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

‘We intend to set up one school, if not in every village, at least in every circle of villages, so that at least there should be something throughout the land in which the children do attend some rudimentary school.’ How far policy was actually carried out will be explained in another article. · · · 5,Inverness Gardens,W.8. 17 November 1931 Dear Mr Gandhi, I beg to acknowledge with thanks the undated letter received on November 14th, written on your behalf by Mr M. Desai in which were enclosed typed copies of two articles on Indian education by Mr D.R. Gupta published in Young India for 8th December 1920 and 29th December 1920. I understand that it is on the evidence adduced in those articles and on a Punjab Administration Report to which you have not given me the reference, that you base the sweeping statement that literacy had diminished in British India during the past fifty years, and that you could prove this from official statements. I have examined the articles and can find nothing in them to support your contention. The articles do not contain a single percentage of literacy. The chief authority quoted is the ‘History of Indigenous Education in the Punjab’ by Dr G.W. Leitner, a Punjab Official. I feel sure that when you made your assertion you cannot have been aware that that book was published nearly fifty years ago, in 1882. Mr D.R. Gupta does not mention the fact. Nor does he point out that so far from regarding the Punjab as typical, Leitner compares that Province educationally to its disadvantage with the Central Provinces and with Lower Bengal (loc. cit. p.3). It is only within the past ten or fifteen years that the Punjab has made the rapid advances in primary education to which I referred in my letter of 21st October. I am still awaiting the reference which you promised to a Punjab Administration Report. I have consulted recent Punjab Administration Reports, but can find nothing in them relating to literacy in British India, and it is obviously unlikely that any 360