PRIMARY EDUCATION.
It is too late in the day now to discuss whether it was wise to begin
our educational policy as we did from the top and to devote so much of
our energies and resources to secondary at the expense of primary
education. The result has certainly been to widen the gulf which divides
the different classes of Indian society and to give to those who have
acquired some veneer, however superficial, of Western education the only
articulate voice, often quite out of proportion to their importance, as
the interpreters of Indian interests and desires. One million is a
liberal estimate of the number of Indians who have acquired and retained
some knowledge of English; whilst at the last census, out of a total
population of 294 millions, less than sixteen millions could read and
write in any language--not fifteen millions out of the whole male
population and not one million out of the whole female population--and
this modest amount of literacy is mainly confined to a few privileged
castes.
With the growth of a school of Indian politicians bent upon undermining
British rule, the almost inconceivable ignorance in which the masses are
still plunged has become a real danger to the State, for it has proved
an all too receptive soil for the calumnies and lies of the political
agitator, who, too well educated himself to believe what he retails to
others, knows exactly the form of calumny and lie most likely to appeal
to the credulity of his uninformed fellow-countrymen. I refer
especially to such very widespread and widely believed stories as that
Government disseminates plague by poisoning the wells and that it
introduces into the plague inoculation serum drugs which destroy
virility in order to keep down the birth-rate. No one has put this point
more strongly than Lord Curzon:--
What is the greatest danger in India? What is the source
of suspicion, superstition, outbreaks, crime---yes, and also
of much of the agrarian discontent and suffering amongst
the masses? It is ignorance. And what is the only antidote
to ignorance? Knowledge.
Curiously enough, it was one of Lord Curzon's bitterest opponents who
corroborated him on this point by relating in the course of a recent
debate how, when the Chinsurah Bridge was built some years ago over the
Hughli, "the people believed that hundreds and thousands of men were
being sacrificed and their heads cut off and carried to the river to be
put under the piers to give the bridge stability, so that the goddess
might appreciate the gift and let the piers remain." And he added:--"I
know that ignorant people were afraid to go out at nights, lest they
might be seized and their heads cut off and thrown under the piers of
the Hughli Bridge."
It was, however, on more general consideration, as is his wont, that Mr.
Gokhale moved his resolution in the first Session of the Imperial
Council at Calcutta last winter for making elementary education free and
compulsory, and for the early appointment of a committee to frame
definite proposals.
Three movements [he claimed] have combined to give
to mass education the place which it occupies at present
amongst the duties of the State--the humanitarian movement
which reformed prisons and liberated the slave, the
democratic movement which admitted large masses of men
to a participation in Government, and the industrial movement
which brought home to nations the recognition that
the general spread of education in a country, even when it
did not proceed beyond the elementary stage, meant the
increased efficiency of the worker.
The last of these three considerations is, perhaps, that which just now
carries the most weight with moderate men in India, where the general
demand for industrial and commercial development is growing loud and
insistent, and Mr. Gokhale's resolution met with very general support
from his Mahomedan, as well as from his Hindu, colleagues. But, in the
minds of disaffected politicians, another consideration is, it must be
feared, also present, to which utterance is not openly given. It is the
hope that the extension of primary schools may serve, as has that of
secondary schools to promote the dissemination of seditious doctrines,
especially amongst the "depressed castes" to which the political
agitator has so far but rarely secured access.
Whatever danger may lie in that direction, it cannot be allowed to
affect the policy of Government, who gave to Mr. Gokhale's resolution a
sufficiently sympathetic reception to induce him to withdraw it for the
present. To the principle of extending primary education the Government
of India have indeed long been committed, and increased efforts were
recommended, both in the Educational Despatch of 1854 and by the
Education Commission of 1883. Stress was equally laid upon it by the
Resolution of 1904 under Lord Curzon, who already, in 1902, had caused
additional grants, amounting to more than a quarter of a million
sterling, to be given to provincial Governments for the purpose. Under
Lord Minto's administration Government seemed at one moment to have gone
very much further and to have accepted at any rate the principle of free
education, for in 1907 the Finance Member conveyed in Council an
assurance from the Secretary of State that "notwithstanding the absence
of Budget provision, if a suitable scheme should be prepared and
sanctioned by him, he will be ready to allow it to be carried into
effect in the course of the year, provided that the financial position
permits." It was rather unfortunate that hopes should be so prematurely
raised, and it would surely have been wiser to consult the local
Governments before than after such a pronouncement. For when they were
consulted their replies, especially as to the abolition of fees, were
mostly unfavourable, and this year also Government, whilst expressing
its good will, felt bound to defer any decision until the question had
been more fully studied and the financial situation had improved.
The present situation is certainly unsatisfactory. In 1882 there were
85,000 primary schools in India recognized by the Educational Department
which gave elementary education to about 2,000,000 pupils. In 1907,
according to the last quinquennial report, the total attendance had
increased to 3,631,000; but though the increase appears very
considerable, the Director-General of Education had to admit that,
assuming progress to be maintained at the present rate, "several
generations would still elapse before all the boys of school age were in
school." And Mr. Gokhale's resolution applies, at least ultimately, to
girls as well as to boys! Now in British India--i.e., without counting
the Native States--the total number of boys of school-going age on the
basis of the four years' course proposed for India would be nearly 12
millions, and there must be about an equal number of girls. The total
cost to the State according to the estimates of local Governments would
be no less than £15,000,000 per annum, whilst non-recurring expenditure
would amount to £18,000,000. The fees at present paid by parents for
primary education, which is already free in some parts of India and in
certain circumstances, make up only about £210,000 per annum. The whole
of the enormous difference would, therefore, be thrown upon the Indian
taxpayers, who now have to find for primary education less than £650,000
per annum. Even Mr. Gokhale does not, of course, propose that this
educational and financial revolution should be effected by a stroke of
the pen, and one of his Hindu colleagues held that, it would be contrary
to all Hindu traditions for parents to avail themselves of free
education if they could afford to pay a reasonable sum for it.
