The Fourth Provision: The Educator's Understanding of the Desirable and the Repugnant, and their Limits

There are three fundamental and essential prerequisites in education and guidance regarding a pupil's relationship to his educator or counsellor:

a) an educator's or counsellor's exalted stature in the eyes of his pupil,

b) a pupil's trust in his educator or counsellor, and

c) a pupil's complete compliance and devotion to his educator or counsellor.

Also, there are three fundamental and essential prerequisites in education and guidance regarding an educator's or counsellor's relationship to his pupil:

a) close examination of a pupil's essential character, his habits, situation, place of residence, and environment, b) a loving and affectionate rapport between an educator or counsellor and his pupil, and c) deliberate reflection, from time to time, on a pupil's moral matura tion.

An educator or counsellor must know full well what is beautiful [i.e. becoming] and what is unbecoming. For that which is becoming is not something absolute, applied identically to all people.

Before instructing a pupil, an educator or counsellor must, therefore, carefully assess each particular matter [separately], and decide whether it is becoming or repulsive [relative to that pupil].

After this deliberation, he should tell his pupil - lovingly and affectionately, with understanding and intelligence, and in a manner of "the words of the wise are heard in quietude" - that this manner of conduct is becoming and should be pursued, and that the other is repulsive and should be shunned.

The more clearly an educator or counsellor comprehends what is unbecoming and what is attractive [relative to each pupil], and the more he applies himself to fulfill the aforementioned three provisions in his relationship with his pupil, the more his remarks and directives will be accepted by his pupil.

This greater acceptance is attributable not only to his pupil's obedience, but to the pupil's realization that his educator care fully weighs and evaluates beforehand everything [as it relates personally to the pupil]. And although a pupil may not understand the reasoning, his trust in his educator or counsellor is buttressed, and he will carry out the instructions punctiliously.

Synopsis

Educators and counsellors must gauge the unbecoming and the becoming, relative to the level of each pupil.