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

was Prime Minister of an Indian State, I knew the Prime Minister of another Indian State (Junagarh), who could hardly sign his own name but who was a very remarkable man and managed the state wonderfully. He knew just who were the right people to advise him and took their advice. When I spoke to your own Prime Minister about the exchange value of the rupee, he said to me, that he knew nothing about exchange values, that the Prime Minister had of course to do things in his own name but had really to depend on experts. We have had experience in governing in the past and we could do equally well.’ I did not think it worthwhile to pursue the political topic or to point out the political chaos of India when the British entered on the scene, as my main object was to secure from Mr Gandhi the withdrawal of his statement about literacy. I ended up the interview by saying that I was a man of peace, and had no desire to enter on a controversy but that I must state the facts in the Journal of International Affairs, and to this I understood Mr Gandhi to assent. I wished him a pleasant journey back to India and said I hoped I had not tired him. He replied that it had been a real pleasure to see me, and that he hoped to keep in touch with me. There were present during the conversation Mr Desai, a tall young man whose name I did not know, Miss Slade to whom I was introduced, but who was in a kind of back drawing room for most of the time, and another young Englishwoman, who brought Mr Gandhi some fruit at the end of the interview. No one intervened in the conversation, but once or twice Mr Gandhi asked Mr Desai for information. It appeared that Mr Desai had been asked by Mr Gandhi to try to get information from the British Museum, but that he had been unable to get the books he had wanted and had not been able to find any facts to support Mr Gandhi’s statements. Mr Desai accompanied me downstairs and showed me his British Museum slips for one book dated 1859, another book of 1867-8, and a book by Wilmot on “he Indigenous System of Education in India’, of which he had not the date. I find I have omitted one statement of some importance. Mr Gandhi said that he had not accused the British Government of having destroyed the indigenous schools, but they had let them die for want of encouragement. I said that they had probably let them die because they were so bad that they were not worth keeping up. In the United Provinces Mahomedan witnesses had told my Committee that the Mahomedan schools not organised by Government were not an aid but a hindrance to Mahomedan progress and I knew there were many voluntary schools in other 366