GANDHUrS EXPERIMENTS

IN
EDUCATION

T. S» Avinashilingam

^ L l B R A f .Y ^ i f c .

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
19^
 ED .244

Publication N o. 435

p , ; , , : R.-. 2 .7 0 n r . or ^ s h . S^T.

NIEPA

00014

PRINTED IN INDIA BY THE MANAGER, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA PRESS^

FARIDABAD FOR THE MANAGER OF PUBLICATIONS, CIVIL LINES, DELHI-8, 1965
7
 INTRODUCTION

Gandhiji had a scientific attitude of mind. He observed facts,

sorted them before accepting them; and after weighing them well,
he drew his conclusions. He had no prejudices of any kind. A icien-
tific attitude implies that facts should be faced and conclusions drawn
without iexi or prejudice. In short the scientist must be dispassionate;
but it requires more than being a scientist to have the moral strength
to follow conclusions thus arrived at. This quality of being able to
follow one’s convictions in spite of opposition, dangers, or failures
tequixed indeed great calibre. Gandhiji, besides having a scientific
attitude, had this moral calibre which endowed him with the highest
spiritual qualities and tremendous courage to follow whatever he
considered right.
In the course of his very busy life he had occasion to observe
various aspects of life in our country. None came into closer contact
with the millions of India than he. His most absorbing passion was
to work for them- Of these, none were as dear to him as children.
He was never happier than when he was with them. It is this great
devotion and love that Gandhiji had for the children of this land
that made him evolve a new type of education for this country.
He went to schools, met teachers, conversed with students, and saw the
effects of the present day education in the country. This led him to
conclude that the system of education that was established by the
foreign government was not suited to the needs of our country.
The result was he was constantly making experiments in education.
The various experiments he made started with the training of his
own children. Later on, he had opportunities to try out his ideas
at the S{^inx Park, the Tolstoy Farm, the Champaran Schools, Sabar-
mati Ashram and latterly in numerous other institutions that were
started in pursuance of his scheme of Basic education. These experi­
ments ccmstitute an exciting chapter in the history of modern educa­
tion in India. The following pages seek to give a very brief account
of them.
This book has been written at the request of the Ministry of Edu­
cation, Government of India. The Government of India had consti­
tuted a Committee for the Promotion of Gandhiji’s Teaching and
Philosophy of Education. That Committee resolved that two books
(i)
 (ii)

should be publishcd-~one dealing with Gandhiji’s thoughts on

education and the other with his educational experiments. They have
kindly requested me to prepare both the books. The booklet on
Gandhiji’s Thoughts on Education has already been published by the
Ministry o£ Education, This book describes in brief Gandhiji’s
various educational experiments in the courae of half a century of work
for the country. An undertaking like this involves great study, deep
erudition and profundity of thought. I am painfully aware that I
am lacking in all these qualifications. Apart from a study of
Gandhiji’s works from time to time when in Jail or outside and in
the midst of other heavy work, I cannot claim any exhaustive know-
led|^ of tiie subject. I am grateful that the present assignment gave
me an opportunity to study his works again.
In this book the experiments have been described in Gandhiji’s
own language as for as possible. If this humble effort will interest
educationists and others in the subject, I shall consider myself amply
rewarded. I am grateful to the Ministry of Education, Government
of India for undertaking to publish this work.

T. S. AVINASHILINGAM

S r i R a m a k r is h n a M issio n VmvALAYA,
C o im b a t o r e
 CONTENTS

C h a pt e r Page

Introduction i

I. Historical Background 1

II. The School on the Tolstoy Farm 5

III. Training for Character 10

IV. Medium of Instruction 15

V. Educational Value of Work IS

VI. Experiment in Co-education ' 21

VII. Champaran Schools 24

VIII. Education at Sabarmati 28

IX. Address to the Students 34

X. The Gujarat Vidyapith • 42.

XI. The Spinning Wheel as an Instrument of Education 46

XII. The New Education 51

XIII. The Wardha Education Conference 56

XIV. Basic Education 65

XV. Why Basic Education? 67

XVI. Educational Methods .71

XVII. Education of the Masses 75

XVIII. Gandhiji’s Philosophy of Education m

I n d ex 85
 C h a p te r I

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Gandhiji led one of the busiest lives, the like of which could have
:fallen only to a few. He was constantly occupied with large move­
ments. He toured the nooks and comers of India many times in
the course of his struggle for freedom. He came in contact with
millions of men and women. He guided individually the destinies
•of thousands of children and adults. In addition he was the editor,
while in South Africa, of I n d ia n o p in i o n , in India, of y o u n g in d ia
and later t h e h a r i j a n . N o t w i t h s t a n d i n g his numerov;^ preoccupa­
tions, he always set apart some time every morning and evening for
prayer. It is a marvel that one whose daily programme was so
-crowded could find time for experiments in education.
Gandhiji was not very highly educated according to academic
standards. He passed from his school and q u ailed himsdf for ^ e
Bar in England. He was not a graduate of any university and mudi
lass did he specialise in education. He was not a teadter in tiie
-ordinary sense of the word and did not work in any sdiool as such.
But yet, he was deeply concerned with the educational s y s t ^ of
^ur country.
This concern was the result of his innermost feelings. He loved
this great country. He knew of its great past and had a vision
of its great future. The domination of western culture whidi made
us we«^ and slavish, pained him immensely. He was not concerned
:so much with poverty as this slavery. He considered that our
lioverty was the result of our slavery. A slave loses his initiative,
Ids sti?ength and his self-confidence. One who loses initiative,
strength and self-confidence, can only be poor. He loses the zest for
life. He feels that he cannot do anytiiing great; he begins to beg and
depend upon others. This re s u lt^ in the whole nation becoming
poor. More than poverty in food, poverty in mind and poverty in
Mgh ideals pained him deeply. He found that the educaticmal system
that was imposed on the country was both the cause and result of
this national slavery. If we were to make a new nation, we had
first to train our children. Habits are formed, confidence is instilled
and strength of mind achieved while children are young. If the
nation was to rise, he thought that the prevailing educational system
shoidd be reformed. This problem constantly exercised his mind
in the course of his meanderings, as he constantly experienced the
evil effects of the existing system of education and the undesirable
attitudes it was creating in the minds of our educated men and
women.
 Gandhiji loved children and loved them intaisely. He was happiest
when he was with them. Distinguidied visitors who came to see
him were amazed to find that he could give so much time to the
children around him. The system of education that prevailed then,
it seemed to him, was curbing their growth. It killed their initia­
tive. It made their school-life joyless. The teachers forced th e
children to an inactive, passive life which destroyed then* self-
confidence and capacity to work. Gandhijfs love of children
rebelled against this state of affairs. The one thought that troubledi
him most was how to combat this situation and do something to help
the growth of children in the proper direction.
It was this revolt that made him active in the pursuit of a new^
and b e tl^ type of educa^on. A lesser man woiild have said o r
thought & at he was engrossed in so m udi work that he had no
time for this problem. But not so Gandhiji. He considered thifr
vital and gave time for it. Hie remilt was that when he had an oppor­
tunity to deal with children, he tried to put into practice his own
ideas and ideals in education. The first opportunity arose when h e
had to bruig up his own children. He did not send his sons to th e
usual schools. He thought that the earliest school for a diild, where
proper attitudes could be created and the foundation laid for
stren g ^ of character, was the home. In spite of his busy life, h e
gave some time to his children; he talked to them and guided them.
In the coturse of his conversations with children were laid the founda­
tions of his experiments in education.
The next opportunity that he had for putting his ideas into prac­
tice was at the Sphinx Park and the Tolstoy Farm. Gandhiji went
to South Africa to practise Law. But fate ordained otherwise. H e
became the leader of the biggest freedom movement in South Africau
He inspired the Indians there with courage, strength and discipline
and made them break the Black Laws in the Statute Book of that
country. Hundreds of Indian men and women courted imprison*
ment. On their return they had to be maintained and their childre»
had to be provided with education. And this gave Gandhiji an
opportunity to try his experiments in education.
Gandhiji believed that character building was the essence of edu­
cation. While knowledge of various subjects was good and neces­
sary, the rock-bottom need for every person was to evolve a good
character. As Sri Ramakrishna had said before him, “zeroes have
value when they are put after ‘1’ but if the ‘1’ is missing, the zeroes
are zeroes.” Even so, Gandhiji believed that with character, know­
ledge was an embellishment and a distinction, but without character,
knowledge counted for nothing except to make persons selfish
exploiters. He, therefore, gathered around him a group of men and
women whom he could inspire and who believed that the develop­
ment of character was the highest form of education. When he left
South Africa, a group of Indians who had settled there came along
with him. Thus he continued his experiments in education when
he established his ashram on the banks of Sabarmati.
Closely following the establishment of the ashram came the
Champaran struggle. In the course of his tours he went to Patna.
A ryot from Champaran met him and told him about the sufferings
of the Champaran agriculturists from the white indigo-planters in
that district. Gandhiji, as usual, first wanted to make sure of facts
and accordingly made a personal enquiry. This was resisted by the
Government and he dared to court imprisonment for the cause. But
later the Government yielded and the enquiry was made. This en­
quiry revealed that the allegations about tiie tyranny and oppression
of the ryots were only too true. But more than that, his tours in
those villages proved very clearly that what the villagers needed
was proper education to enable them to lead healthy, courageous
lives. For this purpose, he called for volunteers and started many
schools in Champaran. The experience of these schools gave him
an insight into the condition of our country and the needs of our
villages.
After Champaran, Gandhiji was involved in many movements on
a nation-wide scale. During the 1920 Non-cooperation Movement
he had asked students to come out of schools and colleges.
Thousands responded. In order to provide education for them.
National Schools and Colleges were started in various parts of India
imder his inspiration and guidance.
After he was released, he undertook a whirlwind tour throughout
India for Khadi. In 1930 came the first Salt Satyagraha Movement.
In 1935, when the general elections to the Central Legislative Assem­
bly were held the Congress came out successful everywhere. When in
1937 the elections to the provincial legislatures were held, it was a
foregone conclusion that in most of the provinces Congress would
win by a large majority. After the acceptance of power by the
Congress in the States, everybody looked to Gandhiji for guidance in
the solution of the problems of education. It became both a challenge
and an opportunity for Gandhiji to devise a system of education
which would suit the Indian masses and give freedom of expresdon
to our children. Gandhiji summoned a conference of distmguished
educationists at Wardha to consider his ideas on the subject. I was
one of the invitees to the conference and we still rem«nber how he
put forward his ideas. A smaU committee studied these ideas and
though it was not able to accept everything he said, it substantially
agreed with the basic ones which he expounded. The Zakir Hussain
Committee worked out the details. What came out of it, has
\>een called the Basic Education System. Itidia’s problems were
inany and if they were to be tackled efficiently on a nationwide
•scale, Gandhiji came to the conclusion that the education in our
schools and colleges must be reorganised on a sounder footing. He
wanted oUr children and our people to be trained for the highest
ideals in life, and to that end he desired to found a society based on
self-discipline, love and service in which there would be no exploita­
tion of one by another but all would do their allotted work. In such
a system, work would have to be respected and the dignity of human
labour raised. Love for oneself would have to be expand^ into love
for one’s village, one’s country and sympathy fc^* all human beings.
At the same time he wanted a method of education in which children
€ould be cheerful and cdidd l^ito by doing. He loved our childieu. as
passiitmat^y as he loved our country and out of this love and devotion
to the child and country arose Basic Education.
Few in Hie world would have come in contact witti as many men,
women and children as it had fallen to the lot of Gandhiji. Wherever
he went, millions surrounded him. He taught millions of people
the way of a better life, better personal and social hygiene, greater
punctuality and above all the way to gain confidence to lead a life of
strength and courage. He was perhaps the greatest adult educator
«f the last many centuries. And so, not only did he evolve a system
o f education for children but he also achieved a large measure of
■adult and social education. He had a unique mind, always alert and
arec^tive to all sound ideas and free from prejudice. He examined
every idea on its merits. In various fields of life, namely, food,
health, education, etc., he constantly experimented so as to discover
the best.
In the following pages are found, in brief, accounts of his experi-
%nents in education at various stages of his life.
 C h a p te r II
THE SCHOOL ON THE TOLSTOY FARM
When Gandhiji went to South Africa, he found the Indian com­
munity there grossly ill-treated. The Community itself was dis­
organised and discontented. His sensitive mind reacted very
strongly against this. The technique of resistance that he developed
came to be called Satyagraha. In the course of this Satyagraha
large numbers of men and women courted imprisonment. When the
bread-winners were removed, their families had to be maintained.
This was indeed a big problem. Gandhiji thought over the situation
an4 found that there was only one solution. He decided tiiiat the
families should be kept at one place and become members of a co­
operative community. Besides, they should be taught to lead simple,
self-contained lives. Since at the same time the community woulid
be corporate, it was necessary to instil into its members a sense of
social justice and human regard for each other.
A suitable place to house this colony was foxmd in a farm of about
1,100 acres about 20 miles from Johannesburg. It belonged to Mr.
KaH^bach, one of the devoted friends of Gandhiji. Mr. KallaEibsK^
gave the use of the farm free to the members of the communilgr.
Oa the land, there were nearly one thousand fruit-bearing trees and
a small house which could accommodate about six persons. Water
was supplied from two wells as well as from a spring which was
about two furlongs from the house. Gandhiji invited the families
to settle there. From the v«ry beginning G a n ^ ji wanted to impress
upon th ^ n that they should have no servants on the farm for farm­
ing operations, building work or household ysrork. No servant of any
MM was entertained. Ilie various members of the colony had
share tiie work amongst them. Everything from cooking to scaven-
0 n g was done by themselves. Men and womai were housed sepa­
rately in two separate blocks each at some distance trom the otiier.
After providing these elementary comforts, Gandhiji decided to erect
a school house.
' It was Gandhiji’s idea, from the outset, that the colony should, as
far as possible, be self-suppOTting. The families were a motley crowd,
hailing from Gujarat, Tamilnad, Andhra and North India. There
were people belonging to every denomination, namely, Hindu,
Musalman, Parsi and Christian. About forty of them were young
men, two or three old, five women and nearly thirty children of
whom five were girls. It was Gandhiji's personality and the deep
reverence which every one of them had for him, that welded this
crowd into a single unit. Gandhiji thought that a school for th e
education of the children was indispensable in the colony. This, he»
found to be the most difficult of all other tasks.
Because of the large amount of work involved in running the-
farm, the school could be held only in the afternoon. Mr. Kallenbach-
and himself were the teachers. As he had mentioned in his account
in SATSTAGRAHA IN SOUTH AiTOCA, both of them were thoroughly^
exhausted by their morning labour and so were their pupils..
The children spoke three languages—Gujarati, Telugu, and Tamil.
Gandhiji was anxious to make these languages the medium
of instruction. He had learnt a little Tamil by mixing with the
Tamilians in South Africa but he did not know any Telugu. There
were not many who could be tis ^ to teach. And so the brunt of the
teaching fell on Gandhiji and it was often disturbed by his having,
to go to Johannesburg on other important work. No teacher ever had
to teach heterogeneous classes of the kind that fell to his lot, consist­
ing of pupils of all ages and both the sexes, from children of about
seven years to young men of 20 and young girls of 12—13.
His experiences as a teacher are better given in his own words.
“As the Farm grew, it was found necessary to make some pro­
vision for the education of its boys and girls. There were, among
these, Hindu, Musalman, Parsi and Christian boys and some Hindu
girls. It was not possible, and I did not think it necessary, to engage-
special teachers for them. It was not possible, for qualified Indian
teachers were scarce, and even when available, none would be ready
to go to a place 21 miles distant from Johannesburg on a small
salary. Also, we were certainly not overflowing with money. And
I did not think it necessary to import teachers from outside the Farm^
I did not believe in the existing system of education and I had a
mind to find out by experience and experiment the true system. Only
this much I know—^that, under ideal conditions, true education could
be imparted only by the parents, and that, then, there should be the
minimum of outside help, that Tolstoy Farm was a family in which
I occupied the place of the father, and that I should so far as possible
shoulder the responsibility for the training of the young.
“The conception no doubt was not without its flaws. All the
young people had not been with me since their childhood, they had
been brought up in different conditions and environments, and they
did not belong to the same religion. How could I do full justice to
the young people, thus circumstanced, even if I assumed the place of
pater-familias ?
“What was I to teach this ill-assorted group ? Again in what
language should I talk to them? The Tamil and Telugu children
knew their own mother tongue or English or a little Dutch. What
’were we to teach pupils who spoke three languages, Gujarati, Tamil
and Telugu? I was anxious to make these languages the medium
instruction. I knew a little Tamil, but no Telugu. I divided the
class into two sections, the Gujarati section to be taught in Gujarati
^ d the rest in English. As the principal part of teaching, I arranged
to tell or read to them some interesting stories. I also proposed to
Taring them into mutual contact and to lead them to cultivate a spirit
of friendship and service. Then there was to be imparted some
jgeneral knowledge of History and Geography and in some cases
Arithmetic. Writing was also taught and so were some bhajans,
which formed part of our prayers and to which therefore I t r i ^ to
attract the Tamil children as well.
“But I had always given the first place to the culture of the heart
o r the building of character, and as I felt confident that moral train­
ing could be given to all alike, no matter how different their ages
and their upbringing, I decided to live amongst them all the twenty*
four hours of the day as their father. I regarded character building
as the proper foundation for their education and, if the foimdation
was firmly laid, I was sure that the children could leam all the other
things themselves or with the assistance of friends.
“But as I fully appreciated the necessity of a literary traiJiing in
addition, I started some classes with the help of Mr. Kallenbach and
Sji. Pragji Desai. Nor did I underrate the building up of the body.
T to they got in the course of their daily routine. For there were
no servants on the Farm, and all the work, from cooking down to
scav^ging, was done by the inmates. There were many fruit trees
to be looked after, and enough gardening to be done as well. Mr.
Kallenbach was fond of gardening and had gained some experience
of ttiis work in one of the €fOvemmental model gardens. It was
obligatory on all, young and old, who were not engaged in the
kitchen, to give some time to gardening. The children had the lion’s
share of this work, which included digging pits, felling timber and
lifting loads. This gave them ample exercise. They took delight in
the work, and so they did not generally need any other exercise or
games. Of course some of them, and sometimes all of them, malin­
gered and shirked. Sometimes, I connived at their pranks, but often
I was strict with them. I dare say they did not like the strictness,
but I do not recollect their having resisted it. Whenever I was strict,
I would, by argument, convince them that it was not right to play
with one’s work. The conviction would, however, be shortlived, the
next moment they would again leave their work and go to play . All
the same we got along, and at any rate they built up fine physiques.
There was scarcely any illness on the Farm, though it must be said
that good air and water and regular hours of food were not a little
responsible for this.
 8

word about vocatibnal training. It was my intention to tcach

•very one of the youngsters some useful manual vocation. For ^ i s
purpose Mr. Kallenbach went to a Trappist monastery and returned
having learnt shoe-making. I learnt it from him and taught the art
to such as were ready to take it up. Mr. Kallenbach had some
experience of carpentry, and there was another inmate who knew it;
so we had a small class in carpentry. Cooking almost all the
youngsters knew.
“All this was new to them. They had never even dreamt that;
they would have to leam these things some day. For generally the
only training that Indian children receive in Soutii Africa was ini
the three R’s.
“On Tolstoy Farm we made it a rule that the youngster® itad d -
not be asked to do what the teachers did not do, and therefore, when,
they were asked to do any work, there was always a teach«: co—
t>perating and actually working with them. Hence whatever the*
youngsters leamt, they leam t cheerfully.
“But literary training proved a more difficult matter. I had.
neither the resourced, nor the literary equipment necessary, and 1
had not the time I would have wished to devote to that subject. Iiie>
morning had to be devoted to work on the farm and domestic duties^
so the school hours had to be kept after the midday meal. We gave"
three periods at the most to literary training. Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil
and Urdu were all taught and tuition was given through the vema--
€ulars of the boys. English was taught as well. It was also nsces*-
sary to acquaint the Gujarati Hindu with a little Sanskrit and to
teach all the children, elementary History, Geography and
Arithmetic. I had undertaken to teach Tamil and Urdu. The little-
Tamil I knew was acquired in villages and jail. I had not gone
beyond Pope’s excellent Tamil Handbook. My knowledge of the -
Urdu script was all that I had acquired on a single voyage and was •
confined to a few words I had leam t from Musalman friends. Of
Sanskrit I knew no more than I had leamt at High School. Such ,
was the capital with which I had to carry on. In poverty of literacy
equipment, my colleagues went one better than me. But my love
for the languages of my country, my confidence in my capacity a s ;
a teacher as also the ignorance of my pupils and more than that,
tibeir generosity stood me in good stead.
“The Tamil boys were all bom in South Africa, and therefore-
knew very little Tamil, and did not know the script at all. So I had i
to teach them the script and the rudiments of grammar. That was
easy enough. My pupils knew that they could any day beat me in.
Tamil conversation, and when Tamilians, not knowing English, came-
to see me, they became my interpreters. I got along merrily because *
I B«ver attempted to disguise my ignorance from my pupils. In aH
respects I showed myself to them exactly as I really was. Therefore
in spite of my colossal ignorance of the language I never lost their
love and respect. It was comparatively easier to teach the Musalman
boys Urdu. They knew the script. I had simply to stimulate in them
an interest in reading and to improve their handwriting.
“These youngsters were for the most part imlettered and un^
schooled. But I found in the course of my work that I had very little
to teach them, beyond weaning them from their laziness, and supers
vising their studies. As I was content with this, I could pull on with
boys of different ages and learning different subjects in one and th»^
same class-room.
“Of text-books, about which we hear so much, I never felt the
want. I do not even remember having made much use of the bookai
that were available. I did not find it at all necessary to load the
boys with quantities of books. I have always felt that the true text-^
book for the pupil is his teacher. I remember very little that my
teachers taught me from books but I have even now a clear recoK
lection of the things they taught me independently of books.
“Children take in much more and with less labour through their
ears than through their eyes. I do not remember haying read any^
book from cover to cover with my boys. But I gave them,^ m my
own language, all that I had digested from my reading of variousL
books, and I dare say they are still carrying a recollection of it in
their minds. It was laborious for them to remember what they
l e i ^ t from books, but what I imparted to them by word of m out^
they could repeat with the greatest ease. Reading was a task
them, but listening to me was a pleasure, when I did hot bore therr^.
by failure to make my subject interesting. And from the questionft
that my talks prom pt^ them to put, I had a measure of their power-
of understanding.”*

