THE INDIAN STUDENT.
The fundamental weakness of our Indian educational system is that the
average Indian student cannot bring his education into any direct
relation with the world in which, outside the class or lecture room, he
continues to live. For that world is still the old Indian world of his
forefathers, and it is as far removed as the poles asunder from the
Western world which claims his education. I am not speaking now of the
relatively still very small class amongst whom Western ideas are already
sufficiently acclimatized for the parents to be able to supplement in
their own homes the education given to their children in our schools and
colleges. Nor am I speaking of the students who live in hostels under
the superintendence of high-minded Englishmen, and especially of
missionaries such as those of the Oxford Mission in Calcutta, or the
Madras Christian College, who have to reject scores of applicants for
want of space. Those also form but a small minority. In Calcutta, for
instance, out of 4,500 students barely 1,000 live in hostels, and not
all hostels are by any means satisfactory. In the Indian Universities
there is no collegiate life such as English Universities afford, and in
India most of the secondary schools as well as colleges are
non-residential. The majority of those who attend them, unless they live
at home, have therefore to board out with friends or to live in
promiscuous messes, or, as is too often the case, in lodgings of a very
undesirable character, sometimes even in brothels, and almost always
under conditions intellectually, morally, and physically deleterious.
Lest I may be accused of exaggeration or bias, I will appeal here to the
testimony of Dr. Garfield Williams, a missionary of the highest repute
and experience, and in profound sympathy with the natives of India.
Speaking at the Missionary Conference at Calcutta last winter, he
said:--
The conditions and environment of the student in Calcutta
are such as to make the formation of character almost impossible....
He is not a student in the best sense of
the word, for he has not the scholarly instincts of a student--
I speak, of course, of the average student, not of the exceptional
one. His parents send him to the University to pass
one or two examinations, and these have to be passed in order
to enable him to attain a higher salary.... His work
is sheer "grind." The acquisition of good notes for lectures
is the first essential for him, and the professor who gives
good clear-cut notes so that a man can dispense with any
text-books is the popular professor--and for two reasons:
first of all, it saves the expense of buying the text-book,
and then, of course, it helps to get through the examination.
That is a reason why two boys of the same village will go
to different colleges because they can then "swap" notes.
It is a very rare thing for a student to have money enough
to buy more than one of the suggested books on a given
subject for examination. He learns by heart one book
and the notes of lectures of two or three of the favourite
professors in Calcutta. There is many a man who has even
got through his examinations without any text-book of any
kind to help him, simply by committing to memory volumes
of lecture notes.... I know of no student who labours
more strenuously than the Bengalee student. The question
is how to prevent this ridiculous wastage of students;
how to prevent the production of this disappointed man
who is a student only in name. He never had any desire
to be a student in nature; he was brought up without that
desire ... and indeed, if he be a boy with real scholarly
instincts, and he happens to fail in his examinations, it makes
it all the worse, for his parents will not recognize those
scholarly instincts of his--all they want is a quick return
for the money spent on his education, and he will have to
make that return from a Rs.30 salary instead of a Rs.50 one.
Can there be anything more pathetic and more alarming than the picture
that Dr. Williams draws of the student's actual life?--
He gets up about 6, and having dressed (which is not a
long process) he starts work. Until 10, if you go into his
mess, you will see him "grinding" away at his text-book,
under the most amazing conditions for work--usually stretched
out upon his bed or sitting on the side of it. The room is
almost always shared with some other occupant, usually
with two or three or more other occupants, mostly engaged
in the same task if they are students. At 10 the
boy gets some food, and then goes of to his college for about
four or five hours of lectures. A little after 3 in the afternoon
he comes home to his mess, and between 3 and 5 is usually
seen lounging about his room, dead tired but often engaged
in discussion with his room-mates or devouring the newspaper,
which is his only form of recreation and his only bit of excitement.
At 5 he will go out for a short stroll down College-street
or around College-square. This is his one piece of
exercise, if such you can call it. At dusk he returns to his
ill-lighted, stuffy room and continues his work, keeping it up,
with a short interval for his evening meal, until he goes to
bed, the hour of bed-time depending upon the proximity
of his examination. A very large percentage when they
actually sit for their examinations are nothing short of
physical wrecks.
