depends, as we have seen, on certain conditions of Indian society,
and also on the attractive force of the education offered and its
appeal to Indian ideas, as well as on the possibility of pursuing
it under conditions which shall not be too utterly opposed to the
tradition of the country. With the increase in the numbers receiving
Secondary education there has not been a corresponding increase in the
college courses. Mr Covernton, in the quotation given above, further
emphasizes this, and points to the real need of Bombay, for which the
appointment of a woman tutor would only be a temporary expedient. “If
the conditions of University education were in accord with Oriental
ideas of women’s functions, the number would go up by leaps and bounds.
I am confident that the time is ripe for the creation in Bombay of
a women’s college managed by a staff of Oxford or Cambridge women
graduates.”[145] The spontaneous movement amongst Indian gentlemen to
organize high-class schools, where, if desired, _parda_ can be
kept, points to further possibilities. At present, if a Mohammedan or
Hindu girl of high-caste, who had been educated in some such school,
or privately, desired to take a University course, there would be
no opportunity for her doing so. A Mohammedan lady, whose daughter
was being educated in one of the mission schools in Bombay, told the
writer she could not think of letting her attend any college in that
city, though she was anxious for her to have University education. The
only possible course was an English college, such as Cheltenham. The
migration to England of Indian women Arts’ students has, so far, not
been extensive; about a dozen have studied at Cambridge, Oxford, and
Cheltenham; a larger number may have gone to America. The missionary
societies which struck out a bold policy for attracting men by their
great Christian colleges have not made any corresponding move to meet
the new situation in women’s education. The one or two women’s colleges
which exist are created so predominantly for Christian girls that they
attract only isolated pupils of other faiths, and these not of the most
influential classes.[146] It seems strange that in Great Britain the
highest education for women should be to a certain extent apart, with
the necessary contact carefully chaperoned, whereas in India, with a
very different tradition of womanhood, one girl may sit alone in a
class of over a hundred students. It may be argued that the best way
to overcome this tradition is to ignore it, and that it should not be
yielded to in any way, least of all in the case of Higher education,
where the students have presumably risen above it. Some English women
of experience in India take this bold attitude. On the other hand it is
of the highest importance in any transitional stage to secure leaders
from every stratum of the population; and if education be the only safe
lever for the uplift of women in India, it seems a strategic mistake
practically to close its highest stages to those whose families hold by
a certain type of decorum which prohibits co-education.
By adaptation of the curriculum is not meant in any sense the lowering
of the intellectual standard nor the introduction of the element of
domestic economy and so-called “feminine subjects” which are necessary
at a lower stage, but rather a re-arrangement of studies which shall
ensure more individual research and a fuller comprehension of the
material studied. The revision of the curriculum is at present under
consideration in at least one of the Universities, and is a matter for
experts. The action of the University of Cambridge in permitting women
candidates to go up for Honours courses only, and the success which has
attended women candidates for the Triposes, suggest the advantage of
specialized studies in the case of women. Mrs Satthianadhan’s opinion
of the effect of University education on women is illuminating. “It
will make women more methodical, more orderly in their arrangements,
more precise, and better able to weigh causes and results.”[147] A
three years’ specialized course would tend in many ways to develop
these qualities, and would possibly produce the new and more thorough
type of teaching which is so greatly needed in the schools. The
intellectual strain which is so marked a feature at present might in
this way be lessened without detrimental effect upon real intellectual
development.
Towards the end of last century, it seemed as if the goal of the
women’s educational movement in Great Britain might be reached
by the formation of a Women’s University with federal colleges.
Various reasons have led rather to their taking a parallel place in
the existing Universities, though still under somewhat anomalous
conditions, so far as Oxford and Cambridge are concerned. The
American solution is a different one. Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley,
Mount Holyoke, and others have their separate degrees and completely
separated life. It is possible that the solution of the Indian problem
will rather follow these latter lines, and there are indications of
this ideal, somewhat nebulously outlined, in the writings of leading
Indian women. Such a Women’s University with affiliated colleges
in the different large centres might establish a new era and a new
tradition in the education of women. A competent staff of Indian
women graduates, whose presence would secure the students from
deorientalizing influences, and of English women graduates competent
to teach on specialized lines, would raise the educational standard.
The complete separation of such colleges from the High schools
would render a corporate life possible, and give to the Indian girl
graduates the opportunity of carrying on their studies in congenial
and stimulating surroundings. “To them, too, college life might bring
that joyous spring-time of youth, friendship, and unfettered delight of
study and leisure which have hitherto been withheld from them.”[148]
The Maharani of Baroda notes in her recent book[149] the tendency of
women’s education in Europe to take a too exclusively literary form,
and the consequent overcrowding of certain professions. While there is
no danger that the teaching profession will be overcrowded in India
for decades to come, the warning is not without its value. Such a
University might have affiliated with it colleges of Indian Domestic
Science and Economy, but the theory for this has yet to be worked out.
