द ब्यूटीफुल ट्री: १८वीं सदी में भारत की स्वदेशी गुरुकुल शिक्षा (धर्मपाल)

and explained the faculties of the mind; but, the favourite study of the Indian sages, was a metaphysical and abstruse philosophy, founded on superstition and error. They regarded logic, rhetoric and grammar with particular approbation; and those who aspired to a superior reputation, acquired those sciences with unceasing labour, and intense application. They spent their lives in their cultivation. The Hindoos made no use of experiments, and it is extraordinary that without this aid, they should have become acquainted with the most difficult and hidden branches of Mathematics, Astronomy and Algebra. Have the acquisitions been the fruits of their own study and reflection; or have they been obtained from extraneous and a more ancient source which is now forgotten and lost? It is not possible to determine these questions; and as we cannot prove that they derived their knowledge from another people, it is but fair to consider them as the inventors of all which they possess, which they have preserved through so many perils and which they must have cultivated with so much ardour. The learning of the Malabar is probably more limited than that of the more central people of India; but they are not inattentive to the cultivation of letters. They are particularly anxious and attentive to instruct their children to read and to write. Education with them is an early and an important business in every family. Many of their women are taught to read and write. The Bramans are generally the school masters, but any of the respectable castes may, and often do, practice teaching. The children are instructed without violence, and by a process peculiarly simple. It is the same system which has caused so much heat and controversy, as to the inventors of it, in this country, and the merit of which was due to neither of the claimants.¹ The system was borrowed from the Bramans and brought from India to Europe. It has been made the foundation of National schools in every enlightened country. Some gratitude is due to a people from whom we have learnt to diffuse among the lower ranks of society instruction by one of the most unerring and economical methods which has ever been invented. The pupils are the monitors of each other, and the characters are traced with a rod, or the finger on the sand. Reading and writing are acquired at the same time, and by the same process. This mode of teaching however is only initial. If the pupil is meant to study the higher branches of learning, he is removed from these primary schools, where the arts of reading, writing and accounts 261