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I.-The Background for Rural Higher Education.

1. A relatively unoccupied Field. 2. The Significance of the Indian Village. 3. The Possibilities of Basic Education. 4. The "Basic Education" Programme. 5. The People's College.

II-The Rural Secondary School ("Post-Basic Education,").

6. A Residence School Village. 7. Learning by Living. 8. The Rural Secondary School Programme. 9. Self-Support in Basic Education. 10. Division of Labour in Basic Secondary Schools. 11. Short Time Technical Courses. 12. The Duration of Rural Education.

III.-Post-Basic (Secondary) Education and Village Industrialization.

13. Industrialization is Inevitable. 14. Decentralized Industry. 15. Industrial Inter-relations.

IV.-A Programme for the Reconstruction of Indian Villages.

16. The Future of the Village. 17. Reconstruction.

V.-Rural Colleges and Universities.

18. General Characteristics. 19. Work and Study. 20. The Curriculum of the Rural University.

VI.-Some Concerns of Rural Universities.

21. Rural Professions. 22. The Social Attitudes of the Rural Professions and of Business.23.What is a "Profession" in Rural Education ? 24. Rural Education and the Great Traditions. 25. The Great Traditions of Common Life. 26. Rural Education and Research.

VII.-The Government of Rural Colleges and Universities.

27. A Distinctive Pattern. 28. Rural Education Councils. 29. Autonomy. 30. Rural University Administration. 31. The Relations between Rural Secondary Schools, Colleges and Universities and the existing Universities. 32. How to get the Rural Education Programme under way. 33. Cooperation. with other Agencies of Government.

VIII-Conclusions

34. Education in Hope and Courage. 35. A Feasible Programme. 36. Recommendation.

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I-The Background for Rural Higher Education.

1. A relatively unoccupied Field-The conditions of Indian life and government under which the present universities had their origin and development have already been described. It was inevitable that the universities should be influenced by these conditions. They are valuable institutions and are expected to yield good results after necessary adaptation to the changed conditions of a free people. These adaptations and reforms it has been our concern to suggest.

Yet anyone can see that our present universities-besides some qualitative limitations-touch only the fringe of what is required in the way of higher education in the world's newest and most populous democracy. There is a vast field of pioneering before us in the process of evolving new institutions of higher learning which will answer the needs and aspirations of this democracy.

Such pioneering demands more than improvements in the existing pattern. To require all new universities to grow out of the existing system would be to impose needless and hampering limitations upon our educational possibilities. A chance for new, free beginnings unhampered by the recent historic past, which can take advantage of marked advances in world educational thought and practice, is made possible by the necessary large expansion of educational facilities.

In looking at the problem of new institutions the fact should be kept in view that, as reported by the 1941 census, about 85% of the population of India live in villages. This vast population has been scarcely touched by secondary or higher education, except by the permanent withdrawal from village life of those able young people who have left the villages for the universities. The extreme poverty and lack of cultural opportunity of this population is common knowledge. The course of wisdom is not to deny or to ignore this glaring lack, but rather to create the types of educational opportunity which are appropriate to Indian rural life, and to give a quality and range to life which will remove the disparity which is now a reality.

There should be no feeling of conflict between existing and new type (rural) universities, any more than between engineering education and medical education. However, because the pattern and spirit of existing universities is so distinctly urban centered

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and because of the tendency of an old and dominant institution to impose its type upon any new institution in a similar field,it is a matter of practical necessity that new universities aiming at extend- ing educational opportunity to the great mass of rural India, and to give vitality and quality to rural life, should have their own inde- pendent design and programme. They will have many qualities and methods in common with existing universities, and as they become established there will be general co-operation and interaction. To a large degree the European university, with the offspring institutions in India and America. will be indispensable to the new rural university, but their services should be those of consultation, friendship and advice, and not of authority and direction.

2. The Significance of the Indian Village-As free India begins to plan its course, a great increase of interest in village welfare is in evidence. This is important, not only for the sake of the villages but for the destiny of India as a whole.

In the course of world history, seldom has the greatness of a nation long survived the disintegration of its rural life. For untold ages man by nature has been a villager and has not long survived. In any other environment. Almost every study of the subject which has been made in Europe and America has revealed that as a rule city families survive for only a few generations. Cities grow and thrive only as they are constantly replenished from the rural population. So long as a nation's rural life is vigorous it possesses reserves of life and power. When for a long time cities draw the cream of life and culture from the villages, returning almost nothing, as has been the case in India during the last two centuries, the current village resources of culture and energy become depleted, and the strength of the nation is reduced.

