VOLUME II, SEMESTER 2, CHAPTER 17, SECTION 2
Which Square Education Stands In
The last section drew education as one tree becoming a forest, seed and soil and the one who tends, threaded on one line. But where does this forest grow? What is it to economy and politics and law? This lesson does an important thing. It finds education its true square. Get this square wrong, and everything the last three chapters set down hangs crooked.
Look first at an error. Nearly everyone who speaks of education today sets it up as a great thing standing beside economy and politics and law. You can hear it in the way they talk. Education is the great plan of the nation. Education must come first. Education should be so many percent of what the country produces. The ministry of education sits level with the ministry of finance and the ministry of justice, each minding its own patch. In this arrangement education is one of four blocks. Economy a block, politics a block, law a block, education a block. Four blocks side by side, each with its own office, its own budget, its own experts. It sounds like the plainest common sense. And it is wrong. Wrong how? It has pulled education out of culture, and set it down beside culture.
Go back to the thirteenth chapter for the answer. Its last chapter set down a judgment, the core bedrock of this whole volume. Economy, politics, law, the three hardest-looking institutions, all lean on culture. The economy turns only on the cultural bedrock of trust. Politics stands only on whether people's hearts assent. Law is governed only by the heart inside its frame. Three trees, growing on the soil of culture. Now ask the question. And education? Is education the fourth tree? It is not. Education is not a fourth tree growing on this soil. Education is the soil itself, running down into the next generation. Say that slowly. Economy and politics and law are things grown up out of the soil of culture. Each grows on its own, bears its own fruit, greens and withers on its own. But education is not a thing grown up. Education is how the soil lays itself down under the feet of the next generation. A soil that does not run downward, however well it grows on top, is only this one generation's affair. This generation's trees fall, and the soil goes to waste. So education does not stand beside those three. It lies beneath them, and it is one thing with culture. It is culture, in the act of handing itself down.
See this square clearly, and a thing that has puzzled people for decades comes clear. How many times has a country reformed its education? The curriculum reformed, the textbooks reformed, the exam subjects reformed, the way the scores are counted reformed, the way students are admitted reformed, round after round of lightening the load, ban after ban on the tutoring outside. Round on round, a great noise, a great commotion. And look back. That thing that most wrings the heart, did it change? The children are as tired as ever. The parents are as afraid as ever. The teachers are as buried in forms as ever, and the passing-down of the Way is as thin as ever. Why? Because everything reformed was nursery work. How to lay the beds, when to water, when to lift the saplings, which ruler to measure them by. All of it under reform. But what soil the forest grows in, no one reforms, and no one can. Because that is culture. The last section said it. The real soil beyond the nursery is yours. A child is eight hours a day in the nursery. The other sixteen hours, where is he? At home, at the table, beside his grandparents, in the neighborhood, in front of the screen. That soil of the sixteen hours, no textbook reform reaches, no exam reform reaches, no document handed down from above reaches. And it is exactly those sixteen hours that steep the bedrock of his whole life. So education cannot be moved by reforming the nursery alone. Because the root of education is not in the nursery. It is in the soil. And the soil is culture. This is not to say reforming the nursery is useless. It is useful, and it must be done. But you have to know what it reaches, and what it does not. What it reaches is teaching. What it does not reach is steeping. And steeping runs deeper than teaching.
A student will surely ask here, then are you saying education is more important than economy and politics and law, that culture stands a rank above them? No. The most important line in this book, one you have heard dozens of times, answers it. Positions differ in role, not in high or low, noble or base. The soil is not nobler than the tree. The tree is not nobler than the soil. The soil does not grow above the tree, nor below it. The soil is the soil and the tree is the tree, each in its place, doing its own work. A tree needs soil to stand. And a soil with no trees on it is a waste as well. The work of the economy is to get people fed and clothed. The work of politics is to arrange everyone's places. The work of law is to draw a line no one may step over. Not one of the three can be spared. Culture cannot do their work, and neither can education. To say education is inside culture, and culture holds up those three, is not to say culture is higher, or education is higher. It is only to say the positions are different. One grows on top, one lies beneath. One is this generation's work, one is the road laid down for the next. A difference of role.
The ancestors set these three squares out more plainly than anyone. Twenty seven centuries ago, Guanzi set down three lines. For a plan of one year, nothing is better than growing grain. For a plan of ten years, nothing is better than growing trees. For a plan of a lifetime, nothing is better than growing people. Look at the order of the three. Growing grain is a year's affair, planted this year and eaten this year, the account settled inside the year. This is the economy. Growing trees is a ten years' affair, the slow-built foundation of a place. And growing people is a lifetime's affair, one generation handed to the next. This is culture, and education. Guanzi did not say growing people is nobler than growing grain. He said, how long is the span you are planning for? Plan for a year, and you grow grain. Plan for ten years, and you grow trees. Plan for a lifetime, for the time after you are gone, and you grow people. All three must be done, and not one can be missing. Only their spans differ. The tenth chapter had Guanzi's other line, the granaries full and then the people mind propriety. And this line, for a lifetime nothing is better than growing people, is the far end of the same thought. The granaries must be filled year on year, and a lifetime of filling them, if no one keeps filling them after you, is still only a lifetime's affair. Set the two together and you see that Guanzi's ledger was very clearly kept. He reckoned the near, and he reckoned the far. And the farthest account of all falls on people.
So here is where this section leaves us. Education found its true square. Nearly everyone sets it beside economy and politics and law, four blocks each with its patch, and that is wrong. The thirteenth chapter set it down. Economy and politics and law are three trees on the soil of culture. Education is not the fourth tree. Education is the soil itself, running down into the next generation. It does not stand beside those three. It is one thing with culture, culture in the act of handing itself down. Which is why reforming the nursery cannot move it, for its root is in the soil and the soil is culture, and the sixteen hours beyond the nursery, which no document reaches, are what steep the bedrock of a life. And this is not culture ranking above the three, for positions differ in role, not in height, and the soil is no nobler than the tree. Guanzi set the three squares out long ago, grow grain, grow trees, grow people, all needed, differing only in the span you plan for. That is the second part of the seventeenth stake. Education is not a fourth great thing beside economy and politics and law. It is the operation by which culture hands itself to the next generation, and so its root is in the soil, not the nursery. So this operation, in our own day, has met a thing that never came in thousands of years. A thing has walked into this soil. It can speak, and answer a question, and reason a matter out, and keep a child company, and never once tire of him. What is it? Which square does it stand in? The next section sets it out, straight on. See you there.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.