Page:Shantiniketan; the Bolpur School of Rabindranath Tagore.djvu/57

Rh verandah of one of the dormitories. This open-air class work has its great advantages, for it keeps the minds of the boys fresh in their appreciation of Nature. I remember in the middle of one class I was suddenly interrupted in my teaching by one of the boys calling my attention to the song of a bird in the branches overhead. We stopped the teaching and listened till the bird had finished. It was spring-time, and the boy who had called my attention to the song said to me, “I don’t know why, but somehow I can’t explain what I feel when I hear that bird singing.” I could not enlighten him, but I am quite sure that my class learnt more from that bird than it had ever done from my teaching, and something that they would never forget in life. For myself my ears were opened, and for several days I was conscious of the songs of the birds as I had never been before. The boys are very fond of flowers, and sometimes will get up long before dawn to be the first to pluck some new sweet-scented blossoms. These they weave into garlands for their teachers or for the poet himself.

Sometimes when the class comes at the end of the day, the boys ask that they may go out to some neighbouring village or the river, and have