राष्ट्रीय शिक्षा प्रणाली एवं भारतीय मानस (श्री अरविन्द - एकात्म शिक्षा दर्शन)

A SYSTEM OF NATIONAL EDUCATION.

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A SYSTEM OF NATIONAL EDUCATION BY AUROBINDO GHOSE PUBLISHED BY : TAGORE & CO., MADRAS.

First Published 1921. Printed at Everymans Press, 1, McLean Street, Madras.

CONTENTS. Publishers Note.— The Human Mind .... .... .... 1 The Powers of the Mind .... .... 9 The Moral Nature .... .... .... 16 Simultaneous and Successive Teaching .... 27 The Training of the Mind .... .... 36 Sense Improvement by Practice .... .... 48 The Training of the Mental Faculties .... 53 The Training of the Logical Faculty .... 63 2004754

All Rights Reserved.

PUBLISHERS NOTE. The Publishers have much pleasure in presenting this volume which is but a compilation of a series of articles from the pen of Srijut Aurobindo Ghose contributed several years ago. In view of the fact that much interest and enthusiasm are evinced at the present moment in National Educa- tion the Publishers trust that the main theme enunciated by India's greatest yogi in this book will be of immense use in guiding the army of nation-builders in their re-modelling of the Education of the youth of the country.

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A System of National Education I. THE HUMAN MIND The true basis of Education is the study of the human mind, infant, adolescent, and adult. Any system of Education founded on theories of academic perfection, which ignores the instrument of study, is more likely to hamper and impair intellec- tual growth than to produce a perfect and perfectly equipped mind. For the Educationist has to do, not with dead material like the artist or sculptor, but with an infinitely subtle and sensitive organism. He cannot shape an educational masterpiece out of human wood or stone ; he has to work in the elusive substance of mind and respect the limits imposed by the fragile human body.

2 NATIONAL EDUCATION There can be no doubt that the Educational System of Europe is a great advance on the many methods of antiquity, but its defects are also palpable. It is based on an in- sufficient knowledge of human psycho- logy and it is only safeguarded in Europe from disastrous results by the refusal of the ordinary student to subject himself to the processes it involves, his habit of studying only so much as he must to avoid punishment or to pass an immediate test, his resort to active habits and vigorous physical exercise. In India the disas- trous effects of the system on body, mind and character are only too appa- rent. The first problem in a National System of Education is to give an Education as comprehensive as the European and more thorough, with- out the evils of strain and cramming.

THE HUMAN MIND 3 This can only be done by studying the instruments of knowledge and finding a system of teaching which shall be natural, easy and effective. It is only by strengthening and sharpening these instruments to their utmost capacity that they can be made effec- tive for the increased work which modern conditions require. The muscles of the mind must be thorough- ly trained by simple and easy means ; then, and not till then, great feats of intellectual strength can be required of them. The first principle of true teaching is that nothing can be taught. The teacher is not an In- structor or Taskmaster, he is a helper and a guide. His business is to suggest and not to impose. He does not actually train the pupil's mind, he only shows him how to perfect

4 NATIONAL EDUCATION his instruments of knowledge and helps and encourages him in the process. He does not impart know- ledge to him, he shows him how to acquire knowledge for himself. He does not call forth the knowledge that is within; he only shows him where it lies and how it can be habituated to rise to the surface. The distinction that reserves this principle for the teaching of adoles- cent and adult minds and denies its application to the child is a conserva- tive and unintelligent doctrine. Child or man, boy or girl, there is only one sound principle of good teaching. Difference of age only serves to diminish or increase the amount of help and guidance necessary, it does not change its nature. The second principle is that the mind has to be consulted in its own

THE HUMAN MIND 5 growth. The idea of hammering the child into the shape desired by the parent or teacher is a barbarous and ignorant superstition. It is he himself who must be induced to expand in accordance with his own nature. There can be no greater error than for the parent to arrange beforehand that his son shall develop particular qualities, capacities, ideas, virtues, or be prepared for a pre- arranged career. To force the nature, to abandon its own dharma is to do it permanent harm, mutilate its growth and deface its perfection. It is a selfish tyranny over a human soul and a wound to the Nation, which loses the benefit of the best that a man could have given it and is forced to accept instead something imperfect and artificial, second rate, perfunctory andcommon. Every one has in him

