Only when he ceases to be a specialist.”⁶

 

Swami Vivekananda also asserts, “The education you are getting now has some good points, but it has a tremendous disadvantage which is so great that the good things are all weighed down. In the first place it is not a man-making education; it is merely and entirely negative education. A negative education or any training that is based on negation is worse than death. The child is taken to school, and the first thing he learns is that his father is a fool, the second thing that his grandfather is a lunatic, the third thing that all his teachers are hypocrites, the fourth, that all sacred books are lies: By the time he is sixteen he is a mass of negation, lifeless and boneless. And the result is that fifty years of such education has not produced one original man….” Further he continues, “The education that you are receiving now in Schools and Colleges is only making you a race of dyspeptics. You are working like machines merely, and living a Jelly-fish existence.”⁷ This was why the experts from 23 countries agreed at the UNESCO meeting held from February 16 to 20, 1970 in Paris that the present education was not meeting modern demands.

 

As it is said, as education increases peace and prosperity will be the immediate outcomes. But in our credulous age the most potent panacea for war is held by many to be education, in the sense of literacy, schooling, science and technological inventions. The more they increase, the sooner will peace be assured. Such is the most universal belief of contemporary humanity, from University presidents and professors, engineers and inventors, to the illiterate, bushman dazzled by the miracles of science and technology.⁸ It is true that science and technology have facilitated prosperity for humanity on one hand and on the other man has lost peace being the master of the forces of nature. Science alone is not able to bring peace within the individual and the whole world. It has always led to unrest and war among people of the nations.⁹

 

Prof. Sorokin asserts that the highly literate scientific and technological seventieth century has been thus far the bloodiest, the most turbulent and the most belligerent of all the twenty-five centuries of Western history since the rise of ancient Greece.

 

The following figures summarize the relationship between wars, revolutions, scientific discoveries, and technological inventions during the centuries in question.¹⁰

 

The data demonstrate clearly that neither the growth of school education nor the multiplication of technological inventions and scientific discoveries has led a decline of wars and revolutions. As a matter of fact they have been attended by enormous increase in war and revolution during the most literate and scientific century of history

 

This conclusion is supported by a vast body of other evidence. The evidence

 

Centuries	Index of magnitude of war (measured by war casualities Per Million of Europe’s population)	Index of Magnitude of International Disturbances in Europe	Number of Universities & Colleges, Technical Schools & Technological Institutions in the Western world	Number of such Institutions founded	Number of Scientific discoveries and technological inventions per century
XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX	2 to 2.9 3 to 5.0 6 to 9.0 8 to 11.0 14 to 16.0 45 40 17 52	763 882 827 748 609 605 415 766 295	5 18 30 57 98 129 180 603 753	5 13 12 27 41 31 51 423 150	12 53 65 127 429 691 1574 8527 862 (only for 1900-1908)

 

proves (1) That with an increase in education, scientific discoveries, and inventions, crime has not decreased; that comparatively illiterate persons, nations, and groups are not more criminal than literate ones; and that criminals are no less intelligent (in terms of schooling and mental tests) than non-criminals. (2) That there is a very remote relationship, if any, between education, I.Q., School grades, and other forms of measured intelligence, on one hand, and egoism or altruism and anti-social or co-operative traits, on the other; (3) that even the intellectual elite of the past four centuries, distinguished for their genius, have hardly been ethically superior to the rank and file.¹¹ The present education can never promote peace as it only trains the intellect and skill, not the heart and spirit of man. Therefore, it is a good sign that world literacy has not increased with this defective specialized education; otherwise partially developed Homo sapiens would destroy itself. Krishnamurti also observes, “The so-called educated are not peace-loving, integrated people and they too are responsible for the confusion and misery of the world.”¹²

 

PARTIAL PHILOSOPHY IN ITS ROOT

 

Today there are many different philosophies which have different partial outlooks towards man. Partial outlook has created conflict and confusion among peoples of the world. The partial philosophy in the name of different isms has been doing great harm to the human race.