Dr. Williams proceeds to quote Dr. Mullick, an eminent Hindu physician
who has devoted himself to helping young students:--
The places where the students live huddled up together
are most hurtful to their constitutions. The houses are
dirty, dingy, ill-ventilated, and crowded. Even in case of
infectious sickness ... they lie in the same place as
others, some of whom they actually infect. Phthisis is getting
alarmingly common among students owing to the sputum of
infected persons being allowed to float about with the dust
in crowded messes.... Most of them live in private
messes where a hired cook and single servant have complete
charge of his food and house-keeping, and things are stolen,
foodstuffs are adulterated, badly cooked and badly served.
Dr. Williams, who states emphatically that "it is not exaggeration to
say that the student is often half-starved," goes on to deal with the
moral drawbacks of a life which is under no effective supervision and is
not even under the restraints, implied in the term "good form," that
play so important a part in Universities where there is a real
collegiate life.
When you segregate your young men by thousands in the
heart of this "city of dreadful night," amid conditions of
life which are most antagonistic to moral and physical well-being...
the result is a foregone conclusion, and it
does not only mean physical degeneration, it also means moral
degeneration, and it becomes a most potent predisposing
factor in political disease. Of that there can be no shadow
of doubt.
The material conditions are not, it is true, nearly so bad in many other
parts of India as they are in Bengal, and especially in Calcutta (though
the Bengalees claim the intellectual primacy of India), and it is on the
moral and physical evils produced by those conditions that Dr. Garfield
Williams chiefly dwells. But the intellectual evils for all but a small
minority are in their way quite as grave, and they are inherent to the
system. Take the case of a boy brought up until he is old enough to go
to school in some small town of the _mofussil_, anywhere in India, by
parents who have never been drawn into any contact, however remote, with
Western ideas or Western knowledge. From these purely Indian
surroundings his parents, who are willing to stint themselves in order
that their son may get a post under Government, send him to a secondary
school, let us say in the chief town of the district, or in a University
city. There again he boards with friends of his family, if they have
any, or in more or less reputable lodgings amidst the same purely Indian
surroundings, and his only contact with the Western world is through
school-books in a foreign tongue, of which it is difficult enough for
him to grasp even the literal meaning, let alone the spirit, which his
native teachers have themselves too often only, very partially imbibed
and are therefore quite unable to communicate[18]. From the secondary
school he passes for his University course, if he gets so far, in
precisely the same circumstances into a college which is merely a higher
form of school. Whilst attending college our student still continues to
live amidst the same purely Indian surroundings, and his contact with
the Western world is still limited to his text-books. Even the best
native teacher can hardly interpret that Western world to him as a
trained European can, and unless our student intends to become a doctor
or an engineer, and has to pass through the schools of medicine or
engineering, where he is bound to be a good deal under English teachers,
he may perfectly well, and very often does, go through his whole course
of studies in school and in college without ever coming into personal
contact with an Englishman. How can he be expected under such conditions
to assimilate Western knowledge or to form even a remote conception of
the customs and traditions, let alone the ideals, embodied in Western
knowledge?
Try and imagine for a moment, however absurd it may seem, what would
have been the effect upon the brains of the youth of our own country if
it had been subject to Chinese rule for the last 100 years, and the
Chinese, without interfering with our own social customs or with our
religious beliefs, had taken charge of higher education and insisted
upon conveying to our youth a course of purely Chinese instruction
imparted through Chinese text-books, and taught mainly by Englishmen,
for the most part only one degree more familiar than their pupils with
the inwardness of Chinese thought and Chinese ethics. The effect could
hardly have been more bewildering than the effect produced in many cases
similar to that which I have instanced on the brain of the Indian youth
when he emerges from our schools and colleges.
