Shantiniketan/Shantiniketan
SHANTINIKETAN
By W. W. Pearson
The author of the story that follows was so intimately connected with the life of Rabindranath Tagore’s school at Shantiniketan, Bolpur, that in order to understand the spirit of the story which was written for the boys of the ashram and was told them as they sat under the trees in the moonlight, a short account of the School itself seems a fitting introduction.
As our first impressions of a place are often the truest I will begin by an account of my first visit to Bolpur in 1912.
Bolpur is situated about a hundred miles from Calcutta, so that the School is remote from the distractions of town life and yet within easy reach of the stimulating activities of an intellectual centre. When I arrived at the station it was just sunset, the time picturesquely called in Bengal the “cow dust” time, for it is then that the cattle are driven from the fields, and the sun sets behind a golden mist raised by the cows as they slowly make their way across the dusty fields. I was met by one of the masters and four of the older boys who took all my luggage from the carriage and carried it to the cart which was waiting outside the station. They welcomed me very warmly because I had just returned from England, where I had seen their Guru, and as we drove slowly along in the bullock-cart our talk was chiefly about him. As we approached the School, which stands on high ground, so that the lights shine out over the surrounding country, one or two remarks, such as “That is one of his favourite walks” and “Under those trees he often walks on moonlight nights,” gave me the feeling that I was a pilgrim visiting the shrine of a saint rather than a visitor to a school. We became silent then, and no one spoke again till we reached the balcony of the guest house. There I was told the poet had written many of his songs. The evening star had just risen and a crescent moon was shedding its faint light over the tops of the trees with which the School is surrounded. Two of the boys went with me on to the roof, and after singing one of the poet’s songs, left me to spend a quiet evening with the master who had met me at the station. He helped me to realise the true spirit of the place, for he had been one of the five boys who had read in the School when it was first started. After a College course in America he had come back to devote his life to the service of the School to which he owed so much. We talked on about the ideals with which the poet had started the School. The sound of the boys’ voices, as they came back from their evening meal to their dormitories, had ceased, when in the stillness there arose the sound of singing. It was a group of boys who, every evening before they retire to bed, sing one of the poet’s songs. Gradually they approached the house where we were sitting, and as they turned away, the sound receded, getting fainter and fainter until it died out altogether. Then silence descended like shadows on a starlit hill, and I realised why the name “Shantiniketan” had been given to the place. A House of Peace it certainly was.
In the morning, before sunrise, the band of young choristers wakened the sleeping schoolboys to the work of the day by another song.
After an early walk to a neighbouring village, 
THE POET'S UPPER ROOM
where some of the older students conduct a night school for the boys of the Santal aboriginal tribes who are to be found scattered about in the neighbourhood, I attended service in the temple, a building open to the light and air on all sides. As I entered, the boys in their coloured shawls were seated, some on the steps outside, and some on the white marble floor in an attitude of meditation. After an opening prayer in Bengali, the boys, all together, chanted a Sanskrit verse, ending with the words,
"Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti." "Om Peace, Peace, Peace."
To hear for the first time a Sanskrit prayer chanted by the boys of Bolpur is an experience not easily to be forgotten. I wish it were possible to preserve the freshness of one's first impressions, for then the very sound of the prayer would be a constant and never-failing inspiration. I cannot describe the thrill which I felt as I listened to that ascending chant filling the fresh morning air with its solemn notes of youthful aspiration.
In the temple there is no image and no altar, for the Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, who founded the ashram, declared that in Shantiniketan no image was to be worshipped and no abuse of any religious faith was to be allowed. There “the one invisible God is to be worshipped, and such instructions are to be given as are consistent with the worship, the praise,
THE SAL AVENUE
and the contemplation of the Creator and Maintainer of the world, and as are productive of good morals, religious life, and universal brotherhood.”
The service was short, consisting only of the prayers and an address given by one of the teachers, but it was most impressive and devotional in spirit. The clear sunlight streamed through the screen of trees which surround the temple, and outside one could hear the chirping of birds and the distant cooing of doves.
During the day I came to know others of the teachers, and listened to some of the boys singing, for the poet’s songs occupy a large part of the school life. The influence of Mr. Dinendranath Tagore, a nephew of the poet’s, who teaches the boys the new songs as they are composed by the poet, is one the effect of which cannot be measured. To be able to spread the spirit of song is a great gift, but when together with it one is able to spread the ideals of a great spiritual teacher then the gift is one precious beyond words.
