There
is a passionate debate in the universities and the Press regarding
(a)
the periods allotted to the study of languages,
(b)
the usefulness or the lack of it in the study of literature,
(c)
the science-orientation of the curriculum,
(d)
the replacing of English by the mother-tongue,
(e)
the study of English as a ‘library’ language, and
(f)
the falling-off of standards in English.
In
this emotion-charged debate certain basic facts seem to consistently ignored or
not mentioned. Many do not know what they say. Some who say the right things do
not mention the right reasons. It is not enough to say that you like
Shakespeare. You have to point out why all should study Shakespeare. This essay
tries to pinpoint these basic facts so that the issues might be viewed and
judged dispassionately.
There
is no need to underline the importance of the study of languages. It is implied
in the word Logos which means word or thought. Vaagarthaaviva sampruktau.
Wittgenstein and others have pointed out that without language there is no
thought. Man is a talking animal. Remove talking; man is a mere animal.
Theoretically we can say that thought is wider than speech, that thinking is
possible without language. But for all practical purposes the limits of our
language are the limits of our thought. That is, without words there is no
thinking. If there are no words like tree, leaf, blossom, etc, we cannot think
about the tree. Henry James in an oft-quoted context remarked that all problems
come back to the question of speech. Simeon Potter in his Language in the
Modern World writes: “When there is any kind of interference with the free
speaking of a given language or dialect, or an endeavour to enforce its
use, much more than the linguistic factor is at stake.” (p. 184) Bloomfield
suggests in his great book: “It is only a prospect, but not hopelessly
remote, that the study of language may help us towards the understanding and
control of human events.” (p. 509) To regard language as superfluous is to
regard lather as superfluous in shaving. Language is a social activity. It is
the instrument of human progress. Without it we are dumb statues. In Dewey’s
library classification language appropriately stands between Sociology and
Natural Sciences. So the attempt of our so-called educationists to reduce
language study is based on unawareness and sounds like Peter’s denial of
Christ.
“It
is enough if we have language as a tool of communication. Where is the need to
study literature or old classics like Shakespeare and Milton instead of modern
writers?” is the second denial. It is not understood that the study of
literature is advocated because of the nature of man and the theory of
knowledge. Man is cognitive, conative and affective. Our education is said to
be purely cognitive and hence lopsided. Emotions are wild
horses that drag us hither and thither. They cannot be drilled into a queue
easily. Literature to some extent chastens the affective side of man. Newman
recognises the difficulty when he writes: “Quarry the
granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread silk.” (Knowledge
its own end.) Unlike other disciplines literature brings the whole soul of
man into activity. We are, wrote Dr. Johnson in his Life of Milton:
“Geometricians by chance but perpetually moralists.” Bloom’s celebrated
taxonomy of educational objectives is helpful. Hence the need for the study of
literature.
It
is being increasingly recognised now that the insights of poets are as valid as
the insights of scientists. If H2O is valid for one kind of
activity, Keats’s lines:
“The
moving waters at their priest-like task
Of
pure ablution round Earth’s human shores”
are also valid in
another way. The growth of the mind is facilitated by various disciplines.
Students are not noisy buckets into which knowledge can be pumped. The work of
Susan Isaacs and Valentine Bowlby and Paiget proves this. Kenneth Charlton
writes “In the 20th century, however, there appears to be a move towards a synthesis
of knowledge and this may very well lead us by the end of the century to a
quite different approach to the nature of knowledge and therefore of the
curriculum and curriculum theory.” (Changing the Curriculum, p. 76)
Hence Aldous Huxley’s plea for a Chair for Synthesis in every university in his
well-known Ends and Means. In a way we go back to Newman’s knowledge is
one and indivisible. In the words of John F. Kerr, we need to consider the
types of relationships that should obtain both within and between the
main areas of knowledge...“The theory of knowledge raises many questions about
the relationship of the various disciplines to the development of mind and to
the nature of knowledge.” (Changing the Curriculum, p. 27)
Literature
is the creative use of language. It is through literature that we acquire even
language skills. As Carlyle puts it “the best grammarians have been the worst
writers.” It is poets who create language. That is why Prof. Raleigh quipped
that the philologist knows everything about the word except the use to which it
is put.