 

Materialistic philosophy in education has facilitated human prosperity for a few and has snatched peace from the land. Ivan Illich rightly points out, that education ceases to be an activity and becomes a ‘commodity’, a commodity controlled by specialists and ‘marked’ to the advantage of the specialists the professional and technical elites.¹³ “It is to the advantage of specialists to maintain specialization”, observes Betty Reardon, “and the institutions of education and science thus become the bastions of elitism.”¹⁴ or, in terms of Paulo Freire, “the instruments of oppression.“¹⁵ This specialized tendency emerges due to partial ideology about man. It separates the masses into two groups – oppressor and oppressed. Even oppressors are not developed fully so that they fail to realize the needs of oppressed. Thus it sustains perpetual war among and between the two.

 

Prof. Jefferson rightly lamented, “All the civilized nations of the world failed in their program of education. It is the wrong system of education, which puts premium on material progress that produces the world wars. The material progress of a nation is usually at the cost of the suffering of another nation. This makes the former hated by the later, which always looks for an opportunity to throw off the yoke, or to repay injustice. Then there are rivals who want to beat down the more prosperous ones. This results in secret preparation for wars and the final catastrophes.”¹⁶ Truly materialistic philosophy has produced scientists, doctors, engineers, mathematician, astronomer etc. And they have facilitated human prosperity. But they have failed to understand the total activities of human life. This is why they have been in unrest that has led them to commit crime and to indulge in war. Wingfield rightly observes, “Science has improved the circumstances of man but not the man himself.“¹⁷

 

Maxim Gorky also asserts, “We know how to fly in the air like birds and swim in the water like fish, but we do not exactly know how to walk on earth.”¹⁸ Prof. L.R. Shukla observes, ” A great catastrophe awaits humanity as a whole if the best of its thinkers grope in the dark, or are contented with working for feeding and clothing the body. When an individual has no spiritual vision, fear of his neighbors and worries for the future will kill him. There is nothing to set them to rest. Similarly when the nation has no spiritual vision, it has no principle of mental integration. In such a case the internal conflicts and the fear of being attacked from without will sap all its available energy and it cannot progress towards peace and prosperity.”¹⁹

 

Thus today the problem is not of education, but of right philosophy in education. “Till a right philosophy of life”, rightly observes Prof. Shukla, “guides human affairs neither the individual nor society as a whole will be happy.”²⁰

 

Problems created by Education are due to partial philosophy in its root, ultimately a partial outlook towards man, for he is understood as either mere physical-intellectual or mere spiritual entity. And for the development of body and intellect materialistic philosophy was adopted mostly by European and American countries, and for mere spiritual realization spiritual philosophy was adopted by Eastern countries. This was why at that time a slogan was raised by Kipling, “East is East, and West is West and never the twain shall meet.”²¹ But in the world and vision of the eminent German Philosopher and Psychoanalyst, Dr. Durkheim,²² the twain must meet. Delivering the Eighth Nehru Memorial Lecture at Delhi, he said recent trends in the West’s quest for spirituality indicated an eventual reconciliation between the two civilizations.

 

Truly today the world has become so small and every nation of the world has been coming near to each other: so the education in most nations has the similar philosophy in its root i.e. materialistic in nature. It has totally failed to bring peace on either individual or national or international level.

 

MISCONCEPTION ABOUT STATE AND WRONGLY FORMED GOVERNMENT

 

The state absolutism of Hegel was wrongly conceived. This idea came when man’s thinking was in its infancy, and his knowledge was at the mythological stage. The king was known as the messenger of God as ruler, and the masses were known to be ruled by him. It was a wrong conception about the idea of the state. However, state or government has great power on the education of man. Therefore, a correct notion about the origin and the role of the state must be understood otherwise false ideology about it may emerge that may be adopted by state or Government for its implementation in the masses.

 

Thus Education loses its true nature by coming in the hands of a wrongly formed government or state. Education has always been in the hands of rulers except in India when the Gurukul system was in action. These rulers were mostly either aristocratic or autocratic. Whatever they wanted to regiment, they did it through education. Today also mostly the states or Governments, whether they are democratic or totalitarian or dictator have their hold on education and dictate to the students and the masses in accord with their ideology. “We cannot afford to neglect” asserts Eisenhower, the former President of United States of America, “Colleges and Universities. It is here that the seeds of revolutionary disorder germinate not only in Latin America, but elsewhere in the countries of Asia, Africa, and West Asia. We must concentrate on educational institutions to win support for our ideas, our policies and our way of life….”²³

