exclusive, narrow-minded, touch-me-notistic, and narrowly devoted to the selfish interests of his community alone. Unfortunately, there are too many Hindu promoters of national education who understand by it education on narrowly orthodox Hindu lines, and there are too many Moslem promoters of national education who similarly understand by it education along narrowly orthodox Islamic lines. No reasonable citizen ought to have anything to say against Hindus giving orthodox teaching to their children, and Moslems giving orthodox teaching to theirs. But the question is is such teaching a part of national education or of denominational education? We need not confine ourselves to merely academic discussion. Let us appeal to experience. Have the distinctively Hindu and the distinctively Musalman “national” institutions succeeded to any extent in bridging the gulf, in obliterating the lines of cleavage, existing between caste and caste, religious group and religious group, race and race? Have they made the attempt? We do not want to answer the questions dogmatically one way or the other. Let there be a searching of hearts. Let the promoters of national education compare notes of their experience. And let them promote such education as would help in nation-building, as would foster the growth of national solidarity, as would preserve and strengthen national solidarity and prevent national disruption and disintegration. A mere appeal to sectarian and racial vanity and to the spirit of Past-Worship will do more harm than good.
National education should be such as would tend to decrease and ultimately destroy mutual repulsion and increase mutual attraction between the component parts of the Indian nation, and thus produce, conserve and increase national solidarity. Have we at present any national education of this description?
The last question to which we wish briefly to advert is the object of national education. Suppose our national institutions make us masters of all existing knowdege, Eastern and Western, suppose they promote research according to Western methods or methods devised by ourselves, suppose we are equipped with all knowledge, training and appliances to develop and exploit the resources of our country. The question that remains to ask is, What use shall we make of all this knowledge, research, training and scientific and mechanical equipment? The answer to this question will show whether our national education has any distinctively national ideal at its back and any distinctively national motive and object before it. We know what use Western nations have made of their national education. They have been increasingly mastering the forces of nature, they have exploited the resources of their own and other countries, they have conquered, enslaved, exploited foreign peoples, they have hankered after and obtained the means of leading luxurious lives, their Haves and Have-Nots are fighting tooth and nail, they are flying in the air, floating on the sea, diving beneath its surface, marching on the surface of the earth and digging into its bowels, in order to pursue the game of manslaughter on a large scale, and they have invented the poison gas. What would we do with our national education? Shall we make of it a handmaid to Mammon and the Devil? Or shall it bring Healing to the lacerated peoples of the earth and Peace and Bliss to the miserable poor and the miserable rich, the de-humanised masters and the de-humanised slaves, all over the world? Shall our national education also be a human and humane education, impelling us to work for word-wide unity and concord?
May our national education enable us to co-operate with God!
“Post-Graduate Teaching in the Calcutta University, 1919-20,”
When men hold salaried appointments, we do not think it is discreditable for them to prefer posts carrying higher salaries to posts carrying lower salaries. At the same time, we think it is creditable for men to voluntarily choose to work for a mere subsistence allowance, for love of the work, as the professors of the Poona Fergusson College do. A vow of poverty should be voluntary. It should not be either prescribed or enforced.
But in the Annual Report of the post-graduate departments of the Calcutta University, the president Sir Asutosh Mookerjee sneers at two former University teachers, Mr A. K. Chanda and Pandit Surendra Nath Majumdar Shastri, for having “found the allurements of Government service so bewitching,” and later on speaks of them as deserters. May we ask the legal luminary who uses this lan-
