Page:Mahatma Gandhi, his life, writings and speeches.djvu/300

M. K. Gandhi so many Boses and Rays that their existence would not have been a matter of surprise to us.

Leaving aside the question whether Japan's activities are in the right direction or not we can say that the extraordinary enterprise and progressive life they have shown is due to their education being given in Japanese. Their education has infused a new life among the people which has been a wonder to the gaping world. Instruction through a foreign medium brings about untold evils.

There must be a correspondence between the impressions and expressions we receive with our mother's milk and the education we receive at school. A foreign medium destroys the correspondence, and whosoever helps this destruction, however pure his motives, is an enemy of his country. The evil does not stop here. The foreign medium has created an unnatural gulf between the educated classes and the masses at large. We do not understand the masses and the masses do not understand us. They regard us as foreigners and they fear and distrust us. If this state of things continues for long, Lord Curzon's charge that we do not represent the masses will some day prove to 180