 

BASES OF EDUCATION

 

Universal Concept of Integral Man

 

The term man is ambiguous. “Man is mysterious”, observes J.N. Chandra, “yet, is definable. Like Sun and Moon man is perpetually novel. Man has energy ever renewed – ever renewing”²⁴ Brubacher²⁵ observes man as dualistic in nature, that man is composed of mind and body, spirit and flesh. ‘Abdu’l-Baha²⁶ believes that in microcosm these are deposited three realities. Man is endowed with an outer or physical reality, rational or intellectual reality and third spiritual reality. Gita holds man as a composition of Tamas, Rajas and Sattva and through a synthesis therein or thereof so as to lead to evenness of mind.²⁷ Plato believes man as an integrated whole of Appetite, Courage and Intellect. Prof. Sorokin believes in four different forms or levels of energies underlying in man-unconscious biological energies, bio-conscious energies, conscious socio-cultural energies and super conscious energies.²⁸ Sorokin’s view of man seems to be similar with the states of waking, dreaming, deep sleep and super-consciousness as advocated in Mandukyopanisad.²⁹ But these are not the energies of man, they are four conditions or states of mind in which as Taitiriyopanishad³⁰ advocates five energies or sheaths or Kosa – physical, vital, mental, intellectual and spiritual – from which man is made up of – are manifested in different phases of mind. However, in modern times also by observation of many studies man is understood as a composite whole of five energies or needs viz., biological, psychological, intellectual, social and spiritual.³¹ They require opportunities to be manifested integrally.

 

Need of Integral Philosophy in Education

 

Integral notions about man naturally give birth to an integral philosophy. There is no fundamental difference between philosophy and education. Education is nothing but the dynamic side of philosophy. In the base of education there is a philosophy and in the root of philosophy there is the total human life. Thus education touches the whole life of man. It does not separate man’s life into two worlds-material and spiritual. But it integrates both for the development of the full energies of man. Tagore rightly asserts, “No, I will never shut the doors of my senses. The delights of sight and hearing and touch will bear thy delight.”³² Education in the fuller sense does not mean to produce merely the physical or the intellectual or the political or the economic man; but the moral and spiritual man, the complete, the whole man. “The highest function of education” observes Krishnamurti, is to bring about an integrated individual who is capable of dealing with life as a whole”³³ “We need more generalists” realizes Betty Reardon “and that therefore all student should receive a basic ‘general’ education.”³⁴ Lala Hardayal also asserts, “If you shirk the duty of all round development, you rob yourself of ineffable bliss, such bliss as far transcends all that money can buy.”³⁵ According to Brubucher³⁶ even learning cannot take place without the union of body and mind. St. Thomas Aquinas³⁷ found reason to think that after death the spirit or soul, when alienated from the body, is so incomplete as to unable to learn new truths.

 

Only such type of education that is based on an integral philosophy of man can help individual men and women in attaining fuller life. Those who attain fuller life are integral men and women. They can have the capacity to germinate peace in the whole world, they can act for the welfare of humanity, and they can develop the feeling of unity among the followers of different ideologies.

 

ROLE OF STATE IN EDUCATION

 

William T. Harris has observed, “The influence of the constitution of the state, and of its transactions with other states in peace and war, weaving the web of world history, is known to be more powerful in educating the individual and in forming his character than any of the three phases of education – human institutions, society and civilization – for it underlies them and makes possible whatever perfection they may have. Without the protection of the state no institution can flourish, nothing above savage or barbarous human life can be realized.”³⁸

 

Hence the state should he organized in such a way that it might provide proper and equal opportunities to all men and women for their full development. If most people fail to attain these opportunities we may consider it a state-created defect. Erich Fromm rightly observes, “If a person fails to attain freedom, spontaneity, a genuine expression of self, he may be considered to have a severe defect, provided we assume that freedom and spontaneity are the objective goals to be attained by the majority of members of any given society, we deal with the socially patterned defect.”³⁹

 

