{"id":2400,"date":"2013-07-13T01:41:22","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2400"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:41:22","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:22","slug":"32-on-education-education-vol-01-early-cultural-writings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/01-early-cultural-writings\/32-on-education-education-vol-01-early-cultural-writings","title":{"rendered":"-32_On Education -Education.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n

\n \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t Education<\/b><\/span><\/font>
\n\t\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t \t\t\t\tYour Highness and Gentlemen,
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t The subject on
\nwhich I
\nwish to
\naddress you this evening, and if
\nyou are sufficiently interested and have sufficient patience to pursue the subject farther with me, for
\nperhaps another evening or
\ntwo, is
\nEducation. Some of
\nyou may ask
\nyourselves, why this subject rather than another? It is
\nnot a
\nnew subject but rather quite a
\nthreadbare one; you have already heard and read much about it
\nand probably listened to
\nmuch better lectures on
\nthe subject than any I can
\ngive you; it has
\nbesides been handled by a
\ngreat many men in
\nhigh places of
\nauthority; most of
\nall, it has
\nbeen taken up by no less a
\nperson than Lord Curzon himself and measures are to be
\nformulated and perhaps carried into execution for
\nthe reform of
\nwhat is
\ndefective in
\nthe present system. “What more do
\nyou want,” you will perhaps ask, “or why should we
\ntrouble ourselves about it? The Government of India will in
\nits own good time reform the whole business and of course when their new system is in
\nforce the Baroda Schools and Colleges will assimilate themselves to
\nit. Meanwhile it is
\nquite superfluous for us to
\nbother our heads about the matter.” Now in
\nanswer to
\nthat attitude I
\nhave to say
\nthis that the Government of
\nIndia is in
\nthe first
\nplace not the fit
\nbody to
\nformulate the necessary improvements and in
\nthe second place not the fit
\ninstrument to
\nput them into force. It is
\nnot fit to
\nformulate them because it
\ncannot realise and feel as we do
\nwhere the shoe pinches us
\nand therefore in
\nmending it [ incomplete<\/i>] <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t INTELLECTUAL<\/b>
\n\t\t\t\t<\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t We
\nnow come to
\nthe intellectual part of
\neducation, which is certainly larger and more difficult, although not more important than physical training and edification of
\ncharacter. The Indian<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 357<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t University system has confined
\nitself entirely to
\nthis branch and it might have been thought that this limitation &
\nconcentration of energy ought to
\nhave been attended by
\nspecial efficiency &
\nthoroughness in
\nthe single branch it
\nhad chosen. But unfortunately this is
\nnot the case. If
\nthe physical training it
\nprovides is
\ncontemptible and the moral training nil, the mental training is
\nalso quantity and worthless in
\nquality. People commonly say
\nthat it is
\nbecause the services &
\nprofessions are made
\nthe object of
\neducation that this state of
\nthings exists. This I
\nbelieve to be a
\ngreat mistake. A
\ndegree is
\nnecessary for
\nservice and therefore people try to
\nget a
\ndegree. Good! let it
\nremain so.