_ 242-3 GANDHIJI’S SATYAGRAHA IN SOUTH AFRICA-^

Navajivan, 1950, 303-5 GANDHIJI’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY—Navajivan Pub^
lishmg Hotise, 1956.
 Chapter 111
TRAINING FOR CHARACTER
Gandhiji considered that the essence of education consisted in the
gaining of the spirit and training for character. While physical and
intellectual development was necessary, the training of a child’s
l^art and spirit was more important. At the Tolstoy Farm, he gave
much thought as to how this trainiii^ could be given. In his
^Autobiography he has described in detail as to how he attemptedl
to give this spiritual training.
"The ^ iritu al training of the boys was a much more difiSlci^t
than their phyncal and m e n ^ training. I relied little on
rel^ o u s books for the training of the spirit. Of course 1 believed
^ t every student i ^ u ld be acquainted with the elements of his own
religion and have a general knowledge of his own scripture^, ai»l
therefore, 1 provided for such knowledge as best I could. But that,
to my mind, was part of the intellectual training. Long before 1
und^took the education of the yoimgsters of the Tolstoy Farm 1 had
realised that the training of the spirit was a thixig by itself. To
diefvelop the ^ ir it is to build character and to enable one to work
towards a knowledge of Gk)d and self-realisation. And 1 held that
this wsus an essential part of the training of the yoimg, and that all
training w i^out culture of the spirit was of no use, and might be
even harmful
“How then was this spiritual training to be given ? I made the
children memorise and recite hymns, and read to them from books
on moral training. But that was far from satisfying me. As I came
into closer contact with them I saw that it was not through books
that one could impart training of the spirit. Just as physical
training was to be imparted through physical exercise, and intellec­
tual through intellectual exercise, even so the training of the spirit
was possible only through the exercise of the spirit. And the exercise
of the spirit entirely depended on the life and character of the
teacher. The teacher had always to be mindful of his p’s, whether
he was in the midst of his boys or not.
“It is possible for a teacher situated miles away to affect the spirit
of the pupils by his way of living. It would be idle for me, if I were
a Uar, to teach boys to tell the truth. A cowardly teacher would
never succeed in making his boys valiant, and a stranger to self-
restraint could never teach his pupils the value of self-restraint. I
saw, therefore, that I must be an eternal object-lesson to the boys
and girls living with me. They thus became my teachers, and I
leam t I must be good and live straight, if only for their sakes. I
Gandhiji with Kallenbach and other settlers at the Tolstoy Farm
Gandhiji and Kasturba with fellow settlers at the Phoenix Settlement^ Natal, 1906
 11

may say that the increasing discipline and restraint I imposed on

myself at Tolstoy Farm was mostly due to those wards of mine.
“One of them was wild, unruly, given to lying, and quarrelsome.
On one occasion he broke out most violently. I was exasperated. I
never punished my boys, but this time I was very angry. I tried to
reason with him. But he was adamant and even tried to over-reach
me. At last I picked up a ruler lying at hand and delivered a blow
on his arm. I trembled as I struck him. I dare say he noticed i t
This was an entirely novel experience for them all. The boy cried
out and begged to be forgiven. He cried not because the beating was
painful to him; he could, if he had been so minded, have paid me
Iback in the same coin, being a stoutly built youth of seventeen; but
lie realised my pain in being driven to this violent resource. Never
again after this incident did he disobey me. Cases of misconduct
on the part of the boys often occurred after this, but I never resorted
to corporal punishment. Thus in my endeavour to impart spiritual
training to the boys and girls under me, I came to understand better
and better the power of the spirit”.*
“Day by day it became increasingly clear to me how very difficult
i t was to bring up and educate boys and girls in the right way. If
I was to be their real teacher and guardian, I must touch their hearts.
I must share their joys and sorrows, I must help them to solve the
problems that faced them, and I must take along the right channel
the surging aspirations of their youth.
“In those days I had to move between Johannesburg and Phoenix.
Once when I was in Johannesburg I received tidings of the moral
fall of two of the inmates of the Ashram. News of an apparent
failure or reverse in the Satyagraha struggle would not have shocked
me, but this news came upon me like a thunderbolt. The same day
I took the train for Phoenix. During the journey my duty seemed
clear to me. I felt that the guardian or teacher was responsible, to
some extent at least, for lapse of his ward or pupil. So riiy respon­
sibility regarding the incidents in question becarne clear to me as
daylight. I felt that the only way tiie guilty parties could be made
to realise my distress and the depth of their own fall would be for
me to do some penance. So I imposed upon myself a fast for seven
days and a vow to have only one meal a day for a period of four
montlis and a half.
“It is not my purpose to make out from these incidents that it
is the duty of a teacher to resort to fasting whenever there is a
delisquency on the part of his pupils. I hold, however, that some
occaMons do call for this drastic remedy. But it presupposes clear­
ness of vision and spiritual fitness. Where there is no true love
*Pp. 338-40 GANDHIJrS AUTOBIOGRAPHY—Navajivan, 1950.
L38Edu.-5
 12

between tile teacher and the pupil, where the pupil’s delinquency has;
not touched the very behig of the teadier and where iJie pupil h m
no respect for the teacher, fasting is out of place and may even be-
harmful. Though there is thus room for doubting the propriety of
fasts in such cases, there is no question about the teacher’s respon­
sibility for the errors of his pupil.”*
Gandhiji felt that character-building on the part of every single
individual was the only sure foundation for nation-building. To him
character meant creation of a pattern of living based on Truth
(Satya) and non-violence (Ahimsa). By Truth he meant not only
truth in speech but in a much wider sense. There should be truth
in thought and truth in action. But how does one realise*
tfuth ? He has given the following reply: “By single minded
devotion (abhyasa) and indifference to all other interests in life
(vairagya). The quest of Tiruth involves tapas—self-suffering, some­
times even unto death. There can be no place in it for even a trace
of self-interest. It is the path that leads to God. There is no place
in it for a coward. In this connection it would be well to ponder
over the lives and examples of Harischandra, Prahlad, Ramachandra^
Imam Hasan and Imam Hussain and the Christian saints.”
Leading a life of the spirit and development of character m eant
shaping our lives on the basis of these two fundamental and vital
principles—^Truth and Non-violence. In his own life, in whatever
circumstances he might have been placed these were the touch­
stones by which Gandhiji judged and decided everyone of his actions.
And so he proclaimed in the manner of the greatest scriptures of th e
world, the need to follow a life of the highest purity. “Brahma--
charya”, as he put it, “is the source of all strength. A depraved man
can never have the strength or the confidence to do anything great.
This required great watchfulness in our daily thoughts and life, for
eternal watchfulness is the price that a striver has to pay for leading'
a higher life.”
He wanted to create a set of men and women, who would uphold
these ideals in their daily lives, and at the same time devote them­
selves to the service of the people and the liberation of the country.
The creation of such men and women, who would have the highest
character, who would not stray from their path for the satisfaction,
of small desires and who would follow truth and non-violence at all
costs, he regarded as the foundation for all education and for the
regeneration of the country. For training such workers, he wanted
to found an ashram as soon as he came to India. The story of the
founding of the ashram and the way in which he tried to conduct it,
•Pp. 342-43 GANDHIJI'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY—Navajivan, 1950.
 13

forms another important and exciting chapter in his experiments in

education. That will be the subject of a later chapter.
Gandhiji attached the greatest importance to the character and
quality of teachers. To him education was not the various items of
knowledge taught in a school room, but the hundred qualities of
character and strength which the students imbibed from the life of
the teacher. As he mentioned in his letter with regard to the
Champaran schools, “the chief thing aimed at is contact of children
with men and women of culture and unimpeachable moral
character.” That to him was the essence of education.
Many times we find people asking the question, why should we
look into the character of the teacher ? Is it not sufficient if he is
good in teaching his subject ? This does not show a proper imder-
standing of the function of the teacher and the objective of our
schools. Is our objective merely to put in a few disconnected
scraps of knowledge in the minds of our children or to shape them
into strong men and women who have confidence and character?
The strength of a commimity is measured by the level of character
maintained by the ordinary man and woman in that community.
If we want to build a strong nation, it is absolutely necessary that
our schools should share in this objective and that can only be done
by our teachers being men and women with character.
The fxmction of the teacher is not merely to stimulate intellectual
faculties in the taught, but also to inculcate high thoughts and ideals.
Enduring influences in the moulding of character and strength of
the child come from the teacher and therefore, so far as the proper
running of our schools is concerned, the character of the teacher is
of the utmost importance. This is of greater importance in schools
for the young, where children have implicit faith in the teacher.
In the cohduct of the schools imder his care or in those started
imder his auspices, Gandhiji strictly enjoined that the yoimg people
should not be asked to do anything which the teachers did not do. We
often preach in schools and elsewhere about the dignity of labour and
that we should learn to do all work ourselves, including that which is
considered the most menial. But why is it that inspite of our constant
preaching, children do not cultivate this quality ? The reason is
not far to seek. Children find themselves asked to do things, which
their elders and teachers do not do themselves. No permanent im­
provement in character can be effected except through example.
Nothing carries conviction into the minds of people as life actually
lived. Any number of speeches, dialogues, articles or other propa­
ganda cannot be as effective as the practice of principles in daily
life. This is true in all cases and particularly so in the case of
children, who understand us more by our actions, than by our
 14

words. And so Gandhiji always insisted that when children were

asked to do any work, there should always be a teacher co-operating
and actually working with them.
While the teacher should act towards the child as a parent with
understanding and sympathy, it was also necessary that children
i^ould develop a proper attitude towards the teacher. Without faith,
humility, submission and veneration towards the teacher, there
camiot be any growtii. It has been said in our scriptures that the
Guru must be worshipped as a God. Such a relationship would
ini^ire both the teacher and the taught to lead a higher life.
 C hapter IV
MEDIUM OF INSTRUCTION
One other feature that emerges from Gandhiji’s observations in
the previous pages is that from the very beginning he was con­
vinced that the proper medium of instruction for a child was his
mother tongue. This is remarkable when we survey the period
when he thought so. That was early in the 20th century, when
the British hold on India and the world was very strong and
English held the gateway to all material progress and advancement.
Inspite of almost unanimous opposition from the so-called highly
educated people, Gandhiji held that it was wrong to use a foreign
medium for the instruction of our children.
In later years, when he had the opportunity to explain his ideas
In greater detail, he gave cogent reasons as to why he thought so.
This attitude of his was born not out of any hatred for English, but
out of a rational investigation of the question. He explained:
“The foreign medium has caused brain fag, put an imdue strain
upon the nerves of our children, made them crammers and imitatOTS,
unfitted them for original work and thought, and disabled them from
filtrating their learning to the family or the masses. The foreign
medium has made our children practically foreigners in their own
land. It is the greatest tragedy of the existing system of educatioQu
The foreign medium has also prevented the growth of our vernacu­
lars. If I had the powers of a despot, I would today stop the tuitioB
of our boys and girls through a foreign medium, and require all the
teadiers and professors on pain of dismissal to introduce the dbiange
forthwith. I would not wait for the prieparation of text-books. Hiey
wiU follow the change. It is an evil that needs a summary remedy.
“I must not be understood to be decrying English or its noble
literature. The columns of Harijan are sufficient evidence of my love
of English. But the nobility of its literature cannot avail the Indian
nation any more than the temperate climate or the scenery of
England can avail her. India has to flourish in her climate, and
scaiery, and her own literature, even though all the three may be
inferior to the English climate, scenery and literature. We and our
children must build on our own heritage. If we merely borrow from
another we impoverish our own. We can never grow on foreign
victuals. I want the nation to have the treasures contained in that
language, and for that matter in the other languages of the world,
through its own vernaculars. I do not need to leam Bengali in order
to know the beauties of Rabindranath’s matchless productions. I get
 16

them through good translations. Gujarati boys and girls do not need
to leam Russian to appreciate Tolstoy’s short stories. They learn
them through good translations. It is the boast of RnglishmfiTi that
the best of the world’s literary output is in the hands of that nation
in simple English inside of a week of its publication. Why need I
leam English to get at the best of what Shakespeare and Milton
thought and wrote ?
“It would be good economy to set apart a class of students whose
business would be to leam the best of what is to be leamt in the
different languages of the world and give the translation in Uie ver­
naculars. Our masters chose the wrong way for us, and habit has
made the wrong appear as right.
“I find daily proof of the increasing and c o n t i n u i n g wrong being
done to the millions by our false de-Indianising education. ITiese
graduates who are my valued associates themselves flounder when
they have to give expression to their innermost thoughts. They are
strangers in their own homes. Their vocabulary in the mother
tongue is so limited that they cannot always finish their speech with­
out having recourse to English words and even sentences. Nor can
they exist without English books. They often write to one another
in English. I cite the case of my companions to show how d e ^ the
evil has gone.
“It has been argued that the wastage that occurs in our colleges
need not worry us if, out of the collegians, one Jagadish Bose can
be produced by them. I should freely subscribe to the argument, if
the wastage was unavoidable. I hope I have shown that it was and
is even now avoidable. Moreover the creation of a Bose does not
help the argument. For Bose was not a product of the present educa­
tion. He rose in spite of the terrible handicaps under which he had
to labour. And his knowledge became almost intransmissible to the
masses. We seem to have come to think that no one can hope to be
like a Bose unless he knows English. I cannot conceive a grosser
superstition than this. No Japanese feels so helpless as we seem
to do.
“The medium of instmction should be altered at once and at any
cost, the provincial languages being given the rightful place. I would
prefer even temporary chaos in higher education to the criminal
waste that is daily accumulating.
“In order to enhance the status and the market-value of the pro­
vincial languages, I would have the language of the law courts to
be the language of the province where the court is situated. The
proceedings of the provincial legislatures must be in the language,
or even iq the languages of the province where a province has more
than one. language within its borders. I suggest to the legislators
that they could, by enough application, inside of a month, understand
 17

the languages of their provinces. There is nothing to prevent a

Tamilian from easily learning the simple grammar and a few
hundred words of Telugu. Malayalam, and Kanarese are allied to
’Tamil. At the centre Hindustani must rule supreme.
“In my opinion this is not a question to be decided by academi*
cians. They cannot decide through what language the boys and girls
a place are to be educated. That question is already decided for
them in every free country. Nor can they decide the subjects to be
taught. That depends upon the wants of the country to which they
l}elong. Theirs is a privilege of enforcing the nation’s will in the
best manner possible. When this country becomes really free, the
-question of medium will be settled only one way. The academicians
will frame the syllabus and prepare text-books accordingly. And
the products of the education of a free India will answer the re­
quirements of the country, as today they answer those of the foreign
Tuler. So long as we the educated classes play with this question,
I very much fear we shall not produce the free and healthy India
of our dreams. We have to grow by strenuous effort out of our
bondage, whether it is educational, economical, social or political.
The effort itself is three-fourths of the battle.
“If the medium is changed at once and not gradually, in an in­
credibly short time we shall find text-books and teachers coming
into being to supply the want. And if we mean business, in a year’s
tim e we shall find that we need never have been party to the tragic
waste of the nation’s time and energy in trying to learn the essen­
tials of culture through a foreign medium.”
Gandhiji was faced with this problem with reference to the
education of his own children even when he was in South Africa.
<5ood friends argued strongly with him about the advantages that
his sons would get by adopting English as the medium of instruction.
Polak and Gandhiji had often very heated discussions on this subject.
Polak contended with all the vigour and love at his command that
-if the children were to leam a universal language like E ngli^ from
-flieir infancy, they would easily gain considerable advantage over
others in the race of life. But this argimient failed to convince
Crandhiji. To quote Gandhiji’s words : “It has always been my ccm-
viction, that Indian parents who train tiheir ch ild r^ to think and taUc
in Tgngllsh from their infancy betray their children and ^ e ir coim.-
try. They deprive them of the i^iritual and social heritage of
nation and render them to that extent imfit for the service of the
-country. Having these convictions I made a point of always taHdng
to my children in Gujarati. Polak never liked this, but he failed to
•convince me. Though my sons have suffered for want of a full
literary education, ^ e knowledge of the mother tongue, that they
imturally acquired has been all to their and the country’s good.”*
*Pp. 381-82 GANDHUrS AUTOBIOGRAPHY—Navajivan.
 C hapter V
EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF WORK
Another aspect that emerged from Gandhiji’s experience on the
Tolstoy Farm, was the great educational value of work. As he has
said, “The weak became stronger in the Tolstoy farm and labour
proved a tonic for all*’.
Even when he was a student in England, Gandhiji experienced
the good effects of physical effort. He took rooms sufficiently far
from his place of work, so that he could have walks of eight or
ten miles a day. He was of opinion that it was his long walks that
kept him practically free from illness throughout his stay in England.
Throughout his life, he kept up this walking habit and in later years,,
some of hie most famous interviews with the moat distinguished per­
sons in the world were given during these morning and evening walks.
Later when he went to South Africa as a Barrister, even before
the advent of the Indian struggle, he began to lead a simple life.
Polak who was to be his life-long and devoted friend in that country
gave him Ruskin’s u n t o t h is l a s t , to occupy him during a
train journey from Johannesburg to Durban. This brought about a
great transformation in him, which lasted throughout his life. He
discovered in it some of his convictions. These were that the good
of the individual is contained in the good of all, that a lawyer’s work
has the same value as the barber’s or anyone else’s; and that a life
of labour, i.e., the life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman
is worth living. These ideas impressed him so much, that he im­
mediately determined to reduce them to practice.
He introduced manual work as much as possible in his own
household. To say it in his own words :
“Instead of buying baker’s bread, we began to prepare unleavened
wholemeal bread at home according to Kuhne’s recipe. Common
mill flour was no good for this, and the use of handground flour, it
was thought, would ensure more simplicity, health and economy. Sa
I purchased a hand-mill for £.7. The iron wheel was too heavy to
be tackled by one man, but easy for two. Polak and I and the
children usually worked it. My wife also occasionally lent a hand,,
though the grinding hour was her usual time for commencing
kitchen work. Mrs. Polak now joined us on her arrival. The grind­
ing proved a very beneficial exercise for the children. Neither this
nor any other work was ever imposed on them, but it was a pastime-
to them to come and lend a hand, and they were at liberty to break
 19

off whenever tired. , But the children and others as a rule never
failed me. Not that I had no laggards at all, but most did their work
cheerfully enough. I can recall few youngsters in those days fighting
shy of work or pleading fatigue”.*
With this background it is not strange that work became an im-~
portant part of life at the Tolstoy Farm. Everybody worked hard
on the farm. All farming and household duties and even building
operations were performed by the inmates. The sanitary arrange­
ments were also looked after by them. In spite of the large number
of settlers one could not find refuse or dirt anywhere on the farm.
All rubbish was buried in trenches dug for that purpose. All waste
water was collected in buckets and used to water trees and plants.
Leaving of food and vegetables were utilised as manure. A square-
pit one foot and half was dug near the house to receive the night-
soil. This was fully covered with the excavated earth, with th e
result there was not the least smell. There were no flies and no
one could even imagine that night-soil had been buried there. Thus^
a source of possible nuisance was converted into very valuable-
manure. As Gandhiji said in his account of the Tolstoy Farm
“if night-soil was properly utilised, we would get manure worth
lakhs of rupees and also secure immunity from a large number of
diseases. By our bad habits we spoil our river banks and furnish
escellent breeding ground for flies, with the result that the very
flies which through our criminal negligence settle upon uncovered
night-soil, defile our bodies after we have bathed. A small spade is;
the means of salvation from a great nuisance. Leaving night-soil,
cleaning the nose, or spitting on the road is a sin against God as well
as htmianity and betrays a sad want of consideraljion for others. The-
man who does not cover his waste deserves heavy penalty, even if
he lives in a forest”.
A workshop for carpentry, shoe-making, etc., was also erected.
Having founded a sort of a village, they required all manner of
things, large and small, from benches to boxes and all these they
made themselves. They leam t to make sandals, which were sold to»
friends. Gandhiji was convinced about the value of teaching:
children village handicrafts.
n/ “I would therefore begin the child’s education by teaching it a
useful handicraft and enabling it to produce from the moment it:
begins its training. I hold that the highest development of the mind
and the soul is possible under such a system of education. Only
every handicraft has to be taught not merely mechanically as is done-
today but scientifically, i.e., the child should know the why and.
the wherefore of every process. I am not writing this without some*
*Pate 379 GANDHIJI’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY—NavajIvan.
 20

confidence, because it has the backing of experience. I have myself

taught sandal-making and even spinning on these lines with good
Tesults.
“Whatever may be true of other countries, in India at any rate
ivhere more than eighty per cent of tiie population is agricultural
-and another ten per cent industrial, it is a crime to make education
anerely literary, and to unfit boys and girls for manual work in after-
/ Jife. Indeed I hold that as the larger part of our time is devoted to
labour for earning our bread, our children must from th d r infancy
be taught the dignity of such labour. Our children should not be so
1;aught as to despise labour. There is no reason why a peasant’s san
^ t e r having gone to a school should become useless, as he does
•become, as an agricultural labourer. It is a sad thing that our school
boys look upon manual labour with disfavour, if not contempt”.
Gandhiji’s experience on the Tolstoy Farm was in 1910. His larger
experience in India for nearly half a century did not make him
-change his opinions about the educational value of work. But on Hie
other hand, his wider knowledge of the country only confirmed him
in this opinion. He was of the opinion that true education of the
intellect could only come through the proper exercise and training
-of the bodily organs, namely, the hands, feet, eyes, ears, nose, etc.
In other words an intelligent use of bodily organs in a child provides
the best and quickest way of developing his intellect. A proper all-
round development of the mind can therefore take place only when it
-proceeds pari passu with the education of the physical and spiritual
faculties of the child.
This idea was developed in greater detail, when he put the ideals
of a national system of education called Basic Education before the
coimtry in 1937, but we find the anbryo of these ideas even as far
Toack as 1910 in his educational experiments in South Africa.
 C hapter VI
EXPERIMENT IN CO-EDUCATION
On the Tolstoy Farm School, boys and girls met freely. Gandhiji
lias described in his own words, in the passages quoted below, his
experiment in co-education at the Tolstoy Farm, He has also
expressed his misgivings and failures.
“My Experiment of co-education on Tolstoy Farm was the most
fearless of its type. I dare not today allow, or train children to
enjoy the liberty which I had g ra n t^ the Tolstoy Farm class. 1
have often felt that my mind then used to be more innocent than
it is now, and that was due perhaps to my ignorance. Since then I
have had bitter experiences, and have sometimes burnt my fingers
badly. Persons whom I took to be thoroughly innocent have turned
^ u t corrupt. I have observed the roots of evil deep down in my own
nature; and timidity has claimed me for its own.
“I do not repent having made the experiment. My conscience
bears witness that it did not do any harm. But as a child who has
burnt himself with hot milk blows even into whey, my present
attitude is one of extra caution.
“This was my experiment. I sent the boys reputed to be mis­
chievous and the innocent young girls to bathe in the same spot at
the same time. I had fully explained the duty of self-restraint to the
-children, who were all familiar with my Satyagraha doctrine. I
J^ew , and so did the children, that I loved them with a mother’s
love. The spring was at some distance from the kitchen. Was it a
-ioUy to let the diildren meet there for bath and yet to expect them
to be innocent ? My eyes always followed the girls as a mother’s
^ e s would follow a daughter. Tlie time was fixed when aH the boys
-and all the girls went together f(3r a bath. There was an element of
:safety in the fact that they went in a body. Solitude was always
avoided. Generally I also would be at the spring at the same time.
"All of us slept in an open verandah. The boys and girls would
^spread themselves around me. There was hardly a distance of three
JEeet between any two beds. Some care was exercised in arranging the
•order of the beds, but any amount of such care would have been
futile in the case of wicked minds. I now see that Grod alone safe­
guarded the honour of these boys and girls. I made the experiment
irom a belief that boys and girls could thus live together without
Ihmrm, and the parents with their boundless faith in me allowed me
^o make it.
 22

