Essay: A man’s education alienates him from his own people

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“It is always a pity when a man’s education alienates him from his own people”. Discuss.

The statement assumes that when a man is educated it alienates him from his people. Let us look at how well educated he is. Education is not merely getting certain diplomas and degrees. Education is to civilize the man and to draw the best in him. It must result on an all rounded personality, physically, mentally, intellectually, morally and spiritually. He is humble, able to look after himself and others, can act as the occasion demands, morally upright and can be useful to himself and to others.

What do we see today? The so-called educated class displays their snobbery. They form a class apart from others. They think they know too much and they should not be found in ordinary man. The so called educated is good at quoting from books and papers he has read. His morals are only superficial.

The fruit of his knowledge does not normally filter to the ordinary level. So the fruits of his knowledge are no more fruits since they do not reach the common man for further propagation. This snobbery is seen even among the members of a family especially when the son educated in a collage begins to look down upon his own parents and their ways of life. The life in a hostel does not normally improve the character of a student. Hostel is after all a place where one pays for the services and having enjoyed certain conveniences the educated boy or girl returns home only to find things very different. He cannot adjust himself to the common surroundings since he has had a taste of the artificial world outside. Thus the educated man is an alien in his own home and familiar surroundings.

In most countries the type of education given is only to fit the student for a particular job; very rarely is education given to fit him for life outside. Very often a student going to a western country tries to ape the habits, way of life and puts on artificial ways of talking.

In order to overcome this lopsided development, educationists from Rousseau downwards have recommended methods where the child will learn in a natural atmosphere instead of being pulled out of it. The glamor of studying abroad is always attractive. There is a need for change in the philosophy of education so that the life’s purpose may be made clear and the objectives or goals are reached.”