It may seem to some readers, especially to those rightly imbued with
the Eastern principle of _festina lente_, that the day for women’s
colleges in India has not yet come, and that all available strength
should be concentrated on Secondary education; and yet, on the other
hand, the crux of the whole educational problem may be found here. Miss
Emily Davies, who by universal consent stands as the chief pioneer of
the movement in Britain, realized from the first that the reform in
girls’ education must begin at the top. The same principle is seen in
the history of Cheltenham Ladies College (founded 1853), and the early
efforts of Miss Beale to face the same problem of the need of teachers,
which is felt in every Indian school to-day. “Her efforts show how
hard it was to found a school before the reformation of the higher
education had given the necessary stimulus from above. It was a case
of making bricks without straw.”[150] The proximity of certain dates
is suggestive. In 1869, the “Girton Pioneers” first met at Hitchin to
read for the examinations of the University of Cambridge. In 1872,
the Girls’ Public Day School Company was founded, and in 1879 the
Oxford Women’s Halls were opened. The two movements are of necessity
contemporaneous, and cannot be viewed as successive stages towards the
same end.
The beginning exists in India; much excellent pioneer work has been
done, and it now remains to raise the whole movement to a status from
which its future development on Indian and womanly lines would be
assured.
X
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN EDUCATION
“Education, education--education about what? Education about matter,
mere material things, thoughts and ideas. Education, according to the
Vedas, is the opening of the petals of the mind-lotus to the rays of
the spiritual sun, and that is what we now want first.”
--Swami Baba Pramânand Bhârati.
The analysis of the religious element in education is a deep and subtle
problem, and yet, at the same time, this element is the touchstone by
which all systems of education are ultimately tested. The formation
of independent thought and judgment, and of an upright character,
spontaneously moral, may lead in adolescent years to the attainment
of some unifying philosophy of life which shall dominate and satisfy
the religious nature. The successful quest of this during the “silent
period,” and the re-interpretation of it during a college career,
must be the aim of all education. How is this aim to be achieved?
The separation of religion from education in a Christian country,
where morality is under the corporate sanction of inherited religious
tradition, may be a dangerous experiment, but it is made under the
supposition that the influence of home and Church will supplement the
teaching at school. In India, a country of conflicting faiths, all in a
period of transition, and withal a country of deep religious instinct,
the case is different. There is no corporate sanction: religion and
moral principles are not necessarily kindred terms; the influence of
school and of home are often diverse, and thus the former, if it is
in any sense to be the builder of character, must include religion as
the only unifying educational factor. Theoretically, this statement
is justified and endorsed, not only by missionary enthusiasts, but by
official opinion and by Indian sentiment in so far as it is articulate;
its practical endorsement, on the other hand, is one of the most
difficult problems of Indian administration. A brief sketch of the
attitude of Government in the past, and of the modern desire for its
modification may serve to show the relation which this question bears
to the present development of women’s education.
The great educational Charter of 1854 established the Indian system
on the only basis which seemed in accord with our whole Indian
policy--that of religious neutrality; but it was not, as is sometimes
erroneously supposed, an endorsement of a wholly secular policy. The
Government could not of itself undertake direct religious teaching
in its own schools, but the system of “grants-in-aid” with which it
endowed the voluntary schools was “based on an entire abstinence
from interference with the religious instruction conveyed in the
schools assisted.” “The framers of this Despatch entertained the
hope that under its provisions Hindu, Mohammedan, and Christian
managers would supply, each class in its own particular way, what was
already known to be a great defect of the course of instruction in
Government institutions. The same hope was one of the chief reasons
that led the Education Commission to make and the Government of India
to adopt the recommendation that ‘the improvement and extension of
institutions under private management be the principal care of the
Department.’”[151] At the same time many of its members believed that
even the more secular instruction given in the Government schools
would remove ignorance and superstition, and ultimately pave the way
towards the acceptance of Christianity. Moreover, definite provision
was made for the inquiring mind. “The Bible is, we understand, placed
in the libraries of the colleges and schools, and the pupils are freely
able to consult it. This is as it should be; and, moreover, we have no
desire to prevent, or discourage, any explanations which the pupils
may of their own free-will ask from the masters on the subject of the
Christian religion, provided that such information be given out of
school hours.” The agitation of those who wished a more definitely
Christian attitude to be adopted aimed at voluntary teaching of the
Bible, where a suitable teacher could be procured, and a suggestion of
teaching the Indian religions parallel with it is scarcely found. The
argument, as it might be presented to an Indian expostulating in favour
of neutrality, is thus put in Sir John Lawrence’s Despatches:--“We
offer you the Bible in our Government schools because we believe it
to be for your inestimable good if you choose to listen to it. We
do not wish you to study it unless you do so voluntarily. But you
cannot expect us to help in teaching your religion, which we do not
believe to be true. That you can do for yourselves.”[152] “The Indian
religions ought not to be taught; they have ample means of their own
for doing this.” It should be noted that at this time the Samājes
had not arisen, nor the Hindu reform movement, and that the Western