It may be said that such cases are extreme cases, but extreme as they
are, they are not exceptional. The exceptions must be sought rather
amongst the small minority, who, in spite of all these drawbacks,
display such a wonderful gift of assimilation, or, it might perhaps be
more correctly termed, of intuition, that they are able to transport
themselves into a new world of thought, or at any rate to see into it,
as it were, through a glass darkly. But the number of those who possess
this gift has probably always been small, and smaller still, with the
reduction of the European element in the teaching staff, is the number
growing of those who have a fair chance of developing that gift, even if
nature has endowed them with it. A comparison of the Census Report of
1901 with the figures given in the Educational Statistics for 1901-2
shows that the total number of Europeans then engaged in Indian
educational work was barely, 500, of whom less than half were employed
by Government, whilst that of the Indians engaged in similar work in
colleges and secondary schools alone was about 27,500. As the number of
Indian students and scholars receiving higher education amounts to
three-quarters of a million, it is obvious that so slight a European
leaven, whatever its quality--and its quality is not always what it
should be--can produce but little impression upon so huge a mass.
Our present system of Indian education in fact presents in an
exaggerated form, from the point of view of the cultivation of the
intellect, most of the defects alleged against a classical education by
its bitterest opponents in Western countries, where, after all, the
classics form only a part, however important, of the curriculum, and
neither Latin nor Greek is the only medium for the teaching of every
subject. From the point of view of the formation of character according
to Western standards, and even from that of physical improvement, the
case is even worse. In Western countries the education given in our
schools, from the Board school to the University, is always more or
less on the same plane as that of the class from which the boys who
attend them are drawn. It is merely the continuation and the complement
of the education our children receive in their own homes from the moment
of their birth, and it moves on the same lines as the world in which
they live and move and have their being. In India, with rare exceptions,
it is not so, but exactly the reverse.
On the deficiencies of the system, from the moral point of view, a new
and terribly lurid light has been shed within the last few years. There
has been no more deplorable feature in the present political agitation
than the active part taken in it by Indian schoolboys and students. It
has been a prominent feature everywhere, but nowhere more so than in the
Bengal provinces, where from the very outset of the boycott movement in
1905 picketing of the most aggressive character was conducted by bands
of young Hindus who ought to have been doing their lessons. That was
only the beginning, and the state of utter demoralization that was
ultimately reached may be gathered from the following statements in the
last Provincial Report on Education (1908-9), issued by the Government
of Eastern Bengal:--
On the 7th of August [1908] most of the Hindu students
abstained from attending the college and high schools at
Comilla as a demonstration in connexion with the boycott
anniversary. Immediately afterwards, on the date of the
execution of the Muzafferpur murderer, the boys of several
schools in the province attended barefooted and without
shirts and in some cases fasting.... At Jamalpur the
demonstration lasted a week.... Later in the year, on
the occasion of the execution of one of the Alipur murderers,
the pupils of the Sandip Cargill school made a similar demonstration.
The report adds, in a sanguine vein, that, as a result of various
disciplinary measures, a marked improvement had subsequently taken
place, but quite recent events, during the great conspiracy trial at
Dacca, show that something more than disciplinary measures is required
to eradicate the spirit which inspired such occurrences.
The heaviest responsibility rests on those who, claiming to be the
intellectual leaders of the country, not only instigated its youth to
take part in political campaigns, but actually placed them in the
forefront of the fray. However reprehensible from our British point of
view other features of a seditious agitation may be, to none does so
high a degree of moral culpability attach as to the deliberate efforts
made by Hindu politicians to undermine the fundamental principles of
authority by stirring up the passions or appealing to the religious
sentiment of inexperienced youth at the most emotional period of
life.[19] Even the fact that political murders have been invariably
perpetrated by misguided youths of the student class is hardly as
ominous as the homage paid to the murderers' memories by whole schools
and colleges. Most ominous of all is the tolerance, and sometimes the
encouragement, extended to such demonstrations by schoolmasters and
professors. These are symptoms that point to a grave moral disease
amongst the teachers as well as the taught, which we can only ignore at
our peril and at the sacrifice of our duty towards the people of India.
