Indian. Village Education
[CONTRIBUTED.]
IF democratic institutions, even of a very_ modified order, • -1- are to be established in a -ninety per cent. village- dwelling country, nothing is more certain than that by far the most important problem in that country is the education of the villager, to prevent him either being led by the nose by the better organized and more Wide-awake urban minority or refusing to be ever bothered with politics and placidly handing it all over to whoever will do it for him—again the urban. minority. Not that the town-dweller has and original sin than his country a cousin, but urban nd rural interests are bound to be essen- tially different and with the best will in the world the town cannot possibly legislate' for the country. - - Viewed from this aspect Indian education could hardly be worse. The High School is almost purely urban both in its curriculum, its staff and its atmosphere. - The country boy sent there with such high hopes and at such self-sacrifice by his fond parents, is " de-ruralized " in clothes, manners and outlook, and for the rest of his life despises his parents, his home and his ancestraloccu- pation of farming and hankers after a wretched pittance in an unhealthy town. The village elementary school is a feeble reflection of the High School ; it does not dis7 integrate village life to such an extent but:it .makes. very little attempt to prepare its pupils for their future_ life or teach them to make the village worth living in.. Mean- While, half the population of the village is entirely. neg- lected, as the most hardened self-deceiver would hardly bother to pretend that whatever attempt is made to educate the village girls is anything but a mere farce; Every text-book on psychology lays it down that the character of a child is largely determined fOr better or for worse before it reaches the age of seven. And yet we acquiesce in a system of education that leaves the child during these all-important years in the hands of an en- tirely untrained and untutored mother, and then weep tears of despair because all the money we pour out in its subsequent education fails to make up the handicap of its early neglect. Nor is this all. The importance of service to the community, of doing " one's bit " as it is modestly called in circles where it is a tradition of life, is hardly recognized in the schools and colleges, or if it is, it is so inaelequately taught as to leave no mark on the student. Neither the schools nor the colleges make any attempt to produce a type of student .who is able and ready to make decisions, display initiative and shoulder responsibility —the three essential qualifications of an administrator. Discipline, without which no country can rule itself, is regarded as an unnecessary relic of the dark ages by most teachers and lecturers. Finally, the country lad, after receiving the blessings of the present system of education, leaves his school or college distinctly inferior in physique to his unblessed brother who stuck to the plough-tail.
Such is the present position and none are more pain- fully aware of its defects and striving more manfully to put things right than the educational authorities them- selves. They are up against a very tough proposition, however. Facilis Descensus Averno! The line of least resistance has been followed for generations and every interest and sentiment is opposed to the difficult steps necessary to set the system of education upon proper lines.
In the village school both the teacher and the curriculum must be a hundred per cent. rural. Every reference must be made to village things, every illustration and every story must be taken from village life. 'The pictures in the primers must be of village scenes and objects. .Does.an English elementary School Reader give pictures of an Indian bail* when it says "" 0 for Ox " ? Then why should an Indian primer give a picture of an English well when it says " K for KUA " ? The village school text-books should not only teach the village child that village life is its normal existence but it should lose no opportunity of showing how that life can be improved. From its earliest years the child should be familiarized with the simple remedies that will make the village healthy and happy. The value of vaccination, good seed and even manure pits can just as easily be worked into the school reader as exotic stories about cats and dogs. A village atmosphere must pervade the village school and everything that is taught there must not only give the children a bias towards the village but also a desire to make village life better, the crops richer and the village healthier and more comfort- able. A big ideal, possibly, but only a preliminary step towards the infinitely bigger ideal which we are pledged to aim at, the self-government of a village empire. The difficulty of reorientating the village school is nothing like as difficult as it might seem, if only those whose duty to do so could get into the villages and steep themselves with village life and tradition until they really did catch the villagers' view-point. But modern conditions of administration make this extremely difficult. The centralization brought about by motor cars, telephones and typewriters, has made it next to impossible for a superior educational authority ever to see the inside of a village for more than an hoar at a time, and then only at some rare interval when he opens or inspects a
* Bullock.
school and the village to do him honour " urbanizes " itself for the day.