comprehension of things Indian and religious was much more limited than
it is now. The Despatch of 1859, after reviewing the various arguments
for the modification of the “secular” policy, finally sums up--“They
[Her Majesty’s Government] are unable, therefore, to sanction any
modification of the rule of strict religious neutrality, as it has
hitherto been enforced in the Government schools, and it accordingly
remains that the Holy Scriptures being kept in the library, and being
open to all the pupils who may wish to study them, and the teachers
being at liberty to afford instruction and explanations regarding
them to all who may voluntarily seek it, the course of study in
all Government Institutions be, as heretofore, confined to secular
subjects.”[153] The emphasis on the place of the aided school and
the Government school has varied in the different periods of Indian
administration and in different localities, but in the main in the
education of boys the Government or municipal school has predominated.
Its possible religious influence has been negative; and while there
is no record of the English teacher expounding the Bible to inquiring
minds after school hours, as the Despatches fondly picture, there
is ample evidence that the Western education introduced sapped the
foundations of ancient belief and substituted no new positive sanction
of moral principles. The Hindu and Mohammedan effort of the early days
on Western lines was also, with the exception of Aligarh College,
largely on a secular basis. Thus, the place of definite religious
teaching was confined to the schools under missionary management, and
though their influence, especially in South India, has been enormous,
it can in no sense be considered conterminous with Western education in
India. A predominantly secular education has therefore produced its own
fruits, and a discussion of it when so much literature already exists
on the subject is superfluous.
The modern reaction is manifest in popular speeches, in the Press,
and in Government reports. An Indian writer pleads that the Durbar
boon of additional grants for education is no boon, but a curse, if
it perpetuate only the “nauseatingly materialistic, all-intellectual,
and soul-killing system,” and is not in consonance with the
“natural ideals, national aspirations, and the world-old mental
characteristics”[154] of the Indian people. It would be easy to
multiply quotations in grandiloquent language, which, for all their
quaintness, have a strong element of truth. Parallel with the plea
for religious instruction, and to a certain extent confused with
it, is the plea for moral instruction, either apart from or based
on religion. The most trustworthy evidence as to the extent of this
demand and its somewhat incoherent nature was given at the Government
Educational Conference held recently in Allahabad, when a whole day was
devoted to the subject of Moral and Religious Education. The preceding
questionnaire inquired (_a_) how far moral lessons were included
in the ordinary Primary readers, (_b_) whether special moral
text-books were in use, (_c_) whether direct moral instruction
was given and appreciated, (_d_) whether the trend of public
opinion was really in favour of moral instruction in the schools, and
finally (_e_) whether any divergent views thereon were based on
differences of creed. Most of the provinces reported a certain element
of moral instruction in the shape of stories and poetry in the readers,
with the comment that these were mainly used as reading or grammar
lessons, or else were too didactically taught to have any lasting
effect. Certain moral text-books are in use, but these are mainly of a
religious nature and found in the newer Indian schools. The “Sanatana
Dharma” series, issued by the Central Hindu College, Benares, which
attempts to deal only with basal principles of religion, is used by
the Surat municipality, in Mysore, in Baroda and elsewhere, but is not
generally acceptable to orthodox Hindus. The classic Bhaghavat Gita--an
eclectic synopsis reconciling different systems of Hindu philosophy
and religion--is also taught as a class-book in the higher classes
of certain schools in Bengal which were started as rivals to mission
schools. The Anjuman-i-Islamia, Lahore, also prepares books for both
Primary and Secondary classes in Mohammedan schools, and in these again
moral instruction is imparted through religious references. Moral
text-books pure and simple are not used except occasionally those of
the International Moral League in some of the hostels in Baroda and
elsewhere. As regards lessons in direct moral teaching, apart from
religion, there seem to be exceedingly few. A few debating societies
exist for this purpose. One school reports a weekly lecture thereon,
but the boys of the school are credited with stoning a visiting cricket
team which had defeated them! Moral instruction combined with religion
is more common than it is thought in the Indian aided schools, and
various instances are on record. The old-fashioned Koranic schools and
Sanskrit “_tols_” are steeped in religion. “To describe the system
of moral training in such institutions would be to write an account
of the rites and tenets of the Hindu and Mohammedan religions.”[155]
With two exceptions the reports show in detail a general state of
dissatisfaction with things as they are, and a desire for definite
moral instruction combined with a strong preference for a religious
basis where such could be made possible. The words “moral instruction”
seem also to have become a sort of shibboleth. “People are also rather
vague as to what comes under the head of religion or morality.” A
Brahman student is instanced as having devoted much time to religion,
which was found to mean “breathing exercises.” “There are a few of
exceptional intelligence who hold that the teaching of morality must
be based on religion. These would advocate the teaching of a religion,
or rather a combination of religious truths that all men could agree
on.” “The public mind in Bengal is not ripe for the idea of moral
instruction totally severed from religion.” At the same time it is
noticed that little advantage has as yet been taken of the opportunity
to teach religion in the Government schools in the United Provinces
and in Burma. The restrictions which surround it in the former and the
recent date of the permission for it in the latter may possibly account
for this.
