Letters of a Javanese princess/Chapter 15
XV[1]
WE went at midday to the shore with Mevrouw Conggrijp to bathe. It was splendidly calm, and the sea was all one colour. I sat on a rock with my feet in the water, and my eyes on the distant horizon. Oh! the world is so beautiful! Thanks- giving and peace were in my heart. If we go to Mother Nature for consolation she will not allow us to go away uncomforted. ··········
I have thought so long and so much about education, especially of late, and I think it such a high, holy task that I feel that it would be a sin to dedicate myself to it, and not be able to fill in my account to the utmost; if I thought otherwise, I should be a teacher without worth.
Education means the forming of the mind and of the soul. I feel that with the education of the mind the task of the teacher is not complete. The duty of forming the character is his; it is not included in the letter of the law, but it is a moral duty. I ask myself if I am able to do this? I who am still so uneducated myself.
I often hear it asserted that when the mind is cultivated, the spirit grows of itself; but I have seen for a long time that that is not always the case, that education and intellect are not always a patent of morality. But one must not judge those whose spirits remain unawakened, who lack the higher education of the soul, too harshly; in most cases the fault lies not in themselves, but in their bringing up. Great care has been taken in the cultivation of the understanding, but in the cultivation of the character, none!
I subscribe warmly to Mijnheer's idea, which is set forth so clearly in his paper on the "Education of Native Girls," "Woman as the Carrier of Civilization!" Not because she has always shared the fate of man, and is a partner in his destiny, but because as I too am firmly convinced, she has a great and far-reaching influence, which can be for either good or evil; and because she, most of all, can help toward the spiritual regeneration of the world.
Man receives from woman his very earliest nourishment, at her breast, the child learns to feel, to think and to speak; and I see more and more clearly that the very earliest education has an influence which extends over one's whole after life. But how can the native women teach their children when they themselves are so ignorant?
There is great interest in education in the whole world of native women, so far as we know it. Many wish that they might be children again, so that they might profit by this opportunity. And splendid! the number of native scholars at Parti, Kodoes, Japara and the other districts are the first visible foreshadowings of success. Already there are some girls' schools among the people and their number is increasing.
Tomorrow my mother will send a little girl (half orphan and child of her Anek Mas[2]) to school and last month our parents sent a good studious boy to learn to read in Dutch.