Rishinaam
punah aadyanaam vaachamarthaanudhaavati.
As
the principle of augmentation is not applicable to literature, old classics
cannot be set aside. When our meddlers with education abolish literature, their
ignorance is interesting in its variety and scope. They rush where angels fear
to tread.
Next,
these meddlers say: “Let all these periods released by the abolition or
reduction of language study be devoted to science.” This conflicts with the
advanced theory of education in the West. Barker in his booklet on the British
universities writes that “the whole trend now is to see that Institutes of
Technology are not allowed to remain purely technological.” The lopsidedness of
a purely scientific and technological syllabus should be rectified by what he
calls ‘aesthetic technology’. This is the old warning of the humanist that we
have learnt to fly in the air, to cross the ocean but have not learnt how to
live. As Dr. Nisbet says: “We are plagued by our achievements, for material
progress has inevitably taken toll of traditional culture. There are, as the
recent Apollo moon landings make clear, great events taking place in our
society. But they are events of the technological, not the social, order.” (The
American Review, October, ’70, p. 27) Conquest of nature, initiated by
Bacon, is the boast of science. But Ecology tells us that this boast is pitiful
and absurd. It is Max Born’s mournful conclusion that the contemporary
scientific revolution has destroyed ethics. Thinkers realize now that science
can no longer remain ethically neutral as applied science degenerates into
mis-applied science. Harvey Wheeler pleads for bringing science under law. (The
American Review, July ’70, p. 55)
If
this is the pattern of thinking in the West, how is it our educationists force
on us obsolete ideas? It is just like obsolete military hardware of the West
becoming our brand new equipment. A book like Henn’s The Apple and the
Spectroscope should modify our obsolete ideas. There is need for the
science student to test on the pulse of his being the truth of:
“One
impulse from the vernal wood
Will
teach you more of man,
Of
moral evil and of good
Than
all the sages can.”
Otherwise
he is not educated in the best sense of the word. Scientific boon-doggling has
been scandalous. Peterson suggests development of four main modes of thought:
the analytic, the empirical, the morals the aesthetic. Phenix classifies
knowledge into six realms: Symbolics, Emperics, Aesthetics, Ethics, Synoptics,
Synnoetics. It is even pointed out by Mario Poi that the student of science
needs training in language as much as or even more than the student of the arts
because most of the scientific terms are derived from Greek and Latin roots.
The student of science should have the linguistic training to know that
cyclotron should be cyclon, that the word scientist itself is wrong, that
splitting the atom is a contradiction in terms; he should get a diploma in
technical lexicography. Even a student of Economics should know why Slump was
replaced by Depression, Depression by Recession, Recession by Downturn. How do
terms Rightists and Leftists come into vogue? A student of politics should know
that they have reference to the Bible and the primitive idea of the right hand.
Language is the biography of the human race, the history of thought.
All
over the country the move now is to replace English by the mother-tongue
Telugu, Tamil, etc. For the sake of argument it should be pointed out that the
mother-tongue concept is absurd linguistically. There is no mother-tongue or
grandmother-tongue. In the study of language the distinction is drawn between
cultural transmission and genetic transmission, Sleeping, walking, etc., are
the result of genetic transmission but language is the product of cultural
transmission. That is, even if you are born in Tamil Nadu of Tamilian parents
you do not acquire proprietary rights over Tamil. You have to learn it as you
learn English. And it is not proved that we learn our mother-tongue more easily
and quickly than we do another language. “The debate as to whether the learning
of a foreign language by an adult is qualitatively different from a child’s
acquisition of his native language remains unsolved.” (Linguistics, VOA
Forum Lectures, Carroll, p. 187) In common parlance we use the expression
mother-tongue as we say: The sun rises, the sun sets, though the sun neither
rises nor sets. As Harry Hoijer puts it succinctly: “Human children have no
language at birth.” (Ibid., p. 61) Speaking pragmatically, not
theoretically, we have a mother-tongue. The adoption of the mother-tongue or
regional medium leads, as everybody knows, to balkanization of the country,
freezes mobility from one state to another, reduces ‘employment opportunities’,
is fatal to the unity of the country.
