The Gandhi-King Community

For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

E-mail- dr.yogendragandhi@gmail.com;dr.yadav.yogendra@gandhifoundation.net

 

 

 

NATIONAL EDUCATION

 

 

During my travels, those who are interested in national education tell me that, whereas I constantly harp upon khaddar, untouchability, Hindu-Muslim unity, nowadays one rarely finds mention even of national education in Young India. As a matter of fact the statement is true, but it must not be cited as a ground of complaint against me, if only because I am directly interested in the largest national university in India. But national education is not a thing which can now be advanced by any writing on my part. Its advance depends totally upon a proper working of the institutions now in existence. We cannot, we must not, any longer appeal to the youth of the country who are now receiving education in the Government institutions to leave them for they now know the pros and cons of the subject. They are in Government institutions either out of weakness or out of their fondness for them or for their want of faith in national institutions. Whatever the reason, the only way to deal with their weakness, fondness for want of faith is to make the national institutions strong and popular by sheer force of the character and ability of the teachers.

There is before me an appeal by the South Calcutta National School. In a covering letter, I am reminded that I paid during my prolonged stay in Calcutta a hurried visit to the institution. The appeal is signed by influential men. Hand-spinning, I am reminded, is compulsory. There are one hundred boys on the rolls and eighteen teachers, so the appeal runs. The school receives an annual grant of Rs. 200. There are many such institutions throughout the length and breadth of India from whose teachers I receive requests either for advertising them in these columns or, better still, becoming signatory to a direct appeal for funds. I must not yield to the temptation, even at the risk of overlooking some very deserving institutions. A hurried visit and an impression created by such a visit must not be allowed to harm an institution if the impression is bad. Nor must a false but favourable impression be allowed to bolster up an institution that is in reality undeserving. It is my settled conviction that no deserving institution ever dies for want of support. Institutions that have died have done so either because there was nothing in them to commend them to the public or because those in control have themselves lost faith or, which is perhaps the same thing, lost stamina. I would, therefore, urge the conductors of this and other such institutions not to give in because of the general depression. It is a time of test for worthy institutions. There are several at the present moment in India which are struggling against the heaviest odds, where, though the teachers are living in want, they have faith in themselves and their cause. I know that they will prosper in the end and be the stronger for the ordeal they are passing through. I would advise the public to study such institutions and support them if they find them desirable and deserving. I have observed in many institutions I have visited a tendency to patronize spinning because it has become somewhat of a fashion nowadays. It is far from doing justice to a great cause or to pupils. If spinning is to be revived as an indispensable industry, it must be treated seriously and must be taught in proper and scientific manner like the other subjects taught in well managed schools.

The wheels will then be in perfectly good order and condition, will conform to all the tests laid down in these columns from time to time, the pupils’ work would be regularly tested form day to day just as all their exercises would be or should be. And this is impossible unless all the teachers will learn the art with its technique. It is a waste of money to have a spinning expert. Every teacher has to become one if spinning has to be effectively taught, and if the teacher believes in the necessity of spinning, he can learn it without any difficulty in a month’s time if he would give two hours to it daily. But I have said that whilst charkha spinning may be taught so as to enable boys and girls if they wish to use the spinning-wheel in their own homes, for class-spinning the takli is the most economical and the most profitable instrument. It is any day better that five hundred boys spin twenty-five yards each for half an hour at a stated time daily than fifty boys at intervals spinning one hundred yards each in the same half hour. Five hundred boys will spin 12,500 yards daily on the takli against 5,000 of fifty boys on the charkha.

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