Observe to what a
degree the lack of education will weaken and degrade a people. Today [1875]
from the standpoint of population the greatest nation in the world is China,
which has something over four hundred million inhabitants. On this account, its
government should be the most distinguished on earth, its people the most
acclaimed. And yet on the contrary, because of its lack of education in
cultural and material civilization, it is the feeblest and the most helpless of
all weak nations. Not long ago, a small contingent of English and French troops
went to war with China and defeated that country so decisively that they took
over its capital Peking. Had the Chinese government and people been abreast of
the advanced sciences of the day, had they been skilled in the arts of
civilization, then if all the nations on earth had marched against them the
attack would still have failed, and the attackers would have returned defeated
whence they had come.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (‘The Secret of Divine Civilization’)
