J Krishnamurti Wolf Lake School 3
In the third and final talks of a series at Wolf Lake School, J. Krishnamurti opens by pointing out that the Wolf Lake School is not an institution because that suggests that it is standing still. ‘The word ‘institution’ implies a routine, a hierarchical outlook, a constant referring to some authority – all that’s implied in that word ‘institution’. And the pressure of institutions, whether it be the democratic pressure or the republican pressure, or the pressure of the labour party, and the liberal party, politically, there is the pressure of all the religions throughout the world, with their beliefs, with their dogmas, with their rituals, with their images and so on – the word ‘institution’ implies all that. And a school is not an institution, it’s a living thing. And a school run on routine, on some ideological, utopian ideas or some principle, will inevitably bring about an institution.’ J. Krishnamurti goes on the say that any form of routine or compulsion makes the brain deformed – so it is vital that this school and others like it put no pressure at all on their students. Moreover, he asks whether it is possible to educate not merely the academic side of a human being but also the totality of the human; the wholeness of man? By this he means not only the technological, academic, functional side but also the psychological nature of man. He says that we seem to neglect entirely the inward nature of man and his structure. In his view, the proper kind of education is the cultivation of the wholeness of man, including the psychological as well as the physiological and so on so that a human being grows up harmoniously without any conflict, inward or outward.