“One day one of the young men made fun of two girls, and the-
girls themselves or some child brought me the infonnation. The news
made me tremble. I made inquiries and found that the report was
true. I remonstrated with the young man, but that was not enough.
I wished the two girls to have some sign on their person as a warning
to every young man that no evil eye might be cast upon them, and
as a lesson to every girl that no one dare assail their purity. The
passionate Ravana could not so much as touch Sita with evil intent
while Rama was thousands of miles away. What mark should the
girls bear so as to give them a sense of security and at the same time
to sterilize the sinner’s eye ? This question kept me awake, that they
might let me cut off their fine long hair. On the farm we shaved and
cut the hair of one anotha:, and we therefore kept ^scissors and
clipping machines. At first the girls would not listen to me. 1 had
already explained the situation to the elderly women who could not
bear to think of my suggestion but yet quite understood my motive^
and they had finally accorded their support to me. They were both
of them noble girls. One of them is, alas, now no more. She was-
v ^ bright and intelligent. The other is living and the mistress of
a household of her own. They came round after all, and at once the-
very hand that is narrating this incident set to cut off their hair.
And afterwards I analysed and explained my procedure before my
class, with excellent results. I never heard of a joke again. The
girls in question did not lose in any case; goodness knows how much
they gained. I hope the young men still remember this incident an(f
keep their eyes from sin.”
Gandliiji has categorically and unequivocally warned his readers
that such experiments are not intended for imitation. Throughout
his life, he advocated co-education; but at the same time he insisted,
that those who conduct such schools must be themselves completely^
above board, and should be men and women of the highest character..
He had no doubt that without such men and women of high and
reputable character, a co-educational institution might easily
degenerate. Taking such character for granted, he had no doubt
in his mind that co-education was beneficial. In 1927, when Gandhijr
went roimd on an all India tour advocating the cause of Khadi,
he came to Tiruppur in South India. I had just then completed my^
law and was practising at that place, when I had the privilege of
serving him and attending on him during the days he stayed there..
We had long conversations about Khadi, Village Industries and
various aspects of education. Referring to co-education, he said :
“In the homes and in the streets, in the fields and in the markets and
in all other places of activity, men and women have to work together.
Studying and moving together in schools from the early years w ill
train them to move with each other naturally. But, he must be a
 23

bold man who will try it in the present stage of our society for,
lie must be prepared for difficulties and failures.”
Many years later I had occasion to speak to him again on this
very subject. In 1947 the Congress had accepted office in the States.
A meeting of the Hindustani Talimi Sangh was held on the 23rd
April, 1947 at Patna, where Gandhiji was then staying. The Educa­
tion Ministers from the various States of India attended the meeting.
I also happened to attend it as Minister of Education of Madras State.
In the discussions that ensued at the meeting, I ventured to say that
co-education among children in Elementary Schools might be allowed
as that was the age of innocence. It might be allowed among the
^rown-ups as they were expected to know their minds and the con­
sequences of their actions but in Training Schools and High Schools
and similar institutions where the pupils were adolescents and of
an impressionable age and not mature enough to know their minds
or the consequences of their actions, co-education might not be
desirable. To this Gandhiji replied : “We shall have to rid ourselves
of this sex mentality. Even in Training Schools where adolescents
are studying, if the teachers are intelligent, pure and filled with the
spirit of Nayi Talim, there is no danger. Though I speak boldly
I am not unaware of the attendant risks. But you as a responsible
minister should think for yourself and act accordingly”.*
Gandhiji believed in co-education. But he was also emphatically
of the opinion that the success of co-education depended on the
purity and character of the teachers and organisers in charge of the
institutions. If such purity was not forthcoming, he was equally sure
that co-education in such institutions was attended with great risk,
and should be avoided. As he has said : “Before launching on such
experiments, a teacher has to be both father and mother to his pupils
and be prepared for all eventualities, and only the hardest penance
can fit him to conduct them”.f

* Page 452 Tendulkar’s MAHATMA, Vol. 7.

tPage 246 GANDHIJI'S SATYAGRAHA IN SOUTH AFRICA
 C hapter VII
CHAMPABAN SCHOOLS
The District of Champaran is situated in the north-westenii
comer of Bihar adjoining the Hinjalayas. It was one of the most
backward tracts in India. The Champaran tenants were bound bjr
law to plant three out of twenty parts of his land with indigo for
his landlord. This was called the tinkathra system. In the earlier
days the lessees were Indians, but later, European planters took over
in^go said sugarcane cultivation. The poor and ignorant ryots wer&
cajoled and coerced to grow indigo on their lands. This caused them
no end of misery, but there was none to espouse their cause.
Gandhiji had gone to Calcutta to attend the meeting of the All
India Congress Committee, where Sri Rajkumar Shukla, one of the
agriculturists from Champaran, met him and importuned him to
come there. It was there he first met Dr. Rajendra Prasad and
Acharya Kripalani. He discussed the situation with the lawyer-
politicians there. After studying the case of the Indigo Cultivators,
he told them that recourse to Law Courts in such cases was useless.
“We cannot sit still until we have driven this evil system out of
Bihar”, he said, “I had thought that I should be able to leave from
here in two days, but I now realise that the work may take two-
y^us. I am prepared to give that time if necessary”. Before taking^
any action, he wanted to go to the spot and gather first-hand in­
formation. Wherever he went, he was received with wild enthu­
siasm. The people began to gather courage and came out in the
open to tell their grievances. This ofiEended the European landlords,,
who moved the foreign administration to restrain Gandhiji, who was
going from village to village.
On April 16, 1917, he was issued an order to abstain from re­
maining in the District of Champaran, which he was required to leave
‘by the next available train.’ To this Gandhiji sent the foUowing^
reply: “Out of a sense of public responsibility I feel it to be my
duty to say that I am unable to leave the district, but if it pleases the
authorities, I shall submit to the order by suffering the penalty of
disobedience.” He prepared himself for arrest and imprisonment
and even made arrangements for the continuance of the movement.
Next day in the court he refused to give bail, and even pleaded
guilty there in order to give an opportunity for the magistrate to
convict him. But as the case was weak and popular resentment wa?
running high, it was postponed and later withdrawn. Gandhiji
thereupon made a full enquiry which brought out the high­
 25

handedness and atrocities of many European landlords. This, ii^

short, is the story of the Champaran Satyagraha.
From the beginning Gandhiji felt that the main reason for the-
sufferings of the tenants in Champaran was ignorance. He was con­
vinced that no outside agency could improve their lot unless their
mental and moral condition improved and that no work of a per­
manent nature was possible without proper education. Therefore he*
decided that arrangements for the spread of education among them
was as necessary as the redress of their grievances. For this pur­
pose, he appealed for volunteers. In that appeal he had described
the sort of people he wanted as teachers: “They have to be grown
up, reliable, hard-working men, who would not mind taking the
spade and repairing and making village roads and cleaning village*
cess pools and who would in their dealings with their landlords,
guide the ryots aright.” In response to the appeal some very good
volunteers arrived from Bombay. It was decided to open Primary
Schools in six villages.
The objects, ideals and methods of education imparted in these^
village schools were described as follows by Mahatmaj i :
“In the schools I am opening, children under the age of 12 only
are admitted. The idea is to get hold of as many children as possible
and to give them an all roimd education, i.e., a good knowledge of
Hindi or Urdu and, through that medium, of arithmetic and rudi­
ments of history and geography, a knowledge of simple scientific^
principles and some industrial training. No cut and dried syllabus^
has yet been prepared because I am going on an unbeaten track. I
look upon our present system with horror and distrust. Instead of
developing the moral and mental faculties of the little children it
dwarfs them. In my experiment whilst I shall draw upon what is;
good in it, I shall endeavour to avoid the defects of liie presait
system. The chief thing aimed at is contact of children with men
women of culture and imimpeachable moral character, llia t to*
me is education. Literary training is to be used merely as a means:
to that end. The industrial training is to be designed for the boys-
and the girls who may come to us for an additional means of liveli­
hood. It is not intended that on completing their education they
should leave their hereditary occupation but make use of the know-^
ledge acquired in the school to refine agriculture and agricultural
life. Our teachers will also touch the lives of grown up people and
if at all possible, penetrate the puTddh. Instruction will be given
to grown up people in hygiene and about the advantages of joint
action for the promotion of communal welfare, such as, the making
of village roads, the sinking of wells, etc. And as no school will be-
manned by teachers who are not men or women of good trainings
we propose to give free medical aid so far as is possible.”
 26

These village schools were run most economically. The villagers

:provided the teachers with board and lodging. M ^ical relief was
^simple. Castor oil, qiiinine and sulphur ointment were the drugs
provided. A number of persons availed themselves of the medical
^ d . But sanitation proved more difficult. The people were not ^ e -
jjared to do anything themselves. Even the field labourers were not
ready to do their own scavenging. But the volunteers did not tise
lieart. They swept the roads, cleaned the Wells, filled up the pools
■said persuaded the villagers to raise volunteers from amongst them-
:selves> By their service in schools, sanitation work and medical
jrelief, the volunteers gained the confidence and respect of the village
iolk and were able to bring good influence to bear on them.
Schools tm now had been islands in our society taking no part in
'commumty life. Except for the formal teaching of the children
their precincts, the teachers did not moye in the community. Neither
Tvere they interested nor did they take part in such niatters as eradi-
•eating disease, pranging for a healthy life, building communications,
working for better ways of marketing, in which the people were inte-
:rested. The teachers, though they lived many years in a village, con­
tinued to be strangers in it. Consequently the people also had little
interest" in their school. The teacher was rarely known outside his
irery narrow little circle. Though he was about the only man in the
“village who was educated, his education did not win for him sufficient
-Teg^d or affection from the people, the main reason being that it
was not beneficial to the community.
Gandhiji wanted this state of things to change. He wanted that
th e teacher should become the enlightened leader for the village,
interested in all matters and movements which would uplift the
people. Instead of being an island in society, he wanted the school
to be a centre of light and learning. Instead of teaching only children,
he wanted the school master to be a teacher of adults and theftr
iriend, philosopher and guide. By virtue of his education, the
teacher, he believed, should be the natural leader of the village com­
munity. He wanted every teacher to develop a spirit of initiative,
enterprise and public mindedness in order to take his full share in
the village life, which would be for the benefit of the children, the
■community and himself.
Another instruction which he issued in this connection to the
teachers in Champaran schools deserves mention. While he wanted
them to go out into the villages and work, he was anxious to keep
them from the troubles of polemical politics. All of them had
•expreigs instructions not to concern themselves with grievances
against planters or with politics. Anybody who had such complaints
to make, was to be referred to Gandhiji. No one was to venture
Jn the happy company o f a child
Looking into a microscope
 27

out of his own allotted work. At the present time when we want
our school teachers to take part in welfare work in villages, these
instructions have great significance. Each village, firka, taluk, dis­
trict or State has its own factions, groups and parties with such
dissatisfaction between them. The teacher and the social worker in
order to do their work efficiently should not concern themselves
with any of these parties or factions. In the long run that will be
the measure of his sifccess.
The main message of his experiment at the Champaran schools
was that schools, in addition to being places of instruction for the
yoimg, should also be community centres for the planning and
initiation of all good work for the uplift of villages. He explained
to teachers in these schools that along with literary subjects,
they should teach cleanliness and good manners. They should
also cultivate in the children the quality of working in co-operation
with others. He was aware that to accomplish this kind of work
successfully teachers of high quality were necessary. Apart from,
academic qualifications, they should have leadership, conduct them­
selves with dignity and be imbued with the spirit of service.

L38Edtt.—3
 C hapter VIII
EDUCATION AT SABARMATI
The idea of establ^hing an Ashram where kindred spirits with
faith in a spiritual life could come together, was in the mind of
Gandhiji for many years, before the establishAent of the Satyagraha
Ashram near Ahmedabad. Even his house in Johannesberg was a
sort of an Ashram in this sense. Millie Graham Polak has described
in her book, g a n d h i — t h e m a n , the way of life and the high level of
thought and discussion in that house. It was an open house in which
friends were always welcome and where Indians of aU grades and
Mnd came fox advice, whatever the time. As we have mentioned,
before, Ruskin’s u n t o t h i s l a s t , made a great impression on Ms
mind. He wanted to put into practice the ideas contained in that
book by betaking himself to a secluded place, remote from the din of
life, where he could live side by side with workers. For that purpose,
he purchased a hundred acres of land and founded what came to be
called the Phoenix Settlement.
The second step was taken in 1906. After much thought and
considered judgment, he came to the conclusion that brahmacharya
was the sine qua non of a life devoted to service. From this time
onward he looked upon Phoenix as a religious institution. The same
year witnessed the advent of Satyagraha, which was based on a
religious outlook on life and implied faith in truth and Ahimsa.
Religion here was not to be understood in a narrow sense, but in its
broadest meaning, encompassing basic principles common to all
religions.
The third step was taken in 1911. Till this year, only those who
were working in his printing press and for his paper lived at Phoenix.
But now, as a part of the Satyagraha Movement, there was need for
an Ashram, where Satyagrahi families could live and lead a higher
life. It was as a result of this need that the Tolstoy Farm came into
existence. The story of the Tolstoy Farm has already been told in
earlier chapters. That name was given as Gandhiji and his co-worker
K all^bach were followers of Tolstoy and endeavoured to practise
much of his doctrine. The final Satyagraha Campaign was started
in 1913 and the struggle in South Africa ended in 1914. Thereupon,
in July of that year Gandhiji left South Africa. It was decided that
all settlers who wanted to go to India should be enabled to go there.
The idea was to found a new institution in India for those who went
there with him and to continue in the mother country the community
life commenced at the Tolstoy and Phoenix farms. When he reached
 29

India early in 1915, therefore, he wanted to establish an Ashram for

that purpose in some place in India.
He toured all parts of India for a year and visited many institu­
tions, He was invited by several cities to establish the Ashram in
their neighbourhood with promises of assistance in various ways.
Swami Shradadhanandaji wanted him to settle at Haridwar. Many
friends in Ahmedabad pressed him to settle down there and
volunteered to find the expenses of the Ashram as well as a building
to house the Ashram. Gandhiji finally chose Ahmedabad. Being a
Gujarati, he thought that it would be possible for him to render the
greatest service to the country through the Gujarati language.
Besides as Ahmedabad was a great centre of weaving, he considered
th at it might be a favourable field for developing hand spinning as
a cottage industry.
The Ashram was established in a rented house on May 25, 1915,
and later shifted to Sabarmati. At the beginning there were twenty
inmates, most of them from South Africa. Of these, the larger
majority spoke Tamil or Telugu. The main activity at the Ashram
at the time was teaching Sanskrit, Hindi and Tamil to the old as well
as young inmates, who also received some general education. Hand-
weaving was the principal industry, with some carpentry. Sanitation,
fetching water, etc., were accessory activities. In fact everything
was i^ttended to by the Ashramites themselves. Caste distinctions
were not observed. Untouchability had not only no place in the
Ashram, but its eradication from Hindu society was one of the prin­
cipal objectives. Emancipation of women from bonds of custom
fcwas insisted upon from the first. It was also an Ashram rule that
persons following a particular faith should have tolerance and
friendly feelings towards those who followed a different faith. It
will be seen that from the very beginning, the Ashram set out to
remedy what it thought were defects in our national life from the
spiritual, economic and educational points of view.
To quote Gandhiji’s w ords: “An attempt is made in the Ashram
: to impart such education as is conducive to national welfare. In
qrder that spiritual, intellectual and physical development may
proceed side by sfide, an atmosphere of industry has been created
and letters are not given more than their due importance. Charae-
ter building is attended to in the smallest detail. ‘Untouchable’
children are freely admitted. Women are given special attention
with a view to improving their status, and they are accorded the
same opportunities for self-culture as the men.” The daily routine
of the Ashram is given below:
4.00 a.m. Rising from bed
4.15 to 4.45 „ Morning prayer
 30

&.00 to 6.10 a,m. Bath, Exercise, Study

6.10 to 6.30 99 Breakfast
6.30 to 7.00 l> Women's prayer cU ^
7.00 to 10.30 ff Body labour, Education and
Sanitation
10.45 to 11.15 II Dinner
11.15 a.m. to 12 noon Rest
12.00 to 4.30 p.m. Body labour, including classes
4.30 to 5.30 II Recreation
5.30 to 6.00 II Supper
6.00 to 7.00 II Recreation
7.00 to 7.30 II Common worship
7.30 to 9.00 >9 Recreation
9.00 >1 Retiring beU
Note.-^These hours were subject to change whenever necessary.
H ie women and children in the Ashram had to be taught to read
and write and similar facilities had to be provided for other men
and women who came to the Ashram.
Gandhiji had definite views on education, some of which he had
formulated at the Tolstoy Farm. These he mentioned as follows:
1. Yoimg boys and girls should have co-education till they are
eight years of age.
2. Their education should mainly consist of manual training
under the supervision of an educationist.
3. The special aptitudes of each child should be recognised in
determining the kind of work he or she should do.
4. The reasons for every process should be explained when the
process is being carried on.
5. General knowledge should be imparted to each child as he
begins to understand things. Learning to read or write
should come later.
6. The child should first be taught to draw simple geometrical
figures and when he has leamt to draw these with ease, he
should be taught to write the alphabet. If this is done, he
will write a good hand from the very first.
7. Reading should come before writing. The letters should be
treated as pictures to be recognised and later on to be
copied.
8. A child taught on these lines will have acquired considerable
knowledge according to his capacity by the time he is eight.
9. Nothing should be taught to a child by force.
10. He should be interested in everything taught to him.
 31

11. Education should appear to the child like play. Play is an

essential part of education.
12. All education should be imparted through the mother-
tongue.
13. The child should be taught Hindi-Urdu as the National
Language, before he learns letters.
14. Religious education is indispensable and the child should
get it by watching the teacher’s conduct and by hearing
him talk about it.
15. Nine to sixteen constitutes the second stage in the child’s
education.
16. It is desirable that boys and girls should have co-education
during the second stage also as far as possible.
17. Hindu children should now be taught Sanskrit, and Muslim
children Arabic.
18. Manual training should be continued during the second
stage. Literary education should be allotted more time as is
necessary.
19. The boys during this stage should be taught their parents’
vocation in such a way that they will by their own choice
obtain their livelihood by practising the hereditary craft.
This does not apply to girls.
20. During this stage the child should acquire a general know­
ledge of world history and geography, botany, astronomy,
arithmetic, geometry and algebra.
21. Each child should now be taught to sew and to cook.
22. During the second stage (9-16) education should be self-
supporting; that is, the child, while he is learning, is work­
ing in some industry, the proceeds of which will meet the
expenditure of the school.
23. Sixteen to twenty-five is the third stage, during which every
young person should have an education according to his or
her wishes and circumstances.
24. Production starts from the very beginning, but during the
first stage it does not still catch up with the expenditure.
25. Teachers should be inspired by a spirit of service. It is a
despicable thing to take any Tom, Dick or Harry as a teacher
in the primary stage. All teachers should be persons with
character.
26. Big and expensive buildings will not be necessary for educa­
tional institutions.
 32

