Religion and Education are closely associated with each other both are of spiritual tendencies. Spiritual, material or physical urge are dealt with by religion as well as by the education.
“Both seek to emancipate man, not from contract with his environment, but from slavery to it.” As has already been discussed, education creates certain values of life and help in the modification of behavior.
It gives certain moldings to the life, while religion beautifies the life by cultivation of truthful heart with the moral and spiritual values.
In this way religion and education have different ways but the same aim of achieving God through cultivating three absolutes truth, and goodness.
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Religion must be given suitable places in the curriculum because it is the core of our culture and ‘heritage’. Gentle given a fine statement in regard to the place of religion in the curriculum.
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“National cultures have never been more conscious than now of the higher needs of the mind, needs that are not only aesthetic and abstractly intellectual but also ethical and religious. For a school without an ethical and religious constant is an absurdity.”
Thus, religion should find a suitable and proper place in the sphere of education. Education, according to Pestalozzi, is aimed at “natural harmonious and progressive development of man’s innate powers.
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“Wider education means an education which broadens the outlook, awakens the inner powers and teaches us to respect all the religions.
In this manner, a teacher should enable the pupils to cultivate religious attitude and mentality through education.
Religion, in this sense does not mean merely a bundle of rites and of dogmas followed by symbols and emotions but it is applied to all that what noble.
Religion and education with these collective and mutual efforts lead a person towards self-realization and self-understanding. Rousseau and Wordsworth believed in nature and education on the lane; of nature.
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The essence of their philosophy was to worship nature in practical way. In other words, we should obey natural laws and must follow the path traced by her.
Truly speaking, religious education does not mean something separable but pure, honest and beneficial. Education is nothing but religion, because both the religion and the education aim at harmonizing the person to the ultimate truth. Religion is the pure form of education.
Education has been defined as “a process of development in which consists the passage of human being from infancy, to Maturity, the process by which he adopts himself gradually in various ways to his physical and spiritual environment.”
In this definition the ability of social adaptation means the development of the social qualities like cooperation, coordination among social groups and communities.
This ability of the adaptation is religious, because religion in a wider sense says clearly that all are one. We are brothers and sisters borne of the same father. The same ideology of cooperation is found in this interpretation are like education.
Therefore, curriculum construction should be based on the principle that education and religion are not the separate entities but they are one in nature and consequence.
These are the main problems dealt with by religion. These are the truth of a vital significance and are at the basis “of the whole structure of knowledge whether of fact or value, and deprived of them education as well as life is radically defective, without centre, balance or proper subordination of part to part.”
The aim of education is all-round development of man. The same is the aim of religion. So because use of this common aims the correlation of education and religion quite natural now to include the various forms of religion in education, is a great problem.
Some people due to their ignorance of the true nature of religion do not and to give any place to religion in education, whereas some people want to give it an important place. Since earliest times in India, education and religion have been related to each other.
With the break of this relation, indiscipline, violence and immorality have increased. According to Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan the reason for all vices and troubles pervading the world is want of morality which has been created due to education being not correlated to religion.
Here in India there were those centers of education in which people from all parts of the world came to receive education.
In Western countries also Movements were started for, educational organization by correlating religion and education. Sunday School Movement, Religious Education Movement was some such movements in which the demand for integration of education and religion was asserted. The world has witnessed the evil effects of materialism.
Hence it has rightly realised that humanity cannot be saved without relating education to religion. Now, the need for education integrated with religion is being felt throughout the world. Some politicians and economic groups do not think it proper to give a place to religion in education.
In fact, if religion is treated as ‘human religion’ a revolution can be brought out in the improvement of education. Peace can be established in the world through a religion integrated education based on thinking of universal peace, universal-brotherhood and universal-good.
On the basis of the view point expressed above, it seems useful to impart religious education by integrating education and religion. But it is necessary to consider points both in its favor and against.