Modern Education Versus Ancient Education

When I compare ancient education with modern education I wonder looking at the main difference that ancient education was full of aims and objects but modern education is aimless education without aims and objects. In ancient education religion was prominent due to which the ancient men have conquered all the forces of nature as we see the ancient men built Egyptian Pyramids and modern educated men and women have filed to follow their building techniques how they carried so much huge stones without heavy machineries.

Venice stands on the seven pillars in the sea and the whole city is built on sea water, full of canals and bridges and no damage we see to the houses and city still as we see the Taj Mahal, still stands with its original grandeur  more than five hundred years have past no damage still to its beauty and structure and it is a challenge for the new generation education.

According to the scholar gipsy who got admission in the Oxford University but after sometime he said adieu to the campus saying this that modern education is aimless and he is going to join a gypsy tribe just to learn the art of controlling human mind and when he will be expert he will come back to teach this art to University fellows.

Scholar Gipsy is one of the most famous poems of Mathew Arnold. It thoroughly deals with a gipsy who left Oxford University just to seek real truth and wisdom. For this purpose he joined a gipsy tribe to learn the art of controlling human minds. It is a Victorian poem and the Victorian period was full of all types of unrest: social, political, industrial and religious.

In the present poem, the poet shows industrial effects on men’s life through a scholar gipsy who saw off studies on the ground of penury. To earn his livelihood he joined a company of vagabond gypsies and followed their profession to earn his bread and butter.

He used to say his friends when he would learn fully the art of gipsy then he would come to teach his people the art of gipsy how much truth lies in it. The poet exclaimed in the voice of gipsy:

“And I, he said, the secret of their art

When fully learned, will to the world impart?”

By chance he met his university friends they asked at once recognizing him the cause of roaming in the ragged clothes. Listening to it he invited them in a private room to show them some gipsy tricks. They wondered but he said them he did it just with the help of imagination.

At this time, he is not expert in this field whenever he would be able to learn this art fully then he will come back to cities to teach the Gypsy’s real truth. As the text shows his words:

“This said, he left them and returned no more

But rumors hung about the country side

The lost scholar gipsy long was seen to stray,”

Some people say that he is seen on the river sitting on a bench in a pensive mood, sometimes near a hill and always tries to avoid human sight and company wearing antique clothes holding in his hands some bunches of flowers. As we read:

“Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongued tied

In hat of antique shape, and clock of grey

The same gipsy wore,”

To sum up, it is a beautiful poem full of criticism on the modern world but with a great message for the coming generation, the scholar gipsy was an armful man, fond of truth and wisdom when he failed in getting truth and wisdom in the modern universities and schools he joined a gipsy tribes for this purpose.

On the other hand, it is a bitter satire on our age that is full of skepticism and truth and wisdom both are missing in our lives. We are leading life under emotions neglecting wisdom. People have become selfish and the whole world is the abattoir of men. In such condition, the scholar gipsy is presented by Arnold a model of truth and aim, wisdom and confidence.