27. English should be taught only as one of sevaral languages.

As Hindi is the national language, English is to be used
only in dealing with other nations and international com­
merce.
“As for women’s education I am not sure whether it should be
different from men’s and when it should begin. But I am strongly
of opinion that women should have the same facilities as .men and
even special facilities where necessary.
“There should be night schools for illiterate adults. But I do not
think that they must be taught the three R’s; they must be helped
to acquire general knowledge through lectures etc., and if they wish,
we shpiijd arrange to teach them the three R’s also.
“Experiments in the Ashram have convinced us of one thing, viz.,
that industry in general and spinning in particular should have the
place of pride in education, which must be largely self-supporting
as well as related to and tending to the betterment of rural life.
“In these experiments we have achieved the largest measure of
success with the women who have imbibed the spirit of freedom and
self*<:onfidence. This success is due to the Ashram atmosphere.
Women in the Ashram are not subject to any restraint, which is not
imposed on the men as well. They are placed on a footing of alKSO-
lute equality with the men in all activities. Not a single Ashram
task is assigned to the women, to the exclusion of the men. Cooking
is attended to by both. Women are of course exempted from work
which is beyond their strength; otherwise men and women work
together everywhere. There is no such thing as purdah in the
Ashram. No matter from where she has come, a woman, as soon as
she enters the Ashram, breathes the air of freedom and casts out
all fear from her mind. And I believe that the Ashram observance
of Brahmacharya has made a big contribution to this state of things.
“Not much of what is usually called education will be observed in
the Ashram. Still we find that the old as well as the young, women
as well as men are eager to acquire knowledge and complain that
they have no time to do it sufficiently. This is a good sign. Many who
join the Ashram are not educated or even interested in education.
Some of them can hardly read or write. They had no desire for
progress so long as they had not joined the Ashram. But when they
have lived in the Ashram for a little while, they conceive a desire
for increasing their knowledge. This is a great thing, as to create a
desire for knowledge is very often the first step to be taken. But
I do not regret it very much that there are insufficient facilities in
the Ashram calculated to satisfy this desire. The observances kept
in the Ashram will perhaps prevent a sufficient number of qualified
teachers from joining it. We must, therefore, rest satisfied with such
 33

Ashramites as can be trained to teach. The numerous activities of

the Ashram may come in the way of their acquiring the requisite
qualifications at all or at an early date. But it does not matter much,
as the desire for knowledge can be satisfied later as well as sooner,
being independent of a time limit. Real education begins after a
child has left school. One who has appreciated the value of studies
is a student all his life. His knowledge must increase from day to
day while he is discharging his duty in a conscientious manner. And
this is well understood in the Ashram.
“The superstition that no education is possible without a teacher
is an obstacle in the path of educational progress. A man’s real
teacher is himself. And nowadays there are numerous aids avail­
able for self-education. A diligent person can easily acquire know­
ledge about many things by himself and obtain the assistance of a
teacher when it is needed. Experience is the biggest of all schools.
Quite a number of crafts cannot be learnt at school but only in the
workshop. Knowledge of these acquired at school is often only
parrot-like. Other subjects can be leamt with the help of books.
Therefore, what adults need is not so much a school as a thirst for
knowledge, diligence and self-confidence.
“The education of children is primarily a duty to be discharged
by the parents. Therefore, the creation of a vital educational at­
mosphere is more important than the foimdation of numerous schools.
When once this atmosphere has been established on a firm footing,
the schools will come in due course”.*

* ASHRAM OBSERVANCES IN ACTION by Mahatma Gandhi—published

by Navajivan.
 IX
C h a p t ir
ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS
Gandhiji spoke to millions of people belpnging to all classes,
communities and avocations. Of these, students were indeed dearer
to him than others as they represented the coming generation whic^
would mould the future of the nation. To them he explained his
ideals of education—-the broad ideals which should form the basis
of all educational effort, which hie himself followed and which, he
thought, should be followed by young men and women in the
coxmtry. One of such addresses given when he visited Madras soon
after establishment of his Ashram at Sabarmati contains his
iniienjjost thoughts regarding the development of the individual
and what he considered to be the essentials of good education. He
said
“To many of the students who came here last year to converse
with me, I said I was about to establish an institution—^Ashrana—r
somewhere in India, and it is about that place that I am going to talk
to you thlB morning. I feel and I have felt during the whole of my
public life that what we need, what a nation needs, what we perhaps
of all the nations of the world need just now, is nothing else and
nothing Jess than character-building. And this is the view pro­
pounded by that great patriot, Mr. Gokhale. As you know, in many
of his speeches he used to say that we would get nothing, we would
deserve nothing, unless we had character to back what we wished
for. Hence his founding of the great body, the Servants of India
Society. And as you know, in the prospectus that has been issued in
connection with the Society, Mr. Gokhale has deliberately stated that
it is necessary to spiritualize the political life of the country. You
know also that he used to say often that our average was less than
the average of so many European nations. I do not know whether
that statement by him, whom with pride I consider my political
Guru, has foundation in fact, but I do believe that there is much to
be said to justify it in so far as educated India is concerned; not
because we, the educated portion of the community, have blundered,
but because we have been creatures of circumstances. Be that as
it may, this is the maxim of life which I have accepted, namely, that
no work done by any man, no matter how great he is, will really
prosper unless he has a religious backing. But what is religion ?—
the question will be immediately asked. I for one would answ er:
Not the religion which you will get after reading all the scriptures
of the world; it is not really a grasp by the brain, but it is a heart-
grasp. It is a thing which is nojfc alien to us, but which has to be
 35

evolved out of us. It is always within us, with some consciously

so, with others quite unconsciously. But it is there; and whether we
wake up this religious instinct in us through outside assistance or
by inward growth, no matter how it is done, it has got to be done
if we want to do anything in the right manner and anything that is
^oing to persist.
“Our scriptures have laid down certain rules as maxims of life
^nd as axioms which we have to take for granted, as self-evident
truths. The Shastras tell us that without living according to these
maxims, we are incapable even of having a reasonable perception of
religion. Believing in these implicitly for all these long years and
having actually endeavoured to reduce to practice these injunctions
of the Shastras, I have deemed it necessary to seek the association
of those who think with me in founding this institution. And I shall
venture this morning to place before you the rules that have been
<3rawn up and that have to be observed by everyone who seeks to
be a member of that Ashram.
Of these, the first and foremost is Truth.
Not truth simply as we ordinarily understand it, that as far as
possible we ought not to resort to a lie; that is to say, not truth
which merely answers the saying “Honesty is the best policy” im­
plying that if it is not the b e s t policy, we may depart from it.
But Truth, as it is conceived here, means that we have to rule our
life by this law of Truth at any cost. In order to clarify the defini­
tion, I have drawn upon the celebrated illustration of the life of
Prahlad. For the sake of Truth, he dared to oppose his own father,
and he defended himself, not by retaliation, by paying his father
back in his own coin, but in defence of Truth as he knew it, he was
prepared to die without caring to return the blows that he received
from his father or from those who were charged with his father’s
instructions. Not only that; he would not even parry the blows.
On the contrary, with a smile on his lips, he underwent the innu­
merable tortures to which he was subjected, with the result that at
last Truth rose triumphant. Not that Prahlad suffered the tortures
because he knew that some day or other in his very lifetime he
would be able to demonstrate the infallibility of the law of Truth.
The fact was there; but if he had died in the midst of tortures, he
would still have adhered to Truth. That is the Truth which I would
like to follow.
“There was an incident I noticed yesterday. It was a trifling in­
cident, but I think these trifling incidents are like straws which show
which way the wind is blowing. It happened like this. I was talking
to a friend who wanted to talk to me aside, and we were engaged in
a private conversation. Anpjgier in, and he politely
asked whether he was w^ I was talking
 36

said: “Oh, no, there is nothing private here.” I felt taken aback a
httle, because as I was taken aside, I knew that so far as this friend
was concerned, the conversation was private. But he immediately
out of politeness, I would call it over-politeness, said that there was
no private conversation and that he (the other friend) could join-
I suggest to you that this is a departure from my definition of Truth.
I think that the friend should have, in the gentlest manner possibly
but still openly and frankly said: “Yes, just now, as you rightly say,
you would be intruding,” without giving the slightest offence to the
person.
“But I may be told that the incident, after all, proves the genteeli-
ty of the nation. I think that it is over-proving the case. If Wie con­
tinue to say these things out of p o lite n ^ we really become a natloa
of hypocrites. I recall a conversation I had with an English friend.
He was comparatively a stranger. He is Principal of a college and
has been in India for several years. He was comparing notes witii
me, and he asked me whether I would admit that we, unlike most
Englishmen, would not dare to say no when it was no that we mesait.
And I must confess that I immediately said yes; I agreed with that
statement. We do hesitate to say no frankly and boldly, when v/e
want to pay undue regard to the sentiment of the person whom we
are addressing. In this Ashram we make it a rule that we must
say no when we mean no, regardless of consequences. This then is
the first rule. Then we come to Ahimsa.
“Literally Ahimsa means non-killing. But to me it has a world of
meaning and takes me into realms much higher, infinitely higher,,
than the realm to which I would go if I merely understood b y
Ahimsa, non-killing. Ahimsa really means that you may not offend
anybody, you may not harbour an uncharitable thought even in con­
nection with one who may consider himself to be your enemy. Pray
notice the guarded nature of this thought. I do not say “whom you
consider your enemy,” but “who may consider himself your enemy.’^
For one who follows the doctrine of Ahimsa there is no room for an-
enemy; he denies the existence of an enemy. But there are people
who consider themselves to be his enemies, and he cannot help it. So>
it is held that we may not harbour an evil thought even in connection
with such persons. If we return blow for blow, we depart from the
doctrine of Ahimsa. But I go further. If we resent a friend’s action
or the so-called enemy’s action, we still fall short of this doctrine.
But when I say we should not resent, I do not say that we should
acquiesce. By resenting I mean wishing that some harm should be
done to the enemy, or that he should be put out of the way, not even
by any action of ours, but by the action of somebody else, or say
by divine agency. If we harbour even this thought, we commit a
 37

breach of Ahimsa. Those who join the Ashram have literally to

accept that meaning. That does not mean that we practise this doc­
trine in its entirety. Far from it. It is an ideal which we have to
reach, and it is an ideal to be reached even at this very moment if
we were capable of doing so. But it is not a proposition in geometry
to be leamt by heart; it is not even like solving difficult problems in
higher mathematics; it is infinitely more difficult than that. Many
of you have burnt the midnight oil in solving those problems. If
you want to follow out this doctrine, you will have to do much more
than burn the midnight oil. You will have to pass many a sleepless
night, and go through many a mental torture and agony before you
can reach, before yoii can even be within measurable distance of this
goal. It is the goal, and nothing less than that, you and I have to
reach, if we want to understand what religious life means. I will not
say more on this doctrine than this; that a man who believes in the
efficacy of this doctrine finds, in the ultimate stage when he is about
to reach the goal, the whole world at his feet. Not that he v/ants
the whole world at his feet, but it must be so. If you express your
love—^Ahimsa—in such a manner that it impresses itself indelibly
upon your so-called enemy, he must return that love.

“Then we have control of the palate. A man who wants to control

animal passion does so more easily if he controls his palate. I am
afraid this is a rather difficult observance. I am just now coming
after having inspected the Victoria Hostel. I saw there not to my
dismay,—^though it should be to my dismay,—^but I am used to it
now, that there are so many kitchens, not kitchens that are estab­
lished in order to serve caste restrictions but kitchens that have
become necessary in order that people can have the condiments and
the exact weight of the condiments to which they are accustomed in
the places from which they have come. And therefore we find that
for the Brahmans themselves there are different compartments and
different kitchens catering for the delicate tastes of all those different
groups. I suggest that this is simply slavery to the palate, rather
than mastery over it. I may say this. Unless we take our minds
off from this habit, unless we shut our eyes to the tea shops and
coffee shoos and all these kitchens, unless we are satisfied with foods
that are necessary for the maintenance of health, and unless we are
prepared to rid ourselves of stimulating, heating and exciting con­
diments that we mix wil3i our food, we shall certainly not be able
to control the overabundant and unnecessary stimulation that we
may have. If we do not do that, the result naturally is that we
abuse ourselves and we abuse even the sacred trust given to us, and
we become inferior to animals. Eating, drinking and indulging in
passion we share in common with the animals; but have you ever
seen a horse or a cow indulging in the abuse of the palate as we do ?
 38

Do you suppose that it is a sign of civilization, a sign of real life

that we should multiply our eatables so far that we do not even know
where we are and seek dish after dish until at last we have become
absolutely mad and run after the newspaper sheets which give us
advertisements about these dishes ?

“Then we have non-stealing.

“I suggest that we are thieves in a way. If I take anything that
I do not need for my own immediate use and keep it, I steal it
from somebody else. I venture to suggest that it is the fundamental
law of Nature without exception, that she produces enough for our
-wants from day to day, and if everybody took enough for himself
sand nothing more, there would be no pauperism, there would be no
man dying of starvation in this world. But so long as we have got
ihis inequality, so long w;e are stealing. I am no socialist, and I d6
not want to dispossess those who have got possessions; but I do say
that those of us who want to see light out of darkness have to follow
this rule in their own lives. I do not want to dispossess anybody, for
I should then be departing from the rule of Ahimsa. If somebody
-else possesses more than I do, let him. But so far as my own life has
to be regulated, I do say that I dare not possess anything which I do
not need. In India we have got millions of people living on one meal
a day and that meal consisting of a chapati with no fat spread on
it and a pinch of salt. You and I have no right to anything more
until these millions are clothed and fed better. You and I, who
-ought to know better, must adjust our wants, and even undergo
TToluntary starvation, in order that they may be fed and clothed.
Then there is Non-possession which follows as a matter of course.

“Next is Swadeshi. Swadeshi is an essential observance, I

suggest that we are departing from one of the sacred laws of our
being when we leave our neighbour and go out somewhere else in
order to satisfy our wants. If a man comes from Bombay here and
offers you wares, you are not justified in supporting the Bombay
merchant so long as you have got a merchant at your very door, born
and bred in Madras. That is my view of Swadeshi. In your village,
so long as you have got your village barber, you are bound to support
him to the exclusion of the finished barber who may come to you
from Madras. If you find it necessary that your village barber
should reach the attainments of the barber from Madras, you may
train him to that. Send him to Madras by all means, if you wish,
in order that he may learn his calling. Until you do that you are
not justified in going to another barber. That is Swadeshi. So
when we find that there are many things that we cannot get in
India, we must try to do without them. We have to do without
 39

many things which we may consider necessary; but believe me,

when you are in that frame of mind, you will find a great burden
taken off your shoulders, even as the Pilgrim did in the inimitable
book, THE p il g r im ' s pr o g r e ss . There came a time when the mighty
burden that the Pilgrim was carrying on his shoulders dropped
from him, and he felt a freer man than he was when he started on
the journey. So will you feel freer men than you are now,,
immediately you adopt Swadeshi.
“We then have Fearlessness. I found, throughout my wanderings
in India, that India, educated India, is seized with a paralyzing fear.
We may not open our lips in public; we may not declare our con­
firmed opinions in public; we may hold those opinions and may talk
about them secretly, but they are not for public consimiption. If
we had taken a vow of silence, I would have nothing to say. But
when we open our lips in public, we say things we do not really
believe in. I do not know whether this is not true of almost every
public man who speaks in India. I then suggest to you that there
is only one Being,—if Being is the proper term to be used,—^whom
we have to fear, and that is God. When we fear God, we shall fear
no man, no matter how highly placed he may be. And if you want
to follow the vow of Truth in any shape or form, you must be fear­
less. And so you find, in the Bhagavad Gita, fearlessness is designated
the first essential quality of a good man. We fear consequences, and
ttierefore, we are ^ a i d to tell the truth. A man who fears God will
certainly not fear any earthly consequence. Before we can aspire
to understand what religion is, and before we can aspire to guide the
destinies of India, do you not see that we should adopt this habit
of fearlessness ? Or shall we overawe our countrymen, even as we
are overawed ? We thus see how important fearlessness is.
“Untouchability is a blot that Hinduism today carries with it. I
decline to believe that it has been handed to us from immemorial
times. I think that this miserable, wretched, enslaving spirit of un­
touchability must have come to us when we were in the cycle of our
lives at its lowest ebb, and that evil has stiU stuck to us and it still
remains with us. It is to my mind a curse that has come to us, and
as long as that curse remains with us, so long I think we are bound
to hold that every affliction that we labour under in this sacred land is
a fit and proper punishment for this great crime that we are com­
mitting. That any person should be considered ujitouchable because
of his calling passes one’s comprehension; and you, the student world
who receive aU this modern education, if you become a party to tliis
crime, it were better that you receive no education whatsoever.
“In Europe every cultured man learns, not only his language, but
also other languages, sometimes three or four. And even as they do
 mj

in Europe, in order to solve the problem of language in India, we

in this Ashram make it a point to learn as many Indian languages
as we can. And I assure you that the trouble of learning th^se
languages is nothing compared with the trouble that we have to
take in mastering English. Indeed we never master English; with
some exceptions it has not been possible for us to do so; we can
never express ourselves as clearly in English as in the mother tongue.
How dare we rub out of our memory all the years of our infancy ?
But that is precisely what we do when we commence our higher
€iducation, as we call it, through the medium of a foreign tongue.
This creaties a breach in our life, for which we shall have to pay
dearly and heavily. And you will see now the connection between
these two things—education and untouchability-4his persistence «£
the spirit of untouchability even at this time of the day in spite of
the spread of education. Education has enabled us to see the horrible
crime. But we are seized with fear and, therefore, we cannot take
this doctrine to our homes. And we have got a superstitious
veneration for our family traditions and for the members of our
family. You say, “my parents will die if I tell them that I at least
can no longer participate in this crime.” I say that Prahlad never
feared that his father would die if he took the holy name of Vishnu.
On the contrary, he made the whole house ring from one corner to
another, by repeating that name even in the sacred presence of his
father. And so you and I may do this thing in the presence of our
parents. If, after receiving this rude shock, some of them expire, I
think that would be no calamity. It may be that some rude shocks
of this kind might have to be delivered. So long as we persist in
these things which have been handed down to us for generations,
these incidents may happen. But there is a higher law of nature,
and in due obedience to that higher law, my parents and myself
should make that sacrifice.

“You may ask : “why should we use our hands ?” and say,
“manual work must be done by those who are illiterate. I can only
occupy myself with reading literature and political essays.” But 1
think we have to realise the dignity of labour. I hold that a barber’s
profession is just as good for instance as that of medicine.

“Last of all, when you have observed these rules, think that then,
and not till then, you may come to politics and dabble in them to
your heart’s content, and certainly you will then never go wrong.
Politics, divorced of religion, has absolutely no meaning. If the
student world crowd the political platforms of this country, to my
mind it is not a healtihy sign of national growth. But that does not
mean that you, in your student life, ought not to study politics. We
 41

ought to understand our national institutions, and we ought to under­

stand our national growth and to know how the country is vibrating
with new emotions, with new aspirations, with a new life. But we
want also the steady light, the infalliable light of religious faith, not
a faith which appeals to the intelligence, but a faith which is in­
delibly inscribed on the heart. First, we should realise that religious
consciousness; and once we have done that, I think all departments
of life are open to us, and it should then be a sacred privilege of
students as well as others, to participate in the whole of life, so that
when they grow to manhood and when they leave their colleges,
they may do so as men properly equipped for the battle of life.”
 C hapter X
THE OUJABAT VI0YAFITH
Events in India moved fast after the Champaran Satyagraha. The
first World War had 6nded, but the promise made to the Muslims
i^egarding the integrity of l ^ k e y and the Holy places of Islam was
hot fulfilled, 'nien came the Rowlatt Act which robbed people of
all real freedom. An intensive campaign against these was started
in which Gandhiji took a prominent share. He maintained that no
government could run without the consent of the people. He advo­
cated a movement of non-violent non*cooperation by which without
force or bloodshed the government could be brought to terms.
One of the items in the non-cooperation movement was with­
drawal of children from the then Government-recognised schools.
Of these Gandhiji said :
“I have never been able to make a fetish of literary training.
My experience has proved that literary training by itself adds not
an inch to one’s moral height and that character training is independ:-
ent of literary training. I am firmly of opinion that Government
schools have immanned us and rendered us helpless and Godless*
They have filled us with discontent, and providing no remedy for
the discontent, have made us despondent. They have made us what
we were intended to become, clerks and interpreters. The youth of
a nation are its hope. I hold that as soon as we discovered that
the system of government was wholly or mainly evil it became sinful
for us to associate our children with it.”*
Responding to the resolution, thousands of students from all over
the country left their colleges and schools. To provide the new
type of education contemplated by Gandhiji, National Schools and
Colleges were started all over India. The first National School was
opened in Calcutta, which was headed by Subhas Chandra Bose,
who inspired by Gandhiji had resigned from the Indian Civil Service.
Many other National Schools and Colleges were started in various
parts of the country, well-known among them being the Behar
Vidyapith at Patna, the Kashi Vidyapith at Benares, the Gujarat
Vidyapith in Ahmedabad and Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi.
Amongst these, the Gujarat Vidyapith stands out prominently as it
was situated in Ahmedabad and Gandhiji took considerable interest
in it. He framed the basis on which the Vidyapith was to be run.
"^Tendulkar’s MAHATMA pp. 60-61.
 43

The following were the significant points relating to this

"V^idyapith:—
1. The language of the Province shall have the principal place
in the Vidyapith and shall be the medium of instruction.
(Explanation; Languages other than Gujarati may be
taught by the direct method).
2. The teaching of Hindi-Hindustani shall be compulsory in
the curricula of the Vidyapith.
3. Manual training shall receive the same importance as intel­
lectual training and only such occupations as are useful for
the life of the nation shall be taught.
4. Whereas the growth of the nation depends not on its cities
but its villages, the bulk of the funds of the Vidyapith and
a majority of the teachers of the Vidyapith shall be
employed in the propagation of education conducive to the
welfare of the villages.
5. In laying down the curricula, the needs of village dwellers
■ shall have principal consideration.
6. There shall be complete toleration of all established religions
, in all institutions conducted by and affiliated to the Vidya­
pith; and for the spiritual development of the pupils, reli-
' gious instruction shall be imparted in consonance with Truth
and Non-violence.
7. For the physical development of the nation, physical
exercise and physical training shall be compulsory in all the
institutions conducted by and afiiliated to the Vidyapith.
While addressing the students of the Gujarat Vidyapith, GandMJi
said : ‘‘If you spend your next vacation in some village in the interior,
you will find the people cheerless and fear-stricken. You will
:find houses in ruins. You will look in vain for any sanitary or
hygienic conditions. You will find the cattle in a miserable way, and
you will see idleness stalking there. The people will tell you of the
spinning wheel having been in their homes long ago, but today they
will entertain no talk of it or of any other cottage industry. They
Tiave no hope left in them. They live, for they cannot die at will.
TEtiey will spin only if you spin. Even if a hundred out of a popula­
tion of 300 in a village spin, you assure them of an additional income
•of Ks, 1,800 a year. You can lay the foundation of solid reform
on this income of every village. It is easy to say this, but
difficult to do. Faith can make it easy. ‘I am alone, how can I r^ach
seven himdred thousand villages V This is the argument that pride
whispers to us. Start with the faith that if you fix yourself up in
one single village and succeed, the rest will follow. Progress is then,
assured. The Vidyapith wants to make you workers of that type.”
L38Edu.—4
 ■44,

