LETTERS FROM ABROAD
the word 'University' for the sake of convenience. But that word has not only an inner meaning, but also an outer association in the minds of those who use it; and that fact tortures my idea into its own rigid shape, It is unfortunate.
I should not allow my idea to be pinned to a word for a foreign museum, like a dead butterfly. It must be known, not by a deposition, but by its own life growth.
I saved my Santiniketan School from being trampled into smoothness by the steam roller of the Education Department. My school is poor in resources and equipment, but it has the wealth of truth in it, which no money can ever buy ; and I am proud of the fact that it is nota machine-made article perfectly modelled in a work-shop—it is our very own.
If we must have a University, it should spring from our own life and be maintained by our own life. Someone may say that such freedom is dangerous, and that a machine will help to lessen our personal responsibility and make things easy for us. Yes! Life has its risks, and freedom has its responsibility ; and yet they are preferable on account of their own immense value, and not for any other ulterior results.
So long I have been able to retain my perfect independence and self-respect because I had faith in my own resources and proudly worked within their sovereign limits, My bird must still retain its freedom of wings and not be tamed into a