In the evening, as it was a moonlight night, we went out, boys and teachers as well, to a wood about a mile away from the School. We sat in a circle under the trees and the boys sang. One of the teachers told a story, and I told them about my meeting with the poet in London. Then we walked back across the open country which lay still and quiet under the spell of the Indian moonlight.
The morning I left there was a farewell ceremony according to the ancient Hindu custom when a guest leaves an ashram for the outer world. I was garlanded and a handful of rose petals, together with some grains of paddy and some grass, symbolic of the plenitude and fruitfulness of life, was offered to me, and at the same time one of the teachers pronounced over me the blessing which is found in the Sanskrit “Sakuntala,” and which has been translated by the poet: “Pleasant be thy path with intervals of cool lakes green with the spreading leaves of lotus, and with the shady trees tempering the glare and heat of the sun—let its dust be gentle for you even like the pollen of flowers borne by the calm and friendly breeze—let your path be auspicious.”
That I felt was my dedication to the service of the ashram, and as I left for the station I knew that my life work lay in trying to help to realise the ideals for which the ashram stood. There I knew was an atmosphere in which self-realisation was possible and a place where I could feel the throbbing heart of Bengal, the land of poetry and imagination.
Since then I have lived in the ashram, I have got to know the boys and the teachers as my friends for life, I have felt, even when my own spirit has been dull and I have not been able to feel the same inspiration as I hear the boys chanting in the early morning or at sunset, that Shantiniketan is truly an Abode of Peace.
Now that I am away from the ashram for a time my thoughts constantly turn back to it, and I know that under that wide and starry sky, wandering across the open heath which stretches to the horizon on all sides so that one feels as if standing on the roof of the world, there is peace to be found for the restless spirit of man. On nights when the full moon sheds a flood of white peace upon the landscape, one can walk for miles across open country with nothing to obstruct the view except here and there a neat Santal village surrounded by its few cultivated fields, and on the distant line of the horizon a group of tall palm trees standing like the warning forefingers of the guardian spirits of the place, raised against all thoughtless curiosity of outside intrusions. As one lives in this ashram and 
BOYS AT AN EXAMINATION
THE SMALL BOYS’ DORMITORIES
absorbs the spirit of its founder, one feels that its stillness and peace are but the reflection of the tranquillity which filled the mind of the Maharshi Devendranath and is so marked a characteristic of the poet. In the evenings and early mornings, just at sunset and sunrise, when the School bell has called the boys to their silent worship, a silence strangely still and beautiful seems to surround the place; and in the early hours of the morning, long before the peep of light in the east, the stillness is so intense that it seems as if time has held its breath in the expectation of the daily wonder of the sunrise.
Does it seem as if this ashram were too remote and monastic for the training of boys who, when they leave school, have to struggle in the modern world? Can we not say rather, that perhaps here they may acquire what the modern world most needs, that wealth of mind's tranquillity which is required to give life its balance when it has to march to its goal through the crowd of distractions? Whatever may be the practical outcome of this experiment in education, which strives to combine the best traditions of the old Hindu system of teaching with the healthiest aspects of modern methods, there can be no doubt that the ideal is a high one. Let me tell more of what these ideals are and how the boys and teachers of the School strive to carry them into practice.
Shantiniketan was originally a bare spot in the middle of open country, and was notorious for being the haunt of dacoits. It was to this spot that Maharshi Devendranath came on one of his journeys, and he was so deeply attracted to the place that he pitched his tent under three trees, which were the only trees then to be seen there, and for weeks at a time would live there spending his time in meditation and prayer. These trees are still to be seen, with the wide open plain stretching out before them to the western horizon, and on the marble slab which marks the place of his meditation can be seen the words which filled his mind as the Maharshi meditated upon God.
He is the repose of my life
the joy of my heart,
the peace of my spirit.
EVEN-SONG
seated in the shade of the trees, which were a mass of white blossom overhead. The bright colours of their shawls as the sunlight fell through the interlacing branches contrasted with the white flowers above them, and in perfect silence they waited for the service to begin.