The next problem is the village girl, and it is sheer waste of time " uplifting " the village boy if his sister is neglected. The utter failure to recognize the necessity for the proper education of the girls is perhaps the most astounding feature of the present system of education in India and affords complete explanation of its lack of suc- cess. It is not the father, it is the mother that teaches the child in its early years, and if we want to spread civilization and make better villages we must get hold of the little girls so that they may pass on the light to their children in the years to come. Here we have what is at first sight a thorny problem. Those unacquainted with village life—and unfortunately they are in the over- whelming majority—will not hear of the girls going to the same school as the boys. Those who know the Indian village, however, realize that the code of village ethics is such that there need be no misgivings upon that score. The experiment has been tried in one. district with immediate and convincing success. Not only did the parents gladly send their girls to the boys' school wherever the teacher was trustworthy, but trained female teachers—usually of course relatives of the teachers or of the village headman—were sent to teach the little girls the domestic sciences. Separate schools for girls in every village would bankrupt the richest educational department in the world, while the problem of providing teachers—it is no use trying to send town girls to teach village children—would baffle India for generations. Adequate inspection of village girls' schools is almost impossible, and that is why the few schools now existing are so inefficient. Moreover, our object is to bring the little girls up to the level of the boys, to teach the boys chivalry, and to win for women their proper place in the esteem of the village. To segregate them in some hidden corner of the village—" purdah arrangements " it is euphemistically called—for educa- tional purposes would destroy our whole object. The introduction of women teachers into the village school to teach . the little girls domestic subjects will pave the way for the handing over of the infants' class to the women. Then, and then only, will begin an era of real culture and of chivalry in the Indian village.
So much for the village school. The high school. and college are more difficult problems. We have gone so far down the wrong road that it is very difficult to retrace our steps without making the most catastrophic changes. There are three things, however, which will help very materially. The first is being tackled already in many places, although with singular lack of confidence and with infinite hesitation. The high schools in every place except the large cities must be given a definite bias towards the country and towards agriculture. Much can be done with farms, gardens, nature study, natural history and similar methods of making the student think in terms of the rural sciences and study rural subjects. Much again can be done by rewriting the text-books and reorganizing the curriculum from the village viewpoint. But the big thing is to " ruralize " the staff and so produce the atmosphere we desire to pervade the high schools. The aim of everyone in. an English town is to get out into the country as often as possible. No such desire stirs the bosom of the Indian townsman. The Indian country is drab, uncom- fortable and unorganized, and there is a hard and fast line between town and country mentality, and each lives in a watertight compartment of his own. The town despises, dislikes and dreads the country, and the country reciprocates the sentiment towards the town 'With equal fervour. Until, therefore, the countryside becomes attractive to the townsman the only possi- bility is to insist on the high schools in the villages and country towns being definitely staffed from the country- side, by men selected for their having succeeded in fighting against the urbanizing influence of the high school when they themselves were at school. Until a new tradition is created this will be extremely slow and difficult and will naturally be much resented, as the percentage of educated people is far higher in the town than in the country. It is, however, an act of bare justice to the ninety per cent, village population, to rescue the local high schools from their—at present— natural enemies, the townsmen. At the moment the " urban " have " collared " the educational system and nearly everything else that matters in India, and it is this urban infiltration that is responsible for much of our difficulties in India to-day. We have sown the wind and are reaping the usual harvest, but it is none the less our plain duty to put things right—if we can !- before more mischief is caused.
The second thing to do, in order to combat the physical deterioration noticeable in the products of the high school system, is to reorganize the internal economy of the high school on more reasonable lines with reference to discipline, catering (now more or less completely in the hands of the boys I), and physical exercise.
The third necessity is being much discussed at present. Our system of education is not designed to produce a " governing class," and until it has been changed to do so the Indian can very fairly accuse us of hypocrisy when we say that our intention is to make India self- governing. There is a clear dividing line in England between the type that is known as the Council or Board School and those. schools ranging from Eton to the humblest grammar school, in which the boy looks forward, from the moment of entry, to taking charge of something some day. It is the former type alone which India possesses after over a century of British " tutelage." The Indian educational system was designed to produce clerks and subordinates only, and because it cannot satisfy the new demand for a governing class we are in despair. The complete absence of the type of school in which leadership and responsibility are among the principal subjects taught has often been recognized, and the occasional demand for an Indian Public School is one way in which the desire for a change in the system finds expression. There is no need at the moment, however, for anything so specialized or so expensive as this. If the be-tier-to-do classes in any area or province want a public school education for their children, they have only to subscribe the capital and get on with the business. What is needed is the English grammar- school type of institution, and if England really wishes to put India on the road to self-government no time must be lost in establishing this type of school at suitable village centres throughout the country, and so making it readily available, not only for the 10 per cent. urban population, but for the 90 per cent. village population. which is one day to sway the destinies of the Indian Empire.
We are pledged to establish self-government as soon as it can safely be done. Had we foreseen it fifty years ago we could have been training the girls and boys for the last two generations for the parts they will have to play. That chance has gone, and the only thing to do now is to lay better foundations for the future by immediately establishing the right system of education, and then to tide over as best we can the interim period until the new system begins to bear fruit.
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