BY Prof. B. S. MATHUR, M.A.
(The D. A. V. College, Cawnpore)
Rabindranath Tagore has described the beginnings of
his school-life thus: “One day I saw my elder brother, and my sister’s son
Satya, also a little older than myself, starting off to school leaving me
behind, accounted unfit. When Satya came back, full of unduly glowing accounts
of his adventures on the way, I felt I simply could not stay at home. Our tutor
tried to dispel my illusion with sound advice and a resounding slap, ‘You are
crying to go to school now; you will have to cry a lot to be let off later
on’…..Never in my life have I heard a truer prophecy.” Tagore could not get the
benefits of education in a ‘recognised’ institution. The reason lay in the
utter tyranny practiced in schools. This tyranny Tagore could not tolerate. His
free spirit could not bend. Education in his days, as now, was not an
assistance, but a repression.
The advice given by his tutor is, in a considerable
measure, helpful even at the present day. It must be admitted, however, that
today certain changes have been effected towards freeing the atmosphere in
schools and colleges, and for this we have to thank the nationalist urge for
greater freedom in all spheres of life. In fact, in educational circles, there
is a strong conviction that the tyranny that exists in the educational
institutions must be given a decent burial. New methods of education
concentrate on principles rather than on details. An example will illustrate
this point. There was a time when teachers of Mathematics tried to confuse
their pupils by giving extremely complicated problems to be solved by them.
That thing is gone, at least to some extent. In Training Colleges teachers who
lecture on methods of teaching emphasise this point in clear words. In
Arithmetic it is emphasised that very complicated and taxing fractions should
not be used. That is just a tendency, and if it is carried to its logical
consummation in all subjects that are taught there will certainly be a freer
atmosphere, and no more need for the advice given by Tagore’s tutor. Then
‘tests’ will be really an attempt to measure what the candidates know, not what
they do not know. So education will be a help and not a terror.
But there is still the tyranny of subjects that go
on multiplying. Researches in educational psychology have clearly demonstrated
the uselessness of teaching more than what actually can be retained by the
pupil. This multiplication of subjects for the study of the pupil is a
dangerous thing. It might suppress his intelligence and capacity for grasping
the things that matter in life, and lead to sorrow and disappointment. So a
definite outlook has to be encouraged; emphasis on memory work must cease; the
number of subjects that a pupil has to study must be cut down; and a freer
atmosphere without the threat of punishment must prevail. And this freer
atmosphere will not encourage discipline that is merely mechanical. Real inner
discipline will follow and then it will be right education, inspiring and interesting.
Imitation plays an important part in education. The
desire to imitate is inherent in human beings, and children advance by
imitating the acts of their elders. But elders, who are fortunate enough to be
in contact with little children, have a certain responsibility to assist rather
than repress the children. It has to be admitted that small children have, in
the course of their real education, to unfold an unlimited fund of
possibilities and potentialities. Their education has just to be an opening of
the unknown that is already in them. This unfolding has to be allowed full play
as these children have to develop their personality. Dr. Maria Montessori has
indicated this responsibility in these words in her book entitled, “The Secret
of Child-hood.” “Thus, instead of helping the child in his most essential
psychic need, the adult substitutes himself for the child in all the acts the
child wants to perform by himself, thus closing every path of activity to him
and becoming the mightiest impediment to his vital evolution!”
There is a conflict between the adult and the
child. First, the child has just to adjust himself to a world that is not his
own, a world that has been created by the adult for the education of the child.
The adult quite naturally sees the possibility of the man in the child, and
gives him an opportunity to become a mere copy of his own self. He little
realises that the child urgently needs a different world in which to unfold
himself. He has to be a helping agent rather than an agent for substituting his
own personality for the personality of the child. It is true that the adult has
to indulge in some helpful acts, which may be imitated by the child. This
imitation must be free so that the child may go beyond his master or the adult.
The child has a predisposition to do something, and this the adult must know:
for then the adult will just help the child to advance according to his own
inclinations. Otherwise there will be a great repression. Hence we have to
start a campaign for the veneration of the child. Also the adult has to realise
clearly that he must act rather slowly and pleasantly in the presence of little
children, if he does not want to force his personality on the child. The child
will get an opportunity to watch the adult closely if he acts slowly. If he
acts rapidly he will soon succeed in substituting his own personality for that
of the child, who is then not able to unfold himself. He will suffer a
repression.