This custom of holding meetings out of doors is characteristic of the School, where all the classes are held under the trees or in the verandahs, excepting during the Rains. The boys often organise some entertainment in the evenings, some circus performance or small play composed by the boys themselves, to which the masters are invited. Just before I left for America the smaller boys had discovered the existence of an imaginary hero named Ladam, and for several days the history of Ladam occupied their minds. Pictures were drawn of his exploits, his heroic deeds, some of them by no means exemplary, were staged for the benefit of their teachers, and every tree and hillock in the neighbourhood of the small boys’ dormitories was made the scene of Ladam’s fights and victories. I was shown an ant-hill and was told that it was the fortress of Ladam, and that the ants were his disciples and followers. Whether, since my last acquaintance with him, Ladam has come to an end of his career of reckless and inconsequential adventures, I know not, but as long as he lived his friends and discoverers were never tired of telling of his deeds and describing with the minutest details his appearance and character. Perhaps his ghost still haunts the corners of the dormitory and the shadow-chequered path of the Sal Avenue.
This characteristic of one side of the School life is vital to the ideals with which the School was started. Education consists, not in giving information which the boys will forget as soon as they conveniently can without danger of failing in their examinations, but in allowing the boys to develop their own characters in the way which is natural to them. The younger the boys are the more original they show themselves to be. It is only when the shadow of a University examination begins to loom over them that they lose their natural freshness and originality, and become candidates for matriculation. When the small boys take up an idea and try to put it into practice then there is always a freshness about it which is spontaneous and full of the joy of real creation. To see them give a circus performance would delight the heart of any man who had not become absolutely blasé.
This ideal of allowing the boys to develop their own characters as much as possible is seen in another institution of the School, namely, the courts constituted by the boys for the punishment of minor offences against the laws which the boys themselves formulate. Most of the discipline of the School is managed by these courts, and although there are doubtless cases of miscarriage of justice, there is no complaint amongst the boys about the judgments pronounced against offenders. In this case as in others, self-government is better than good government. The committees which the boys form are intended to deal with all the aspects of school life in which the boys are themselves vitally interested. On one occasion the boys agreed to carry on all the menial work of the School, cooking and washing up, drawing the water and buying the stores, with the help of the teachers. And although the experiment was only found practicable for about a month, during that time there were no servants employed to do any of this heavy work, and many of the boys worked like Trojans without complaint even though it was the very hottest time of the year.
There are several magazines published monthly by the different sections of the School, most of them in Bengali, which contain stories, poems and essays written by the boys. These are illustrated by those of them who show signs of artistic ability. Though these magazines sometimes languish, and often do not appear for months together, they quicken into life when the anniversary of their birth comes round, and then a grand celebration takes place. One of the dormitories is taken possession of for the occasion, and decorated with the green branches of trees, and if it happens to be the season of lotuses, a profusion of lotus buds and blossoms fills the meeting-place. One of the teachers is elected to be the chairman for the evening, and a special seat of honour is prepared for him. Over his head there hang, like the sword of Damocles, ropes of flowers, so that he looks like a queen of the May, and round his neck hang garlands as though he were a lamb prepared for the sacrifice. The various committees of management of these different periodicals vie with each other, not so much in the quality of their contributions, as in the beauty of the decorations and the garlands which are prepared in honour of these occasions of birthday celebration. Sometimes if the anniversary happens to fall during the hot weather, light refreshments are served at the close of the meeting, generally in the shape of iced sherbet. The meeting itself consists of a report of the year’s progress by the editor, and the reading of stories, poems and essays by the contributors. Sometimes pictures which have been given for illustration are exhibited, and afterwards the chairman or the poet himself, if he is present, will criticise the writings which have been read, suggesting in what way they might be improved. In certain cases there is a competition, either for the best picture or the best story. In this way the boys are encouraged to think and write for themselves, and one or two of those who have illustrated these manuscript magazines have proved to be artists of real ability.
Occasionally excursions will be planned, either for the day for the whole School, or for several days to some place of historical interest, in which case only a few selected boys will go accompanied by two or three of the teachers. In the former case we go to some place within easy reach of the ashram, and taking our food with us cook it by the side of a river or under the trees in a wood. The whole day is spent in the open air, and singing and games form the chief part of the programme, though stories are also told by some of the teachers. On moonlight nights, especially, many of the boys go out for long walks with the teachers, and in this way the bond between the masters and the pupils becomes deep and strong. The teachers live in the dormitories with the boys, and are able therefore to help them in their work and share with them their daily life.
