THE AIMS OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
I.-New India 1. The Impact of Policital Change. 2. Universities as the Organs of Civilisation. 3. Intellectual Adventure. 4. An Integrated Way of Life. 5. Wisdom and Knowledge. 6. Aims of the Social Order.
II.-Democracy 7. Plan of Treatment. 8. Value of the Individual. 9. Education as Growth. 10. Physical Education. 11. The Triune Character of the Human Mind. 12. Nature, Society and Spirit. 13. Natural Sciences, Social Studies and Humanities, 14. Unity of Mind and Interdependence of Knowledge. 15. Mechanical Learning. 16. Inwardness of Freedom. 17. Education as Initiation into a New Life. 18. Inadequacy of Education as Adjustment to Society. 19. Flexibility of the Educational System.
III.--Justice 20. Social Justice. 21. The Present Needs. 22. Agricultural Education. 23. Technological Education. 24. Rural Development. 25. The Place of the Machine. 26. Defects of Exclusively Scientific and Technical Education. 27. Need for Social Studies and Research. 28. Training for Leadership.
IV.-Liberty 29. University Autonomy. 30. The Spirit of Science and SoCial Conservatism. 31. Liberal Education.
V.-Equality 32. The Democratic Way of Life. 33. Freedom of Conscience. 34. Equality of Opportunity. 35. Economic Barriers. 36. Communal Ratios. 37. Assistance to Backward Communities.
VI.-Fraternity-National. 38. Extra-Curricular Activities. 39. Indiscipline. 40. The Residential System 41. College a Community Centre. 42. National Discipline. 43. The Need for Culture. 44. The Un-Indian Character of Education. 45. Cultural Unity of India 46. Conflict in India's Soul. 47. Critical Study of the Past.
VII.-Uninterrupted Continuity of Indian Culture 48. The Indus Valley Civilisation. 49 . The Vedic Period.50. Buddhsim 50. Buddhism 51. Indian Influence Abroad. 52. South Indian Teachers. 53. The Spread of Islam. 54. The Influence of Christianity. 55. Chief Tenets of Indian Culture.
VIII.-History of India 56. Study of the Past. 57. The Epics. 58. Appeal of The Epics to the Youth. 59. Living Cultures.
IX.-Fraternity-International 60. World-mindedness and National Sentiment. 61. Cultural Co- operation. 62. Provincialism. 63. Larger Patriotism. 64. Unesco. 65. Positive peace. 66. World Citizenship. 67. Summary.
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I.-New India 1. The Impact of Political Change-Great as were the changes that had taken place in the political and economic conditions of Indian society in the years that preceded the transfer of power on August 15, 1947, considerable as was the progress in education during that period, they are less great than the changes that have been crowded into these few months of freedom. The academic problem has assumed new shapes. We have now a wider conception of the duties and responsibilities of universities. They have to provide leadership in politics and administration, the professions, industry and commerce. They have to meet the increasing demand for every type of higher education, literary and scientific, technical and professional. They must enable the country to attain, in as short a time as possible, freedom from want, disease and ignorance, by the application and development of scientific and technical knowledge. India is rich in natural resources and her people have intelligence and energy and are throbbing with renewed He and vigour. It is for the universities to create knowledge and train minds who would bring together the two, material resources and human energies. If our living standards are to be raised, a radical change of spirit is essential.
2. Universities as the Organs of Civilisation-He indeed must be blind who does not see that, mighty as are the political changes, far deeper are the fundamental questions which will be decided by what happens in the universities. Everything is being brought to the test of reason, venerable theologies, ancient political institutions, time- honoured social arrangements, a thousand things which a generation ago looked as fixed as the hills. If India is to confront the confusion of our time, she must turn for guidance, not to those who are lost in the mere exigencies of the passing hour, but to her men of letters, and men of science, to her poets and artists, to her discoverors and inventors. These intellectual pioneers of civilization are to be found and trained in the universities, which are the sanctuaries of the inner life of the nation.
In simpler conditions of life, in primitive societies, the leader can follow the urge of his instinct and take us to the scene of his vision. In the complex Organisation of modern life, any reform requires careful thought and planning. Our leaders must be capable of intellectual analysis and imaginative insight.
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3. Intellectual Adventure-We must give up the fatal obsession of the perfection of the past, that greatness is not to be attained in the present, that everything is already worked out and all that remains for the future ages of the world is pedantic imitation of the past. When we are hypnotised by our own past achievements,. when all our effort is to repeat a past success, we become fetish worshippers. If our cultural life is to retain its dynamism, it must give up idolatry of the past and strive to realise new dreams. We Should think with the young men in the Latin poem that nothing is done while anything remains to do. All that man has yet done is very little compared to what he is destined to achieve. The present which moves backwards and forwards, which is a summary of the past and a prophecy of the future, is hallowed ground and we who tread on it should face it with the quality of reverence and the spirit of adventure. Universities are the homes of intellectual adventure.
