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

schools, frequented alike by Mahomedans, Hindus and Sikhs, in which Persian or Lunde was taught. There were hundreds of learned men who gratuitously taught their co-religionists, and sometimes all-comers, for the sake of God-‘Lillah’. There was not a single villager who did not take a pride in devoting a portion of his produce to a respected teacher. In respectable Mahomedan families husbands taught their wives, and these their children; nor did the Sikhs prove in that respect to be unworthy of their appellation of ‘learners and disciples’. In short, the lowest computation gives us 3,30,000 pupils (against little more than 1,90,000 at present) in the schools of the various denominations who were acquainted with reading, writing, and some method of computation; whilst thousands of them belonged to Arabic and Sanskrit colleges, in which Oriental Literature and systems of Oriental Law, Logic, Philosophy, and Medicine were taught to the highest standards. Tens of thousands also acquired a proficiency in Persian, which is now rarely reached in Government and aided schools or colleges. Through all schools there breathed a spirit of devotion to education for its own sake and for its influence on the character and on religious culture; whilst even the sons of Banyas who merely learnt what they absolutely required in order to gain a livelihood looked with respect, amounting to adoration, on their humble Pandhas, who had taught them the elements of two ‘Rs’. We have changed all this. The annexation disturbed the minds of believers in Providence, and all that was respectable kept, as much as possible, aloof from the invader,—just as the best Englishman would not be the first to seek the favour of a foreign conqueror. CLASSIFICATION OF INDIGENOUS SCHOOLS I. SIKH INDIGENOUS EDUCATION

1. Gurmukhi Schools II. MOHAMMEDAN INDIGENOUS EDUCATION
2. Maktabs
3. Madrasas, religious and secular
4. Koran Schools. III. HINDU INDIGENOUS EDUCATION
5. Chatsalas (for the trading community)
6. Patshalas (religious) 342