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

Such was the state of affairs in 1882, but the contrast will become more startling if we look at the figures already repro- duced in ‘Young India’. A mere glance at that statement will show how the indigenous education has declined, and how stagnant the state of education has remained from 1882 to 1918-19. In a period of 37 years the government has done nothing whatsoever for mass education. In a period less than this, England was able to educate the whole of its populations; in a period considerably less than this, America could give education to a population without any records of civilisation or intellectual stamina; and in a period equal to this, Japan was able to work out its destiny. But such is the way of doing things in India that during all this time nothing was done except to shift schools from one place to another, to shift the expenses of education from one source to another, to shift the responsibility from man to man; in fact to make shifts as best as could be done. Such in brief is the history of the decline of indigenous education, and as to how it was crushed in the Punjab will form the subject matter of the next article. . . . COPY OF ARTICLE TAKEN FROM ‘YOUNG INDIA’ OF 29TH DECEMBER 1920 HOW INDIGENOUS EDUCATION WAS CRUSHED IN THE PUNJAB 1849-1886 The Punjab was the last of all the Provinces of India to come under the direct influence of the English. The Honourable the East India Company had during a couple of centuries, extended their sphere of influence from the Cape to the Jamuna; but its administrators never thought it worth the trouble to go beyond the Moghul Court. The Moghul Court itself was jealous of any encroachments upon its northern province—the gateway to Kabul—which they still looked upon as their ancestral home. When the descendants of Aurangzeb began to bungle things in this province, the invaders from the North and the people from within threw in a state of anarchy and misrule. Under such circumstances the hardy Sikh began to realise his own importance and individuality. Ever afterwards till 1849, the Sikhs kept the 357