Football is the most popular form of sport in the School, and as there is plenty of space round the buildings, there is enough ground for several football fields, so that the boys of all ages can have their own games. Walking is not so popular, except when in the rainy season sudden storms of rain come deluging the surrounding country. Then the boys delight in going out into the midst of the heaviest deluge and getting thoroughly wet. Classes are stopped when these heavy storms come on, and keen delight is shown by the boys when they see that a dark and threatening sky offers them the chance of a cooling shower bath.
The following facts may be of interest to those who wish to know the more practical details of the working of the School.
At present there are about 150 boys in the ashram, some of whom come from other parts of India, though the majority are from Bengal. There are about twenty teachers, some living with their families, resident in the School. The age of the boys ranges from six to seventeen or eighteen, the younger ones being under the charge of special teachers. These younger boys often take their meals in the homes of the married teachers, the wife of one of them, for example, having undertaken to look after ten boys who come to her house for all their meals for a week, allowing another ten to take their turn.
The boys are of all castes, and it is expressly stated when they are admitted that they are to be allowed to exercise their own discretion in the matter of the observation or non-observation of caste distinctions. Serving at the meals is undertaken by all the boys in turn, which lightens the burden of the kitchen service.
The fees charged are the same for all the boys, though in certain cases poor students are admitted free. Each pupil is charged 30s. per month for tuition, board and lodging, so that the yearly expense to the parent is less than £20. But this does not represent the actual expense, as there is a large yearly deficit which has, up to the present, been met by the founder of the School.
One of the reasons which make it impossible to make the School a self-supporting institution is that the number of teachers has to be so large in proportion to the number of students in order to ensure small classes and individual attention.
To the Western eye the outward aspect of the ashram would suggest poverty, but this is due to the ideal which has always been followed in India wherever true education has been the end and purpose in view. The emphasis on efficient and expensive equipment which is a characteristic feature of institutions of learning in the West has never been accepted in India, where simplicity of living is regarded as one of the most important factors in true education.
The utmost simplicity is found in all the buildings which are used by the boys for their own daily life. The dormitories are merely thatched cottages, and it is intended to keep them simple, though the present thatched roofs will have to be changed for a less inflammable material as soon as money is available, as the possibility of a fire which would spread to all the dormitories is a source of constant anxiety.
We are hoping to erect a new building for a Hospital, as we have not proper accommodation for our sick boys or suitable quarters for the segregation of infectious cases. Such a hospital, when properly endowed, would provide medical help for the poor of the neighbouring villages.
Several interesting collections of curios from different parts of the world have been presented to the School, and we intend to add a Museum as an addition to the present library building as soon as funds are forthcoming.
The daily routine of the School is as follows: The boys are awakened before sunrise by the singing of one of the poet’s songs by a band of singers. As soon as they get up they go to their morning bath which they take in the wells to be found in different parts of the grounds. After their bath they have fifteen minutes set apart for silent worship. The boys sit out under the trees or on the open fields in the early morning light and then come together to chant the Sanskrit verses selected from the Upanishads by Maharshi Devendranath Tagore.
After some light food the classes begin at about 7 o’clock. There are no class-rooms, so the classes are held in the open air or on the verandahs of the buildings.
After a meal at 11.30, during the heat of the day the boys stay in their rooms and work at their lessons, the teachers sitting with them to give help if needed. Classes begin in the afternoon at 2 o’clock and continue till 4.30 or 5 o’clock.
In the cool of the evening football is played, while some of the boys go for walks. At sunset they have again fifteen minutes for silence and the chanting of the evening verses. Some of the boys teach in a night-school which has been started for the servants of the School and the neighbouring villagers.
Before the evening meal there is an hour which is devoted to some form of entertainment, such as story-telling by one of the teachers, a lantern lecture, or some amusement got up by the boys themselves. The bell for retiring sounds at about 9 o’clock, and most of the boys are asleep by 9.30, except on moonlight nights when numbers of the older boys go out for a walk to neighbouring woods, where they sit and sing till late at night.