Now it is clear that there has to be a complete
atmosphere of freedom for the growth of the child. This atmosphere of freedom
has to be achieved not only in schools, but also in our homes. Education is a
continuous process. There is education in schools and there is education in
homes. And hence the great emphasis on the capacity of adults to teach their
children. Else there will be little harmony. A child is educated to behave in a
certain fashion in his school, and when he comes back, when he is in his own
home he is told to behave in a different fashion. The result is that he is not
at home in his own home. This is the tragedy. To illustrate the point: in
schools children are taught to behave with a manly spirit in the presence of
elders and strangers. If they behave properly, in the fashion directed, they
are called “smart” and they get rewarded. But what happens when they are in
their own home? Stranger and elders are present. Either they are not allowed to
come out in their presence or they are asked to be mannerly. Here mannerly implies
being shy. So there is a conflict. What are the reasons for this
conflict, and therefore for the consequent tyranny?
Firstly, there is the ignorance of the parents.
They are not really educated. They may have a good deal of book-knowledge. But
they have no real training themselves, to give a real training to their
children. They fail to understand that they are not to be the masters of their
children. They are just assistance and have to create circumstances that may
accord with the inclinations of their children. And so Alice Meynell has
remarked that the world has to adjust itself to the need of the children then
there is a false sense of culture and refinement. Parents do not realise that
life is living. Life means a constant conference. It may be true that political
aims may not be fulfilled by conferences and missions; but, so far as the real
education of the child is concerned, it will come through missions and
conferences. Conference will make the child a ready man. He will learn to be
smart. This they do not realise, and they think their child to be a good child
if he is shy and if he does not come out. Again, there is the fear of failure.
This is often a false sense of failure. If a child fails to behave properly on
one occasion in the presence of strangers and elders, it does not mean that he
should be kept in hiding, and altogether repressed.
If such a repression is common there will be no
room for adventure; This adventure has to be guided by the child’s
inclinations. But if his inclinations are suppressed, when he comes out he is,
as William Hazlitt would say, put out. He is confused and he does not
know how to behave. There is, on the contrary, an adventure at the wrong end.
Things that are to be suppressed are given full opportunity to come out. The
dark side of the child is fully developed. The result is that the child does
not have pleasure. He is sad and morose, little inclined to work. He courts
isolation and develops selfishness to the breaking point. He breaks with the
members of the family. He breaks with the rest of the world. Necessarily there
follows chaos and frustration.
At the close of 1930, Sir S. Radhakrishnan
bewailed, in the course of his Convocation Address to the Punjab University:
“In our country today, we are suffering from want of understanding. Whether it
is between the Indian and the British or the Hindu and the Muslim, we are up
against the same difficulty. Even when we seem to understand each other, we
suddenly reach a point where it becomes clear that we do not have a sufficient
grasp of each other’s meaning.” This must stop. Let there is real assistance,
and not a suppression, through education.
Education can be of assistance if teachers are a
constant source of light and learning. Here these words of Tagore are apt: “A
teacher can never truly teach unless he is still learning himself. A lamp can
never light another lamp unless it continues to burn with its own flame. The
teacher who has come to the end of his subject, who has no traffic with his
knowledge, but merely repeats his lessons to his students, can only load their
minds; he cannot quicken them. Truth not only must inform but also inspire.”
Tagore has rightly stressed the real qualification of a teacher, who has to be
an effective and perennial light and guide. Such a thing is possible for a
teacher if he is in constant touch with books and his pupils. The constant
touch with books does not imply mere study of textbooks. The teacher must go a
sufficient way higher. Then he will inspire and quicken. Certainly memory work
must cease and teaching should be an encouragement, a mode of quickening and
stimulation. Pupils to be successful and active spectators of life, need to be
trained in a lively fashion. Else they will have a certain amount of
ill-digested matter, good enough to be discarded, neglected and unused. Real
assistance will come through real teachers.