Page:Shantiniketan; the Bolpur School of Rabindranath Tagore.djvu/67

Rh sympathy. In educational work of any kind sympathy is the supreme necessity for a successful teacher, but this is truer in Bengal than in any other country in the world.

Before closing some reference should be made to the religious atmosphere of the place. I say religious atmosphere because there is no definite dogmatic teaching, and for the development of the spiritual side of the boys’ natures the ideal has always been to leave that to the natural instinct of each individual boy. In this considerable help is expected from the personal influence of the teachers, and from the silent but constant influence of close touch with Nature herself, which in India is the most wonderful teacher of spiritual truth.

Shantiniketan was founded by the father of the poet, Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, as an ashram, or religious retreat, where those in search of peace might have an opportunity for quiet and meditation, and when Rabindranath chose it as the site for his School he knew that the atmosphere of the place was an ideal one for the growth of his own ideals. The eldest son of the Maharshi, Mr. Dwijendranath Tagore, has also chosen this place for the closing years of his life, and is still living there in his seventy-fifth