6 NATIONAL EDUCATION something divine, something his own, a chance of perfection and strength in however small a sphere which God offers him to take or refuse. The task is to find it, develop it and use it. The chief aim of Education should be to help the growing soul to draw out that in itself which is best and make it perfect for a noble use. The third principle of Education is to work from the near to the far, from that which is to that which shall be. The basis of a man's nature is almost, always, in addition to his soul's past, his heredity, his surroundings, his nationality, his country, the soil from which he draws sustenance, the air which he breathes, the sights, sounds, habits to which he is accustomed. They mould him not the less power- fully because insensibly, from that then we must begin. We must not

THE HUMAN MIND 7 take up the nature by the roots from the Earth in which it must grow or surround the mind with images and ideas of a life which is alien to that in which it must physically move. If anything has to be brought in from outside, it must be offered, not forced on the mind. A free and natural growth is the condi- tion of genuine development. There are souls which naturally revolt from their surroundings and seem to belong to another age and clime. Let them be free to follow their bent; but the majority languish, become empty, become artificial, if artificially mould- ed into an alien form. It is God's arrangement that they should belong to a particular nation, age, society, that they should be children of the past, possessors of the present, creators of the future. The past is our founda-

8 NATIONAL EDUCATION tion, the present our material, the future our aim and summit. Each must have its due and natural place in a National System of Education.

CHAPTER II THE POWERS OF THE MIND The instrument of the Education- ist is the mind or antahkarana, which consists of four layers. The reservoir of past mental impressions, the chitta or storehouse of memory, which must be distinguished from the specific act of memory, is the foundation on which all the other layers stand. All experi- ence lies within us as passive or poten- tial memory ; active memory selects and takes what it requires from that storehouse. But the active memory is like a man searching among a great mass of locked-up material; sometime he cannot find what he wants ; often in his rapid search he stumbles across many things for which he has no immediate need ; often too

10 NATIONAL EDUCATION he blunders and thinks he has found the real thing when it is something else irrelevant if not valueless, on which he has laid his hand. The passive memory or chitta needs no training, it is automatic and naturally sufficient to its task ; there is not the slightest object of knowledge coming within its field which is not secured, placed and faultlessly preserv- ed in that admirable receptacle. It is the active memory, a higher but less perfectly developed function, which is in need of improvement. The second layer is the mind proper or manas, the sixth sense of our Indian Psychology, in which all the others are gathered up. The function of the mind is to receive the images of things translated into sight, sound, smell, taste and touch, the five senses and translate these again into

THE POWERS OF THE MIND 11 thought-sensations. It receives also images of its own direct grasping and forms them into mental impressions. These sensations and impressions are the material of thought, not thought itself ; but it is exceedingly important that thought should work on sufficient and perfect material. It is therefore the first business of the Educationist, to develop in the child the right use of the six senses ; to see that they are not stunted or injured by disease, but trained by the child himself under the teacher’s direction to that perfect accuracy and keen subtle sensitiveness of which they are capable. In addi- tion, whatever assistance can be gain- ed by the organs of action should be thoroughly employed. The hand, for instance, should be trained to repro- duce what the eye sees, and the mind senses. The speech should be trained

12 NATIONAL EDUCATION the perfect expression of the know- ledge which the whole antahkarna possesses. The third layer is the intellect or buddhi, which is the real instrument of thought and that which orders and disposes of the knowledge acquired by the other parts of the machine. For the purpose of the Educationist this is infinitely the most important of the three I have named. The intellect is an organ composed of several groups of functions, divisible into two impor- tant classes; the functions and faculties of the right hand, the functions and the faculties of the left hand. The faculties of the right hand are com- prehensive, creative and synthetic ; the faculties of the left hand critical and analytic. To the right hand be- longs judgment, imagination, memory, observation ; to the left hand compari-