After some time many of the institution started during ^ Nem-

cooperation Movement began to wane for want of funds, t l was %
great problem for their organisers to k e ^ t h ^ up. Many looked
to Gandhiji for advice. While addressing the workers of one of sudi
institutions, namely, the P r«n Vidyalaya, an institution in the U.P^
and a child of the Non-cooperation Movement, he said: “I hold that
no institution that is worth its salt can be starved for want of funds.
Morie institutions ar6 b o th ered by opulence than are killed by
poverty. Constant dependence on the public for fimds teaches an
institution the lesson of true humility and k e ^ s it on the alert. On
the contrary, an mstitution that is altogether independent of the
public for its support is liable to succumb to inertia and become lax.
m the performance of its duties. The amount of public support that
m in ^tu tio n can command affords a true m^isure of its utility. I
would advise every institution that is faced with financial distress to
dfftail its activities so as to bring it within the compass of its means
rather than to keep up appearances by borrowmg funds. In the
former case the institution, though reduced in size, will still retain
its pristine health, in the lattw case its bloated size will only be a
of its diseased condition. I would, therefore, earnestly beseech
you to keep clear of this fatal error.”*
These institutions which sprang during the Non-cooperation
Movement served a definite purpose in the national life of, the coxmtry.
Those who joined these schools were dedicated souls who were fired
witih the HM^ion of service to the country. The difficult work of living
and raising the level of life amongst the poor and downtrodden in
the country, such as Miadi, village industries and removal of un-
touchability foimd recruits in a large measure from the products of
these schools.
A prominent aspect of the education imparted in these schools
was the important place given to service in the villages. Till then^
our higher education continued to cater to the needs of the urban
population. It does so even now. As the University Education Com­
mission has remarked, even village youths coming in for university
education are trained in such a manner that they leave the villages
in quest of jobs elsewhere, thus depriving the villages of their best
material. ITie result is continuous depletion of the rural areas
of their b«rt leadership. Nobody ever thought about it, For the
first time Gandhiji raised his voice against this. In the institutions
started by him, the emphasis was on service in the villages, even at
the sacrifice of higher emoluments which these youths could get
under GovernmCTit or in other services in the cities. The result
was that due to the help in manpower, made available by these
•Page 486 Tendulkar’s MAHATMA, Vol. II.
 45

institutions, millions of people in villages took to the spinning wheeL

hand-weaving and other cottage industries and augmented their
income, thus leading to better living. A great amount of adult edu>
cation was achieved and the whole coimtryside reverberated with,
a new spirit, a new confidence and strength.
Another very valuable contribution to educational thought
made by these schools was the important place they gave to our
languages. Till then it was taken for granted that no higher educa­
tion was possible in any language other than English. These schools
attempted, and in many places successfully, to impart higher
education in the regional languages. This attempt also focussed the
attention of the people on the paucity of books and other material
in our languages in the various subjects. With that knowledge came
the effort to produce the needed literature in those branches
of knowledge. The National Movement created in our people pride
in our languages and a climate to work for their advancement. The
result was the production of a large amount of literature in our
languages in various subjects which did not exist before.
 C h a p te r XI
TOE SFINNING WHEEL AS AN INSTRUMENT? OF EDUCATION

In the scheme of Education that Gandhiji adumbrated the

spinning wheel came to occupy a very important place. In all his
educational experiments since the Sabarmati days, spinning was an
Important activity. Later when Basic Education was prop6und.ed,
it occupied k central place as one of the most suitable crafts to be
used as a means of instruction in schools. To begin with, he was
impressed by the economic and social importance of the spinning
'wheel. To quote his own words, “The women regard it as tiie pro­
tector of their honour, to every widow it is a dear forgotten friend.
Its restoration can fill the millions of hungry mouths. No industrial
development schemes alone can solve the problem of growing
poverty of the peasantry of India covering a vast surface—1,900
miles long and 1,500 miles broad. India is not a small island, it is a
big continent which cannot be converted like England into an indus­
trial country. Our only hope must centre upon utilising the wasted
hours of the nation, for adding to the wealth of the country, by
converting cotton into cloth in our villages.” To serve as an example
to the poor in the villages, he wanted every one to do spinning at
least a few minutes a day as yagna (sacrificial spinning).

These ideas of Gandhiji were ridiculed by the so-called educated

^nd highly placed. While the masses followed him with devotion,
the intellectuals were frankly sceptic. This scepticism was expressed
hy many in the press and on the platform. Poet Rabindranath
Tagore was one of those who did not relish Gandhiji’s exhortation,
that every one should spin. In an article in the October issue of the
Modern Review 1921, he questioned these views of Gandhiji in no
uncertain terms. “Is this the gospel of a new creative age he
asked. “If large machinery constitutes a danger to the West, will
not the small machinery constitute a danger for us ?” He also doubted
the good of unquestioning obedience of. the masses to Gandhiji’s
behests. He said: “A cause ais great as India should not depend on
the will of a single master. Emotion and enthusiasm are required,
"but also science and m ^itation. All the moral forces of the nation
must be called upon to contribute. Economists must find practical
solutions, educationists must teach, statesmen ponder and workers
work. No pressure either open or hidden, must weigh on the
intelligence.”
 47

The stirring rejoinder that Gandhiji gave to this was

epoch-making. The reasons he gave for the adoption of spinning
hold good even today. They are given below : —
“The bard of Santiniketan has contributed to the Modem Review
a brilliant essay on the present movement. It is a series of word
pictures which he alone can paint. It is an eloquent protest against
authority and slave mentality of whatever description. It is a wel­
come and wholesome reminder to all workers, that we must not be
impatient, we must not impose authority, no matter how great. Th^
poet tells us summarily to reject anything and everything that does
not appeal to our reason or heart. If we would gain swaraj, we
must iS tand for truth as we know it a t any cost. A reformer who is
exffaged because his message is not accepted must retire to the forest
to leam how to watch, wait and pray. With all this one must heartily
agree, and the poet deserves the thanks of his countrymen for
standing up for truth and reason. There is no doubt that our last
s t a t 0 will be worse than our first, if we surrender our reason iiito
somebody’s keeping. And I would feel extremely sorry to discover
t ^ t t h e country had unthinkingly and blindly followed all I had
said or done. I am quite conscious of the fact that blind surrender
to love is often more mischievous than a forded surrender to t h e
lai&h of the tyrant. There is hope for the slave of. the brute, none
for that of love. Love is needed to strengthen the weak, love
becomes tyrannical when it exacts obedience from an unbeliever. To
mutter a mantra without knowing its value is unmanly. It is good,,
therefore, that the poet has invited all who are slavishly mimicking
the c ^ of charkha boldly to declare their revolt. His essay serves
ais a warning to us all who in our impatience are betrayed into in­
tolerance or even violence against those who differ from us. I r e g a r d
the poet as a sentinel warning us against the approach of enemies
c a l l e d bigotry, lethargy, intolerance, ignorance, inertia and the other
members of that brood.
“I do indeed ask the poet and the sage to spin the wheel as a
sacrament. When there is war, the poet lays down the lyre, &e
lawyer his law reports, the school-boy his books. The poet will
sing the true note after the war is over, the lawyer will have occa­
sion to go to his law books. When a house is on fire, all the inmates
go out, and each one takes up a bucket to quench the fire. When all
about me are dying for want of food, the only occupation permissible
to me is to feed the hungry. It is my conviction that India is a house
on fire because its manhood is being daily scorched, it is dying of
hunger because it has no work to buy food with. Khulna is starving
not because the people cannot work, but because they have no work.
The Ceded Districts are passing successively through a fourth
 48
fiunine, Orissa is a land suffering from ch^Qmc faimne. Qur cities
are not India. India lives in her seven lakhs of villages, the
cities live upon the villages. They do not bring their wealtii fwan
other countries. The city people are brokers and commission agents
for the big houses of Europe, America and Japan. The cities have
co-operated with the latter in the bleedihg process that has gone on
^or the past two hundred years. It is my belief based on experience,
that India is daily growing poorer. The circulation about her fefet
alid legs has almost stopped. And if we do not take care, she will
collapse altogether.
“To a people famishing and idle, the only acceptable form in
which God can dare appear is work and promise of food as wages.
God created man to work for his food, and said l ^ t those who site
without work were thieves. Eighty per cent of India are compul­
sorily thieves half the year. Is it any wonder if India has become
one vast prison ? Hunger is the argument tiiat is driving India to
the spinning wheel. The call of the spinning wheel is the noblest
of all. Because it is the call of love. And love is Swaraj, T?ie
ginning wheel will ‘curb the mind’, when the time spent on neces­
sary physical labour can be said to do so. We must think of
millions of our dying countrymen and countrywomen. ‘Why should
I, who have no need to work for food, spin ?’ may be the question
adced. Because I am eating what does not belong to me. I am living
on the spoliation of my countrymen. Trace the course of every pice
that finds its way into your pocket, and you will realise the truth
of what is right. Swaraj has no meaning for the millions, if they do
not know how to employ their enforced idleness. The attainment of
this swaraj is possible within a short time, and it is possible only by
the revival of the spinning wheel.
“I do want growth, I do want self-determination, I do want free­
dom, but I want all these for the soul. I doubt if the steel age is an
advance upon the flint age. I am indifferent. It is the evolution of
the soul to which the intellect and all our faculties have to be
devoted. I have no difficulty in imagining the possibility of a man
armoured after the modern style making some lasting and new dis­
covery for mankind, but I have less difficulty in imagining the possi­
bility of a man having nothing but a bit of flint and nail for lighting
his path ever singing new hymns of praise and delivering to an
aching world a message of peace and goodwill upon earth. A plea
for the wheel is a plea for recognising the dignity of labour.*
“The Poet thinks, that I want everybody to spin the whole of his
time to the exclusion of all other activity, that is to say, that I want
the poet to forsake his lyre, the farmer his plough, the lawyer his
*Pp. 84-5 Tendulkar’s MAHATllA., Vol. XL
 49
brief and the doctor his lancet. So far is this from truth that I have
asked no one to abandon his calling, but on the contrary to adorn
It by giving every day only thirty minutes to spinning as sacrifice
for the whole nation. I have indeed asked the famishing man or
woman who is idle for want of any work whatsoever to spin for a
living and the half-starved farmer to spin during his leisure hours
to supplement his slender resources. If the poet spun half an hour
daily, his poetry would gain in richness. For it would then represent
the poor man’s wants and woes in a more forcible manner than now.
“He thinks that the charkha is calculated to bring about the death­
like sameness in the nation and thus imagining he would shun it if
he could. The truth is, that the charkha is intended to realise the
‘essential and living oneness of interest among India’s millions.
Behind the magnificent and kaleidoscopic variety one discovers in
nature a unity of purpose, and form which is equally unmistakable.
No two men are absolutely alike, not even twins, yet there is much
that is indispensably common to all mankind. And behind the
commonness of form there is the same life pervading all. The
idea of sameness or oneness was carried by Shankara to its utmost
logical and natural limit and he exclaimed that there was only one
Truth, one God—Brahman—^and, all form, nama rupa, was illusion
or illusory, evanescent. We need not debate whether what
'we see is unreal; and whether the real behifid the unreality
is what we do not see. All I say is there is a sameness,
identity or oneness behind the multiplicity and variety. So do I hold
that behind a variety of occupations there is an indispensable same­
ness also of occupation. Is not agriculture common to the vast
majority of mankind ? Even so was spinning common not long ago
to a vast majority of mankind. Just as both prince and peasant
tnust eat and clothe themselv^, so must they labour for supjdying
their common wants. The prmce may do so if only fey way of symbol
and sacrifice, but that much is indispensable for him if he will be
true to himself and his people. Europe may not realise this vital
necessity at the present moment, because it has made exploitation
of non-European races a religion. But it is a false religion bound to
perish in the near future. The non-European races will not for ever
allow themselves to be exploited. I have endeavotired to show a way
oitt that is peaceful, himian and noble.
“Just as, if we are to live, we must breathe not air imported
from England, not eat food so imported, so may we not import cloth
made in England. I do not hesitate to carry the doctrine to its logi­
cal limit and say that Bengal dare not import her cloth even from
Bombay. If Bengal will live her natural and free life without ex­
ploiting the rest of India or the world outside, she must manufacture
 50

her cloth in her villages as she grows her corn there. Machinery
has its place; it has come to stay. But it must nost be allowed to-,
jiisplace the necessary human labour. An imported plough is a good
thing. But if by some chance one man could plough up by some
mechanical invention the whole of the land of India and control all
the agricultural produce and if the millions had no other occupation^
they would starve, and being idle, they would become dunces, as
many have already become. There is hourly danger of majiy more
being reduced to that unenviable state. I would welcome every im­
provement in the cottage machine but I know that it is criminal to
displace the hand labour by the introduction af power-driven spindle®
unless one is at the same time ready to give millions of farmers
some other occupation in their homes.”*
Wherever Gandhiji went, hfe preached the gospel of the spinning
wheel. He wanted the spinning wheel to be given an important place
in the national schools started during the non-cooperation movement.
One of the main features of all the national schools started in that
era was the great place that was given to spinning and weaving.
Khadi became the livery of freedom, and charka became the symbol
of a jaew awakening of the nation from Cape Comorin to the
Himalayas.
With this background, it is not difficult to understand as to why
he chose the spinning Wheel as an instrument of education in ^hools.
When he propounded Basic Education and pleaded for its acceptance
by the country, he wanted to activise our schools by the introduc­
tion of a useful craft. Educational philosophers before him had
accepted manual training as a means of education. But Gandhiji
went one step further. According to him manual training should
not merely result in producing articles for a school museum or toys;
which have no value, but useable articles. He wanted that training
should be given through a continuous craft the initial cost of which
was such as the villagers could afford and which would not only
give education to the child, but produce articles of economic value,,
which could be easily marketed. Only articles which fulfil a basic
need can be easily marketed. The spinning wheel fulfilled all these
conditions. Its cost was small. It lent itself effectively for education,
and fulfilled the greatest need of man next to food.

*Pp. 282-3, Tendulkar’s MAHAT]y[A, Vol. II.

 C hapter XII
THE NEW EDUCATION
During the Provincial elections in 1937, the Congress emerged as.
the biggest elected party in the country. After acceptance of office in
the provinces, the Congress had to face many urgent problems, which,
had baffled solution during the last few decades. The spread of compul­
sory elementary education was one of the more important of these.
The major difficulty was of finance. In the words of Gandhiji, “The-
cruelest irony of the New Reforms lies in the fact that we are left
with nothing but the liquor revenue to fall back upon, in order to»
give our children education.” Again, “That is the educational puzzle^
but it should not baffle us. We have to solve it and the solution must
not involve a compromise of our ideal of prohibition, cost whatever
else it may. It must be shameful and humiliating to think that unless
we got the drink revenue, our children would be starved of their-
education. But if it comes to it, we should prefer it as a lesser evil.
If only we will refuse to be obsessed by the figures and by the-
supposed necessity of giving our children the exact kind of educa­
tion that they get today, the problem should not baffle us.
“As a nation we are so backward in education that we cannot,
hope to fulfil our obligations to the nation in this respect in a given;,
time during this generation, if the programme is to depend on.
money. I have therefore made bold, even at the risk of losing a
reputation for constructive ability, to suggest that education should
be self-supporting. By education I mean the all-round drawing out
of the best in the child, body, mind and spirit. Literacy is not the*
end of education nor even the beginning. It is only one of the meany.
whereby man and woman can be educated. Literacy in itself is no-
education. I would, therefore, begin the child’s education by teaching
it a useful handicraft and enabling it to produce frdm the moment,
it begins its training. Thus every school can be made self-support-
ing, the condition being that the State takes over the manufactures-
of these schools.
“I hold that the highest development of the mind and the soul.
is possible under such a system of education. Only wherever han,di-
craft has to be taught, it should be taught not merely mechanically
as is done today, but scientifically, i.e., the child should know the why"
and wherefore of every process. I am not writing this without some-
confidence, because it has the backing of experience. This method
is being adopted more or less completely wherever spinning is being:
taught to workers. I have myself taught sandal-making and even.
spinning on these lines with good results. This method does not
exclude a knowledge of history and geography. But I find that this
is best taught by transmitting such general information by word of
mouth. One imparts ten times as much in this manner as by reading
and writing. The sign^ of the alphabet may be taught later when the
pupil has learnt to distinguish wheat from chaff and when he has
jsomewhat developed his or her taste. This is a revolutionary pro­
posal but it saves immense labour and enables a student to acquire in
one year what he may take much longer to learn. This means all-
Tound economy. Of course, the pupil learns mathematics whilst he
is learning his handicrafts.
“I attach great importance to primary education which, accordmg
to my conception, should be equal to the present matriculation less
If all the collegians werfe of a sudden to forget their know­
ledge, the loss sustained by the sudden lapse of the memory of, say,
a few l«dEhs of collegians would be as nothing cmnpared to the loss
that the nation has sustained through the ocean of darkness M t
surrounds three hundred millions. The measure of illiteracy is no
adequate measure of the prevailing ignorance among the millions of
villagers.
“I would revolutionise college education and relate it to national
necessities. There would be degree for mechanical and other
engineers.. They would be attached to the different industries which
:should pay for the training of the graduates they need. Thus, the
Tatas would be expected to run a college for training engineers
under the supervision of the State; the (Textile) Mill Associations
^o u ld run among them a college for training graduates whom they
need. Similarly for the other industries that may be named.
’Commerce will have its college. There remain arts, medicine and
agriculture. Several private arts colleges are today self-supportkig.
The State would, therefore, cease to run its own. Medical colleges
would be attached to certified hospitals. As they are popular among
monied men, they may be expected, by volimtary contributions, to
/support medical colleges. And agricultural colleges to be worthy of
the name must be self-supporting. I have a painful experience of
some agricultural graduates. Their knowledge is superficial. They
lack practical experience. But if they had their apprenticeship on
farms which are self-sustained and answered the requirements of the
country, they would not have to gain experience after getting, their
-degrees and at the expense of their employers.”’*'
These views were so diametrically opposed to the accepted view
on education that they were opposed to most persons who were con-
:sidered to be experts in education. They believed that it had been
•Pp. 3-6 EDUCATIONAL~RECONSTRUCTION by Gandhiji.
 53

recognized in the course of centuries, as a matter of practical experi­

ence in all civilized countries that education was a costly venture,
and Mahatmaji’s words seemed to belie the experience of the
whole world. The opposition to his ideas ranged from caution and
scepticism, respectfully expressed out of reverence for his persona­
lity to downright denunciation. One professor went to the extent
•of saying, “Let us not delude ourselves into believing that self-
supporting workshop schools manufacturing and marketing goods
will impart education. In actual practice, it will be nothing but
legalised child labour. A school or a college should be a place where
young minds live in a world of values rather than of prices. If at
the impressionable period of their lives, manufacture, marketing and
money-making be placed as their ideal, their growth will be arrested.
To sum up, it is bad economy to adopt a short-sifted policy which
will make the school solvent and the nation bankrupt.”*

To such critics Gandhiji replied, “We have up to now concentrated

on stuffing children’s minds with all kinds of information, without
«ven tlnnking of stimulating or developing them. Let us now cry
a halt to this and concentrate on educating the child properly
through manual work, not as a side activity, but as a prime means
of intellectual training. We are apt to think lightly of village crafts
because we have divorced educational from manual training. It is
a gtoss superstition to think that this sort of vocational exercise
will make education dull or cramp the child’s mind. Some of my
happiest recollections are the bright and joyful faces of children
while they were receiving vocational instruction under competent
teachars.

“If isuch an education is given, the direct result will be that it

will be self-supporting. But ^ e test of success is not its self-
supporting character, but the fa*^ ^uit the whole man has been drawn
out through the teaching of the handicraft in a scientific manner.
"I^he ^f-supporting part should be the logical corollary of the fact
that the pupil has learnt the use of every one of his faculties.”

