As we welcome students from break and from Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we offer some timely thoughts from the Boston University alum. In his paper “The Purpose of Education,” King argues for education that extends beyond logic into an more enlightened education of the soul. While education must help people achieve their goals, he fears for education without moral virtue:
“The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals… We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character–that is the goal of true education.”
Education of character, virtues, morals, souls… sound familiar? King discusses what many Core authors have before him, where an education of the “experience of social living” can create a whole and rounded person rather than a logic machine.
Go forth towards your accumulated experience of social living, and best of luck to all in the coming semester.
