I wish to speak on “College Uneducation.” Is it possible that our college education may “uneducate” rather than educate? I answer “Yes.” It is a paradox but nonetheless the truth—the grim, unmerciful truth. We all believe in higher education; else we should not be in the University. At the same time, college education—like all other human devices for human betterment—may build or destroy, lead, or mislead.
My ten years’ humble service in the University of the Philippines has afforded me an opportunity to watch the current of ideals and practices of our student body. In some aspects of higher education, most of our students have measured up to their high responsibilities. But in other features—alas, vital ones!—the thoughts and actions of many of them tend to stunt the mind, dry up the heart, and quench the soul. These students are being uneducated in college. I shall briefly discuss three ways in which many of our students are getting college uneducation, for which they pay tuition fees and make unnumbered sacrifices.
Book Worship
In the first place, there is the all but delirious worship of the printed page. “What does the book say?” is, by all odds, the most important question in the student’s mind whenever he is faced with any problem calling for his own reasoning. By the same token, may students feel a sort of frenzy for facts till these become as huge as the mountains and the mind is crushed under them. Those students think of nothing but how to accumulate data; hence, their capacity for clear and powerful thinking is paralyzed. How pathetic to hear them argue and discuss! Because they lack the native vitality of unhampered reason, their discourse smacks of cant and sophistry rather than of healthy reasoning and straight thinking.
It is thus that many of our students surrender their individuality to the textbook and lose their birthright—which