Illusion of knowledge is not education, but ignorance. Foolish people have a strange kind of confidence which comes only with ignorance. Benjamin Franklin has said “Being ignorant is not so much a shame as being unwilling to learn to do things the right way”. There is nothing wrong with ignorance, but making a career out of its stupidity.
Some people accumulate ignorance and they confuse it with education. Ignorance is not bliss. It is misery, tragedy, poverty and sickness. If a little knowledge is dangerous, so is a lot of ignorance which leads to pettiness, fear, dogmatism, egotism and prejudice. Wisdom is nothing more than dispelling ignorance.
We live in an information age. It is estimated that the amount of knowledge is doubling every year. With information so readily available, it is easy to dispel ignorance. It is sad to see that we are taught everything but the most essential things. We are taught the three Rs, reading, writing and arithmetic. But what good is intellectual education without understanding human dignity and compassion.
Schools are a fountain of knowledge. Some students come to drink, some to sip and others just to gargle. Education and knowledge without commonsense has little meaning. Commonsense is the ability to see things as they are and do them as they ought to be done. We are born with five senses, touch, sight, smell, taste and hearing. The best education without commonsense is worthless. An abundance of commonsense is called wisdom.