India must decide whether to aim at a widely distributed popula- tion, making the villages such prosperous, interesting and culturally rich places, with such range of opportunity and adventure that young people will find more zest and interest, more cultural advantages, and more opportunity for pioneering there, than in the city; or whether to run to vast centralized industries, with masses of labour taking direction either from the state or from private corporations. Natural drift will not change existing trends. Definite governmental and educational policy and a charge of public attitude are required.

Consider the present state of the village. Though there are areas with clean, attractive villages, most of the more than half a

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million villages in India consist of mud huts with earth floors, with one, two or three rooms, with unprotected open wells. Houses are crowded along narrow crooked paths which serve also as open drains. These conditions, along with extreme poverty, result in a large amount of water-borne, insect-borne and earth-borne diseases. Less than ten per cent of the villagers are literate to the extent of recognizing their own names on a letter. An average day's work in an Indian village produces probably less than a quarter as much wealth as would a day's work by modern methods. The villages are largely isolated from the world, and so have difficulty in getting a world view.

Picture the kind of village life which should be aimed at. It must be economically prosperous. Its life must not be wasted in primitive habits of production. Full advantage should be taken of modern technical developments. Small scale farming by efficient methods will require only a small part of the human labour needed at present, and production may be greatly increased. Much of the village population will be available for work other than agriculture. Each village, and especially each group of villages, will have a wide range of economic activity. A large part of the industry of the country Should be located in villages and small towns. Every village should have good year round transportation, and should be supplied with electric power. Each one should have a piped water supply under pressure, a sewer system and a telephone system.

With good water supply, drainage and sewerage, malaria and intestinal diseases will practically disappear as they have nearly disappeared in certain other countries. Health centres and public health care will nearly eliminate communicable diseases. Household vermin will almost wholly disappear as they have disappeared certain other countries.

If these economic and hygienic advantages should be secured without corresponding development of character and culture, the change might be loss rather than gain. Economic, cultural and ethical education must go together.

3. Possibilities of Basic Education-At this fateful moment in our history, we have the extreme good forntune to have had presented to us a pattern and philosophy of education of such universal and fundamental worth that it may well serve as the type for bringing into being the new India which is the desire of many of us. We have no sympathy with hero worship, and feel that there should be no with- holding of criticism of an educational plan because it was presented.

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by our great leader. With some details of Gandhiji's programme of basic education we may not agree. However, taking his concept as a whole it presents the seeds of a method for the fulfilment and refinement of human personality, the wisdom and excellence of which will become more apparent through the years, and will stand the test of time and of criticism. Years of time and vast effort will be required to insure this movement against warped and mistaken expression, and to develop effective skills and methods; yet inherently the concept is one of the world's great contributions to education.

The method outlined in its rudiments by Gandhiji is not just a way of meeting the educational needs of little children. He has stated the essential elements of a universal method of education. from the time a little child shares in its mother's work, through the whole process of growth of personality to the time when the mature man of disciplined mind and character works at the side of the master in the achievement of a great design. The essence of this philosophy is that education should combine practice in the everyday processes of living and working, with more formal training. This is a fundamental concept which is steadily gaining support and application in the educational world.

Gandhiji was not the first to have this vision. Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Milton and Louis Agassiz are among the world's great men who specifically expressed a similar conviction. But in one important respect he differed from most of the others. While their minds caught the vision of a new day, the bookishness of their lives held some of them captive. Therein is Gandhiji's pre-eminence. No sooner was a conviction matured in his mind than he acted on it.

4. The "Basic Education" Programme-To see rural higher education in good perspective it is desirable to have a glimpse at the elementary and secondary education out of which it should emerge. As to the programme of Basic National Education for grades one to five, the revised syllabus published by Hindustani Talimi Sangh about 1947 may be taken as a representative statement. As we have seen this programme in practice in several parts of India it seems to us in the main to be Justifying the expectations of those who gave it form. A possible criticism of actual practice is over-emphasis on the one process of producing fabric and cloth. This is highly valuable as a centre for correlation of learning, since clothing, like food and shelter, is a basic human need. Also it provides opportunity for children to experience skilful achievement, and to have first hand familiarity with an economic process from start to

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finish. However, in some cases it seems that a more distributed interest and attention to varied processes of rural life would be desirable. Basic education should introduce children to all the chief issues and interests of living. It should not become a, routine with spinning and weaving as its main expressions.

