Page:Shantiniketan; the Bolpur School of Rabindranath Tagore.djvu/62

42 one as the peculiar characteristics of the Bengali boys as distinguished from English boys. In the grounds of the School there is a small Hospital building in which the boys when ill reside, and to which outdoor patients from the surrounding villages come for treatment. There is a qualified doctor in charge, but the nursing is done almost entirely by the boys themselves, who, in the case of the serious illness of one of their schoolfellows, divide the night up into watches of two hours each, and look after the patient all night. They seem to have a natural instinct which makes them splendid nurses even when they have not had any special training. It is not only towards the boys themselves that they show this care, but when necessity arises for helping some poor villager from the neighbourhood they will go to the village, and perhaps carry the patient on a stretcher to the School Hospital in order that he may get proper treatment.

The story of Jadav well illustrates this remarkable spirit. Jadav was one of the boys in the lower part of the School. He was only about eleven years old, but he was a brilliant boy and full of promise. He was taken ill while he was with us and died in the ashram.