प्राचीन भारत में शिक्षा (डॉ. ए.एस. अल्तेकर - गुरुकुल एवं बौद्ध विहार शिक्षण इतिहास)

III] THE TEACHER AND THE STUDENT 69 promote self-control, discipline the will and facilitate the formation of good habits. The complaint that they were too ascetic is not true; students were required only to control their passions and desires and not to kill them, as was recommended in the case of ascetics. Strict celibacy was insisted upon, but that was for the purpose of promoting concentration in studies and the development of the body. At the end of the course, students were enjoined to marry. At Sparta students' food was both plain and scanty. In India it was only plain; the educa- tionalists had realised that the body is developed and built up during the childhood and adolescence and have therefore permitted students to take as much food as was demanded by the needs of their developing constitution. In the light of these facts the observation of a recent writer that the student life in ancient India was very severe because it required a stay at a stranger's place, demanded a beggar's or a menial's life and denied all pleasures of life¹ will appear to be considerably wide of the mark. Society did not regard the student life as a proper period for enjoying the pleasures of life. Its standards of plain living also were naturally much different from those of the modern age, dominated by the novel, the drama and the cinema. Stay at a stranger's place was nothing else than the stay at a boarding house. The beggar's life was the mere ideal, recommended with a view to bring educa- tion within the reach of all; it was a reality only in the case of the poor and a mere formality in the case of the rest. Menial duties like personal service at the teacher's household were expected to be performed only by the poor students, who were given free tuition by the teacher; they were a mere formality in the case of the rest. 1 Bokil: The History of Education in India, Part I p. 151.