The
‘language condition’ of our country is bedevilled by the use of many languages.
If there is only one, one can opt for it on linguistic (not patriotic) grounds.
No language as language is superior or inferior to another. A language may be
less rich at a point in time, but given the opportunity, it will develop. For
instance, there is astonishing resemblance between the language condition in
our country and that in England after the Norman Conquest. Just as Jeremiahs
here say: “What will happen to our Law and Medicine if English is removed?”
Jeremiahs in England at that time said: “What will happen to the Law Courts if
French removed?” As we know French was removed though terms like Oyez still
remain and English flourished. And Bacon’s despairing cry that English would
become bankrupt was falsified, Basham tells us that the doctors of the East
India Company learnt rhinoplasty from native physicians and Sine in
Trigonometry is Aryabhatta’s term Jira mistranslated by the Arab and the
Spaniard. Do the Russians and the Japanese wail: “What will happen if English
goes? - Did our ancients depend on English to make The Wonder was India?” But
as is pointed out earlier, there is not one language to replace English and
hence the need to retain it.
Educationists
do realize the need for retaining English. It should be studied as a library
language, they say. If regional language is the medium in the high schools and
colleges and if English is retained in the post-Graduate courses, where is the
equipment for the student to use this library language? It is just like cutting
off a man’s legs and expecting him to sprint at the Olympic games. It is
difficult to understand the logic or commonsense behind this. You are asked to
reduce your diet but increase in weight.
Every
body admits that standards in English are deplorably low, and all kinds of
diagnoses are publicised solemnly and remedies suggested with
fervour. The reason stares us in the face and we have eyes that see not. With the
going of the British rule their language has lost its prestige and there is no
incentive to study it well. A language is learnt effectively if there is an
incentive. Students used to flock to the Engineering course at one time; now
the rush is not great. Let every State Government notify that unless a student
gets 50 per cent in English he won’t get a job. Standards in English will go up
in no time. Philip H. Taylor says: “What has been missing until recently is
interest in the business of learning for its own sake, something which is
considered by many educationists to be a central feature.” (Changing the
Curriculum, p. 83) There is neither ‘the exploratory drive’ (as it is
termed) nor the temptation of cashing in the proficiency in English on
something.
Policy
makers shout: “Let us modernise the syllabi.” It shows an amazing capacity on
our part to deceive ourselves by words. ‘Modern’ is one such word. A modernised
syllabus for English published recently stresses the need for exercises in the
usage of words, elements of grammar and structure, etc. In all honesty, what is
the modernisation here? This insistence was there from the beginning when we
were students in the first form. We have all been products of the old system of
teaching and learning and we are not bad as far as the use of English goes. A
Professor of English in the Kings College, London, under whom I did research
told me that he listened to excellent English at Madras. If English has lost
that excellence at Madras now, it is not the system that is in fault. That
system produced eminent writers and speakers who have carved a place for
themselves in the pantheon of Indian Writing in English.
Something else is responsible for the low standards.
