Page:Shantiniketan; the Bolpur School of Rabindranath Tagore.djvu/58

38 the class on the way. When this happens they are supremely happy, and we go off together with no other anxiety than that of getting back in time for the evening meal.

For the younger boys Nature Study forms part of their work, and during the whole of one term one class was kept busy in collecting all the varieties of leaves and grasses that could be found in the neighbourhood. Sometimes they would find an unexpected addition to their collection of botanical specimens, by getting a thorn into their bare feet, for all the boys go about barefoot in the ashram. But their feet are so hardened to the gravel and thorny paths which abound all round the School that it is only the new boys that find any hardship in such an experience. Occasionally on a clear night one of the teachers gives a simple lesson in astronomy, and shows the moon and stars through a small telescope, and when lantern slides can be obtained illustrated lectures are given in the evenings, sometimes in the open air and sometimes in one of the dormitories. It is always possible to find one or two of the more practical boys eager to take charge of the lantern, and fix up the sheet.

Bengali is the medium of instruction through-