There is no head master, the School being under the management of an executive committee elected by the teachers themselves, from among whom one is elected each year as executive head. He is entrusted with the practical management of the institution. In each subject one of the masters is elected as director of studies, and he discusses with the other teachers in that subject the books and methods of teaching to be adopted, but each teacher is left to work out his own methods in the way he thinks best.
When the poet is himself present he presides at the meetings of the executive committee, and also teaches in some of the classes, but his influence is more widely felt in the informal readings of his own writings which he gives in the evenings during the entertainment period. He also teaches the boys, when they take part in his plays, not only how to act but also how to sing his songs.
The boys are trusted very largely to look after their own affairs, and have their own committees in the different sections of the School, as well as the general meetings of all the boys in the ashram when questions affecting the whole School are brought up for discussion. In their examinations they are left to themselves and put on their honour. When an examination takes place the boys may be seen in all sorts of positions writing their answers, even in such inaccessible places as the fork of some high tree. Though occasionally boys take advantage of the trust thus placed in them, it is found that in the majority of cases trust begets trust, and there is no question that the relationship between teacher and pupil is a happier one in consequence.
The old boys of the ashram keep in touch with the School in different ways. The boys who are in the ashram know these “old boys” by the title of “Dada,” which means elder brother, and at the annual festival, which takes place in December on the anniversary of the date on which the ashram was founded, numbers of the old boys come to see the performance of one of the poet’s plays. The keenest interest is taken by all in the football match between Past and Present Boys. The School is not behindhand in athletics, as can be seen by its record in the inter-school Sports of the district, in which boys from our ashram have carried off the chief prizes for several years in succession. Their football record also is one to be proud of, so the education of the boys includes physical culture as well as culture of the mind.
As I have said, the classes are held in the open air as much as possible, and there is no need for elaborate furniture and class-rooms. Each boy brings with him to the various classes his own square piece of carpet for sitting on, and the teacher sits either under a tree or in the verandah of one of the dormitories. This open-air class work has its great advantages, for it keeps the minds of the boys fresh in their appreciation of Nature. I remember in the middle of one class I was suddenly interrupted in my teaching by one of the boys calling my attention to the song of a bird in the branches overhead. We stopped the teaching and listened till the bird had finished. It was spring-time, and the boy who had called my attention to the song said to me, “I don’t know why, but somehow I can’t explain what I feel when I hear that bird singing.” I could not enlighten him, but I am quite sure that my class learnt more from that bird than it had ever done from my teaching, and something that they would never forget in life. For myself my ears were opened, and for several days I was conscious of the songs of the birds as I had never been before. The boys are very fond of flowers, and sometimes will get up long before dawn to be the first to pluck some new sweet-scented blossoms. These they weave into garlands for their teachers or for the poet himself.
Sometimes when the class comes at the end of the day, the boys ask that they may go out to some neighbouring village or the river, and have the class on the way. When this happens they are supremely happy, and we go off together with no other anxiety than that of getting back in time for the evening meal.
For the younger boys Nature Study forms part of their work, and during the whole of one term one class was kept busy in collecting all the varieties of leaves and grasses that could be found in the neighbourhood. Sometimes they would find an unexpected addition to their collection of botanical specimens, by getting a thorn into their bare feet, for all the boys go about barefoot in the ashram. But their feet are so hardened to the gravel and thorny paths which abound all round the School that it is only the new boys that find any hardship in such an experience. Occasionally on a clear night one of the teachers gives a simple lesson in astronomy, and shows the moon and stars through a small telescope, and when lantern slides can be obtained illustrated lectures are given in the evenings, sometimes in the open air and sometimes in one of the dormitories. It is always possible to find one or two of the more practical boys eager to take charge of the lantern, and fix up the sheet.
Bengali is the medium of instruction throughout the School, but English is taught as a second language.
The direct method of teaching English is adopted in the lower classes, and when the boys are beginning to understand, fairy stories or adventures are told them in simple English. When they are interested in a story it is surprising with what ease they are able to follow. I have myself found such stories as George Macdonald’s “The Princess and Curdie” and “The Princess and the Goblins” fascinate Bengali boys of thirteen or fourteen, and they have been eager to hear the next instalment, even though told them in a foreign language.