So the prime duty of the state is to provide opportunities of growth to all individuals and to remove hampering influences. Raymont also asserts, “The function of the state is to protect and promote, not to absorb or take the place of the family and the individual”.⁴⁰ “If the aim of education is the perfection of human individuals”, rightly suggests Broudy, “then government ought not to subvert that aim. If educational science points to certain methods, materials, and organization as good, then government ought not to ignore this judgment. If the first duty of the teacher is to the learner, government ought not to hamper the fulfilment of this duty. On the contrary, the proper role of Government is to insist that the school as well as every other social institution discharge its duties and in the best sense of the expression to ‘mind its own business.’⁴¹ Kandel also agrees, “If equality of opportunity is accepted as the essential principle of the modern state, then there can be no question but that educational facilities must be provided by the state. If the interests of the state is best served by the fullest development of the individual, and by the promotion of variety of experience, rather than by uniformity, then the task of the State is to create the best machinery for their encouragement, and its concern is not that all shall be educated alike in the same institutions, but that all shall have equal opportunities for education accessible to them. Accordingly the State, on these principles, does not establish a monopoly to the exclusion of private schools, if there are groups which desire to maintain them, but exercises such supervision as will guarantee adequate standards in all schools.”⁴²

 

The State, however, must have the bases of universal human nature and energies. Every man comes into this world with tremendous potentialities to be unfolded fully for self-perfection. At birth the tendencies for self-perfection are already present. “The forms of self-perfection” observes Broudy, “are self-realization, self-determination and self-integration.”⁴³ If our goal is to attain self-perfection and if the state is one of the effective means of achieving it, then it must reconcile the discharge of its duty for the sake of individuals and for its own sake.

 

NATURE OF EDUCATION

 

Education As Perfection and Life Long Continuing Process

 

Education is a relative term. It has no meaning apart from human beings. It is related to man. It is only man who can be educated, not animals. Man is an integrated whole of five energies – physical, psychological, intellectual, social and spiritual. Thus education is the realization of energies integrally. “Education to be complete” says Mother, “must have five principal aspects relating to the five principal activities of the human being: the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic and the spiritual. Usually, these phases of education succeed each other in a chronological order following the growth of the individual. This, however, does not mean that one should replace another but that all must continue, completing each other, till the end of life.“⁴⁴

 

Man, however, at birth even possessing these potentialities in the raw, is the most helpless of all creatures. He inherits a constitution which is very incomplete and indeterminate. So he requires education for acquiring the simple needs of life and a proper guide to the promotion of his life activities. “Every child” says J.W. Powell, “is born destitute of things possessed in manhood, which distinguish him from lower animals. Of all industries, he is artless; of all languages, he is speechless; of all philosophies, he is opinionless; of all reasoning, he is thoughtless; but arts, industries, language, opinions and mentations he acquires as years go by from childhood to manhood. In all these respects the new born babe is hardly the peer of the new born beast; but as yours pass, ever and ever he exhibits his superiority in all the great classes of activities, until the distance by which he is separated from the brute is so great that his realm of existence is another kingdom of Nature.”⁴⁵ Thus it is obvious that all the perfection that a man manifests later on in life is the result of education.

 

Education is itself a lifelong process by its own nature that is based on man’s nature of perpetual growing. It is a constant process of self-expression and self-realization. “Every organism” rightly observes Hadfield “is impelled to move towards its own completeness. Fullness of life is the goal of life, the urge to completeness is the most compelling motive of life. There is no motive of life so persistent as this hunger for fulfillment, whether for the needs of our body or for the deepest spiritual satisfaction of our souls, which compels us to be ever moving onward till we find it. Hunger, material or spiritual, is the feeling of incompleteness.

 

“We see the law of completeness operating in physiology, in psychology, in morality and in religion. In Physiology we call this completeness ‘health’, in morality ‘perfection’, in religion ‘holiness’, in psychology we shall call it ‘selfrealization’.

 

“So persistent and strong is this law that no organism can rest until it has satisfied his hunger by achieving its complete self.”⁴⁶

 

The Mother has rightly suggested, “The education of a human being should begin at his very birth and continue throughout the whole length of his life.”

 

“Indeed, if the education is to have its maximum result, it must begin even before birth.”⁴⁷

 

Hence all factors that help in the unfolding of the full energies of man are educationally valuable. So culture, religion, state etc. have value only to the extent to which they help in the process of attaining fuller life.

