Page:Mahatma Gandhi, his life, writings and speeches.djvu/298

M. K. Gandhi language, but if we take to navigation nautical phraseology will frame of itself.

Mr. Gandhi then proceeded to give a quotation from Rev. Taylor's grammar of the Gujarati language in support of the above.

He then referred to the laudable efforts of the Arya Samaj in making Hindi the medium of instruction in their Gurukul; and of the Telugu people in using Telugu as the vehicle of education. In Maharastra Professor Karve and Prof. Naick both work in the same direction. In Professor Bijapurkar's school they had already prepared suitable text-books in Marathi. They are all hopeful about the success of their work. In Gujarat there was a movement already for imparting instruction through Gujarati. Prof. Gajjar and the late Dewan Bahadur Manibhai Jarbhai may be regarded as the pioneers and it now remains with us to consider whether we shall water the plant sown by them or allow it to wither away.

Experienced teachers say that what takes sixteen years to learn through English can perfectly be acquired in ten years at the most through the vernaculars. If thousands of our students save six years each of their 178