What Albert Einstein Has to Teach Us--Or At Least Me--Today

Wisdom from Albert Einstein, drawn from his book of essays, Out of My Later Years I’m going to draw here on extracts from several of Einstein’s essays which contain nuggets of truth which are too good not to write down. In his essay, On Education, written in 1936 he writes modestly, “What source shall I, in the realm of pedagogy, drive courage to expound opinions with no foundations except personal experience and personal conviction.” But that doesn’t give him pause fortunately. “The school has always been the most important means of transferring the wealth of tradition from one generation to the next. This applies today in an even greater degree than in former times through modern development of economic life, the family is bearer of tradition and education has been weakened. The continuance and health of human society is therefore in a still higher degree dependent on the school than formerly.” If true as he asserts then in 1936, how much truer it is today. Einstein goes on to say that it is wrong to think of the school simply as “the instrument for transferring a certain maximum quantity of knowledge to the growing generation.” Rather, it must acknowledge that knowledge is dead and that the school “serves the living.” It should develop in the young individuals “those qualities and capabilities which are of value for the welfare of the commonwealth.” He goes on to make it clear that that doesn’t mean that individuality should be destroyed. On the contrary, he writes, “The aim must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service of the community their highest life problem.” You don’t only view this by moralizing; Einstein writes; no, you do it by stimulating critical thinking. Today, we see all kinds of things happening that work against this. The State bill being advanced in Ohio that will limit the ability of teachers to teach. Texts in schools that are legitimate to stimulate broad thinking and critical thinking are being banned. “The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgment should always be placed foremost, not the acquisition of special knowledge", Einstein asserts. The realization of this is what made my four years at Yale University so meaningful to me and my contact with the professors at that university and my reading ever since so continually meaningful. ***** There is this painful message from Einstein in his essay, A Message to Intellectuals, written in 1946. He laments the tragedy that, “While mankind has produced many scholars so extremely successful in the field of science and technology, we have been for a long time so inefficient in finding adequate solutions to the many political conflicts and economic tensions which beset us. Man has not succeeded in developing political and economic forms of organization which would guarantee the peaceful coexistence of the nations of the world. He has not succeeded in building the kind of system which would eliminate the positivity of war and banish forever the murderous instruments of mass destruction.” Einstein celebrates that in “the smaller entities of community life, man has made some progress to breaking down the antisocial sovereignties. This is true, for examples, of life within cities and, to a certain degree, even a society with individual states. But in relation to separate states (nations), complete anarchy still prevails. I do not believe that we have made any genuine advance in this area during the last few thousand years.” Written about 80 years ago, Einstein’s verdict would remain the same. There have been a few examples of progress, the European Common Market being the chief one, in my view, but our overall progress has been abysmal. Can we ever overcome the acquisitive, selfish elements of our human nature, the competitive elements that will lead usform the structures and way of working together and mindset that will allow us to live in peace in the centuries to come? It has only been crisis that has brought nations together. We have a crisis today, but we don’t recognize it as such. Is it possible that somehow, against all contrary evidence, we will have the wise and courageous leadership to prevail? Einstein previewed these sentiments on an essay he wrote 13 years earlier, in 1933: Science and Civilization. In this he lamented: “The questions which concern us are: How can we save mankind and spiritual acquisitions of which we are the heirs? How can one save Europe from a new disaster?" He closed on the hopeful thought: “Only through perils and upheavals can nations be brought to further developments. May the present upheavals lead to a better world. Above and beyond this valuation of our time we have this further duty, to care for what is eternal and highest among our possessions, that which gives life its import and which we wish to hand on to our children fewer and richer than we received it from our forbearers.” We’ve had periods of peace since then, triggered importantly by the specter of destruction wreaked by World War II, but those periods have not lasted, they have not been sustained with a new mindset and government structures which would flow from it and which we and this world we live in need to not only thrive but survive.