4. An Integrated Way of Life.-A life of strenuous endeavour for human betterment is not possible, if we are not persuaded that life has a meaning. Many of our popular writers to-day seem to be possessed by the one desire to escape from the world of meaning and teach us the essential purposelessness of life. They make us believe, with a good deal of cleverness and sophistry, that life is infinitely complicated and totally inexplicable. Many of our students are taught to assume that free-will and personal responsibility are illusions, that human beings are conditioned almost wholly by their physical make-up and the society in which they live, and that the only sense that the religious statements make is emotional and subjective. This is a generation which knows how to doubt but not how to admire, much less to believe. This aimlessness, this indifference to basic issues, is to no small extent, responsible for the decline of standards, for the fading of ideals, for the defeat of human endeavour.
The purpose of all education, it is admitted by thinkers of East and west, is to provide a coherent picture of the universe and an integrated way of life. We must obtain through it a sense of perspective, a synoptic vision , a samanvaya of the different items of knowledge. Man can not live by a mass of disconnected information. He has a passion for an ordered intellectual vision of the connections of things. Life is one in all its varied manifestations. We, may study the factual relations of the different manifestations but. we must have knowledge of life as a whole. It cannot be a collection of distracting scraps but should be a harmony of patterns. The subjects we study must be taught as parts of a connected curriculum.
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5. Wisdom and Knowledge-Our ancient teachers tried to teach subjects and impart wisdom. Their ideal was wisdom (irfan) along with knowledge (ilm), Jnanam vijnana-sahitam. We can not be wise without some basis of knowledge though we may easily acquire knowledge and remain devoid of wisdom. To use the words of the Upanisad, we may be the knowers of texts (mantravit) and not knowers of self (atmavit2). Plato distinguishes between factual information and understanding. No amount of factual information would make ordinary men into educated or 'virtuous' men unless something is awakened in them, an innate ability to live the life of the soul.
" Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information ?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries.
Bring us farther from God and nearer to the dust"3
The strength of the new 'faiths' among intellectuals is partly due to their claim to explain the universe. By professing to inter- pret all human activity in terms of a single thesis, they give to the modern educated men a sense of assurance and certainly formerly provided by religion. Since education is both a training of minds and a training of souls, it should give both knowledge and wisdom.
6. Aims of the Social Order-We must have a conception of the social order for which we are educating our youth. We know what Hitler did in six years with the German youth. The Russians are clear in their minds about the kind of society for which they are educating and the qualities required in their citizens. They tried to remake man in a new image. Our educational system must find its guiding principle in the aims of the social order for which it pre- pares, in the nature of the civilisation it hopes to build. Unless we know whither we are tending, we cannot decide what we should do and how we should do it. Societies like men need a clear purpose to keep them stable in a world of bewildering change.
The outlines of the social philosophy which should govern all our institutions, educational as well as economic and political, are indicated in the preamble to our Draft Constitution. It reads :-
"WE THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens ;
1 See Bhagavadgita-IX. I.
2 Chandogya Upanisad-VII 7 - 3.
3 T.S. Eliot.
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JUSTICE, social, economic and political ; LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; EQUALITY of status and opportunity ; and to promote among them all 'FRATERNITY' assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity of the Nation ;
IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this .................................. of......... (.... day of August, 1949 A.D.) do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION".
We are engaged in a quest for democracy through the realisation of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity.
II.-Democracy 7. Plan of Treatment.-We shall take up the different problems of educational theory and practice and arrange them under the five heads of democracy, justice, liberty, equality and fraternity.
We shall consider under "Democracy" education as the development of body, mind, and spirit of each individual with his specific. nature, the relation of the different studies to the growth of the in- dividual, the nature of human freedom and the need for social changes. There can be no democratic freedom without social justice which demands the freeing of the individual from poverty, unemployment, malnutrition and ignorance. This is not enough. We must cultivate the art of human relationships, the ability to live and work together overcoming the dividing forces of the time. Social harmony can be achieved by wise leadership and proper administration. Under Justice we will consider how universities should train technical men of all types, social leaders and wise administrators. Under Liberty we shall refer to the liberating character of all education, the need for the autonomy of the universities and for freedom of thought and expression for the teachers. The meaning of equality of opportunity in education, the barriers to it, especially the economic, communal ratios and the need for the assistance of scheduled castes and backward communities will be considered in the section on Equality. The idea of Fraternity will be treated at two levels, the national and the international. Closer co-operation in colleges and universities between the teachers and the pupils, the development of the residential system, of corporate life and a knowledge of India's culture and history will help to promote the
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former. The latter will be attempted by fostering among the members of the university the spirit of 'one world' and acquainting them with the cultures and achievements of other peoples.
8. Value of the Individual-The basis of democracy is the belief in the inherent worth of the individual in the dignity and value of human life. It repudiates the totalitarian principle in all its forms, viz., that the individual as such is useless and that he must be either destroyed or converted into an efficient unit in the power- machine of the State. Democracy affirms that each individual is a unique adventure of life.
