Meanwhile in that times of Greece several changes had occured. Some were good, some sad and positives mixed with negatives. The good included the expansion of Macedonia into a great empire encompassing large part of Greece and arrival of Prince Alexander. The passing away of great thinker Plato was a sad event. Greece had lost its greatest philosopher, an unprecedented intellectual talent.
Plato had founded an educational institution called ‘Academy’. After his death his hugely talented and favoured disciple pupil, Aristotle had taken over the charge of Academy. Aristotle himself was a renowned philosopher and thinker. At that time there was no other intellectual talent in Greece to match him.
Besides, being a sublime philosopher and scholar Aristotle was a great political thinker and ideologue. that was why king Phillip had appointed him as his political advisor. Considering his mastery over political matters, intellectual talent, knowledge and teaching capabilities King Phillip could not think of any other person more suitable for imparting education to Prince Alexander. In him the prince would find an ideal teacher.
Aristotle obligingly agreed to take the responsibility on his shoulders. Thus, Alexander became the pupil of the great teacher Aristotle and his education began. The primary education the teacher imparted at a slow and simple pace understandingly. That gained Aristotle the trust and esteem of the young prince. He fathomed the talent potential of Prince Alexander and his learning capacity. Aristotle saw a great promise in the lad.
To the delight of Aristotle the prince turned out to be exceptionally brilliant boy. Alexander picked up fast and learnt knowledges at admirable rate. The mind of the prince was hungry for learning and was observant. He imbibed most of what was taught by Aristotle.
A mind hungry for knowledge is very curious about things and subjects around. The curiosity of the prince made his mind proactive and threw up a slew of questions all the time. And Alexander depended on his teacher to provide answers. The curiosity made the young prince so agitated sometimes that often he looked anxiety ridden and found it difficult to go to sleep. He would try to ponder and find answers on his own to the questions his mind posed. Alexander would engage his teacher, Aristotle if he failed to work out the answers himself or a satisfactory explanation eluded him even after exercising his mind.
One day, anxiety-ridden Alexander approached his teacher loaded with curiosity. Aristotle looked at him with a smile expecting questions from him that desperately needed answers. The teacher was amused at heart. Many a time it had happened.
“Teacher sir,” the youngman spoke hesitatingly and revealed, “I have suddenly found great curiosity in my mind to know about my actions, purpose and duty.”
“I see,” said Aristotle and added, “Prince, one fact that you must remember is that before undertaking a task first make yourself free of curiosity having worked out the needed answers or that endeavour will not gain you fully the result expected.”
“Why is that, sir?”
“There is a logical reason, Alexander. The curiosity creates a kind of charge and it makes one’s mind shifty and unstable. Master Plato used to say that such agitated mind was unhelpful for concentrated thinking or application to a task in hand. The task did not get executed properly and gained poor results.”
“So master, what should one do when the curiosity gets arisen?”
“The act to do is to engage in a dialogue with the immediate subjects around.”
“What exactly are the immediate subjects, sir?”
“The immediate subjects can be educated people around you. If there is none one can mentally interact with walls, trees or any other objects present closely.” “How can one have a dialogue or interaction with the lifeless and meaningless things?”
“That is what you think, my prince, Nothing and not even a particle is meaningless in this creation. Everything has some definite purpose and meaningfully live existence. All objects that look meaningless to you become very meaningful when they serve some of your purposes, needs and aspirations. Prince, can you name a single object in this world that is purposeless?”
Alexander pondered over it for quite sometime and could not reach any satisfactory conclusion. At last he reasoned, “Sir, the body of a dead creature is meaningless.”
“How do you say that?” Aristotle questioned.
“Sir, a dead body ceases all its activities in death and becomes totally inactive. In that state it loses all meaning,” argued Alexander.
“No my dear. In death many animals provide hide to humans for making a number of useful things. Some dead animals become our food. Those not eaten by the humans serve as food for carnivors and millions upon millions of insects. Or they become compost to feed the vegetation. All those things that serve our needs or expectations are alive. Those that don’t serve any purpose are the really dead though they may be living.”
Alexander listened to reasoning of the master Aristotle with rapt attention digesting every word expressed by the teacher.
Aristotle continued with his logic, “When I said you must interact with wall and trees to satisfy your curiosity it only meant you must vocally spell out your questions related to the curiosity and try to speak out possible answers based on your own logic or thinking while facing walls or trees or things taking them for your mind’s echo sounders. You may not bang your head against them and hurt yourself.”
“Sir, in other words if I don’t find anyone around to interact with when seized by a curiosity I must myself ponder over it to think out answers.”
“That exactly what I meant.”
“I am beginning to understand,” Alexander nodded his head. “I have imbibed everything you said but…”
“But what, Prince Alexander?”
“At this moment I sit infront of you and you are the repository of all logical answers I seek. So why should I bother my head, respected sir?”
“Right! Tell me what your curiosity is?”
“Esteemed sir, I am very curious to know as to why are imparting all this knowledge to me? Why teach me?”
“Because you are my best pupil.”
“The able teacher like you can create similar capabilities as I have in any student, sir. Why did you choose only me?”
“You are a deserving candidate.”
“I guess the aim of every teacher is to turn his pupil’s dullness and incapability into brilliance and capability respectively.”
“Not exactly.” Aristotle shook his head gently. He looked a bit amused and was enjoying the dialogue with his pupil. He calmly explained, “The dullardness can not be transformed into brilliance or scholarliness and capability can not be created out of nowhere. The existing capability and talent can be developed and polished. That is why to impart a quality education it is very important to select a deserving pupil of promise.”
“Sir, how did you know I was a deserving and promising student?”
“It was known after a lot of observations and testing.”
“Please tell me about those tests.”
“The first of all I studied your parents. Many of those qualities are inherited by the offspring. That gave me some hints about your potential and innate talents, capabilities and intelligence level. That showed me enough promises in you. Then, other consideration the environment you were born in, situations during your upbringing and talents displayed by you in childhood.”
“Revered sir, the weapons training I learnt through the expert masters, battle art you taught me besides war strategies, political game plans and academic education I received; if any other person had the similar benefits, won’t he challenge one? Won’t he try to take away my position?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why sir? Why won’t he do that? If some opponent had same battle skills, political and academic education as I do why won’t he try to displace me?”
“My dear prince, all the educations imparted under the same system are not received uniformly by all the students due to different levels of receptiveness according to varying physical, mental and cerebral capacities or conditions. If some other person received the kind of education my Alexander got still he will have vastly different mindset, courage and patience capacities, physical attributes and political ambitions. In this world no two persons are alike. The diversity is infinite. That gives a separate identify, position and capability to each individual. No other person can match you in all respects. Most of them will be lesser to you and there is probablity of someone excelling you but not exactly equal.”
For a long time Alexander stared at his teacher while his mind churned the wisdom put in there by latter.
“So,” Aristotle spoke adding, “now that your curiosity is satisfied and armoury of your questions is spent, you may give your overworked mind and body some badly needed rest.”
“As you command, respected sir,” Alexander rose up and bowed to his teacher before departing.
By the year 337 B.C. Prince Alexander completed his education in arts, politics, philosophy, science, geography, state craft, battle craft, use of weapons and the horsemanship. Meanwhile, King Phillip was busy in expanding his empire, dealing with rebellions, administration and reigning the ever expanding empire. The hard work and chasing dreams had taken heavy toll on his body and mind. He had become a very old man. Then, fever ravaged his old body. All the treatments failed. His condition went from bad to worse.
Aristotle tried several medicinal experiments on king Phillip but nothing worked. The old age never had any treatment. His end was coming.
