In plain words
They send five-year-old children to some convent far away. They have their children brought up by an ayah. In this way they keep a mother’s love away from them. Such children will cry if the ayah dies, but not if their mother dies. In truth, children should always grow up beside their mother. They should hear their mother’s loving words. These modern studies do nothing at all to uplift children. Through them no good qualities grow in children.
Though they have studied hard for M.A.s and B.A.s, though they are great men of renown, though they have wealth and are generous givers, though they are worthy men famed across the earth, though they have long life and health without end and are men of perfect strength, though they are ever at their japa and tapas and are brāhmaṇas who teach the Vedas, they can never equal the man of good character.
What is this modern education? People grow their degrees, but they do not grow their hearts. The education that broadens the heart is the true education. Today, the more one studies, the narrower the mind becomes. In the educated man, the ego that says ‘I am a great scholar’ keeps growing. Our sacred culture of Bhārata has nurtured morality and integrity since time out of mind. But today that morality is nowhere to be seen. Well then, is there at least a little joy to be had? Not that either. Can such studies uplift a human being?
Students take their degrees and set off for foreign countries. If their parents come to them, they say, ‘Go to a hotel and eat.’ The good quality of giving parents even a handful of rice with love has vanished from the educated of today. As soon as their parents grow old, children ask them, ‘Give us our share of the property.’