True education is concerned not only with practical goals but

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, master of architecture and philosopher of form, once declared: “True education is concerned not only with practical goals but also with values. Our aims assure us of our material life, our values make possible our spiritual life.” In these words, he speaks beyond the craft of building structures, into the craft of building souls. For what is education if it fills the mind with skill but leaves the heart barren? What is progress if it secures bread but not meaning? Mies reminds us that a life without values may survive, but it cannot flourish; it may persist, but it will not rise.

The ancients also knew this truth. In the schools of Athens, Plato taught not only geometry and rhetoric, but also justice, courage, and moderation. For he declared that the soul must be shaped as carefully as the mind. In China, Confucius spoke of the harmony between knowledge and virtue, teaching that to study without moral cultivation is like carrying a blade without a handle—dangerous and incomplete. Thus, across civilizations, the wise have proclaimed that practical goals may sustain the body, but only values can sustain the spirit.

History offers its proof. Consider the story of Mahatma Gandhi, who was trained in the law courts of England, a man of great practical education. Yet it was not his knowledge of statutes alone that shook the British Empire—it was his values of truth, nonviolence, and justice. These values turned knowledge into power, and law into liberation. Without values, his education would have served only himself; with values, it served a nation. Here lies the essence of Mies’s wisdom: knowledge without virtue is a tool without a guide, but knowledge with virtue is a lamp that lights the world.

Even in Mies’s own craft of architecture, this lesson is carved into stone and steel. He believed in the purity of form, in the union of material necessity with spiritual clarity. A building was not only to shelter bodies but to inspire souls. So too must education be: not only the foundation of a livelihood, but the foundation of a life worth living. The material life is the ground, but the spiritual life is the sky. One without the other leaves existence crippled, unable to rise to its full stature.

What lesson then must we take? It is this: pursue knowledge, but never abandon wisdom. Train your hands, but also your heart. Learn to solve problems, but also to ask whether those problems are worthy of solving. Let your aims give you strength to live, but let your values give you reason to live. A society that educates only for wealth creates clever machines; a society that educates for virtue creates human beings.

Practical actions are clear. In your studies, ask always: How does this knowledge serve not only me, but others? In your work, strive not only for success, but for integrity. In your relationships, measure not only what you gain, but what you give. Parents, teach children not only letters and numbers, but also honesty, kindness, and courage. Teachers, remember that the character of your students is as important as their achievements. Every lesson that unites skill with value becomes a seed of greatness.

Thus, children of the future, remember Mies van der Rohe’s teaching: true education is not complete until it joins aims with values, body with spirit, earth with heaven. Strive for practical goals, but never lose sight of the eternal virtues that make us human. For the world will always need engineers, doctors, builders, and thinkers—but more than that, it will always need men and women of character, whose knowledge is guided by wisdom, and whose wisdom is guided by love. In such lives, the material and the spiritual become one, and civilization itself stands firm, enduring like a temple built upon unshakable stone.