In his last two Convocation speeches, Dr. Ashutosh Mookerjee has himself
felt constrained to lay special stress on the question of teachers and
politics. Alluding in 1909 to "the lamentable events of the last 12
months," he maintained, "without hesitation," that "the most strenuous
efforts must be unfalteringly made by all persons truly interested in
the future of the rising generation to protect our youths from the hands
of irresponsible people who recklessly seek to seduce our students from
the path of academic life and to plant in their immature minds the
poisonous seeds of hatred against constituted Government." This year he
was even more outspoken, and laid it down that even the teacher "who
scrupulously abstains from political matters within his class-room, but
at the same time devotes much or all of his leisure hours to political
activities and agitation, and whose name and speeches are prominently
before the world in connexion with political organizations and
functions," fails in his duty towards his pupils; for "their minds will
inevitably be attracted towards political affairs and political
agitation if they evidently constitute the main life-interest and
life-work of one who stands towards them in a position of authority."
Teachers should therefore avoid everything that tends "to impart to the
minds of our boys a premature bias towards politics."
A most admirable exhortation; but I had an opportunity of estimating the
weight that it carried with some of the political leaders of Bengal when
I accepted an invitation from Mr. Surendranath Banerjee to meet a few
Bengalee students in an informal way and have a talk with them. They
were bright, pleasant lads, and, if they had been left to themselves, I
might have had an interesting talk with them about their studies and
their prospects in life, but Mr. Banerjee and several other politicians
who were present insisted upon giving to the conversation a political
turn of a disagreeably controversial character which seemed to me
entirely out of place.
The mischievous incitements of politicians would not, however, have
fallen on to such receptive soil if economic conditions, for which we
are ourselves at least partly responsible, had not helped to create an
atmosphere in which political disaffection is easily bred amongst both
teachers and taught. The rapid rise in the cost of living has affected
no class more injuriously than the old clerkly castes from which the
teaching staff and the scholars of our schools and colleges are mainly
recruited. Their material position now often compares unfavourably with
that of the skilled workman and even of the daily labourer, whose higher
wages have generally kept pace with the appreciation of the necessaries
of life. This is a cause of great bitterness even amongst those who at
the end of their protracted, course of studies get some small billet
for their pains. The bitterness is, of course, far greater amongst those
who fail altogether. The rapid expansion of an educational system that
has developed far in excess of the immediate purpose for which it was
originally introduced was bound to result in a great deal of
disappointment for the vast number of Indians who regarded it merely as
an avenue to Government employment. For the demand outran the supply,
and the deterioration in the quality of education consequent upon this
too rapid expansion helped at the same time to restrict the possible
demand. F.A.'s (First Arts) and even B.A.'s are now too often drugs in
the market. Nothing is more pathetic than the hardships to which both
the young Indian and his parents will subject themselves in order that
he may reach the coveted goal of University distinctions, but
unfortunately, as such distinctions are often achieved merely by a
process of sterile cramming which leaves the recipients quite unable to
turn mere feats of memory to any practical account, the sacrifices prove
to have been made in vain. Whilst the skilled artisan, and even the
unskilled labourer, can often command from 12 annas to 1 rupee (1s. to
1s. 4d.) a day, the youth who has sweated himself and his family through
the whole course of higher education frequently looks in vain for
employment at Rs.30 (£2) and even at Rs.20 a month. In Calcutta not a
few have been taken on by philanthropic Hindus to do mechanical labour
in jute mills at Rs.15 a month simply to keep them from starvation.
Things have in fact reached this pitch, that our educational system is
now turning out year by year a semi-educated proletariat which is not
only unemployed, but in many cases almost unemployable. A Hindu
gentleman who is one of the highest authorities on education told me
that in Bengal, where this evil has reached the most serious dimensions,
he estimates the number of these unemployed at over 40,000. This is an
evil which no change in the relative number of Europeans and natives
employed in Government and other services could materially affect. Even
if every Englishman left India, it would present just as grave a problem
to the rulers of the country, except that the bitterness engendered
would not be able to vent itself, as it too often does now, on the alien
rulers who have imported the alien system of education by which many of
those who fail believe themselves to have been cruelly duped.