One of the things that strike visitors to the School is the look of happiness on the boys’ faces, and there is no doubt that there is none of the usual feeling of dislike for school life which one finds in institutions where the only object held before the boys is the passing of examinations. Examinations have been abolished in the lower classes, except once a year when tests of each boy’s progress are made by the teacher who has been teaching the boy himself.
At the end of each term arrangements are made for staging one of the poet’s plays. The teachers and boys take the different parts, and the play is staged in Shantiniketan, visitors coming from Calcutta to see it, especially if the poet is himself taking part. The poet coaches the actors himself, first reading the play aloud, and then reading it over with those who are to take part. During the days when the play is being rehearsed there are not many classes held, for the boys of the whole School are always present at the rehearsals. One sees the small boys peeping in at the windows, and showing the keenest appreciation of the humorous and witty scenes. The final day is a busy one, for the stage has to be prepared and there must be a dress rehearsal. To this the boys are not admitted, as it would take away the freshness of the play if they were able to see a too nearly perfect presentation of it beforehand. But when it begins there is great enthusiasm amongst visitors and boys alike, as the songs and dances reveal the spirit of the play to the delighted audience. In this way the ideas of the poet are assimilated by the boys, without their having to make any conscious effort. In fact they are being educated into his thought through the sub-conscious mind, and this is one of the root principles of Rabindranath Tagore’s method of education. English plays are also sometimes given, as well as Sanskrit, and it is remarkable to see what histrionic powers the Bengali boy has, even when he has to act in a foreign tongue. When the play is in Bengali then they are in their element, and they seem to have such aptitude for acting that the smaller boys often get up plays of their own without any assistance from the masters. At the beginning of 1916 there was a performance of the poet’s new play “A Spring Festival” in Calcutta, and a number of the younger boys, aged from eight to ten, took part in the chorus. They did not have to do any acting, but merely sang the songs and took part in the dances, so that they were practically in the position of spectators on the stage. After the play was over, and we had all returned to Shantiniketan, these small boys surprised us by giving one evening a performance of the whole play, each boy taking one of the characters with such perfect mimicry of those who had taken the parts in Calcutta that the performance was irresistible. Every shade of humour and seriousness was reproduced to perfection by these pigmy actors.
An account of the School would be incomplete without some reference to what strike one as the peculiar characteristics of the Bengali boys as distinguished from English boys. In the grounds of the School there is a small Hospital building in which the boys when ill reside, and to which outdoor patients from the surrounding villages come for treatment. There is a qualified doctor in charge, but the nursing is done almost entirely by the boys themselves, who, in the case of the serious illness of one of their schoolfellows, divide the night up into watches of two hours each, and look after the patient all night. They seem to have a natural instinct which makes them splendid nurses even when they have not had any special training. It is not only towards the boys themselves that they show this care, but when necessity arises for helping some poor villager from the neighbourhood they will go to the village, and perhaps carry the patient on a stretcher to the School Hospital in order that he may get proper treatment.
The story of Jadav well illustrates this remarkable spirit. Jadav was one of the boys in the lower part of the School. He was only about eleven years old, but he was a brilliant boy and full of promise. He was taken ill while he was with us and died in the ashram.
I remember so well his keen interest in Nature Study, and how he would come running and panting to my class with his latest addition to the collections of different kinds of leaves which the smaller boys were making. His words tumbling over each other in his eagerness to show me what treasures he had found, he would ask me whether any other boy had got so many different kinds. All his teachers found in him the same eager interest in his work, and at meetings of the smaller boys he would sometimes tell a story in English which was wonderfully good for so young a pupil.
When he was first taken ill it was not realised that it was anything serious, but after a week or so he became worse and it was decided to remove him to Calcutta, as the accommodation in our small Hospital building was not satisfactory for cases of serious illness. Many of the older boys had been taking their turns in sitting up at night with the little patient, and when the morning came for him to be removed eight or ten of them took up the stretcher on which he was to be carried to the station and started off along the road. As soon as Jadav realised that he was being taken away to Calcutta his whole body became restless, and instead of lying still and quiet in his weakness he began to struggle and cry out, “I don't want to leave the ashram. Take me back.” “I won't go. I want to go back to the ashram.” “Why are you taking me away?”
