Reading Comprehension – Question 21

Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the following question. The function of education is to prepare young people to understand the whole process of life. The end of education is not merely to pass some examinations and get a job and earn one’s livelihood. If education is to make people understand life, then surely life is not merely a job or an occupation; life is something extraordinarily wide and profound, it is a great mystery, a vast realm in which we function as human beings. If we prepare ourselves only to earn a livelihood, we shall miss the whole point of life. To understand life is much more important than to get a degree or pass an examination for a job. Life, with all its subtleties, is such a vast expanse. It has its extraordinary beauty, its sorrows and joys. It also has its hidden things of the mind such as envies, ambitions, passions, fears, fulfilments and anxieties. The birds, the flowers, the flourishing trees, the heavens, the stars, the rivers and the fishes therein—all this is life. When we are young we must seek and find out what life is all about. Thus we cultivate intelligence with the help of education. Intelligence is the capacity to think freely, without fear, without a formula, so that we begin to discover for ourselves what is real and what is true. Anyone who is gripped with fear will never be intelligent. Most of us have fear in one form or another. Where there is fear there is no intelligence. Thus what education should do is help us understand the need of freedom. Unless we are free we will not understand the whole process of living. When we are free we have no fear. We do not imitate but we discover. What is the effect of fear on humans?