Page 123 - Age of Peace Goodword.indd

Peace through Education

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eo Tolstoy, (1828 – 1910) the Russian novelist, regarded as
Lone of the greatest writers of all time, wrote a short story
titled Wisdom of Children, first published in 1885.
Tolstoy, referring to an incident in the story, observes that
he once watched some children playing together. What was
significant about their play was that they would enter into
a heated exchange, but their quarrelling would not result in
hatred and confrontation. Very soon they would start playing
once again as usual.
Tolstoy concludes that this is nature’s model for peaceful
living. Differences do arise between people but they should
not go beyond verbal exchanges. Differences should not lead
to hatred, violence, and finally culminate in war. Tolstoy’s
novel is based on this model of nature.
It is true that nature’s model is the same as we find in the
life of children. Children are in their formative age, so their
egos have yet to develop. They are in the pre-ego stage of
life. But when these very children grow up and form part
of society, they do not behave in the same manner. All the
problems of the world are phenomena of grown-up children.
When they grow up, these same children become egoists. This
being so, how can the model provided by the ego-less apply to
the egoist? During childhood, human beings are governed by
their inner nature. But when they grow up and reach the age
of maturity, they are governed by their conscious minds. Now
their inner nature has a limited role to play. What is needed
at this stage is to develop the thinking of adults in such a way

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