\nBut in
\norder for a
\nstudent to
\nget a
\ndegree let us make it
\nabsolutely necessary that he
\nshall have a
\ngood education. If a
\nworthless education is
\nsufficient in
\norder to
\nsecure his object & a
\ngood education quite unessential, it is
\nobvious that the student will not incur great trouble and diversion of
\nenergy in
\norder to
\nacquire what he
\nfeels to be
\nunnecessary. But change this state of
\nthings, make
\nculture &
\ntrue science essential and the same
\ninterested motive which now makes
\nhim content with a
\nbad education will then compel him to
\nstrive after culture and true science. As practical men we
\nmust recognise that the pure enthusiasm of knowledge for
\nknowledge’s sake
\noperates only on
\nexceptional minds or in
\nexceptional eras. In
\ncivilised countries a
\ngeneral desire for
\nknowledge as a
\nmotive for
\neducation does
\nexist but it is
\nlargely accompanied with the earthier feeling that knowledge is
\nnecessary to
\nkeep up
\none’s position in
\nsociety or to succeed in
\ncertain lucrative or
\nrespectable pursuits &
\nprofessions. We in India have become so
\nbarbarous that we send
\nour children to school with the grossest utilitarian motives unmixed with any disinterested desire for
\nknowledge; but the education we
\nreceive is
\nitself responsible for
\nthis. Nobody can
\ncherish disinterested enthusiasm for a
\nbad education; it can
\nonly be
\nregarded as a means to some
\npractical end. But make
\nthe education good, thorough &
\ninteresting and the love of
\nknowledge will of
\nitself awake in the mind and so
\nmingle with &
\nmodify more selfish
\nobjects. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t The real source of
\nthe evil we
\ncomplain of is
\ntherefore something different; it is a
\nfundamental &
\ndeplorable error by
\nwhich<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 358<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t we in
\nthis country have confused education with the acquisition of
\nknowledge and interpreted knowledge itself in a
\nsingularly narrow &
\nilliberal sense. To
\ngive the student knowledge is
\nnecessary, but it is
\nstill more necessary to
\nbuild up in
\nhim the power of
\nusing his knowledge. It
\nwould hardly be a
\ngood technical education for a
\ncarpenter to be
\ntaught how to
\nfell trees so as to
\nprovide himself with wood &
\nnever to
\nlearn how to
\nprepare tables, chairs &
\ncabinets or
\neven what tools were necessary for his craft. Yet this is
\nprecisely what our system of
\neducation does. It
\ntrains the memory and provides the student with a
\nstore of facts &
\n\t\t\t\tsecond-hand ideas. The memory is
\nthe woodcutter’s axe and the store he
\nacquires is
\nthe wood he has
\ncut down in
\nhis course of
\ntree felling. When he has
\ndone this, the University says to
\nhim “We now declare you a
\nBachelor of
\nCarpentry; we have given you a
\ngood &
\nsharp axe
\nand a
\nfair nucleus of
\nwood to
\nbegin with. Go
\non, my
\nson, the world is full of
\nforests and provided the Forest Officer does
\nnot object you can
\ncut down trees &
\nprovide yourself with wood to
\nyour heart’s content.” Now the student who goes
\nforth thus equipped, may
\nbecome a
\ngreat timber-merchant but unless he is an
\nexceptional genius he
\nwill never be
\neven a
\nmoderate carpenter. Or to
\nreturn from the simile to
\nthe fact, the graduate from our colleges may be a good clerk, a
\ndecent vakil or a
\ntolerable medical practitioner, but unless he is an
\nespecial genius, he
\nwill never be a
\ngreat administrator or a
\ngreat lawyer or an
\neminent medical specialist. These eminences have to be
\nfilled up
\nmainly by
\nEuropeans. If an
\nIndian wishes to
\nrise to
\nthem, he has to
\ntravel thousands of miles over the sea in
\norder to
\nbreathe an
\natmosphere of
\nliberal knowledge, original science and sound culture. And even then he
\nseldom succeeds, because his lungs are too debilitated to
\ntake in a
\ngood long breath of
\nthat atmosphere. <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t The first
\nfundamental mistake has
\nbeen, therefore, to confine ourselves to
\nthe training of
\nthe storing faculty memory and the storage of
\nfacts and to
\nneglect the training of
\nthe three great manipulating faculties, viz. the power of
