Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/54

34 foretell that before the avalanche of these activities Ranade's followers would be swept away.

It is not necessary to go into the various improvements made in the system of education by the founders of the New English School. The utility and efficacy of these improvements has been tested by time. Before 1880, the distribution of History, Geography, Mathematics and Science over the different standards of schools was arbitrary, unsystematic and unsuited to young boys. Tilak, Apte and Agarkar made the necessary adjustment, which at that time provoked much comment. They also insisted on the vernacular being made the medium of instruction; they discouraged the use of English as much as possible. Special attention was paid to the equipment which the students brought to the lowest English class and as this equipment was found to be very much below the normal—it is the same even now—a Vernacular school was started with the object of providing better intellectual material to the English school and every care was taken to make the instruction in the Vernacular school animated, more systematic and less rigid. An idea of the crude educational methods of those times can be had from the fact that, when what is known as the "Subjects System," was introduced in place of the old system, it was received in no friendly spirit and a storm of opposition and criticism awaited an improvement which no man in his senses thinks of condemning now.

It was impossible for Mr. Tilak and his colleagues to rest content with the establishment of a successful High School. Since the very foundation of the New English School, Mr. Tilak had cherished the ambition