Language
consists of words and the syntax of words. A magical word like ‘modernise’ does
not bring about a change. A language has to be learnt the hard way. When a King
asked Euclid to teach him geometry easily, he was told: “O King, there is no
royal road to geometry.” Even teachers of English suggest naively that
Shakespeare and Milton should be replaced by modern poets forgetting that
Shakespeare is understood much easier than a modern poet. You can read a whole
play of Shakespeare in two hours than half a dozen lines of a modern poet in a
day. That is why C. S. Lewis stated in De Discriptione Temoprum that
seven scholars conducted a seminar on Eliot’s A Cooking Egg and could
not come to any agreement about its interpretation. This is modern poetry! And
we fall plump for it! And one is amused at the seriousness with which these
suggestions are made. A student of literary criticism knows that some old
authors may be modern and a writer of today may not be modern at all. Plato is
said to be perpetually modern. Donne is modem but Bridges is not, though Donne
is Elizabethan and Bridges is of the 20th century. Swift’s English is modern
though he belongs to the 18th century, whereas Hardy’s is said to be slipshod
though he is a late Victorian. ‘Modernise the syllabus’ is fatuous in its
naivety; it is the class-rooms which have to be modernised. The teacher
lectures to masses, not classes. The overcrowded class-rooms are a negation of
education.
When we know
1.
that without speech there is no thought,
2.
that literature also is knowledge,
3.
that educationists advocate inter-disciplinary fertilization,
4.
that literature alone chastens the affective side of man,
5.
that old classics cannot set aside as the principle of augmentation is not
applicable to the arts,
6.
that emphasis on science conflicts with an advanced theory of education implied
in aesthetic technology,
7.
that the concept of the mother-tongue is linguistically absurd,
8.
that the adoption of it is fatal to the country and its citizens,
9.
that you can’t eat your cake and have it too, that is, you can’t have the
mother-tongue, reduce the importance of English indirectly and still use
English as library language,
10.
that the falling-off of standards is not because of a system which is more
sinned against than sinning,
11.
that we have an amazing capacity of deceiving ourselves with words like
modernise, reform, change and saying: ‘Off with Shakespeare’ but not realizing
that it is easier to understand Shakespeare than a modern poet,
we have to conclude
that
in the political configuration of our country it is unwise to have the
mother-tongue as the medium,
that
the falling standards in English can be arrested only by offering a strong
incentive for learning it well.
Quack remedies do not
set right the educational set-up. Our experimentation and modernising are
because of our confusing change with progress. Mere change is not progress; it
may even be the negation of progress.
The
best thing we can do is to stick to English and see that standards are raised.
A book like Changing the Curriculum suggests hundred and one things
about education. For instance, Paul H. Hirst points out how a simple fact:
Harold Wilson (or Edward Heath) is the Prime Minister cannot be taught without
concepts or that curriculum innovation requires the migration of subject
specialists. But let us stabilize what we have; let us not play ducks and
drakes with the unity of the country and the growth of the younger generation.
Nirad
Chaudari states bitingly in The Continent of Circe that the only
efficient mass-production factory in India is the nationalised factory of
words. We, Indians, are fond of talk and do-nothingism. Let us not experiment
and ruin our country; let us read Shakespeare and progress. It is the good
student, writes Lord Robins in his great document on Higher Education, that
makes the great teacher. Let all our efforts be directed towards creating this
good student in this Babel of Tongues.
How
far we have strayed away from what a university stands for is seen in our
strident cries about examination reform. In the view of a Commission this
reform should be the first and foremost. There cannot be a greater travesty of
a university than this attitude Examinations are the least part of a
university. The late Livingstone (in whose house at Oxford I spent a delightful
hour) in his Plato and Modern Education remarks that modern universities
have become howling dust-storms of a vast examination system losing sight of
education as such so much so education leads to ‘elaborate barbarism’. To
remedy the ills of higher education through examination reform is like trying
to cure a T. B. patient by cough mixture. Newman sbates his preference for a
university which does not conduct examinations at all.
One
of the fundamental investigations in the linguistic field is the tyranny words
exercise over us. We think we are the masters of language; we are the slaves of
language. We think we use language; language uses us. Men imagine, said Bacon
long ago with amazing acuteness, that their minds have command of language; but
it often happens that language bears rule over their minds. Language is there
before an individual is born, as Frank Musgrove puts it, and it will be there
after he is dead. It was not born with him and does not die with him. Language
is a social fact which can only be understood in relation to other facts of the
same order.
If
we monkey with the language problem, there is every risk of our relapsing into
monkeys. We may lose the essence and cling to the bosom
of the ape.