These first steps of the basic education programme have been clearly defined and, in some cases at least, given able and inspiring expression.The "post-basic" secondary school programme has been less fully worked out, while that of higher education has not been clearly formulated. Therefore these will be considered in some detail.

5. The People's College-With adoption of the new Indian constitution the achievement of democracy is only barely begun. Fundamental changes of attitude will be necessary before what is written on paper can become the prevailing way of life. One of the key points at which democracy will fail or succeed is in the kind of education which will be made available to the common people.

Even after a vast extension of basic education, a large propor- tion of Indian rural boys and girls may not attend formal school beyond the seven or eight years of basic education. How, after that, they will enter into the life and thought of the nation, is not only important to them, but may determine whether or not democracy becomes a reality in India. The university, and especially rural university, has a vital relation to this problem. To indicate what that relationship may be, and how the university may contribute to the further education of this great majority of the Indian people, is essential to an understanding of the right place and work of the rural university.

For helpful guidance in this matter, we may turn to the programme of the People's Colleges of the Scandinavian countries, especially to those of Denmark. Sir Richard Livingstone, England's foremost figure in adult education, called the Sandinavian People's College "the only great successful experiment in educating the masses of a nation".

When the People's College movement was initiated in Denmark a century ago the Danes were a defeated, poverty-stricken, largely unschooled, privilege-ridden and dispirited people. In considerable degree as a result of the Peoples College movement, the Danish people have risen from ingorance and poverty to about the highest general level of education and well-being of all the peoples of the earth. Their social legislation has been sane and liberal. Danish agricultural practice has changed from a primitive state to among the most scientific and best organized in the world. All this change has been brought about with an increase, rather than a loss, of the human element.

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The part which the People's Colleges have played in this transi- tion is suggested by the fact that a third of the rural people attend them, while another third come under their direct influence. More than thirty per cent of the members of the national legislature, and eighty per cent of the members of the national legislature, and operatives play a dominant economic role, were educated at the People's Colleges. The principal writers of modern Sweden also were educated at People's Colleges rather than at the universities.

A paraphrase of a recent description of the philosophy and method of the Danish People's College will indicate how it might suit Indian conditions, and how the rural university could further its development.

While democracy requires well qualified men and women in positions of importance and authority, yet government by and for the people requires also that the fine resources of culture, leadership and wisdom shall be maintained with good distribution throughout the population. The rank and file of men have often been deprived of their best elements and their potential leadership as a result of a typical attitude toward democracy, which is not that it eliminates privilege, but that it gives everyone an equal chance to "get ahead" of others in the competition to escape from the mass of men and join the more privileged classes.

Important as it is to keep open avenues of development for the specially gifted, society has an even more fundamental need. In leavening bread we do not aim to have the gas in the dough escape from the mass and rise to the top, but rather we desire to trap the gas in small bubbles all through the dough, so that the entire mass will rise with uniform light texture. Our ideal for the gifted person among the common people, that he shall escape into an environment of culture and economic privilege, results in his leaving behind a yet more sudden mass of uninspired and unenlightened people. With this prevailing ideal, the very equality of opportunity of a political democracy, accelerates the tendency towards a population composed of subject masses and ruling classes. For a continuing democracy it is essential that our programme of liberal education shall not promote the escape from the common people of the culture which that education, generates, but shall inspire able students to remain common people, in and of the people, acting as their servants and leaders, and raising the whole social lump

A familiar attitude among educators calls for a liberal education for a small elite group, and vocational education for the masses. John Dewey wrote. "I cannot think of any idea more completely

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reactionary and more fatal to the whole democratic outlook." Another suggestion is that the shortcomings of such a leadership can be partly cured by liberal colleges drawing potential leaders from all ranks of society, "by making liberal education available to all young people who possess the essential intellectual and personal qualities." Yet, the chief issue is not where young people come from to get an education, but where they go with their education.

Democracy requires leadership steadfastly loyal to the whole people. Throughout history the people's cause has often been lost by leadership becoming estranged from and even turning traitor to the people, though often it had only recently emerged from the common people. The philosophy of rule by an intellectual elite, which characterised Plato, was the object of criticism by Bishop Grundtvig, originator of the Danish People's College. He wrote: "People in our day shout themselves hoarse about freedom and culture, and that is certainly what we need, but the proposals for attaining them usually have the same fundamental faults as Plato's `Republic', where the guardians of freedom and culture themselves swallow them both up, so that the people for all their labour get only proud tyrants to obey, to support, and if that can comfort them, to admire and deify."