9. Education as Growth-The function of education is the guid- ance of this adventure to the realisation of the potentialities of each individual in the face of the actual world of men and things. It aims at the development of the individual, the discovery, training and utilisation of his special talents. Like all living organisms the individual grows by the impulse of his own self-development. The natural tendency of the child is to grow into maturity. From complete dependence on others the child has to grow into relative independence. The function of the teacher is to assist the growth by stimulation and guidance. The growth is advanced by the acquisition of knowledge and skills. These later are intended to set free and develop the possibilities of human individuals.
Education is not a discipline imposed from above on an apathetic if acquiescent nature. It is a process of leading up the inward nature to its fulfilment. All true development is self-development.
The process of education as growth is continuous and life long. It is said that a pupil gets a fourth of his education from his teacher another fourth by his own intellectual effort, a third fourth from his fellow students and the rest in course of time through life and experience'. We learn from the teacher, by ourselves, from one another and from life or experience. Education is not always formal. Where we have a number of keen young men as members of an intellectual community, they educate one another through the daily give and take. Experience is a great teacher. We learn daily and hourly from our home, from our community, from the press, the radio and the movies. All life is experience and therefore education.
10. Physical Education-Human beings are psycho-physical in nature. They have bodies which obey certain definite laws of growth. These must be kept in a state of health and physical fitness. Education of the body through physical exercises, sports
padam sa brahmacaribhyo padam kalakramena tu.
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and athletic activities helps to develop qualities of initiative, courage, discipline, fair play and team spirit. We cannot realise fully our intellectual possibilities without health and physical vigour. No. great nation can be built without strong physical foundations.
11. The Triune Character of the Human Mind-Human beings, are not all built in the same way. They are of different types, reflective, emotional or active, though they are not exclusively so. They are distinguished on account of the dominance of emphasis of' the one or the other. Cognition, feeling and will, though logically distinguishable are not really separable in the concrete life of mind. These three sides which answer to the familiar distinction of jnana, bhakti and karma, express themselves through theoretical contemplation, aesthetic enjoyment and practical activity. These are found in different proportions in different individuals.
The true educator should understand the psychological make-up,the svabhava of the pupil and adapt his teaching to the mind of the pupil. The difficulty is to discover the true inward being of each individual. In the same family we have individuals of different. temperaments. A seer of the Rg Veda says : "I am a poet. (karuh), my father is a physician (bhisag) and my mother a grinder of corn (upalapraksini). Even as medical men treat their patients. with a view to their individual defects and prescribe remedies against the particular diseases to which they are inclined, the teachers, should discover the tendencies and weaknesses of the individual pupils encourage their desirable aptitudes and cure the weaknesses. to which they are inclined.
In a well-planned educational system, opportunities will be provided at every level to the pupils for the exercise of their re- flective powers, artistic abilities and practical work. The sensitive. teachers will be able to find out the mental make-up of the pupil whether he has in him more of the reflective or the artistic or the practical bent. If be is reflective, he must find out whether he has. philosophic or scientific, mathematical or linguistic talents; if he is artistic, he must discover whether he has taste for literature or music, painting or sculpture; if be is practical minded, he must notice whether he is a great experimenter or is mechanically minded. These varying tendencies can be discovered at the Secondary School stage and if proper guidance is provided, much wastage at the later stages will be avoided. Secondary Schools are expected to offer many different kinds of vocational training.
1 X.112
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It is wrong, to think that the more intelligent go to the univer- sities and the less intelligent to technical schools. Success in a technical school requires as high an intelligence as success in a purely literary or scientific course. It may be of a different kind even as pupils are of different kinds, meditative or mechanical, scientific or artistic. Bookishness or the manipulation of concepts is not the only kind of intelligence. The new Secondary Schools should insist on the equal dignity and importance of the different courses they offer.
12. Nature, Society and Spirit-There are three types of exis- tence, which are inter-related, the natural, the social and the spiritual. The content of teaching may be classified under three heads, our relation to things or nature; our relation to men or society, our relation to values or the world of spirit.1
Nature-Natural Sciences and technology come under this head. The desire to understand nature leads to science ; the desire to use knowledge of nature for definite ends gives us technology,
Every pupil should have a knowledge of the physical world in which he lives. It is, of course, not possible for every one to be a specialist in each of the sciences, but by the time he leaves college, every student, even if he is a student of humanities should be fami- liar with the general principles governing his physical. environment.
Instruction in the technological forces shaping the world is also essential. Technology is continually transforming our environment. All progress in industry from the Stone Age is but a record of the transformation of our environment by the triumphs of technology.
Society.-Every one should know something of the society in which he lives, the great forces that mould contemporary civilisation.. History, economics, politics, social psychology, anthropology, belong to the group of social sciences. Whatever may be our specialised field, a general understanding of our social environment and of human institutions is essential.
Spirit-The purpose of humanities is to enable man to understand his inner aspirations and ideals. The study of the language and the literature of our mother tongue should occupy the first place in general education. Language incarnates the genius of the people which has fashioned it. Every word, every phrase conveys some