Thầy Nguyễn Trường Hy

 

 

   Ashley Montagu, the anthropologist, defined education in the these words: “To nourish and cause to grow”. The art of education is to continue to grow as long as you live.

 

Grow from what you are into what you desire to be. Live to learn and learn to live.

 

Grow a larger concept of education. Every moment brings its lesson. Every person is a teacher. Every place is a schoolroom. Your university is the universe.

 

Grow in all direction. Cultivate the whole man. Develop a desire for goodness, an eagerness for knowledge, a capacity for friendship, an appreciation of beauty, a concern for others…

 

Grow in your love of learning. “Love is ever the beginning of Knowledge, as fire is of light,” wrote Carlyle.

 

Grow an inquisitive mind. Remember the Chinese proverb: “He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question is a fool forever.” You can learn from everyone and everything.

 

Grow in awareness. Keep the channels of your senses alert to all that goes on outside of you. Keep your mind alert to the stream of thought received within you.

 

Grow in new directions. Do not stagnate in the backwash of outworn tradition. Respect the past and learn its lessons, then be alive to inquiry and change. Explore new areas and ideas.

 

Grow in the deeper levels of the human spirit:

Contemplation, insight, intuition and prayer. “Spirit,” wrote Bernard Eugene Meland, “rises out of the structures of consciousness that are receptive to the vision of good.”

 

Grow in wisdom and understanding. Remember this secret from that ancient Chinese volume, The book of changes: “Every human being can draw in the course of his education, from the inexhaustible wellspring of the divine in man’s nature.”

 

Grow through all your years. Take inspiration from Michel Angelo, who created works of art unequaled by any other man and yet, in his ninetieth year, regretted that he must die just when he was beginning to learn the ABC’s of being a sculptor and painter.

 

Grow! Man in never finished. Man never arrives. Education never stops.