But even if the state of Indian finances were likely within any
appreciable time to warrant an approximate approach to such vast
expenditure, or if Government could entertain the suggestions made by
Mr. Gokhale for meeting it, partly by raising the import duties from 5
to 7-1/2 per cent, and imposing other taxes, and partly by wholesale
retrenchment in other departments, the financial difficulty is not the
only one to be overcome. Model schoolhouses could no doubt be built all
over India, if the money were forthcoming, instead of the wretched
accommodation which exists now, and is so inadequate that in the Bombay
Presidency alone there are said to be 100,000 boys for whom parents
want, but cannot obtain, primary education. But what of the teachers?
These cannot be improvised, however many millions Government may be
prepared to spend. There is an even greater deficiency of good teachers
than of good schoolhouses, and, in some respects, the value of primary
education still more than that of secondary education depends upon good
teachers--teachers who are capable of explaining what they teach and not
merely of reeling off by rote, and imperfectly, to their pupils lessons
which they themselves imperfectly understand. The total number of
teachers engaged in primary education exceeds 100,000, but their
salaries barely average Rs.8 (10s. 8d.) a month. So miserable a pittance
abundantly explains their inefficiency. But there it is, and a new army
of teachers--nearly half a million altogether--would have to be trained
before primary education, whether free and compulsory, as Mr. Gokhale
would have it, or optional and for payment, as others propose, could be
usefully placed within the reach of the millions of Indian children of a
school-going age.
In this as in all other matters, the Government of India cannot afford
to stand still, and will have to take Indian opinion more and more into
account. But whilst there is a very general consensus that more should
be done by the State for primary education, there is no unanimity as to
its being made free and compulsory. Various Indian members of Council
have expressed themselves against it on different grounds. Some contend
that many parents cannot afford, as bread-winners, to be deprived of the
help of their children. According to others, there is already much
complaint amongst parents that school-going boys do not make good
agriculturists and affect to consider work in the fields as beneath
their dignity. Others, again, ask, and with some reason, who is going to
care for boys of that age who may have to leave their homes and be
removed from parental control in order to attend school. There is,
doubtless, something in all these objections. Assuming that Government
can do more than it has hitherto done to further primary education, the
wisest course would be to improve the quality rather than the quantity,
and, most of all, the quality of the teachers. Here, again, uniformity
should be avoided rather than ensued. No primary curriculum can be
evolved which will meet the needs alike of the rural population and of
the townsfolk, or of the different parts of India with their varying
conditions of climate and temperament. Even more than with regard to
secondary schools, the needs of parents must be consulted, and the
greatest latitude given to provincial Governments to vary the system in
a practical spirit and in accordance with local requirements. Nor can
the opinion, strongly held by many parents, be overlooked that religious
instruction cannot be safely excluded from the training of such young
children. Some of the objects to be kept specially in view have been
well stated by Mr. Orange, the Director-General of Public Education:--
We desire to see, if not in every village, within reach of
every village, a school, not an exotic, but a village school,
in which the village itself can take pride, and of which the
first purpose will be to train up good men and women and good
citizens; and the second; to impart useful knowledge, not
forgetting while doing so to train the eye and the hand so
that the children when they leave school, whether for the
field or the workshop, will have begun to learn the value of
accurate observation and to feel the joy of intelligent and
exact manual work.
This is undoubtedly the goal towards which primary education should be
directed, but it can only be reached by steady and continuous effort
spread over a long term of years. Otherwise we shall discover, again too
late, that, as in the case of secondary education, most haste is worst
speed.
I shall not attempt to deal with the question of female education,
either primary or secondary, for it is so intimately bound up with the
peculiarities of Indian, and especially Hindu, society, that it would be
difficult for the State to take any vigorous initiative without running
a great risk of alarming and alienating native opinion[21]. Owing to
Indian social customs and to the practice of early marriage or at least
of early seclusion, for girls, their education presents immense
practical difficulties which do not exist in the case of boys. Hence the
slow progress it has made. At the last census only eight per thousand
women could read and write; and in the whole of India only about half a
million girls, or four out of every 100 of a school-going age,--even on
the basis of a four years' course, are receiving any kind of education.
Of such as do go to school nine out of ten only go to primary schools.
Mr. Gokhale himself has abandoned the idea of making primary education
compulsory for girls as well as for boys. Female education is just one
of the questions upon which Indian opinion must be left to ripen,
Government giving, in proportion as it ripens, such assistance as can be
legitimately expected. It has long engaged the attention of enlightened
Indians, and in some communities, especially amongst the Aryas of the
Punjab, some headway is being made. The Parsees, of course, as in all
educational and philanthropic developments, have always been in the
van. With the growth of Western education the Indian woman of the higher
classes cannot indefinitely lag behind, and, if only to make their
daughters more eligible for marriage, the most conservative Indian
parents will be compelled to educate them, as some have already done, so
that they shall not be separated from their male partners by an
unfathomable gulf of intellectual inferiority. In Calcutta, in Bombay,
in Madras, and indeed in all the principal cities of India, one may
already meet native ladies, both Hindu and Mahomedan, of education and
refinement, who, however few their numbers, are shining examples of what
Indian womanhood can rise to when once it is emancipated from the
trammels of antiquated custom.