 

PLANS FOR LIFE LONG EDUCATION

 

More Finance for Education

 

Education is considered non-productive. This is why most nations spend a very low percentage of their national income on education. Poor nations are unable to invest more money on education. They are busy providing bread for their people. And affluent nations spend a higher percentage of their national income in the preparation of arms and ammunition, and on military education. Linus Pauling has observed, “Six billion dollars-one twentieth of the amount spent on armaments each year by the nations of the world…”⁴⁸ Lentz also observes, “One of our most advance nations, France, spent in 1951 more than one thousand times as much on its colonial war in Asia as it spent on its appropriate share of support of UNESCO, which is seated in this same country and which is dedicated (on a very tiny budget) to war’s termination. Other national governments, larger and smaller, appropriate 10 to 60 per cent of their budget to their departments of military defence.”⁴⁹

 

Keeping all in view, first of all every nation must allot the highest percentage of its national income to education. Now it is being realized that investment in education gives a more creditable result in the long run than money invested in industry and agriculture. Contrary, money spent on military defiance brings loss of many lives and wealth both. Lala Hardayal⁵⁰ observes that war involves tremendous loss of life. It causes enormous loss of wealth. It intensifies and perpetuates cruelty. It leads to racial degeneration. It is inimical to Democracy and Liberty, and tends to establish despotism and bureaucracy in the State. It lowers the power of women. It increases economic inequality within a state. It prevents and delays social and political reform. So money allotted to military defence must be diverted to win over illiteracy, hunger and disease. To this end, the mutual cooperation of all nations and the U.N.O. are indispensible and desirable.

 

It is quite correct that the living powers of any nation are men and women. Thus their energies must be realized and exploited properly for facilitating proper opportunities. It is good sign that a poor country like India spent on education about 3.1 per cent of the national income in 1971-72, while mere 1,100 million in 1950-51. As of 2025, India’s spending on education remains around 4.6% of its GDP, consistent with recent years and the Union Budget 2025-26, falling short of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020‘s target of 6% GDP, though it’s a significant increase from earlier decade’s 3-4%. This figure shows a renewed push for education, but experts suggest increased investment is needed to meet development goals and quality benchmarks. Besides this, India has made many useful reforms and expansions in education with the collaboration of UNESCO. However, Indian education needs more finance for the betterment of Indian people.

 

Integral Course in School Programs

 

To create integrated human beings the integral course should be enforced. Play, exercise, sports, games and proper diet etc. should be facilitated for the unfolding of biological energies. Art, painting, drawing, music, and literature should be taught for the unfoldment of psychological energies. Science, philosophy, sociology, economics, history etc. should be taught and talks, lectures, seminars, symposia and conferences should be organized for the unfoldment of intellectual energies. Community work, group excursions, world youth camps should be established and making pen-friends should be encouraged for the gratification of social needs. For the spiritual unfoldment, the feeling of oneness in all-not universal brotherhood, but universal oneness as universal religion and regular mental and physical relaxation should be practiced. For the manifestation of all energies synthetically the integrated course be provided.⁵¹

 

Mass Education

 

Schooling cannot last life-long. It acquaints students with current knowledge while they are in schools. After School, College or University education they enter into total social life whether they hold posts of engineers, doctors, lawyers, businessmen etc. This period lasts till the end of life. From this point they begin to lose touch with current knowledge. They are not aware of new achievements and their impacts on culture, religion, ethics, politics etc. which are responsible factors for moulding the behaviour of people and their life adjustments.

 

An educationally advanced country like the U.S.S.R. has also educational problems with the adjustment of technological progress to the cultural needs. “The Soviet educational system has made a substantial contribution to world culture and science; it has ensured universal literacy in the country and trained many millions of engineers, scientists, teachers, economists, historians, philologists, lawyers, doctors, agronomists and other specialists.”