\nreasoning, the power of
\ncomparison and differentiation and the power of
\nexpression. These powers are present to a
\ncertain extent in
\nall men
\nabove the<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 359<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t state of
\nthe savage and even in a
\nrudimentary state in
\nthe savage himself; but they exist especially developed in
\nthe higher classes of
\n\t\t\t\tcivilised nations, wherever these higher classes
\nhave long centuries of
\neducation behind them. But, however highly developed by
\nnature, these powers demand cultivation, they demand that bringing out of
\nnatural abilities which is
\nthe real essence of education. If
\nnot so
\nbrought out in
\nyouth, they become rusted &
\nstopped with dirt, so
\nthat they cease to
\nact except in a
\nfeeble, narrow &
\npartial manner. Exceptional genius does
\nindeed assert itself in
\nspite of
\nneglect and discouragement, but even genius self-developed does
\nnot often achieve as
\nhappy results and as
\nfree & large a
\nworking as
\nthe same
\ngenius properly equipped &
\ntrained. Amount of
\nknowledge is in
\nitself not of
\nthe first
\nimportance; but to make
\nthe best use of
\nwhat we
\nknow. The easy
\nassumption of our educationists that we
\nhave only to
\nsupply the mind with a smattering of
\nfacts in each
\ndepartment of
\nknowledge &
\nthe mind can be
\ntrusted to
\ndevelop itself and take its own suitable road, is contrary to
\nscience, contrary to
\nhuman experience and contrary to
\nthe universal opinion of
\ncivilised countries. Indeed the history of
\nintellectual degeneration in
\ngifted races always begins with the arrest of
\nthese three mental powers by
\nthe excessive cultivation of
\nmere knowledge at
\ntheir expense. Much as we
\nhave lost as a
\nnation, we
\nhave always preserved our intellectual alertness, quickness &
\noriginality; but even this last gift is
\nthreatened by our University system, & if it
\ngoes, it
\nwill be
\nthe beginning of irretrievable degradation & final
\nextinction. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t The very first
\nstep in
\nreform must therefore be to
\nrevolutionize the whole aims &
\nmethods of
\nour education. We
\nmust accustom teachers to
\ndevote nine-tenths of
\ntheir energies to the education of
\nthe active mental faculties, while the passive retaining faculty, which we
\ncall the memory, should occupy a recognised &
\nwell-defined but subordinate place, and we
\nmust direct our school &
\nuniversity examinations to
\nthe testing of these active faculties &
\nnot of
\nthe memory. For this is an
\nobject which cannot be
\neffected by
\nthe mere change or
\nrearrangement of
\nthe curriculum. It is
\ntrue that certain subjects are more apt to
\ndevelop certain faculties than others; the power of
\naccurate<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 360<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t reasoning is
\npowerfully assisted by
\nGeometry, Logic &
\nPolitical Economy; one of
\nthe most important results of
\nlanguages is to
\nrefine &
\ntrain the power of
\nexpression, and nothing more enlarges the power of
\ncomparison &
\ndifferentiation than an
\nintelligent study of
\nhistory. But no
\nparticular subject except language is essential, still less
\nexclusively appropriated, to
\nany given faculty. There are types of
\nintellect, for
\ninstance, which are constitutionally incapable of
\ndealing with geometrical problems or
\neven with the formal machinery of
\nLogic, and are yet profound, brilliant &
\ncorrect reasoners in
\nother intellectual spheres. There is in
\nfact hardly any subject, the sciences of
\ncalculation excepted, which in
\nthe hands of a
\ncapable teacher, does
\nnot give room for
\nthe development of
\nall the general faculties of
\nthe mind. The first thing needed therefore is
\nthe entire and unsparing rejection of the present methods of
\nteaching in
\nfavour of
\nthose which are now being universally adopted in
\nthe more advanced countries of
\nEurope. <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t But even in
\nthe narrower sphere of
\nknowledge acquisition to
\nwhich our system has confined
\nitself, it has
\nbeen guilty of other blunders quite as
\nserious. Apart from pure mathematics, which stands on a
