Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/450

 360 EARLIER INDIAN SPEECHES.

similar experiment here. A national institution has been in existence for the last five months and has received the blessings of Prof. Dhruva and other learn- ed men of Gujarat. The ex-Professor Shah of the Gujarat College is its Principal. He has been trained under Prof. Gajjar. He has as his co-workers other lovers of Gujarati. I am chiefly responsible for the schema of this institution. But all the teachers con- necled with it have approved of it and they have dedicated their lives to the work, receiving only mainte- nance money. Owing to circumstances beyond my control, I am unable personal ly to take part in the tuition, but my heart is ever in it My experiment there- fore, though it is all that of an amateur, is not devoid of thought and I ask you to bear it in mind while you consider in/ criticism, of modern education.

I have always felt that the scheme of education in India has taken no account of the family system. It was perhaps natural that, in framing it, our wants were not thought of. M'icaulay treated our literaturewith con- tempt and considered us a superstitious people. The frames of th? educational pulicy w^re mostly ignorant of our religion, some even deemed it to be irreligion. The scriptures were believed to be a bundle of superstitions, our civilisation was considered to ba fall of defects. We being a fallen natioi, it was assumed that our organis- ali ^n must be peculiarly defective and so not withstand- ing pure intention; a faulty structure was raised. For bu'ldm:; a n^vv scln-n^ the framers naturally took count of t'i3 ii3 ir ist c ) iditiDiu. Tti3 Governors would want the hilp of the lawyers, p hysrcians, clerks. We would winl t'i^ n^w kn)vvled^3. These ideas controlled the schsm?. Text books were, therefore, prepared in utter

�� �