India - the Mother

August 1951

(From an article on education.)

Following the last wars and the dreadful nervous tension they have created, perhaps as a sign of the degeneration of civilization and of social decay, a growing vulgarity seems to have taken hold of human life, collective as well as individual, especially on the plane of what was people's aesthetic and sensorial life. A methodical enlightened culture of the senses can progressively eliminate in the child what has through contagion become vulgar, commonplace and crude; and that culture will have very happy repercussions on the child's character too.... Refinement, if it is sincere, gives the being a nobility and generosity that will spontaneously find expression in his way of acting and will shield him from much meanness and perversion.

On Education: Vital Education