\nfooting of
\nits own, knowledge may be
\ndivided into two great heads, the knowledge of
\nthings &
\nthe knowledge of
\nmen, i.e. to say of
\nhuman thought, human actions, human nature and human creations as
\nrecorded, preserved or
\npictured in
\nliterature, history, philosophy &
\nart. The latter is
\ncovered in
\nthe term humanities or
\nhumane letters, and the idea of a liberal education was
\nformerly confined to
\nthese, though it was subsequently widened to
\ninclude mathematics & has
\nagain been widened in
\nmodern times to
\ninclude a
\nmodicum of
\nscience. The humanities, mathematics &
\nscience are therefore the three sisters in
\nthe family of
\nknowledge and any self-respecting system of education must in
\nthese days
\nprovide facilities for
\nmastery in any one of
\nthese as
\nwell as for a
\nmodicum of
\nall. The first
\ngreat error of
\nour system comes in
\nhere. While we
\ninsist on
\npassing our students through a
\nrigid &
\ncast-iron course of
\nknowledge in
\neverything, we
\ngive them real knowledge in
\nnothing. [What does an average Bombay graduate who has
\ntaken English Literature for<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 361<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t his optional subject, know of
\nthat literature? He has
\nread a
\nnovel of
\nJane Austen or
\nthe Vicar of
\nWakefield, a
\npoem of
\nTennyson or a
\nbook of
\nMilton, at
\nmost two plays of
\nShakespeare, a
\nwork of Bacon’s or
\nBurke’s full of
\nideas which he is
\ntotally incompetent to
\ndigest and one or
\ntwo stray books of
\nPope, Dryden, Spenser or
\nother, & to
\ncrown this pretentious little heap a mass of second-hand criticism dealing with poets &
\nwriters of
\nwhom he has not studied a
\nsingle line. When we
\nremember that English is
\nthe main study of
\nour schools &
\ncolleges, what a
\nmiserable outturn is
\nthis, what a
\nwretched little mouse
\nout of
\nthat mountain of drudgery from which the voice of
\nthe oppressed student is
\nheard painfully &
\nmonotonously repeating like Valmekie under his mound the lesson with which he has
\nbeen crammed. But he is
\nfar more unfortunate than Valmekie, his mar mar mar has not been converted into Ram Ram
\nRam; for
\nwhile he
\nthinks he has
\nbeen repeating the saving word which gives intellectual salvation, it has
\nbeen unknown to
\nhim converted into a
\ndeath dealing word which causes
\nintellectual sterility &
\nimpotence.]<\/span><\/font><\/font><\/font>1<\/sup><\/font>
\n\t\t\t <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t Mathematics for
\ninstance is a
\nsubject in
\nwhich it
\nought not to be
\ndifficult to
\ngive thorough knowledge, for
\nmost of
\nits paths are well beaten and being a
\nprecise &
\ndefinite subject it does not in
\nitself demand so
\nmuch & such
\nvarious powers of
\noriginal thought &
\nappreciation as
\nliterature &
\nhistory; yet it is
\nthe invariable experience of
\nthe most brilliant mathematical students who go
\nfrom Calcutta or
\nBombay to
\nCambridge that after the first
\nyear they have exhausted all they have already learned and have to
\nenter on
\nentirely new &
\nunfamiliar result. It is
\nsurely a
\ndeplorable thing that it
\nshould be
\nimpossible to
\nacquire a thorough mathematical education in
\nIndia, that one should have to go
\nthousands of
\nmiles and spend thousands of
\nrupees in
\norder to
\nget it. Again if we
\nlook at
\nScience, what is
\nthe result of
\nthe pitiful modicum of
\nscience acquired under our system? At
\nthe best it
\nturns out good teachers who can
\nturn others through the same
\nmill in
\nwhich they themselves have been ground. But the object of
\nscientific instruction [ incomplete<\/i>] <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t  <\/p>\n

\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t 1 Passage
\nbracketed by
\nSri Aurobindo in the
\nmanuscript. -Ed.<\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 362<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Education   Your Highness and Gentlemen, The subject on which I wish to address you this evening, and if you are sufficiently interested and have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-early-cultural-writings","wpcat-49-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}