 

“This does not mean, however, that all problems in the field of public education have been solved. Some of these problems are related to technological progress and to the growth of the people’s cultural requirements….”⁵²

 

Ignorance of all these happenings and incoordination of their influences with life adjustment break the continuity of perpetual education. And men and women are not able to cope with social and world affairs. Therefore, a type of education that can provide up-to-date knowledge to the masses is needed urgently and that can be only Mass Education. Schools would have to extend themselves by adding new programs of mass education. Betty Reardon rightly observes, “Schools, too, should open their doors. As many educators advocate more off-site, experimental learning opportunities, we should also advocate that non-educators participate in school programs, not just as the important resources they may be but also as co-learners with students, parents, and teachers. There should be more opportunity for ongoing education in which the learning experience is shared by students and parents and by teachers and students. We must be striving toward “learning communities” in both senses of those words. School should be both communities for learning and the centres of communities which are learning.”⁵³

 

It is good sign that the government of India has a program of Social Education. It aims at providing education for the betterment of life for the adult population. Social education provides an education base for community development programs and includes use of libraries, education in citizenship, cultural and recreation activities, utilization of audio-visual aids and organization of youth and women’s groups for community development.

 

Mass education would have intensive and extensive programs of out-of-School, college, or university education. Duties of educators who are engaged in the institutions should be extended. Their periods should be allotted to deliver regularly weekly lectures among the masses. They may discuss scientific, economic, political, moral and religious changes.

 

Programs of mass education, then, can be started with social education as initiated by the government of India, with some additions. True mass education is life-long continuing education. It acquaints the people with current achievements and happenings of science, technology and other allied disciplines and philosophy, politics, economics etc. and their impacts on the society and the world. Thus it helps the people to be perpetual learners in attaining their perfections in the forms of Peace and Prosperity. Hitoupadesha rightly preaches, “Education gives rise to self-discipline. Self-discipline brings abilities, with abilities comes wealth, wealth promotes social service and social service brings peace and prosperity “on fuller life.”

 

Notes

 

1. S. Radhakrishnan, Religion and Culture, Hind Pocket Books, 1968, p. 83.
2. Sir John Summerscale (Ed.), The Penguin Encyclopedia, Penguin Books, 1965, p. 354.
3. Kenneth Bailey (Ed.), The Hamlyn Junior Encyclopedia, The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd., 1972, p. 40.

 

4. Sham Lal (Ed.), The Times of India Directory and Year Book, The Times of India Press, 1974-75, р. 131.

 

5. Lala Hardayal Hints for Self Culture, Jaico Publishing House, 1969, p. 1.

 

6. J. Krishnamurti, Education & the Significance of Life, Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1969, p. 18.

 

7. Swami Vivekanand in Swami Vivekanand on India and Her Problems compiled by Swami Nirvedanand, Advaita Ashram, 1971, p. 38 & 40.

 

8. P.A. Sorokin, Reconstruction of Humanity, Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan, 1962, p. 43.

 

9. S.N. Prasad, “Education and World Peace and Unity”, World Union, 1974, (Vol. XIV, No. 1, Jan-Feb), p. 90.

 

10. Sorokin, op. cit., p. 44.

 

11. Ibid, p. 45-46.

 

12. J. Krishnamurti, op, cit, p. 52.

 

13. Ivan Illich, “The Alternative to Schooling”, Saturday Review (June 19), 1971, 54 (25), 44-48, 59-60,

 

14. Betty Reardon, Op. cit., p. 139.

 

15. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Herder and Herder, 1970

 

16. Quoted by Prof. L.R. Shukla, The Principles of Education, Nand Kishore &

Sons, 1961, p. 22.

 

17. Stratfold Wingfield, History of British Civilization, G. Routledge and Sons,1928

 

18. Maxim Gorky Quoted by Dr. S.P. Ahluwalia, “Peace Education: Need of the Hour”, Vidya, 1974, (Vol. 1, No. 2), p. 78.

 

19. Prof. L.B. Shukla, Mental Integration, Kashi Manovigyanshala, 1958, p. 11-12.

 

20. Ibid, p. 13.

 

21. R. Kipling Quoted by Dr. Graf Karlfried von Durkheim, “East and West Moving Toward Reconciliation”, The Times of India, 1974, (Nov. 11), p. 3.

 

22. Durkheim, Ibid.
23. Quoted in the Article “Subversion in Educational Field”, LINK, October 27, 1974.

 

24. J.N. Chandra, And Now, Hear Gita on Moon, Bliss & Light Publications, 1969, p. 3.

 

25. John S. Brubacher, Modern Philosophies of Education, Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., 1969, р. 110.

 

26. ‘Abdu’l-Baha’, Foundations of World Unity, Baha’i Publishing Trust, 1955, p. 51.