These views of Gandhiji naturally raised a great deal of contro-

versy throughout the land. Gandhiji tried to meet his critics thi ough
his articles in the h a r i j a n . Finally, he agreed to attend a con­
ference of educational experts sunmioned at the Nav Bharat Vidya-
laya in Wardha to discuss his plan of education. Debates at this Con­
ference are described in the following chapter. In the meantime,
it is worth paying attention to Gandhiji’s proposals at this conference.
♦Page 32 UNDERSTANDING BASIC EDUCATION by T. S.
Avinashilingam.
 54

“The propositions I shall submit to Hie conference for considers-

tion will be, so far as tiiey occur to me at present, as follows:—
1. “The present system of education does not meet the require­
ments of the country in any shape or form, Engligh, hav^
ing been made the medium of instruction in all the higher
branches of learning, has created a permanent bar between
the highly educated few and the uneducated many. It has
prevented knowledge from percolating to the masses. The
excessive importance given to English has cast upon the
educated class a burden which has maimed them mentally
for life and made them strangers in their own land.
Absence of vocational training has made the educated clai^
almost wD&i for productive work and harmed t h ^ physl*
cally. Money spent on primary education is a waste qf
expenditure inasmuch as what little is taught is soon,
forgotten and has little or no value in terms of villages or
citiep. Such advantage as is gained by the existing system
of education is not gained by the chief tax-payer, the
ordinai-y man in the village, his children getting the least.
2. “The course of primary education should be iextended at
least to seven years and should include the general knoW"
ledge gained up to the matriculation standard less E n g li^
and plus a substantial vocation.
3. “For the all-round development of boys and girls all train­
ing should, so far as possible, be given through a profit
yielding vocation. In other words, vocations should serve
a double purpose—to enable the pupil to pay for his tuition
through the pT-cducts of his labour and at the same time
to develop the whole man or woman in him or her, through
the vocation learnt at school.
“Land, buildings and equipment are not intended to be covered
by the proceeds of the pupil’s labour.
“All the processes of cotton, wool and silk, commencing from
gathering, cleaning, ginning (in the case of cotton), carding, spinning,
dyeing, sizing, warp-making, double twisting, designing, and weav­
ing embroidery, tailoring, paper-making, cutting, book-binding,
cabinet making, toy-making, Gur-making are undoubted occupations
that can easily be learnt and handled without much capital outlay.
^‘This primary education should equip boys and girls to earn
their bread by the State guaranteeing employment in the vocations
learnt or by buying their manufactures at prices fixed by the State.
 55

4. “Higher education should be left to private enterprise ana

for meeting national requirements whether in the various
industries, technical arts, belles-letters or fine arts.
“The State Universities should be purely examining bodies self-
supporting through the fees charged for examinations.
“Universities will look after the whole of the field of education
and will prepare and approve courses of studies in the various
departments of education. No private school should run without
the previous sanction of the respective Universities. University
■charters should be given liberally to any body of persons of proved
worth and integrity, it being always understood that the Universi­
ties will not cost the State anything except that it will bear the
cost of running a Central Education Department.
“The foregoing scheme does not absolve the State from running
such seminaries as may be required for supplying State needs.
“It is claimed that if the whole scheme is accepted, it will solve
the question of the greatest concern to the State—training of its
youth, its future-makers.”*

♦Pp. 30-32 EDUCATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION by G«BdhijL

 C h aptsb XIII
THE WABDHA EDUCATION CONFERENCE
The All India National Educational Conference at Wardha Irsgun
on the 22nd October, 1937. Sri Jamnalal Bajaj, the veteran Congress
welcomed the delegates. Most of the State Educatioaj Minis-
ters attended. Prominent educationists from all over the country
a]liso participated in the Conference. I also happened to be one of
the invitees to tiie Conference. Mahatma Gandhi prei^ded over the
Conference. In his presidential speech, he explained the salient
points of his scheme. At the end, he requested ev^y one to speak out
his mind. He earnestly plfeaded that none ^duld agree to any of
his proposals out of respect for him; but instead, each of the dele­
gates c^ould examine the scheme on it^ merits and then give out
what was considered to be his or her considered opinion.
Gahdhiji said: “The ideas tiiat I wish to place before you may
be new in their method of p re sen tati^ although my
behind those ideas is very old. The propositions that I wish to put
forward refer to both primary and college education, but we shall
have to give special consideration to primary education. I have
included secondary in primary education; as primary education is.
the only education so-called t W is available to a small fraction of
the people in our villages, many of which I have seen during my
peregrinations since 1915. I have seen, perhaps more than anybody
else, the condition of the Indian villages. I gained good experience
of the rural life of South Africa as well. I know fully well the type
of education that is given in the Indian villages. And now that I
have settled down in Segaon, I can study the whole problem of
national education from closer quarters. I am convinced that if we
wish to ameliorate rural conditions, we must combine secondary
with primary education. The educational scheme, therefore, that
we wish to place before the coimtry must be primarily for the
villages. I have no experience of college education, though I have
come in contact with hundreds of college boys, have had heart to
heart chats and correspondence with them, know their needs, their
failings and the diseases they suffer from. But we must restrict
ourselves to a consideration of primary education. For, the moment
the primary question is solved, the secondary one of College educa­
tion will be easily settled.
“I am convinced that the present system of primary education
is not only wasteful but positively harmful. Most of the boys are
lost to their parents and to the occupation to which they are bom.
They pick up evil habits, affect urban ways and get a smattei^ng
 57

<^f something which may be anything but education. What then

should be the form of primary education ? I think the remedy lies
educating them by means of vocational or manual training. I
have some experience of them myself, for on the Tolstoy Farm in
South Africa, I trained my own sons and other children through
some manual work, e.g., carpentry or shoe-making which I learned,
from Kallenbach who had his training in a Trappist Monastery. I
am confident that my sons and all the other children, lost nothing,
though as the time at my disposal was limited and my pre-occupa­
tions were numerous, I could not give them an education which
satisfied either me or them.
“But the scheme that I wish to place before you today is not the
teaching of some handicrafts side by side with so-called liberal edu­
cation. I want the whole process of education to be imparted
tbffough some handicrafts or industry. It may be objected tiiat in
the middle ages only handicrafts were taught to the students, but
^ e occupational training then was far from serving an educational
purpose. The crafts were taught only for the sake of the o:afts»
wiliiout any attempt to develop the intellect as well. Today, tradi­
tional craftsmen have either forgotten their crafts or the tec^inique
has been neglected and not improved. Many have taken to clerical
careers and are lost to the countryside. As a result, it is now im­
possible to find an efficient carpenter or smith in an average village.
Handicrafts were dying out and since the spinning wheel was being
neglected, it was taken to Lancashire where thanks to the English
genius it was developed to an extent that is seen today. I say this
irrespective of my views on industrialism.
“The rem edy-li^ in imparting the whole art and science of a
craft through practical training and through it imparting the whole
e^teation. While teaching tafcli-spinning, for instance, we must
knpart knowledge of the various varieties of cotton, the diSerezit
in different provinces of India, the history of the dec^y e i
tli« itandicraft, the political reasons for this, includii^ the hiirtory
of the British rule in India, a knowledge of arithmetic and so on.
I am trying the same experimait on my little grandscai who scarce^
ly f e ^ that he is being taught, for all the while he plays and laughs
«nd sings. I a ^ e^eciaQy m ^ tio i^ g the takU and emphasising
its utility because I have teaBsed its power and its romance; also
because the handicraft of making cloth is the only one which can
be taught throughout the country, and because A e takli is very
cheap. If you have any other suitable handicraft to suggest, please
do so without any hesitation so that we may consider it also. How­
ever, I sm convinced that the takli is the only practical solution of
our problem, considering the deplorable economic condition prevail­
ing in the coimtry.
 58

“I have placed the scheme before the ministers; it is for them to

accept ta* reject it. But my advice is that primary education skauld
centre round the takli. During the first year every thing should be
taught through the takli, in the second year other processes alsa
can be taught side by side. It will also be possible to earn quite
enough through the takli because there will be sufficient demand
for the cloth produced by the children. Even the parents of the
children will be sufficient to consume the products of their children.
I have contemplated a seven years’ course which, so far as the takli
is concerned, would culminate in practical knowledge of weaving,
including dyeing, designing, etc. I am very keen on finding the
expenses of a teacher through the product of the manual work of
his, pupils, bfcausf I am conyinced tjiat there is no other way to
carry education to crores of our children.
“I have been accused of being opposed to literacy training. Far
from it! I simply want to show the way in which it should be
given. The self-supporting aspect has also been attacked. It is
said that whereas we ought to expend millions on primary $duca-
tion we are going to exploit the childrein. It is also feared that
there will be enormous waste. This fear is falsified by experience;
As for exjJloiting or burdening the children, I would ask whether
we burden the child when we save him from a disaster. The takli
is a good enough toy to play with. It is no less a toy because it
is a productive one. Even today children help their parents to a
certain extent. The Segaon children know the details of agriculture
better than I, for they have worked with their parents on the fields.
Whilst the child will be encouraged to spin and help his parents
with agricultural jobs, he will also be made to feel that he belongs
not only to his parents but also to the village and to the country and
that he must make some return to them. That is the only way.
I would tell the ministers that they will make children helpless by
doling out education to them. The children will become confident
and brave if they pay for their own education by their own labour.
This system is to be common to all,—^Hindus, Muslims, Parsees, and
Christians. Why do I not lay any stress on religious instruction ?
people ask. Because I am teaching them practical religion, the
religion of self-help. I would, therefore, ask you to say whether this
idea of imparting education through manual training appeals to
you.” i
Referring to the idea of conscripting young men and women to
teach in primary schools, Gandhiji continued :
“If Mussolini can impress the youth of Italy for the service of
his country, why should not we? Is it fair that the compulsory
enlistment of the service of our youth for a year or longer before
 59

tliey begin their career should be labelled as slavery? Youth has

contributed much to the success of the movement for freedom during
tlie past seventeen years, and I would now call upon them to give
a year of their lives freely to the service of the nation. If legislation
is necessary in this respect, it will not be compulsion, as it cannot
be passed without the consent of the majority of our representatives.
“If we want to eliminate communal strife and international
strife, we must start with pure and strong foundations by rearing
our younger generation on the education I have adumbrated. That
plan springs out of non-violence, to effect complete prohibition, but
I may tell you that even if there was to be no loss of revenue and
our exchequer was full, this education would be a sine qua non
if we did not want to urbanise our boys. We have to make them
true representatives of our culture, of our civilisation, of the true
genius of our nation. We cannot do so imless we give them a course
of self-supporting primary education.”
After Mahatmaji had spoken, the discussions began in right
earnest. Dr. Zakir Hussain, Principal, Jamia Millia Islamia spoke
n e x t: “Those who are working in the educational field will not find
Mahatmaji’s scheme very new. They know that true learning can
be i^aparted only through doing. They also know that c h ild r^
have to be taught various subjects through manual work, no matter
whether one believes in iirban or rural civilisation, in violence or
non-violence. We teachers know, that up to the age of thirteen
children want to do and undo, break and mend things. This is how
nature educates them. To ask them to sit still in one place with
books is to do violence to them. Many educationii^ts have, there­
fore, been trying to make some manual work the of educa­
tion. In America this method is caUed the Project and in
Russia the Complex Method. We can surely import education to
our children through the takli and the charkha and some other
suitable handicrafts. i
“But the greatest difficulty in carrying out fee s ^ a n e will be
the scarcity of trained teachers.
“ThCTe may be some aspects of a subject which cannot be taught
through the takli. Shall we leave them out altogether ? No. We
should keep as our principle the developmaat of the intellect through
hand-work; but we should not be tied down to it. We should try
to find out £K>me other handicrafts through which all other aspects
of ttie various subjects can be taught to our children.
“I wish to say a few words regarding the self-supporting aspect
of education. Wherever the experiment has beai tried, it has not
L38Edu.—5
b e a i Ip e ssib le t o m a k e e d u e a tN m s ^ ^ p |9 o r U & g v I b A m e i m BtoeI.
D e w ^ hskd a s m iiila r p h t a w liic h w a s w ^ e f o e i r but
h e h a d t o c lo s e d o w n h i s s e h o o l a f t e r si few y e a r s . A m e r i c a i s a
c o u n ^ w h e r e t i i e r e is n o s c a r c i l y o f f m t d s &r s t a t e h ^ p . I f i& e
e x p e x im e n t c o u ld n o t s u c c e e d t h e r e , w h a t h o p e o f s u e e e s s h a s i t i n
a p o o r c o im try l& e o u rs ?

“You will say that we want self-supportoig schools because we

are poor. Quit«. But I s ^ u ld like to utter a n o ^ of warning. The
greatest evil of the present system of education is examinations. At
present aM the teachers’ ^ e rg y is concentrated <m examinatio!B&
But there is a danger in over-emphasising the self-supporting aspect
of education. Teachers may become slave-driv^s and exploit the
labour of poor boys. If tMs happens, l^e takli will prove eve»
worse thfi^ books. We shall be l&ying iomdatioxks of hidden
slavery in our country. In sponsoring this schei^ we should no1;;»
therefore, forget this inherent danger ”
There was a free exchange of views on the miiny asp^ts of
Gajpi^hiji’s prQpo^a|s. While ge^ers^y there was acceptance of title
view that a|it education through crafts and activities would provide
a b e t ^ type of education, the self-supporting aspect, of it came in for
a great deal of critical examination particularly from Prof. K. T. Shah,
lliere was unanimity in such matters as medium of instruction,
€!andhiji suiswered many of the criticisms made a^^ost
scheme. He said: “By means of the s c h ^ e which I jdaced befcwpe
you this morning we can make our boys sell-c(mfident and
courageous. Tafcli-spinning will not be the only thing that wiH be
taught during the seven years. I am of the opinion that in the fizHst
year, we should teach boys a little carding, even before the tafeli.
Then tiie boys should be taught to collect cotton in the fi^ds. Alter
this, they can be taught spinning, first with the takli and then with
the charkha. After spinning, the making of the takli and the
el^Xhha also be taught to the stisidents. They can leam
carpentry and smithy as well. Thus, if we plan out the whole
course during the seven years, the scheme is bound to succeed.

“Prof. Shah tiiinks that this scheme will create unequal and un­
just competition between professional artisans and school boys.. . . .
To my mind there is no cause for such fear. When the ministers'
create a suitable atmosphere in the coimtry, people will like to buy
school products even if they have to pay a higher price. Thus,
there will be no difficulty in marketing the school producfes. So far
as cloth is concerned, I thijik the State will have to buy all the
necessary cloth from the schools even though the price may be
 61

h i^ e r. For example, although the rates of the printing presi in

Yerawada jail are higher than those of the other local presses, the
Grovernment has all its printing done there, and the question of com­
petition does not arise at all. Our work has to be done in the same
way.

“In the beginning there is bound to be some waste in the village

schools; but a clever and tactful teacher will see that the boys leam
most with the least waste.

“Dr. Zakir Hussain has told us of the failure of Prof. Dewey’s

scheme in America; I think his scheme failed not because it was
very expensive but because he could not work it on a large scale.
My scheme is absolutely different, because it is a rural one. It is
said that my scheme will bring about slavery in the schools. But
this can be said about all good things, because in bad hands even
good things become bad. Therefore, I do not wish ttiat my schone
should be carried out by those who have neither faith nor confi­
dence in it.

“I wish to make one more point dear. I do not want to teach

the village children only handicrafts. I want to teach through hand*
work all other subjects such as history, geography, arithmetic,
science, language, painting and music. All this teaching will have
to be done according to a definite plan. I want only five hours daily
because I am sure the boys will also practise for some time at home
what they are taught in the schools. I am confident that if we make
calculations for the seven years together we shall find tlmt educa­
tion can be self-supporting. If in the first year each boy is able to
earn two pice a day, the next year he will be able to earn an anna.
In this way their power of production wHl continue to inorease, and
they will be able to earn their living in later life.

“It has been suggested that agriculture should be made the

medium of instruction in the village schools, but, the shame of it
att is that we have not the necessary means. Agriculture as it is
taught at present in the schools and colleges is usdess iov oW£
vtilages, because it is not intim atdy related to rural coi^liUons.
However, if you accept my scheme and are able to find suitable
t^ d ie rs, I am sure it will be very useful for the village folk. The
students will also go with their tochers to the fields and they will
leam many subjects while ploughing, sowing, irrigating, and weed­
ing the fields. They will also have sufficient physical exercise, and
attificial exercises will therefore be unnecessary.”
 62
l^ e re were further discussions after his speech. After a full and
frank discussion, the following four resolutions were passed in the
conference
(1) “That in the opinion of this Conference free and ccHn-
pulsory education be provided for seven years on a
nation-wide scale.
(2) “That the medium of instruction should be the mother-
tongue.
(3) “That the Conference endorses the proposal made by
Mahatma Gandhi that the process of education through­
out this period should centre around some form 6f
manual and productive work, and that all the other abili­
ties to be developed or training to be given should, as
far as possible, be integrally related to the environment
of the child.
(4) “That the Conference expects that this system of educa­
tion will be gradually able to cover the remuneration of
the teachers.”*

•P j. 45-82 EDUCATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION. 15th Edn., 1950, Pub­

lished by the Hindustani Talimi Sangh.
 C hapter XTV
BASIC EDUCATION
The Wardha Educational Conference after passing the resolutions
mentioned in the last chapter, appointed a committee with Dr. Zakir
Hussain as Chairman and Sri Aryanayakam as Secretary to pre­
pare a detailed syllabus on the lines of the resolutions passed at
the conference and submit their report to Gandhiji. The Committee
included amongst its members prominent educationists, who had
^one pioneering work in various parts of India. Amongst these may
be mentioned Acharya Vinobaji, a distinguished disciple of
Gandhiji, the originator and leader of the Bhoodan Movement in
India, Professor K. T. Shah, Sri K. G. Saiyidain, now Secretary to
the Ministry of Education in the Government of India, Sri Kaka-
saheb Kalelkar, Sri Sishorilal MushiriwaUa, Sri J. C. Kumarappa
and others. The Committee considered the resolutions in detail,
consulted such educationists as they considered experienced on tibese
lines, and prepared a fairly detailed syllabus. They submitted their
report to Gandhiji on 2nd December, 1937. In their report they
stated:—
“Modem educational tiiought is practically unanimous in com-*
mending the idea of educating children through some suitable form
of productive work. This method is considered to be the most effec­
tive approach to the problem of providing an integral all-sided
education.
“Psychologically, it is desirable, because it relieves the child from
the tyranny of a purely academic and theoretical instruction against
which its active nature is always making a healthy protest. It
balances the intdlectual and practical elements of experience, and
may be made an instrument of educating the body and mind in co­
ordination. The child acquires not the superficial Hteracy which
implies, often wiAout warrant, a capacity to read the printed page,
but the far more important capacity of using hand and intelligence
tor some constructive purpose. This, if we may be permitted to
use the e i^ r^ ^ o n , is the literaey of the whole penionality.
“Socially considered, the introduction of such practical productive
work in education, to be participated in by all the children of the
nation, will ieod to break down the existing barriers of prejudiee
between manual and intellectual workers, harmful alike for both<
It will also cultivate in the only possible way a true sense of the
dignity of labour and of human solidarity-—an ethical and moral
gain of incalculable significance.
 64
“Economically considered, the sch«ne if carried out intelligently
and eiBciently, will increase capacity of our workers
and will also enable them to utiSse iheir leisure advantageously.
“From the strictly educational point of view, greater concreteness
swep 19 tfep W by
wjp ^u^ to Wfe, ai|4 i|f ^
aiwthfy.
**Xn order to secure these a d v a n ta ^ it is essential that two con-
ditioziis^ould be carefully observed." Pinrt, the c r ^ or productive
worlE ch o s^ ^ o ^ d be rich in educative possdblUti^. It should find
n a tu i^ points of CQrrelsition with iinportahi hti^an activiiira aM
and should extend into tlie ^ o l e c o n t^ t of the school
curriculum. Later in ^ e report, in making our recommendatioxu
on the choice of bs^ic crafts, We have given ispecial attention to this
point, and we would urge all who are in any way concern^ wifJi
this scheme to bear this important consideration in mind. The
o b j ^ of this new educational scheme is not primarily the produc­
tion of craftsmen able to practise some craft mechanically, but
rather the exploitation for educative purposes of the resources
implicit in craft work. This demands that productive work should
not only form a part of the school curriculum—^its craft side—but
^p u ld j^ljso inspire the m ^hod of teaching all other subjects. S tr^^
should be laid on the principles of cooperative activity, planjniiig
accuracy, initiative and individual responsibility in learning.
merely adding to the curriculxmi one other subject—weaving,
spinning or carpentry—^while other subjects are still taught in the
traditional way we shall, we are convinced, encourage passive
assimilation and the division of knowledge into unintelligible water­
tight compartments, and thus defeat the real purpose and spirit
of this scheme.
“Teachers and educationists who underts^e this npw educational
venture should clearly realise the ideal of citi:5enship inherent in i^
3^ nipdem India, citizenship is destined to become increasingly
democratic in the social, poetical, econp?3fiic and cultvffal life of the
country. The new g^?^^atipn piust f^t least have an opportu^ty of
understanding its own problems, rights and obligations. A com­
pletely new system is necessary in order to secure the minimum
of education for the common man and for the intelligent exercise
of their rights and duties as citizens. Secondly, in modem times
the intelligent citizen must be an active member of society, able
to repay in the form of some useful service what he owes to it as
a member of an organised civilised community. An education
which produces drags and parasites—^whether rich or poor—stands
 65

condemned. It not only impidrs the productive eapacity and effi-

la ^ c y of society but also engenders a dangerous and immoral
mentality. This scheme is designed to produce workers, who will
IcK^ upon all kinds of useful work—including manual labour, even
scavenging—as honourable and who will be both able and willing
to stand on their own feet.”
B^efrbig to tiie contr6vel*sy oti tJie self-i^ppcttliRg ^ sp ^ t of the
SCfliem©, the Report said, “E v ^ if it is not B d f - ^ p ^ r t ^ to laiy
««Mse, it should be dtcepted as a ^ d tte r of sound ^ liliy
anid as an urgent m ^ i^ re of national tecoiistaiictic^.” ‘'‘It is forttti^le
lioti?^ver,” they continued, “that this godd education will incidi^l^ly
m vex a portion of its running e x p ^ 6 s .” At the same
they sounded a note of warning, **Theipe is to obvious daAffer
that in the woridng of the scheme, the economic aspect may be
stressed at the sacrifice of the cultural and educational objectives.
Teachers may devote most of their attention and energy to extract­
ing the maximum amount of labour from children, while neglect­
ing the intelleptual, social and moral implications and possibilities
of craft training.” In their report they also referred to the important
need for training teachers in this nfeW ideology of Mucatioh
and the many administrative problems that will have to be faced
Ibif the States, and which are incidental to the reform. Iliey
retcommended the setting up of an All India Education Board, Which
the various Provincial Govem m ^ts could consult in the working
out of this programine of National Education.
The Indian National Congress that met in February at Haripura
©34 the banks of tile Tapti river formally accepted this report and
set an All India Education Board by the foUow'ing resolution :—
*"^6 Congress has emphasised tibe importance oi National Edu-
e0^i0n Ifrom 1920. The Coiigress attaches the utmost importance to
a ^i^per organisation of mass education and hoMs that all nationiil
ultftnately depexids on Hie hitithM, c o n t^ t and obj^cti^
^ %duciation that is providM for the people. It is essential, therle-
to build up a nati<^al education on a new foundation and 6n
a ^tion-wide scale. It is hecessary to lay dowh the basic principles
should guide such education and take the necessary steps to
g i ^ effect to them.
"The Congress is of opinion that for the primary and secondary
stages, a basic education should be imparted in accordance with
the following principles:—
1. “Free and compulsory education should be provided for
seven years on a nation-wide scale.
2. “The medium of instruction should be the mother-tongue.
 §6

