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

In Norway and Sweden they formerly wrote, or rather engraved, on flakes and planks. They wrote on wooden tablets. Poetry was inscribed on staves. A verse is therefore still called a stave.⁸ The mode of writing or engraving on leaves was probably at one period extended all over India. It is mentioned by Abdulrizack who travelled in 1442, as the common practice at Bisnaghur.⁹ There is no difficulty in multiplying schools at present in India to any extent provided funds are furnished. The people are anxious and earnest in calling upon the Missionaries for teach- ers. With a little patience, we may introduce into these schools any books that we please. In them the children know of no precedence, but that which is derived from merit.¹⁰ This is an ex- traordinary testimony in favour of the native character, and from a source where we can expect no kindly prejudice. They entertain no suspicion of the ultimate designs of their instructors; but with candour and openness send their children to school, where we are elsewhere informed, no difficulty was found in introducing the scriptures, when done with discretion.¹¹ They sacrifice all the feelings of wealth, family pride and caste that their children may have the advantages of a good education. This desire is strongly impressed on the minds of all the Hindoos. It is inculcated by their own system, which provided schools in every village. The learned and the ignorant, one of the Missionaries writes from Chinsuram, congratulate one another, that their children now enjoy the great blessings of education. Native free schools were once universal throughout India. It has been long the practice in Malabar to translate the Sanscrite writings into the common tongue, and to transcribe them in the vernacular character. By this means knowledge has been more generally diffused among the inhabitants; it is less confined to any order or class, and the people are better acquainted with the mysteries and dogmas of their religion. This spirit of enquiry and of liberty has most probably been affected by the sooders who compose the great body of population, and who were in possession of the principal authority and property in the country. 264