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PROGRESS
A nation’s development
and progress depends upon the intellectual and spiritual training
given to the people who live within its borders. A nation
whose members are lacking in intellectual and spiritual development
should not be expected to develop and progress.
Nations begin to move backward when they allow once-cultivated
fields to be neglected, and turn vineyards and gardens into
rubbish heaps. Fertilizing barren soil and then cultivating
it so that it becomes a vineyard and a garden is progress.
A developed country’s lands consist of gardens, its mountains
have vineyards, and its places of worship are like magnificent
palaces. In contrast, the cities of an underdeveloped country
are ruins, its streets are rubbish heaps, and its places of
worship are left to decay as moldy halls.
When something has been improved, it becomes cleaner and brighter,
better and more orderly than it formerly was. Accordingly,
being content with things as they are indicates a lack of
effort, while true progress is the realization of improvements.
Each advance forward appears first as a concept. Then, the
mass of people are persuaded to accept it. Finally, it is
put into practice by those united in heart and mind. Every
attempt to make progress that is not based on reason and science
is futile.
It is a condition for national development that the nation’s
people have the same goal. A nation cannot develop and progress,
although it shows great activity, if some of its members say
“black” and others say “white” for the same thing.
A community that has not educated its people in a shared tradition
eventually splits into different groups based on their different
knowledge and upbringing. These groups will be hostile to
each other. It is impossibly difficult for such a fractured
community to progress.
Although education is undeniably important for a country’s
development, the expected results will never be achieved if
the young people are not educated according to the country’s
traditional values.
For true and beneficial progress to me made, people must evaluate
the present conditions and use the experience of former generations
intelligently. If coming generations do not learn from the
experience of their predecessors, and each generation follows
its own way, the nation will begin to move backward instead
of forward.
 
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