To be taught does not necessarily mean to learn. "Give instruction to a wise man," we read in Proverbs, "and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning."
The essential to learning in the estimate of Christ Jesus was humility. "Learn of me," he said to his listeners, "for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." This greatest of all educators sought to show men that not in profundity of intellect or in wealth of scholarship does spiritual learning flourish, but in teachableness. Brilliance or erudition, while it may be impressive and accounted great, yet misses the essentials of learning if based on materialism.
Of the meaning of life, its purpose and its unfoldment, it must be said that we learn it only in the measure that we love. Human knowledge, without that which illumines and inspires service in behalf of humanity, contributes neither to him who possesses it nor to the world in which he lives. The true objective in education is to learn to distinguish between what is trustworthy and what is not, for the benefit of all; and the gauge of this is spiritual. The understanding of man's place and usefulness is learned not as the result of human knowledge, but of divine wisdom. On page 11 of "No and Yes" Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Revelation must subdue the sophistry of intellect, and spiritualize consciousness with the dictum and the demonstration of Truth and Love."