Similar causes have operated to produce discontent amongst the teachers,
who in turn inoculate their pupils with the virus of disaffection. It
was much easier to multiply schools and colleges than to train a
competent teaching staff. Official reports seldom care to look
unpleasant facts in the face, and the periodical reports both of the
Imperial Department of Public Education and of the Provincial
Departments have always been inclined to lay more stress upon the
multiplication of educational institutions and the growth in the numbers
of pupils and students than upon the weak points of the system.
Nevertheless, there is one unsatisfactory feature that the most
confirmed optimists cannot ignore. Hardly a single one of these reports
but makes some reference to the deficiencies and incapacity of the
native teaching staff. The last quinquennial report issued by Mr.
Orange, the able Director-General of Public Education, who is now
leaving India, contains a terse but very significant passage. "Speaking
generally," he writes, "it may be said that the qualifications and the
pay of the teachers in secondary schools are below any standard that
could be thought reasonable; and the inquiries which are now being made
into the subject have revealed a state of things that is scandalous in
Bengal and Eastern Bengal, and is unsatisfactory in every province."
Very little information is forthcoming as to the actual qualifications
or pay of the teachers. It appears, however, from the inspection of high
schools by the Calcutta University that out of one group of 3,054
teachers over 2,100 receive salaries of less than 30 rupees (£2) a
month. One cannot, therefore, be surprised to hear that in Bengal "only
men of poor attainments adopt the profession, and the few who are well
qualified only take up work in schools as a stepping-stone to some more
remunerative career." That career is frequently found in the Press,
where the disgruntled ex-schoolmaster adds his quota of gall to the
literature of disaffection. But he is still more dangerous when he
remains a schoolmaster and uses his position to teach disaffection to
his pupils either by precept or by example.
I have already alluded to the unfortunate effect of the recommendations
of the Public Service Commission of 1886-7 on the native side of the
Education Service. But if it has become more difficult to attract to it
the right type of Indians, it has either become almost as difficult to
attract the right type of Europeans, or the influence they are able to
exercise has materially diminished. In the first place, their numbers
are quite inadequate. Out of about 500 Europeans actually engaged in
educational work in India less than half are in the service of the
State. Many of them are admittedly very capable men, and not a few
possess high University credentials. But so long as the Indian
Educational Service is regarded and treated as an inferior branch of the
public service, we cannot expect its general tone to be what it should
be in view of the supreme importance of the functions it has to
discharge. One is often told that the conditions are at least as
attractive as those offered by an educational career at home. Even if
that be so, it would not affect my contention that, considering how
immeasurably more difficult is the task of training the youth of an
entirely alien race according to Western standards, and how vital that
task is for the future of British rule in India, the conditions should
be such as to attract, not average men, but the very best men that we
can produce. As it is, the Education Department cannot be said to
attract the best men, for these go into the Civil Service, and only
those, as a rule, enter the Educational Service who either, having made
up their minds early to seek a career in India, have failed to pass the
Civil Service examinations, or, having originally intended to take up
the teaching profession in England, are subsequently induced to come out
to India by disappointments at home or by the often illusory hope of
bettering their material prospects. When they arrive they begin work
without any knowledge of the character and customs of the people. Some
are employed in inspection and others as professors, and the latter
especially are apt to lose heart when they realize the thanklessness of
their task and their social isolation. In some cases indifference is the
worst result, but in others--happily rare--they themselves, I am
assured, catch the surrounding contagion of discontent, and their
influence tends rather to promote than to counteract the estrangement of
the rising generation committed to their charge. Some men, no doubt,
rise superior to all these adverse conditions and, in comparing the men
of the present day with those of the past, one is apt to remember only
the few whose names still live in the educational annals of India and to
forget the many who have passed away without making any mark. The fact,
however, remains that nowadays the Europeans who have the greatest
influence over their Indian pupils are chiefly to be found amongst the
missionaries with whom teaching is not so much a profession as a
vocation.