One does not need any education to become an evil person. If a person wants to do evil or become evil, he will do it whether you teach him or not; so what is the point of educating him? No one teaches him to do evil; still he becomes evil without thinking about it. On the other hand, it is not easy to become a good person. To become a good person, someone capable of practicing goodness throughout a lifetime, education is indispensable. How nice it would be if we could walk that road easily! However, since good and evil travel in exactly opposite directions, the path to goodness is not easy at all. (39:23, January 9, 1971)
Conventional schools do not teach about marriage, even though it is a very significant matter. Marriage education is not given much space in the curriculum compared to the seriousness of its problems. There is a lack of education about the needs and aspirations of the opposite sex. There is a lack of education concerning the issues that typically arise after marriage. The schools disregard questions of how to build happy marriages or how to properly educate children. Instead, they focus on teaching science and mathematics. This is certainly an aberration. (Tongil Segye 108, March 9, 1978)
Let us create children’s educational materials about keeping purity before marriage.2 Let us create educational materials on how to make good fraternal and peer relationships, educational materials on marriage and on parenting, and educational materials on developing ideal families, extended families and clans. (233:336, August 2, 1992)
The family is the school of love; it is the most important school in life. Within the family, children cultivate the depth and breadth of their heart to love others.3 It is education of love and emotion that only parents can provide, and it becomes the foundation stone to form the children’s character. The family is also the school teaching virtues, norms and manners. It is the way of Heaven that people receive academic education, physical education and technical education on the foundation of this primary education of heart and norm. (271:80, August 22, 1995)
Children surely need to be educated about love. They do not necessarily need their parents to educate them in knowledge, but their parents are essential to educate them about love. Are they providing an education about love when the mother and father fight? Parents should teach by example how two people can become one with each other. Hence, the mother and father should be pleasing to Heaven; the father should be pleasing to the mother and the mother pleasing to the father. They should like each other and be parents whom the children like. Likewise, both parents should like all their children—it should not be the case that the father likes only some children and not others…
That is why we must receive an education about love in the presence of God and centering on God’s love. This education does not begin with human beings. God is their Heavenly Parent, so God should educate human beings about love. God would want to continue this education until people can fully grasp all the values of their Heavenly Parent; at that point they can be said to have reached maturity.
But is it recorded in the Bible that Adam and Eve grew up receiving God’s love? There is nothing about their receiving love; instead the Bible begins with an unpleasant story about their Fall. (51:172-73, November 21, 1971)
Koreans know well how to face death because they have been well educated about it. Teaching people how to conclude their lives well is the essence of education. (25:158, October 3, 1969)