The doctor became alarmed and said that it would be dangerous to take him if he struggled and cried, so the boys turned back towards the ashram again. The moment he realised that he was returning to his ashram the little fellow lay quite still and was happy again.
He began to get worse, however, and in spite of the best medical aid that could be got from Calcutta it soon became clear that we were to lose his bright presence. Day after day the boys took their turns in watching by his side and carrying out the doctors’ instructions, and would sit up all through the night bathing his fevered body with cool water.
An hour or two before he died I was sitting by his side and he said in Bengali, in a voice weak and full of pathos, “The flower will not blossom.” I whispered to him, “Don’t be afraid, for the flower will blossom.”
He was cremated out on the open fields near the ashram at dawn, and as the flames crept slowly upwards I knew that for us at least his little life had blossomed and left a fragrance behind which would never fade.
Another striking characteristic of the Bengali boy is his genuine affection for little children. The average English boy, if told to take charge of an infant brother, would feel completely miserable, and if asked to carry his baby sister to the annual prize-giving of his own school would feel ready to sink through the floor with shame. But in Bengal wherever one goes one is struck by the fact that the boys are devoted to children and are never tired of nursing them or playing with them. I have seen boys at Shantiniketan spend hours wheeling a perambulator with quite a young child in it for the mere pleasure of having a child to entertain. There is no affectation about it, and this is not a peculiarity of the boys of our School only. Nothing gives the boys of the upper classes at Shantiniketan more pleasure than to be allowed to bring to their class the grandson of the poet, a little boy of four who sits through the period quite quietly and solemnly, with only an occasional diversion if anything interesting is happening near the tree under which the class is being held. And I have often seen one of the biggest boys, on the way to the football field, hand in hand with the tiny son of one of the teachers, a little boy of three, who chatters away to his big companion on all sorts of subjects.
Bengali boys have also a characteristic attitude of receptivity to spiritual things which makes it possible to trust to the atmosphere of the ashram for the development of the spiritual life. There is, for example, nothing irksome to the boys in the habit of sitting in silence and stillness during the morning and evening periods of silent worship. The result of this is that even the younger boys of our School often find it easier to follow the addresses of the poet than graduate students of Calcutta, who have not had the opportunity of living in such an environment. They are like sensitive instruments which respond to the least influence, and for that reason unkindness or thoughtlessness in one’s dealings with Bengali students often have results apparently far out of proportion to the actual occasion of the hurt. This has been seen recently in the effect of an unsympathetic attitude adopted by many professors in Government and other Colleges towards the students in Calcutta. But this very sensitiveness responds with even greater readiness to kindness and sympathy. In educational work of any kind sympathy is the supreme necessity for a successful teacher, but this is truer in Bengal than in any other country in the world.
Before closing some reference should be made to the religious atmosphere of the place. I say religious atmosphere because there is no definite dogmatic teaching, and for the development of the spiritual side of the boys’ natures the ideal has always been to leave that to the natural instinct of each individual boy. In this considerable help is expected from the personal influence of the teachers, and from the silent but constant influence of close touch with Nature herself, which in India is the most wonderful teacher of spiritual truth.
Shantiniketan was founded by the father of the poet, Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, as an ashram, or religious retreat, where those in search of peace might have an opportunity for quiet and meditation, and when Rabindranath chose it as the site for his School he knew that the atmosphere of the place was an ideal one for the growth of his own ideals. The eldest son of the Maharshi, Mr. Dwijendranath Tagore, has also chosen this place for the closing years of his life, and is still living there in his seventy-fifth year, spending his days in quiet meditation and writing on religious and philosophical subjects. On the first day of the New Year, and on other special occasions, all the boys and teachers go to pay their reverence to this saint, who has now lived constantly for about twenty years in Shantiniketan, and is as much a vital part of the ashram as the boys themselves. One of the rarest privileges is that of going in the evening to his house and in the fading twilight to sit and talk with him on the deeper things of the spirit.
