EDUCATION FOR INDIA
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Sympathy for children is a very laudable sentiment ; but I don't feel quite certain that all that Mr. M. S. Sarkani wanted to say was, " Give the children of India more rest." Ten minutes is, indeed, too inadequate a time after 5 hours and zo minutes of work for which he justly criticises the Wardha Programme.
But I wish he had reflected a little more before writing, " But with the advent of the British in India, not only was education made accessible to all without exception, but also its value and use were brought to the notice of the people." " Without exception " is too big a lump to swallow when the exception, after tso years of British rule in India, is somewhere near 88 per cent. of the population. As to how far the " value and use " of the education were brought to the notice of the people, doesn't he condemn his own optimism by saying that a time came " when there were more clerks than necessary and the Government and private offices had no place for them " ? " The people realised their folly and the hands they had raised to clap and cheer now turned into menacing fists." That is the tragedy of the " intellectual " education in India. It has taught us little that is useful.
Then again, to impute low motives to the Congress by saying that " they are going to profit themselves by making the students work for three and a half holm at the cost of the latter's health and intellectual education," seems a little childish. The Congress programme aims at being self-sufficing because there are no other means by which elementary education can be provided for in India. If we had a smaller army and fewer Home charges we could have more schools. The mere fact that the Congress has been in office for six months does not mean that it has come by Aladdin's lamp.
The merit of the Wardha programme seems to me to be self- evident. It provides not only education but also the means wherewith the children would be able to provide two meals a day as they grow up rather than manufacture combustible bombs in spite of themselves.—Yours, &c.,
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