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

With the exception of the Multiplication Table, the rhyming arithmetical rules of Subhankar, and the form of address to Saraswati, all which the younger scholars learn by mere imitation of sounds incessantly repeated by the elder boys, without for a long time understanding what those sounds convey—with these exceptions, native school-boys learn everything that they do learn not merely by reading but by writing it. They read to the master or to one of the oldest scholars what they have previously written, and thus the hand, the eye, and the ear are equally called into requisition. This appears preferable to the mode of early instruction current amongst ourselves, according to which the elements of language are first taught only with the aid of the eye and the ear, and writing is left to be subsequently acquired. It would thus appear also that the statement which represents the native system as teaching chiefly by the ear, to the neglect of eye, is founded on a misapprehension, for how can the aid of the eye be said to be neglected when with the exceptions above-mentioned, nothing appears to be learned which is not rendered palpable to the sense by the act of writing? It is almost unnecessary to add that the use of monitors or leaders has long prevailed in the common schools of India, and is well known in those of Bengali. The disadvantages arising from the want of school-houses and from the confined and inappropriate construction of the buildings or apartments used as school-rooms have already been mentioned. Poverty still more than ignorance leads to the adoption of modes of instruction and economical arrangements which, under more favourable circumstances, would be readily abandoned. In the matter of instruction there are some grounds for commendation for the course I have described has a direct practical tendency; and, if it were taught in all its parts, is well adapted to qualify the scholar for engaging in the actual business of native society. My recollections of the village schools of Scotland do not enable me to pronounce that the instruction given in them has a more direct bearing upon the daily interests of life than that which I find given, or professed to be given, in the humbler village schools of Bengal. ELEMENTARY PERSIAN SCHOOLS: (pp.148-153) The Persian schools in Nattore are four in number, containing twenty-three scholars, who enter school at any age varying from four and a half to thirteen years, and leave it at an age varying from twelve to seventeen. The whole time stated to 279