Listening Lab

THE PURPOSE OF EDUCATION

By Martin L. King Jr.

... It seems to me that education has a two-fold function to perform in the life of man and in society: the one is _____ and the other is ______. Education must enable a man to become more _______, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.

Education must also train one for quick, resolute and _______ thinking. To think incisively and to think for one’s self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half-truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is _______ its purpose.

A great majority of the so-called educated people does not think _______ and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of __________, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and ______ evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think _________ and to think _______. 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.