The bulk of the answers to the questionnaire issued by the Conference
may be summed up in respect of moral instruction as follows: it is
inefficient, unless impressed by the personality of the teacher, and
unless based on religion; a merely moral system can be accepted only
in circumstances which completely prohibit the religious element.
Combined with the desire for it is a certain healthy scepticism as to
whether moral instruction can be imparted in small doses, and whether
the more effective influence is not the general discipline and tone of
the school. The discussions at the Conference, which represented every
shade of official and religious opinion, followed the same line. The
emphatic testimony of Christian and Mohammedan dwelt on the need for
the religious sanction, the Hindu testimony on the same need, but also
on the impossibility for Hindus of finding a common ground amongst
themselves. “No teaching which rests merely upon the basic principles
of religion will be accepted by Hindus as taking the place of directly
orthodox religion.”[156] The incorporation of moral teaching in the
Government system by means of a general text-book seemed at best only a
makeshift, and did not meet with universal approval.
The evidence of the Allahabad Conference reveals a need and a deadlock.
The country needs morality taught under religious sanction, but how
can a Government pledged irrevocably to religious neutrality provide
this? The granting of equal opportunity in the Government and
municipal schools for parallel instruction in the various faiths, as
Sir Valentine Chirol suggests,[157] would not meet the special case of
the Hindus, and might possibly complicate the position of the mission
schools. The disintegration of a school where rival influences were
at work would further render impossible the unity necessary to tone
and discipline. The solution of the problem seems rather to lie in the
_religious influence of a single kind_, and this is possible only
in the aided schools. The development of these, and the allocation of
a greater proportion of public funds to them, especially now that the
indigenous Indian schools of the newer type are developing religious
instruction, would be in historical continuity with the principles of
1854, and would not contradict the principles of neutrality.
The problem of female education was not considered separately at
Allahabad, and there was no reference throughout the discussion to
girls’ schools. But though girls’ education may be assumed to be some
fifty years behind that of boys, a great deal of the report has a very
direct bearing on our subject as indicating dangers to be avoided and a
more profitable course to be pursued. The whole question is even more
vital in their case, as the removal of religious and moral principles
would be fraught with consequences even more serious to the community.
How far is the education of women in India undermining their religious
beliefs? How far is this influence being counteracted by moral
teaching, or by definite instruction in the principles of their own
religion or of Christianity?
As regards the vast proportion of girls who attain a mere literacy
in the Primary schools, the disintegrating influence can scarcely be
said to have begun; on the other hand, in the Government and municipal
schools there is a lack of constructive influence guiding them towards
that which is true, honest, and of good report. Exceptional women
amongst the few trained teachers may use the opportunity afforded by
the moral lessons in the readers, but only the exceptional women.
Schools started for girls by Indian societies have arisen mostly in the
later period of religious revival, and some of their Primary schools
are saturated with religion. In so far as an outsider can judge, this
tends mainly to the abnormal development of the repetitive faculty. In
the Christian Primary schools the influence of the Biblical instruction
given naturally varies enormously according to the method of the
Indian teacher and according to the frequency of the visits of the
English missionary. The writer has watched a Scripture lesson given
by an Indian teacher to a group of Bengali girls aged about eight
years; their attention, response, and independent questions compared
favourably with those of English children of the same age. It is also
part of the ordinary experience of the zenana visitor to find the
influence and memory of these school lessons still alive amongst those
who have long left school.