3. “Throughout the period, education should centre round

some form of manual and productive work, all other acti­
vities to be developed or training to be ^ven should as fax
as possible be integrally related to the central <fraft
chosen.
“Accordingly the Congress is of opinion that an All-India Educa­
tion Board to deal with this basic part of education, be established
and for this purpose requests and authorises Dr. Zakir Hussain and
Sri Aryanayakam, to take immediate steps, under the advice and
guidance of Gandhiji, to bring such a board into existence in orda:
to work out in a consolidated manner a programme of Basic Educa­
tion and to recon^eiid it for acceptance to those who are in con­
trol of State or private education.”
It was thus that the All-India Basic Education Board, later called
the Hindustani Talimi Sangh came into existence. I was fortunate
enough to be invited to be a member of the first Hindustani Taltmt
Sangh which was constituted some time later in the same year.
I always looked forward to the meetings of the Hindustam
Talimi Sangh. They were held in Wardha, Sevagram or at any
other place convenient to Gandhiji, so that he could participate in
the meetings and guide in the teclmiques of this new ideology,
l l j ^ e meetings gave me not only opportunities for close association
with him, but also to meet many other eminent men and women
from various parts of the country who were themselves leaders in
education and established institutions on the new pattern. From
that time Sevagram became a centre of educational work to which
people came from all over India and many from outside India.
Henceforth the Sri Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya, Coimbatore,
which I had the honour to found and work in became a centre of
Basic Education. The first camp in Basic Education in South India
was held there in 1939. The first Basic Training School for training
teachers in Basic Education in the Madras State was also started
there. Later, the All India Conference on Basic Education was also
held there in 1949. It has continued to be one of the pioneering
institutions in the Gandhian method of education.
 C hapter XV
WHY BASIC EDUCATION
The educational pattern of any country reflects an attempt to«
meet its needs. In a country surrounded by enemies, the emphasis in
the education of the young is on military training aiming at self­
protection. In a country where the people are divided into various^
communities according to duties, like in ancient India, different
types of education according to the tasks performed is provided. And
so, educational patterns, that have appeared from time to time in the^
world, while having a basic element in common, have varied in
emphasis according to the needs of the times or the special needs of
a society. Even so, Basic Education was the direct outcome of a need
in the Indian situation. It was given to Gandhiji to find out the ills;
of the coimtry and suggest the remedy for these.
Gandhiji found the country poor, disunited and weak. It was.
in bondage and under foreign domination. Many members of the-
educated classes and certain vested interests were used by the
foreign government to help them in the exploitation of the people
and to maintain their hold on the nation.
Indian culture and ideals tended to be relegated to a second place,
as the educated received their education through the medium of a
foreign language and oblivious of their own culture, lived a
life modelled after the pattern of the foreign masters. Consequoat-
ly there grew a big gulf between the so-called educated and the un-
^ucated.
Others before him saw this, but Gandhiji with his keen insight
went into the causes. The advent of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami.
Vivekananda before him had given a fillip to our culture and.
better insight into our spiritual heritage. The way was thus paved
for his great work towards the uplift of the Indian people.
Gai^Mji was quick to perceive the evils in our society which-
were re^ossible for our national weakness and poverty. He found,
that the Vamashrama Dharma begun thousands of years ago with
whatever m otive had degenerated. Instead of inculcating respect
for labour and work, it placed those who worked in the fields at the-
lowest rung of the social ladder. The Panchamas were the com­
munity which formed the very basis for the creation of our agricul-^
tural wealth. But they were regarded as untouchables and outcastes.
Above them came the Sudras (who worked, but not in the same*
 68
way as the Panchamas. Then came the Vysias, who wem a m^a^Phaut
community not doing work with their hands. The Kshatriyas and
Brahmans who were the highest tastes did not do any manual work
a t all. The higher castes vied with one another in not doing any
manual work, for those who did work with their hands were con-
^ e r e d isailerior. It is no w ond^ thmi, tiMit we d e t^ < ^ te d as a
n a to i. LabcHxr is the sourds of all wealth. Jbi a society li^tiere labour
is not held in esteem and w h m the so-called higher cast»s live on
Ifcc expMtation of the hmm: castes, weall^ is inevitably reduced
rcsml^iiaig in klrge*s(^e povo?ty. GU^idhi|i pi^ceived that the first
to be taken in awidE^ung ^ e nation Was to proj^ouild a philo^^
4G^hy of life upholding the dignity of labour.
This he did constantly from the begiiming of his publit o a r ^ .
In a va^t body l^ e 13ie Congress consis^g of millions of rfiembers,
he introduced the labour franchise. Since spiiming was one of the
crafts that could be learned easily by all and fulfilled one of the
necessities of human life, it became to him the symbol of manual
labour. In all Satyagraha Camps, he taught that there was no such
thing as menial labour, and all work should be equally respected.
‘To drive this home to our people, he gave great respect to scavenging
and himself did it on occasions. At the Gandfii Seva Sangh confe­
rences such hard labour as road laying, digging of ponds, latrine ^ d
urinal pits, was done by all the members. He went one step further
when he included sarirasrama in the vow to be taken by everybody
-along with the daily prayers. The vow was as follows :
Ahimsa satya astaya hrdhmacharya asangrdha
Sarirasrama asvada sarvathra hhayavarjana
Sarvadharmi samanathva swadeshi sparsa bhavana
Him ekadase sevavim namroihna and vratha nischaya
Translated into English, it read th u s: —
Love, truth, non-stealing, purity, non-possession,
Manual labour, control of the palate, fearlessness,
Equal reverence for all religions, swadeshi, eradication
of untouchability
To the service of these eleven virtues, I pledge myself.
It m a y b e s e e n t h a t s a r ir a s r a m a , i.e., m a n u a l l a b o u r is i n c lu d e d
i n th e v ir tu e s m e n tio n e d ab o v e.
By his respect for labour, he cut at the root of untouchability.
•niough the anti-untauchability campaign was begun after his
re l^ se from imprisonment in 1944, the earliest attacks on it were
made as early as 1920. reg^ded untouchability not only as a
 m

but ajpo as a He W ^ figfet ^

i@]p!g fitter biattle agaipst the oii^i/^dox nearly 20
;In the <»wae of jtMs Iprig s tm ^ le , h« was apdsptidaprtopd
bittearly as bemg o^osed to the t a ^ s of the Pfindu
feMgiiiP- Lrittje did they know the wn^aeiase |)i^iiM that Jae
3t>fingmg s ^ u t in Hindu society fey this vitid social reform.
Tfeey even to murder pnpe, when l ^ y lai^ ,a bomh ip
his ti^ick at Poona. But Gandhiji 3^eld ^ s t to his purpose. O w i^
m »in^ tp his hercwle^ efforts, the vestiges «f untouchabiJity are
d « ^ i 0yed and H arija^ are now b ^ g ^admitted to all ^aces
vyorihip.
Closely connected with iJie above evil was the pov«:ty of the
Indian masses. Millions of people rarely had even one ftiU meal
A day. They had no clothing except rags, and no housing except
MEe under trees and huts. Millions of th«n did not know the mean­
ing of education, with the result they lived a precarious hand-
to-mouth existence. On the other hand, he saw the Indian princes,
big merchants and high of&cials living a life of untrammelled
luxury. His heart bled when he saw the contrast between the two.
tKiose who laboured and produced the wealth lived lives of stark
poverty, but those who exploited them lived in luxury. He vowed
to work for the removal of this exploitation. He found that cen­
tralised production and centralised power were the causes of the
concentration of wealth among a few and where there was de­
centralisation of the instruments of production, wealth also tended
to be distributed. He knew that only by the development of village
industries, could the villages be made richer and the standard of
life of the people raised. To spread this philosof^y as well as to
help in the resuscitation of many of the village industries which
jvere fast disappearing under the competition of large-scale cen-
tjr^iUsed production in India and elsewhere, he started the AU-India
yuiage Industries Association. If today the village gham, rice
liiandppunding, gur-making and such other village industries are sti^
surviving, it is thanks to the a .-i .v .i .a .’s working out this directive
from Mahatma Gandhi.
M a^lm aji in the course of his various tours had visited
te u ia n d s of villages ail o v ^ India. He was ^dned to ^ the dirt
and squalor in every village. The village waile and nifht-soil wei?e
Indlscfiminately thxown everywhere. T ^ s not only c rated disease,
but also led to a lot of economic waste. 13ie iim nitary nature of
til® inpater supply led to periodical epid^(iic8 d cholera, typhoid and
o t ^ r water-borne diseases, with their toll of suffering and death.
The govermnent-maintained hospitals in big towns and villages
rarely attracted the attention of the authorities. And even when
they did, it was only when the disea^ Imd taken an epidemic form.
 a Uorge number of casualMfiS m d 4«sUI}8. !Tlie p ^ e ^ th r a
waa not given aufleient importance. GjmdMJl lemnd Hii^
CK^ution to tibis problem was not in Hie acceleration of Gui»tive
measures after the outbreak of the epidemic* but in teadiing the
villagers preventive measures. And this meant educating the
pieople in the fundamental principles of dietetics, sanitation, h i^ th y
living, proper disposal of waste and night soil as well as its pro­
fitable utilization for making compost and thus enriching the soil.
He found our people individualistic and lacking in social co^
operation. A small number of foreigners—a few thousanda—lived^
dominated and ruled over millions in India. That was inade
piossible, because the foreigners thought co-ordinatedly smd Uved
togeth^, With one ideology and one obj^tive* Gphseq,ueniiy th^y
were sboiig. But the millions in this divided as t^ey were
into thousands of castes and sub-castes had no comnion ideals or
tmderstanding. Sometimes they spent their whole lives in
wrangling. Tliey not only had no common life, objectives and pro-
grMnme, but were weakening themselves by incessant strife.
Q^aidhiji saw this, and found that unless common interests were
dWeloped, India could not rise as a nation. He also realised that
like other good habits, co-operation, team work and living together
can be developed only when people are young.
Tlie problems he had to face were colossal. In fact, his task
was the creation of a classless and casteless society, with a
tremendous will and capacity to work, imited in its objective and
ideology, able to live and work together. He foimd that the educa­
tional system enforced by the foreigners ran contrary to this great
principle; in fact, the educated developed a contempt for manual
work and their ambition was to get into subordinate posts under
government. He wanted to avoid exploitation by creating village
industries, but the then educational system created men and women
who could not work with their hands and therefore could only live
by exploitation of others. It taught principles of sanitation, but not
in a practical way so that knowledge was on paper and for
examinations and rarely used in life. It taught pupils to be
intellectual without developing their sense of oneness with the rest
of the people and the result was they became exploiters of the
common people jointly with the foreign rulers. And so it was no
wonder that Gandhiji wanted to evolve an educational system,
which could inspire and train the youth of the nation in habits of
constant work with training in social sense and cooperative effort
Basic Education, the system which he adumbrated, tries to put into
effect in practical^ life the great principles he had in view. Thus
the creation of a strong, healthy and united nation is the undei^
lying objective of Basic Education.
■Sill

The Basic School o f the Talimi Sangh, Sevagram

At a deception given to Gandhiji and Kasturba by the Poet at Shantiniketan

J-
1

'“*r
 XVI
C hapter

EDUCATIONAL METHODS
The various Basic Education Institutions in different parts of
the country drew inspiration for their educational methods from
Gandhiji’s own experiments on education. What were his methods ?
One was the importance he gave to the story as an instrument of
education. He considered stories as of great cultural value. All
good teachers have realised the natural desire of children for
stories, their power of appeal to the imagination and the con­
sequent quickening of the spiritual life of the child, through the
joy he experiences in hearing them. But the stories to be interest­
ing must be full of action and should be told in simple, vivid and
natural language. We have such a rich and glorious collection of
beautiful stories in all our languages, that we can always draw on
them. The Mdhahharata and Ramayana, the lives of heroes and
saints that the country has produced from inmiemorial times provide
an inexhaustible source for this purpose. Only the teacher must
apportion time to select and prepare his stories so that he can teU
them in a manner that will capture the imagination of the children.
It is necessary for the teacher to develop by practice the tech­
nique of story-telling. He must first study the story carefully, find^
ing out its main message. There should be no moralising, when he
tells the story, for, moralising may spoil the beauty of the story
and its effect. Stories which will interest the child, and which are
at the same time pregnant with noble ideas should be chosen.
Gandhiji has related in his Autobiography as to how the story of
Harischandra—the king who, though he lost everything, his wealth,
llis kingdom, his wife and child, could not yet say an imtruth—
had so deeply impressed his mind, that it inspired him to follow
truth at all costs throughout his life. There are numerous such
beautiful stories in our literature, which should be used for the
purpose of educating children and inspiring them with the highest
ideals.
Gandhiji also attached great educational importance to muste.
In an article in the Harijan dated 11th September, 1937, he said:
‘The modulation of the voice is as necessary as the training of the
hand. Physical drill, handicrafts, drawing and music should go
hand in hand in order to draw the best out of the boys and girls
and create in them a real interest in their education”. The song
satisfies an imperative need in the child’s nature and it is necessary
that we should recognise this natural impulse and take advantage
 72
of it in educating the child. The ethical effect of the message re>
ceived through the story, talk or a lesson can be enhanced or em­
phasised through song.
All children, indeed aU men and women, love singing and the
effect of music on our mind and emotions is well-known. It has
been found that even wild ahfiHals are susceptible to the chairms
of music. When Chaitanya Deva crossed Uie forests doing his
hhajan, it is said that even wild animalis danced to his tunes, lost
tiieir wildness and accompanied him. The same has been said
about Saint Thyagaraja in South I»dia. We are daily conscious
the refining influence of good songs in the home and at social gather­
ings and their powerful appeal to tiie emotions. I^is potent
instrument should therefore be used for serving an educational
purpose.
Gandhiji also advocated group singing as an instrument of disci­
plining our minds. Just as physical drill is necessary to enable
physical action in imison with others, voice drill is necessary to
modulate our tunes while singing in chorus with others Chorus-
singing is very valuable in integrating our emotional life witli the
life of the community. He had great faith in Bkajan, namely, the
repetition of the Lord’s name or singing of devotional songs to­
gether. In the latter part of his life he had prayer gathering some-
of many lakhs of people who would sing togiether the n ^ e s
<xf the Ii(»rd. S in i^ g togeth^ has b ^ a found to be one of th6 esffee-
tive waya of bringing people together.
With regard to tiie teaching of writing, Gandhiji considered tiiiat
children should be taught to draw, before they were taught to
write. To quote Kaka Kalelkar’s words in his s t r a y G U M re s s o p
BAPU: “One day we were discussing calligraphy. Bapu disl&ed his
own handwriting, so he attached great importance to the beauty
and legibility of script. He was always telling us, that children
should be taught drawing before they were taught writing. Once
the hand had steadied itself on form, it could not go wrong on the
letters of the alphabet.”* He has also referred to this in his Auto­
biography where he has said : “This bad handwriting should be
regarded as a sign of imperfect education. I tried later to improve
mine, but it was too late. I could never repair the neglect of my
youth. Let every young man and woman, be warned by my example
and imderstand that good handwriting is a necessary part of educa­
tion.
“I am now of opinion that children should first be taught the art
of drawing, before learning how to write. Let the child learn his
lettCTs by observation, as he does different objects, such as flowers,
* Pp. 97-98, STRAY GLIMPSES OF BAPU (Navajivan PubUcations).
 73
aad let him hand-writiag only after be has l^yened
to'draw objects. He will then write a beamtifuilly foraiMad h a i^ /’
It is interesting to observe that similar views have been
expressed by prominent educationists in the West It has been said :
‘Drawing is really the reading and writing of form and colour. lii
an Infant school, drawing should form a part of practically every
subject. It should precede and lead up to the teaching of
writing’.*
Mahatmaji’s views on corporal punishment are also worth
mentioning here. Millie Graham Polak in her m r . g a n d h i t h e m a n
has described them th u s: “Considering Mr. Gandhi’s character, it
was most natural that he not only disbelieved in corporal punish­
ment, but strictly forbade it in dealing with children. However
tiresome and naughty a child might be, Mr. Gandhi b ^ ev ed
in appealing to the best in him and in endeavouring to arouse in
the delinquent a sense of his own wrong-doing. Unfortunately,
some children seem to be lacking in a ‘best’ or moral sense. They
create some of those problems that eternally crop up when those
who believe in pure ethics are dealing with human nature.
“A boy about fourteen years of age had been put in Mr. Gandhi’s
chsrge ta educate, during one of his temporary school ^cperimenls»
The boy wa« a great soiurce erf trouble; he seemed to be naturatty
and instijictively cruel and deceitful, two of the worst char^tiBriSr
ties a child could d i^ lay in Mr. Gsoxdhi’s eyes. The latter tried to
shower extra care and affection upon the boy; he reasoned asd
p ieced with him, but in vain. One act of crudity agaiisst other
children or animals led to another, one He t© another. Eventually,
my husjpisaad remonstrated with Mr. Gandhi for all&wmg the boy
to run wild. 0th®: people, he said, were complaining, quite ri^ tly ,
about it. Mr. Gandhi s o u ^ t for excuses,, but my husband said that
the boy needed a real corrective such as he would iu%d^?stand
Some physical punishment was evidently the only thing the child
would respond to. At last, one day, ^ e boy flung a adcket bat at
a yqimger (Mld’s head, barely missing him. Mr. Gandhi, who
witnessed the act, promptly asked my husband> who too, was pre?«
sent, to thrash the boy. This my husband did, and fear a time a disr
tinct improvement was noticeable. The boy put some sort of res?
train.t upon himself, and it was quite clear tihat he understood
physical pain when applied to himself, and did not like it.”
Above all Gandhiji believed that handicrafts if introduced in
schools and taught properly would help in the development of the
♦Page 311, Plaisted’s THE EAKLY EDUCATION OF CHILDIffiN.
 74
children’s personality. Research has conclusively proved that
the exercise of the hands has a vital part in the development of the
human brain. Teachers have found by observation that both with
normal and retarded children, work with the hand has resulted in
quickening intelligence. Human life is a composite whole, in which
the development of the mind and body should go together, and the
pre-requisite of good intellectual awareness is the proper exercise
of the senses. And so progressive educationists all over the world
have used hand work for intellectual development.
Hiis is aU the more necei^ary in the case of children and
ad o l^en ts. Nature has endowed them with tremendous vitality.
They have also a natural curiosity and desire to know things for them-^
selv^. This vitality and curiosity is restrained in ordinary schools,
by the imposition of bookish education, and the fear of pimish-
ment. In doing this we are working against nature. The result is
constant outbursts of pent up energy which is called indiscipline.
On the other hand the wiser course is to provide an outlet for this
bubbling energy with which nature has endowed children and
canahse it to b e tt^ purposes. This is what the provision of handi­
crafts seeks to do and succeeds in doing.
This principle has been accepted in all progressive countries
The project method proceeds on this basis. The Montessori method
follows this principle by providing children with playthings, which
they can touch and handle so that their little fingers are trained to
use them. The educational system of many of the countries in the
West has incorporated this idea and given expression to it in
various ways. But the special contribution of Gandhiji has been
that these activities should be purposeful and directed towards a
social end, such as health, personal and social hygiene. Those who
went before him while recognising the use of craft as an instrument
of education did not seek any result beyond teaching it to the child.
But Gandhiji went further. According to him manual training should
not consist of merely producing things for the school museimi, but
should result in producing articles which will be useful and market­
able, leading to economic return. The children should not only be
trained to develop their talents and their senses, but they should be
taught to work efficiently from the beginning. Working efficiently
should inevitably mean, cutting waste to a minimum and producing
articles of maximum economic value. This in its turn would mean
that the sale proceeds of these articles can go to support the school.
 Chapot XVII
EDUCATION OF THE MASSES
Gandhiji was perhaps the greatest adult educator of the last few
■centuries. He travelled thousands of miles and came into contact
w i^ millions of men and women. He inspired thousands of young
people to dedicate themselves to the service of the nation. NUBHer-
ous earnest workers looked up to him for guidance. He gave them
instructions—sometimes individually, in person or through eocres-
pondence and many times through y o u n g in d ia or the h a r i j a n . The
advice which he gave through the h a r ij a n in 1935 comes to us with
renewed freshness.
“The village worker should be an embodiment of industry. All
his hours minus eight hours of sleep and rest should be fully ocou-
with work. If he will go to the village as a teacher, he will ^o
thex« no less as a learner. He wiH enter into every detM of vxU^e
Mfe; he will discover the village handicrafts and investigate the
pi^bxlities of their growth and improvement. He nmy find the
irfflagers completely apathetic, but he will, by his life, ooh^ I
interest and attention. Of course, he wiH not forget his limitations
engage in talks futile for him, such as solving the prc43l@ms of
4^nlcultural indebtedness.
‘^Sanitation and hygiene wffl engage a good part of his attention.
His home and surroundings will not only be a model of deanl£n6ss,
but he wffl help to promote sanitation in the whole vi&ige, by taking
i&e broom and b a ^ e t round. His duty is to inculcate lessons off
hygiene and sanitation in the village folk and to show them the inray
*of jarev^ting lUness.
^‘He will intercfst himself in the welfare 6f the village Hfirijans.
His home will ever be open to them. If the i^ a g e folk wiH not
suffer him to have H m jan friends m his house situated in their
midst, he must take up his residence in the Harijan c^^fters.”*
Today, more than ever, we are coming to realise that individual
progress is inextricably inter-woven with the process of the eoaamu-
nity. Our health and well being as well as that of our families
de|)ends as much upon cleanliness and sanitsction in our homes, as
x?leariliness and sanitation in our neighbourhood, the purity of
^oods we purchase in the market and the quality of drinking water
that is supplied to us. Our own mental development as well as that
of our children is dependent upon the intellectual level prevalent in
* Pp. 348-50^ T«ndiOkar’s MAHATMA^ Vol. IH.
L38Edu—9
 76

the community. It is not without reason that xihildren from certain

sections have a higher level of attainment. This is mainly due to th e
higher calibre of the persons they move with. Our social and mcwral
ideas and ideals are largely influenced and regulated by the coni-
munity of which we form a part. And so if we are to rise as a
nation and walk abreast of the progressive countries of the worlds
the general level of life and thought of our nation should rise,
individuals may be great; India has not been lacking in great men;
but what counts more is the raising of the level of the people in
general.
In view of the stupendous work that we had to do, Gandhi|t
laid great emphasis on the creation of a proper attitude of mind in
our social workers. When he organised the Harijan movement, h e
insisted that every worker should consider himself a humble sevak
in their service. He wanted us not to stand on a pedestal, feel
superior and treat the villagers as of a lower status and ignorant.
That was the attitude which made aU our social work in the villages
a failure in the last many decades. There is an age-long experience
in the villages, which we must learn to understand and respects
Above all, we should be grateful for the opportunity to serve. We
should work, not with the mere idea of social service, of uplifting
others, but with the intention of uplifting and purifying ourselves,
through this service. As the great Swami Vivekananda said,
“Gandhiji proclaimed through his daily life : ‘Work is worship’.
Here is God, who appears in these manifold forms. Let us worship*
God through the poor, the sick and the down-trodden.” This approach
will enable us to get the affection of the villagers and their co-^
operation.
What India needs today is the emotional integration of the
various sections of the country into one community. We have been
divided into so many castes and sub-castes, each with its own
social status and respectability. It is these divisions that have
weakened us and made us slaves. Gandhiji by his tremendous per­
sonality inspired and knit us into a whole. But this process of
integration is not yet complete. We still think in terms of castes and
communities. We should learn to think in terms of being citizens
of this great country. How is this emotional integration to be
brought about ? This can be done only by bringing people together
in common work, and above all in creating centres of interest in
which all can participate and work together—in short, in creating
opportunities for common conmiunity life. He encouraged inter­
marriages between castes and communities, high and low, so that
in course of time India could be welded into a casteless and classless,
society.
 77

