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

Annexure E History of Education in the Panjab since Annexation and in 1882 LEITNER ON INDIGENOUS EDUCATION IN THE PANJAB (EXTRACTS) GENERAL: I am about to relate—I hope without extenuation or malice—the history of the contact of a form of European with one of Asiatic civilisation; how, in spite of the best intentions, the most public-spirited officers, and a generous Government that had the benefit of the traditions of other provinces, the true education of the Panjab was crippled, checked, and is nearly destroyed; how opportunities for its healthy revival and development were either neglected or perverted; and how, far beyond the blame attaching to individuals, our system stands convicted or worse than official failure. Whether it is possible to rouse to renewed exertion, on behalf of its own education, the most loyal population that has ever been disappointed, is a question which the following pages will only partially attempt to answer. Much will of course, depend on the wise adaptation of the noble principle just propounded—of ‘local self-government’— to a department of the Administration,—that of education,—in which, above all others, it can be introduced with perfect safety and the greatest political advantage. Respect for learning has always been the redeeming feature of ‘the East’. To this the Panjab has formed no exception. Torn by invasion and civil war, it ever preserved and added to educational endowments. The most unscrupulous chief, the avaricious money-lender, and even the freebooter, vied with the small landowner in making peace with his conscience by founding schools and rewarding the learned. There was not a mosque, a temple, a dharmasala that had not a school attached to it, to which the youth flocked chiefly for religious education. There were few wealthy men who did not entertain a Maulvi, Pandit or Guru, to teach their sons, and along with them the sons of friends and dependents. There were also thousands of secular 341