{"id":308,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:14","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=308"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:14","slug":"127-a-national-university-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/01-bande-mataram-volume-01\/127-a-national-university-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-127_A National University.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nA
\nNational University<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n               
\n<\/font>
\nT<\/font><\/b>HE<\/b>
\nidea of a National University is one of the ideas which have formulated
\nthemselves in the national consciousness and become part of the immediate
\ndestiny of a people. It is a seed which is sown and must come to its fruition,
\nbecause the future demands it and the heart of the nation is in accord with the
\ndemand. The process of its increase may be rapid or it may be slow, and when the
\nfirst beginnings are made, there may be many errors and false starts, but like a
\nstream gathering volume as it flows, the movement will grow in force and
\ncertainty, the vision of those responsible for its execution will grow clearer,
\nand their hands will be helped in unexpected ways until the purpose of God is
\nworked out and the idea shapes itself into an accomplished reality. But it is
\nnecessary that those who are the custodians of the precious trust, should guard
\nit with a jealous care and protect its purity and first high aim from being
\nsullied or lowered.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n            There have been many attempts before the present movement to rescue
\neducation in India from subservience to foreign and petty ends, and to
\nestablish Colleges and Schools maintained and controlled by Indians which would
\ngive an education superior to the Government-controlled education. The City
\nCollege, the Ferguson College and others started with this aim but they are now
\nmonuments of a frustrated idea. In every case they have fallen to the state of
\nordinary institutions, replicas of the Government model, without a separate
\nmission or nobler reason for existence. And they have so fallen because their
\npromoters could not understand or forgot that the first condition of success was
\nindependence \u2014 an independence jealously preserved and absolute. In other words
\nthere can be no national education without national control.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n            A certain measure of success has been secured by two institutions of
\na later birth, the Benares Hindu College and the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College.
\nThese are successful institu-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-717<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ntions, but isolated. They have not developed into centres of a network of
\nschools affiliated to them and forming one corporate body. They have not in
\nthemselves the makings of Universities. So far as they give religious teaching
\nthey are a wholesome departure from the barren official form of education, but
\nthat is only one part of education on national lines. National education cannot
\nbe defined briefly in one or two sentences, but we may describe it tentatively
\nas the education which starting with the past and making full use of the present
\nbuilds up a great nation. Whoever wishes to cut off the nation from its past is
\nno friend of our national growth. Whoever fails to take advantage of the present
\nis losing us the battle of life. We must therefore save for India all that she
\nhas stored up of knowledge, character and noble thought in her immemorial past.
\nWe must acquire for her the best knowledge that Europe can give her and
\nassimilate it to her own peculiar type of national temperament. We must
\nintroduce the best methods of teaching humanity has developed, whether modern or
\nancient. And all these we must harmonise into a system which will be impregnated
\nwith the spirit of self-reliance so as to build up men and not machines \u2014 national
\nmen, able men, men fit to carve out a career for themselves by their own
\nbrain-power and resource, fit to meet the shocks of life and breast the waves of
\nadventure. So shall the Indian people cease to sleep and become once more a
\npeople of heroes, patriots, originators, so shall it become a nation and no
\nlonger a disorganised mass of men.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n            National education must therefore be on national lines and under
\nnational control. This necessity is the very essence of its being. No one who
\nhas not grasped it can hope to build up a National University. Mrs. Besant has
\nrecently begun a campaign in favour of national education and in a recent speech
\nhas outlined her idea of a National University. We have every respect for this
\ngreat orator and organiser, but we are bound to point out that an university
\norganised by Mrs. Besant will not be a National University. In the first place
\nthe future University must be one built up by the brain and organising power of
\nIndia’s own sons. It shall never be said that the first National University in
\nIndia was the creation of a foreigner and that the<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-718<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nchildren of the Mother were content to follow and imitate but could not lead and
\noriginate. Such a charge would be fatal to the very object of the University.
\nSecondly, Mrs. Besant has forgotten that the basis of a National University has
\nalready been laid. The National Council of Education in Bengal has already
\ncommenced the great work on lines which have only to be filled in, and their
\nwork has received the blessing of God and increases. But Mrs. Besant has omitted
\nto make any mention of their work and speaks as if she intended to have the
\nBenares College as the basis of the National University. But the Benares College
\nhas shown itself unfit for so huge a task. It has been obliged to rely on
\nforeign funds and to court Government patronage. Even the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic
\nCollege is a more robust growth, for it has been built up by the munificent
\nself-sacrifice of the Arya Samaj. No institution which cannot rely on the people
\nof India for its support and build itself up without official support or
\npatronage, can be considered to have established its capacity of developing into
\na National University. Finally, Mrs. Besant shows by her scheme that she is not
\nin possession of the true secret of the movement. She wants a Charter from
\nEngland. We are aware that she talks of organising the University with the help
\nof Indian talent and keeping it as a preserve for Indian control, but when she
\nasks for a Charter it is evident that she has not realised what national control
\nimplies. No Government will give a Charter which excludes them from all control.
\nThere may be no provision for control in the Charter itself, but the power that
\ngives the Charter can at any moment insist on seeing that the University merits
\nthe Charter. Once this constructive possibility of control is allowed to
\novershadow the infant institution, goodbye to its utility, its greatness, its
\nfuture. It will follow the way of other schools and colleges and become a
\nfruitless idea, a monument of wasted energy and frustrated hopes.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nA
\nMisconception<\/a><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n


\n <\/font> <\/font> <\/p>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

\nThe Englishman <\/i>is waiting with bated breath for the amendment of the
\nPress Act. As soon as a sedition trial is concluded and<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-719<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nsavage sentence meted out to the supposed offender the Englishman <\/i>feels
\nthe necessity of a stricter law providing for the extinction of the whole
\nseditious lot, including the editor, contributors, printer, publisher and
\nproprietor. The Englishman <\/i>complains that in this respect the law in
\nIndia is behind even that of China where all the different persons connected
\nwith the publication of a newspaper can be satisfactorily dealt with. The
\nEnglishman’<\/i>s
\n<\/i>idea of progressiveness in these matters is no doubt peculiar
\nand does not call for any serious notice. According to our contemporary the
\nPress Law will perhaps be perfectly modernised if provision is made to shoot
\ndown everyone found to be in possession of any of the alleged seditious prints.
\nHowever, we are not much concerned with the curious notions of the bureaucracy
\nand its advisers about freedom of speech. We want to remove one misconception
\nboth from the minds of our Anglo-Indian and Indian critics in this connection.
\nWhatever may be the literary ability of the printers and publishers of these
\nprosecuted papers they thoroughly understand their mission and willingly offer
\nthemselves as sacrifices in spite of dissuasion, to keep alive this sort of
\npatriotic literature in the country. They come forward out of a strong patriotic
\nimpulse and offer to shield ability behind their heroism to ensure the
\ncontinuity of propagandist work according to their own ideas and ideals.
\nPrinters or publishers, theirs is the moral and legal responsibility for the
\ndissemination of the ideas which are sought to be put down. These men are really
\nthe prophets and martyrs and those for whose blood the Anglo-Indian Press and
\nthe bureaucracy seem to be so thirsty are merely the dressers of their ideas.
\nThe new batch of printers and publishers who are rushing to jail one after
\nanother are not mere mercenary instruments but young men fired with divine
\nenthusiasm and heroic devotion to the cause of their country. Those who talk
\nlightly of the printers and publishers of these alleged seditious papers should
\ntake note of this fact, and then judge if any severity of the Press Act can at
\nall put an end to this sort of literature.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nBande Mataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i>
\n<\/font>
\nFebruary 24, 1908<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-720<\/font><\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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