Once I had occasion to talk to Gandhiji at Sevagram on the method

and purpose of adult education. To him literacy was not very
important. What was of vital importance was the cultivation of
character and self-confidence in our villagers. He wanted that
the principles of Basic Education, namely, learning by doing should
be extended to the adult field also. “Do not go to them with set
ideas and tell them what they are to do or what they have to learn”,
he advised. “But on the other hand, find out what they need. If
you can only try to fulfil their needs, they will gather round you.
If they are sure that you are at least sincere about your efforts for
them, they will do your behests. Bring them together for the ful­
filment their felt needs. This effort will be the effective means
icwr educating them. By this they will achieve their objects, and
what is more, confidence in themselves and strength in corporate
activity. This will be a more real and lasting adult education than
teadimg Ihem merely to read and write.
“In my opinion what we have reason to deplore and be ashamed
of is not so much illiteracy as ignorance. Therefore, for adult edu­
cation, I should have an alternative programme of driving out
ignorance through carrfuUy selected syllabus according to which
they would educate the adult villager’s mind. This is not to say
that I would not give them knowledge of the alphabet. I value it
too much to despise or even belittle its merit as a vehicle of educa­
tion. Mass illiteracy is India’s sin and shame and must be
liquidated. But the literacy campaign must not end with a know­
ledge of the alphabet. It must go hand in hand with the spread of
usrful knowledge.”
With regard to the education to be given to women, while re­
cognising the equality of the sexes he was anxious that fheir special
role in society should be recognised and education given to them
accordingly. As he said, “Man and woman are of equal rank but
they are not identical. They are a peerless pair being suj^lement-
ary to one another; eadi helps the other, so ihat without tiie one
the esdstence of the other cannot be conceived, and therefore it
fdllows as a necessary corollary from these facts, that anythmg that
will impair the status of either of them will involve the equal ruin,
of bolii.’* In framing any scheme of women’s education this cardinal
truth must be constantly kept in mind. Home life is entirely the
sp h ^e of women and therefore in domestic affairs, in the upbring­
ing and education of children, women ought to have more know­
ledge. Not that knowledge i^ould be divided into watertight com­
partments but a fuller life for men and women should be developed.
He was anxious that a large band of women workers should be
L38Edu.—7
 78

trained who will csury our ideals of purity and simplicity to the
women oi our village along with scientific knowledge relating to
health, hygiene, nutrition and proper upbringing of children.
Gandhiji was aware of the great part that our country had to
play in human destiny. While the history of other countries
is married by endless wars and massacre of millions of men and
women, India has given from time to time the message of peace,
through personalities such as Buddha, Asoka and Ramakrishna.
Gandhiji proclaimed: “India’s destiny lies not along the bloodless
way of peace, that comes from a simple and Godly life. I feel
India’s mission is different from that of others. India is fitted for
the religious supremacy of the world. There is no piq-alLel i^ the
world for the procera of purification that this country has volun­
tarily undergone. It is less in need of steel weapons; it has fought
with divine weapons; it can still do so. I am himible enough to
admit that there is much that we can profitably assimilate from the
West. Wisdom is no monopoly of one continent or race. But I do
believe that if India has patience enough to go through the fire of
suffering and to resist unlawful encroachments upon her own civili^
zation, which imperfect though it undoubtedly is, has hitherto stood
the ravages of time, she can make a lasting contribution to the peace
and solid progress of the world.”
To him religion was not a matter of narrow beliefs or sectarian
prejudices. He believed in the basic virtues preached by all reli­
gions and regarded all religions as leading to the same gosd, Ramely,
Grod. He considered that faith in onePs own religion should Include
respect for other religions. He explained religion as that “which
binds one indissolubly to the Truth within and which ever purifies.
True religion and true morality are indissolubly bound up with each
other. As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious.
The various religions are different roads converging to the same
point. Even as a tree has a single trunk, but many branches and
leaves, so there is one true and perfect religion, but it becomes
many as it passess through the human medium. Imperfect men put it
into such language as they command and their words are interpreted
by other men equally imperfect. Everybody is right from his own
point of view. Hence the necessity for tolerance, which does not
mean indifference to one’s own faith, but a more intelligent and
purer love for it. Let no one for a moment entertain the fear that
a reverent study of other religions is likely to weaken or shake
one’s faith in one’s own.”
Gandhiji wanted that India, while firm on her own ways of
attaining a higher life should be tolerant and accept the best in the
culture of other countries. In the making of a new India, he wanted
 79

us to absorb and cultivate the good elements in the way of life of

other people and countries. He said, “The Indian culture of our
times is now in the making. No culture can live, if it attempts to be
exclusive. There is no such thing as pure Aryan culture in existence
today in India. Whether the Aryans were indigenous to India or
were unwelcome intruders does not interest me much. What does
interest me is the fact, that my remote ancestors blended with one
.another with the utmost freedom and we of the present generation
are a result of that blend.
“I do not want my house to be walled on all sides and my
windows to be stuffed. I want that cultures of all lands be blown
into my house but I don’t want to be blown off my feet by any. I
would have our young men and women with literary tastes to learn
as much of English and other world-languages as they like, and
then expect them to give benefits of their learning to India and to
the world like a Bose, a Roy or the Poet himself. But I would not
have a single Indian to forget, neglect or be ashamed of his mother
tongue, of his own great cultural back-ground, or to feel that he or
i^he cannot think or express the best thoughts in his own language.”
 CHAPTE31 XVIII
G A m m s r s wBM uO m pm : o f sm jC A 'm m
To Gandhiji mere literacy was not education. According to him^
“that man has had a liberal education, who has been so larained in
youth that his body is the ready servemt of his will, and does *¥^th
ease and pleasure all the work that as a mechanism it is capable of
whose intellect is a clear, cold logic engine with all its parts of-
equal strength, whose mind is stored with a knowledge of funda­
mental truths of nature, whose passions are trained to come to heel,
by a vigorous wiU, the servant of a tender conscioace, who has-
learned to hate all vileness and to respect others as himself; such
a one and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal education.”
He considered the present syst^n of education in our sohool&
and colleges as intellectual dissipation, rather than intellectual
training. “Intellectual training is there locked upon as somethiE®,
altogether unrelated to manual or physical work. But siiKie the
body must have some sort of physical exercise to keep it in health,
they try to attain that end by means of an artificial and otherwise
barren system of physical culture. The young man who emerges;
from this system can in no way compete in physical endurance with
an ordinary labourer. The slightest physical exertion gives him a
headache; a mild exposure to the sun is enough to give him giddi­
ness. As for the faculties of the heart, they are simply allowed to-
run to seed or to grow anyhow in a wild undisciplined manner.
“True education of the intellect can only come through a proper-
exercise and training of the bodily organs, hands, feet, eyes, ears,,
nose, etc. In other words, an intelligent use of the bodily organs^
in a child provides the best and quickest way of development of his^
intellect. Unless the development of the mind and body goes hand
in hand with a corresponding awakening of the soul, the former-
alone would prove a poor lop-sided affair. By spiritual training,,
I mean, the education of the heart. A proper and all-round deve­
lopment of the mind, therefore, can take place only when it pro­
ceeds pari passu with the education of the physical and spiritual
faculties of the child. They constitute an indivisible whole. It
would be a gross fallacy to suppose that they can be developed piece­
meal or independently of one another.” '
He advocated education of children through activities involved
in a continuous craft. If “the child is set to some useful occupa­
tion like spinning, carpentry, agriculture, etc. for his education and
in that connection is given a thorough comprehensive knowledge,,
■•elating to the theory of the various operations that he is to perform..
 81

and the use and construction of the tools he is weilding, he would

not only develop a fine healthy body, but also a sound vigorous
intellect, that is not merely academic, but is firmly rooted in and
is tested from day to day in experience. His intellectual education
should include a knowledge of mathematics and the various
sciences. If to this is added literature by way of recreation, it
would give him a perfect balanced all-round education, in which
the intellect, the body and the spirit have all full play and develop
together into a natural, harmonious whole. Man is neither mere
intellect, nor the gross animal body, nor the heart or soul alone.
A proper and harmonious combination of all these three is required
for the making of the whole man and constitutes the true economics
of education.”
In this new ideology of education, work is the pivot on which
all instruction revolves. This work may be of various kinds. Activi­
ties involving personal and community cleanliness had the foremost
place in the Basic schools which he advocated. Education for the
young does not consist of stuffing impracticable ideas into the minds
of children; it is essentially training them in good habits. Thus
cleanliness and sanitation, practically done and scientifically
understood, are the beginning of education. The daily experiences
that every child has to undergo like regular morning evacuation,
cleaning the teeth, nose and eyes, bathing, physical exercises, wash­
ing clothes and other daily activities can be exploited for teach­
ing as well as the inculcation of good habits. In the same way
social and religious festivals, weddings and other social events, visits
to temples and other places can be made useful instruments of
instruction. Above all this method of education recognises the fact
that useful manual labour, through constructive crafts intelligently
performed, is one of the best means of developing a balanced
Intellect.
The objective of education is not only to turn out good indivi­
duals, but also socially useful men and women who understand
their place in, and duty to the society in which they Hve. No edu­
cation is complete until this important aspect of training is stressed.
Gandhiji considered this aspect as an essential part of education.
Tiyis is to be given not theoretically but by practical observance
from the first year at school. And this, in its turn, leads to team
work and discipline, the lack of which has been our national weak­
ness. Activities involving social objectives gradually lead children
to the cultivation of a social sense. They also learn to put the needs
of the community above their own petty pleasures and advantages.
A sharp intellect can be cultivated through other methods but then
it may not be socially developed. On the other hand, an intellect
^38Edu.—8
 82

developed through the medium of socially useful manual labour

must of necessity become an instrument of service. Mere intellec­
tual training ordinarily makes a man individualistic. But education
through work and activities brings the child in contact with otiier
children in cooperation with whom he has to work. This brings out
clearly in his own mind the social objective, so important for healtiiy
living, and trains in him not only a sense of cooperation, but also
qualities of leadership.
To Gandhiji, character-building was the essence of education and
purity of personal life the one indispensable condition for it. He
laid great stress on religious education. He was not unaware of
the great difficulties of giving religious education in schools in a
a country like ours, in which maJiy religioiis are professed and
followed. Religion to him meant “Truth and Ahimsa or rather
Truth alone, because Truth includes Ahimsa, Ahimsa being the
necessary and indispensable means for its discovery. Therefore
anything that promotes the practice of these virtues is a means for
Imparting religious education and the best way to do this, in my
opinion, is for the teachers rigorously to practise these virtues in
their own person. Their very association with the boys, whether
on the playground or in the classroom, will then give the pupils a
fine training in these fundamental virtues.
“A curriculum of religious instruction should include a study of
the tenets of faiths other than one’s own. For this purpose the
students should be trained to cultivate the habit of understanding
and appreciating the doctrines of the various great religions of the
world in a spirit of reverence and broad-minded tolerance. This, if
properly done would help to give them a spiritual assurance and
a better appreciation of their own religion. There is one rule, how­
ever, which should always be kept in mind while studying all the
great religions, and that is, that one should study them only through
the writings of known votaries of the respective religions. For
instance, if one wants to study the bh a g a v a ta one should do so not
through a translation of it made by a hostile critic but one prepared
by a lover of the b h a g a v a ta . Similarly to study the Bible one should
study it through the commentaries of devoted Christians. This
study of other religions besides one’s own will give one a grasp of
the rock-bottom unity of all religions and afford a glimpse also of
that universal and absolute truth which lies beyond the ‘dust of
creeds and faiths’.
“Let no one even for a moment entertain the fear that a reverent
study of other religions is likely to weaken or shake one’s faith in
one’s own. The Hindu system of philosophy regards all religions
as containing the elements of truth in them and enjoins an attitude
 83

of respect and reverence towards them all. This of course pre­

supposes regard for one’s own religion. Study and appreciation
of other religions need not cause a weakening of that regard; it
should mean extension of that regard to other religions.
“In this respect religion stands on the same footing as culture.
Just as preservation of one’s own culture does not mean contempt
for that of others, but requires assimilation of the best that there
may be in all the other cultures, even so should be the case with
religion.”
True religion would mean faith in the Divine. “It is faith that
steers us through stormy seas, faith that moves mountains and faith
that jumps across the ocean. That faith is nothing but a living,
wide-awake consciousness of God within. One who has achieved
that faith, though physically diseased, is spiritually healthy; though
physically poor, he rolls in spiritual riches. Without faith this world
will come to naught in a moment. True faith is appropriation of
the reasoned experiences of people whom we believe to have lived
a life purified by penance and prayer. There are subjects where
reason cannot take us far and we have to accept things on faith.
Faith then does not contradict reason but transcends it. Faith is a
kind of sixth sense which works in cases which are without the
purview of reason. This faith is not a delicate flower which would
wither under the slightest stormy weather. It is like the Himalayas
—^no storm can possibly remove the Himalayas from its foundations.
I want every one of you to cultivate that faith in God and religion.
“Fearlessness is the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can
never be moral. Where there is fear there is no religion. Every
reader of the g it a is aware that fearlessness heads the list of the
Divine Attributes enxmierated in the 16th Chapter. Whether this
is due to the exigencies of metre or whether the pride of place has
been deliberately yielded to fearlessness is more than I can say.
In m y opinion, however, fearlessness fully deserves the first rank
assigned to it there. Fearlessness is the sine qua non for the
growth of the other noble qualities. How can one seek Truth or
cherish Love without fearlessness ? ‘The Path of h a r i (the Lord)
is the path of the brave, not of cowards’. The brave are those
armed with fearlessness.”
Gandhiji considered prayer as the instrument through which
faith, fearlessness and a cultured life can be cultivated. “Prayer
has been the saving of my life. Without it I should have been a
lunatic long ago. I have had my share of the bitterest public and
private experiences. They threw me into despair, but if I was able
to get rid of it, it was because of prayer. And the more my faith
 84

in God increased, the more irresistible became the yearning for

prayer. I felt that as food Was indispensable for the body, so
prayer indispensable for the soul. In fact food for the body id not
so indiispensable as prayer for the soul. Such worship or
is no flight of eloquence, it is no liprhomage. It springs from the
heart. Prayer needs no speech. It is an unfailing means of
cleansing the heart of passions. But it must be combined with
utmost humility.
“Scientists tell us that without the presence of the cohesive
force amongst the atoms that comprise this globe of ours, it would
crumble to pieces and we would cease to exist. Even so, there must
be this cohesive force in ajl things animate, and the name for ^ a t
cohesive force among animate beings is Love. We notice it
between father and son, between brother and sister, friend and
friend. But we have to leam to use that force among all that lives
and in the use of it consists our knowledge of God. Where there
is love, there is life; hatred leads to destruction. Life persists ii3L
the midst of destruction and therefore there must be a higher law
tlMin that of destruction. The fact that mankind persists shows that
the cohesive force is greater than the disruptive force.
“All the teachers that ever lived have preached that law with;
more or less ^gour. If Love was not the law of life, life would
not have persisted in the midst of death. Life is a perpetual triumjA'
over the grave. If there is a fundamental distinction between man
and beast, it is the former’s progressive recognition of the law and
its application in practice to his own personal life. That the brute
in us seems so often to gain an easy triumph is true enough. That
however does not disprove the law. It shows the difficulty of prac­
tice. When the practice of the law becomes universal, God will
reign on earth, as He does in Heaven. I can in truth and in perfect
humility, bear witness to the fact, that to the extent I have repre­
sented Love in my life, in thought, word and deed, I have realised,
the ‘Peace that passeth understanding’.”*
Thus it will be seen that the New Education, Gandhiji advocated,
was not only a new method of education, but also a new philosophy
of life for which he lived and gave his life. It stands for the dignity
of all aspects of human work. It recognises that all wealth is the
creation of human endeavour; and so, it gives the highest place to
work in its daily activities. It aims not only at creating balanced
and harmonious individuals, but also a balanced and harmonious
society—a just social order, based on Truth and Love, in which there
is no unnatural dividing line between the haves and the have-nots.
* EDUCATION by Gandhiji: Compiled by T. S. Avinashilingam and pub­
lished by the Ministry of Education, Government of India.
 INDEX
Roman figures refer to chapters.
Indian numerals refer to pages.
Entries in Italics are book titles.
Entries in “ ” marks represent quotations from GandhijVs
writings or speeches.
P age

Adult^ducation ...................................................................................... 76—IT

“Advice to village workers” .. 75
“Ahiaaa” ....................... 36-37
All India Education Board 65—66^
AH India National Educational Conference, Wardha XIII56—62
Proposals before Wardha Conference 54—55
Resolutions 61—62
AH India Village Industries Association 69
Aryanayakam....................... 63
A u tobiography ....................... la
Basic Education 4, 20,46, 0,XIV 63—66, XV 67—70,71
Criticism by Tagore 46^
Ciiticism by others 53, 59—60*
Gindhiji’s replies .. 47—50, 53, 60
Basic Education System Basic Educationi
Bihar VIdyapith 42
BllU^ Laws 2
Bose, Subhash Chandra 42
Chaa^aran ........................ .. 3, 24, 25-
Champaran Satyagraha 25,42
Chams^iran Schools 13, VII 24—27
‘‘OtaaiiMuran Schools” 25
“Character” ....................... 2, 7 ,10,ini0—14
Charkha ....................... See spinning whe^
“Co-education” ....................... 21—22, 22—23, 30
C&-education, experiment in .. VI 21—23
“Q^ege education” 52
College education 52, 54
Complex method 59
Consor^tion of students 58—59'
‘Control of the palate” 37_38
Corpcoal punishment ., 73-
Drawing ....................... 71, 72-73-
“Education”, Gandhiji’s definition 51
“Education of children” 30—32
 86

P age
Education of w o m e n ....................... ................................. 77
Educational methods................................................................. XVI71—74
^‘Experience as teacher” .. .. ................................. 5—9
“Fearlessness” ........................................................................... 39, 83
Gandhi, the man ....................... ................................. 28, 73
Gokhale............................... ^ .................................. 34
^‘Good Education” ................................. ...................... 34-41
Gujarat Vidyapith ........................... .......................................................... 42—43
Handicrafts ......................................................................................19, 51, 54, 57
Higher education ....................... ^ .. .. .. .. See College education
Hindustani Talimi Sangh .. .. .. .. See All India Educatiom Board
Indian National Congress .. .. .. ............................................ 65
Jamia Milia Mamia ., ............................................................................
Kallenbach ....................... .. .. .. .. .. . . 5, 7, 8, 28, 57
Kashi Vidyapith.. .. .. ................................. .. ............. 42
Labour franchise ...................................................... .. .. .. 68
Liberal education .. ................................................................. .• 80
^‘literacy” ..................................................................................... .. 51
^‘Love” ............................................ .. .. .. .. 84
Manual training .. .. .. .. .. .. .. See Manual work
^‘Manual Work” ...................................................... 18—19, 19—20, 30, 40,50
^‘Medium of instruction” .. ........................................... IV. 15-17, 54, 62
Montessori method ................................................................ .. 74
M u s i c ..................................................................................... 71-72
T^ational Schools & Colleges...................................................... 3, 42
T^av Bharat Vidyalaya, Wardha ........................................... .. ' 53
“Non-possession” ................................................................ 38
“Non-stealing” ..................... *. ' ................................. 38
Philosophy of Education ...................................................... Xni 80—84
Phoenix Settlement 28
Polak 17, 18
■“Politics and students” 40—41
Pragji Desai 7
Prayer 83
Prem Vidyalaya .. 44
“Primary Education” 52, 54, 56—59
Project method .. 59
“Religion” 34—35,78,82—83
Ruskin 18
“Sabarmati Ashram” 29—33
Sabarmati Ashram 3, 29, 34
Sandal-making .. 20, 51
Shah, K.T. 60. 63
Shoe-making 19
 87
P age
ShradadlianaQdji 29
Shri Ramakrishm Mission Vidyalaya 66-
Sphinan l*ark ....................... 2
“ Spino^” ............................. 46,46-50^51,57
Spinni»ig Wheel .. .......................................... f***........................ XI.46-5a
Sri R^jBEtakristma
State universities
Story-HBiling
“Swadeshi”
Tagofc^ Rabind
“Text h w ^ s
Tolstoy I^Hja