Mention has been made of the period set apart in the early morning and evening for meditation. Each boy takes his piece of carpet out into the open field or under a tree when the bell for worship sounds, and sits there for fifteen minutes in silent contemplation, or perhaps one should say in silence, for the subject of his thoughts is left entirely to each boy. There is no instruction given as to the method of meditation, the direction of their thoughts being left to the influence of the idea of silence itself and to the Sanskrit texts which are repeated by the boys together at the close of the period of silent meditation. That many boys form the habit of such daily silent worship is enough. Apart from this morning and evening silence there is a service held in the temple once or twice a week at which the poet himself, when present, addresses the boys. When he is away one of the teachers gives the address, and the boys join in the chanting of certain Sanskrit mantras. The subject of these addresses varies, and many of them have been published in a series entitled “Shantiniketan,” which has been published by the School authorities. As an example I may give the notes I took of an address given by the poet on the last night of the old year. The service was held after sunset and in the darkness it was only possible to distinguish the speaker dimly outlined against a background of white-clad figures seated on the floor all round him.
He began by saying that when a year comes to its end we sometimes think only of the sadness of ending, but if we can realise that in this ending there is not emptiness but fulness, then even the thought of ending itself becomes full of joy. In this very process of ending we once again have the leisure to throw off the coverings and wrappings of habit and custom and thus emerge into a fuller and more spacious conception of life. Even the ending of life in death has this element of fulness in it when viewed from the right standpoint. Death really reveals life to us, and never hides or obscures it except where we ourselves are wilfully blind. Thus the breaking of customs and forms, which have grown round us only to choke true life, is a matter for joy and not sorrow. In Europe this war, which is robbing so many homes by death, is really the tearing off, on a vast scale, of the wrappings of dead habits of mind which have been accumulating for so many years only to smother the truth of our nature. The currents of life which had become choked and stagnant will once more become free to flow in fresh channels.
When death comes to those whom we love, we seem to see the world in its completeness, but without the customary crowd of things which hide from us the reality which underlies the scene. In death’s presence the world becomes like the darkness which is so full that one feels it can be pierced with a needle and yet it seems empty of objects.
Thus the message of this end of the year is the joy of change and its acceptance as the means of achieving a wider vision and grasp of life.
The address was full of illuminating illustrations as all the poet’s addresses are, and I have only given the barest outline of this one in order to give some idea of the kind of subjects which are taken. The fact that some of them seem to be above the heads of the boys does not seriously matter, for the boys, even without fully understanding, are all the time unconsciously absorbing the point of view of the speaker.
In closing I cannot do better than quote in full a letter written to a schoolmaster in England who had written to the poet asking for an account of the methods he adopts at Shantiniketan. He writes:
"To give spiritual culture to our boys was my principal object in starting my School in Bolpur. Fortunately, in India we have the model before us in the tradition of our ancient forest schools where teachers whose aim was to realise their lives in God had their homes. The atmosphere was full of the aspiration for the infinite, and the students who grew up with their teachers, closely united with them in spiritual relationship, felt the reality of God—for it was no mere creed imposed upon them or speculative abstraction.
"Having in my mind this ideal of a school which should be a home and a temple in one, where teaching should be part of a worshipful life, I selected this spot, away from all distractions of town, hallowed by the memory of a pious life whose days were passed there in communion with God.
"You must not imagine that I have fully realised my ideal—but the ideal is there working itself out through all the obstacles of the hard prose of modern life. In spiritual matters one should forget that he must teach others or achieve results that can be measured, and in my School here I think it proper to measure our success by the spiritual growth in the teachers. In these things gain to one's personal self is gain to all, like lighting a lamp which is lighting a whole room.
"The first help that our boys get here on this path is from the cultivation of love of Nature and sympathy with all living creatures. Music is of very great assistance to them—songs being not of the ordinary hymn type, dry and didactic, but as full of lyric joy as the author could make them. You can understand how these songs affect the boys when you know that singing them is the best enjoyment they choose for themselves in their leisure time, in the evening when the moon is up, in the rainy days when their classes are closed. Mornings and evenings a period of fifteen minutes is given them to sit in an open space composing their minds for worship. We never watch them and ask questions about what they think in those times, but leave it entirely to themselves, to the spirit of the place and the time, and the suggestion of the practice itself. We rely more upon the subconscious influence of Nature, of the associations of the place and the daily life of worship that we live, than on any conscious effort to teach them."
This letter sums up better than I can the ideals of Shantiniketan and gives expression to the spirit with which the ashram was started.