 

27. Gita Ch. 14, Sloka 21 to 26.

 

28. Sorokin, op. cit., pp. 178-183.

 

29. Swami Sarvadananda, (Trans), Mandukyopanisad, (Eng.), Ramkrishna Mission, 1964,
30. 2-9.

 

30. Swami Sarvadananda, (Trans), Taithiriyopanisad, (Eng.), Ramkrishna Mission,

1965, р. 112.

 

31. See for details S.N. Prasad, op. cit., p. 93.

 

32. Ravindranath Tagore, Gitanjali, TheIndia Society (London), 1912, p. 73.

 

33. J. Krishnamurti, op. cit., p. 25.

 

34. Betty Reardon, “Transformations into Peace and Survival: Programs for the 1970s”, in 1973 ASCD Year Book, Education For Peace: Focus on Mankind, George Henderson, ed., pp. 141.

 

35. Lala Hardayal, Hints for Self Culture, Jaico Publishing House, 1969, p. 3.

 

36. Brubacher, op. cit., p. 111.

 

37. St. Thomas Aquinas, quoted by Brubacher, Ibid.

 

38. W.T. Harris, quoted by B.P. Johri and P.D. Pathak, Basic Principles of Education, Vinod Pustak Mandir, 1964, p. 156.

 

39. Erich Fromm, The Sane Society, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963, p. 15.

 

40. Raymont, Quoted by Gupta, op. cit., p. 26.

 

41. Harry S. Broudy, Building a Philosophy of Education, Prentice-Hall of India, 1965,
42. 79.

 

42. Kandel, quoted by D.P. Gupta, Hamari Madhyamik Shiksha, Kalaniketan, 1957, pp. 33-34.

 

43. Ibid.
44. The Mother, The Psychic and the Spiritual Education, Bharat Sera Ashram Sangha, 1967, p. 62.

 

45. J.W. Powell, quoted by L.R. Shukla, op. cit., p. 13.

 

46. J.A. Hadfield, Psychology and Morals, Methuen & Co., 1923, p. 72.

 

47. The Mother, op. cit., p. 62.

 

48. Linus Pauling, quoted by Bertrand Russell, Has Man a Future? Penguin Books, 1973, p. 70.

 

49. Theodore F. Lentz, Towards a Science of Peace, Navchetan Prakashan, 1970, p. 57.

 

1. Lala Hardayal, op. cit., pp. 263-64-65-66-67.

 

51. For details see the another paper of the author of this paper entitled “Spiritual Evolution and Education for Peace”, presented at the First World Congress of IAEWP, held from July 29-August 2, 1974 at Bucharest, Romania.

 

52. Education: USSR/50, Novosti Press Publishing House, 1973, р. 104.

 

53. Betty Reardon, op.cit. p. 149.

 

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This article is based on the author’s paper: EDUCATION FOR PEACE AND PROSPERITY: RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT presented in the International Conference of the World Education Fellowship held from December 28, 1974-January 5, 1975 at Bombay (India), and published in Peace Progress – A Journal of IAEWP, Faculty of Education, Hirosaki University, Japan, and Vol. 1, No. 2, 1975.

 

Dr. Surya Nath Prasad, Former President of the International Association of Educators for World Peace (IAEWP), Retired Professor of Education (India), Former Visiting Professor at Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University, Republic of Korea, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Peace Education: An International Journal. dr_suryanathprasad@yahoo.co.in

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One Response to “Education for Peace and Prosperity: Retrospect and Prospect”

1. Joyce says:

   22 Dec 2025 at 17:25

   Re: “the present education helps merely in becoming an expert”

   Present education in every civilized nation is the authoritarian indoctrination with mostly fake narratives churning out compliant mindless characterless “experts” who know many facts about a small area of knowledge but who cannot think coherently and see the bigger picture of the world they live in — https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html

   “This is why they have to make yard signs that say “Science is Real”. Because this new science ISN’T. It is a total in-your-stupid-face conjob. When something is real and people know that, you don’t have to make yard signs promoting it. You don’t need yard signs saying “trees are real”, “the sky is blue”. You only need yard signs promoting things that AREN’T real. Like new science and, say, political candidates.” — Miles Mathis, American author

   Reply