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

December 14th which appeared in the Journal of the Royal Institute for January. With every good wish, I am, Yours sincerely, Sd/- Philip Hartog · · · 5 Inverness Gardens, London, W.8. March 10, 1932 Professor K.T. Shah 45 Chowpatty Road, Bombay (7). Dear Professor Shah, I am much obliged for your letter of February 20, and for the great trouble, you have taken in this matter. I received a letter dated February 15 from Mahatma Gandhi by the same post, and am sending to him a copy of this reply to you. I enclose copies of my reply to him, and of a letter from me which appeared in ‘International Affairs’, (the Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs) for January, 1932. When you have read these documents you will realise that your letter does not touch the main question which I put to Mr Gandhi, viz., what authority he had for the statement that literacy had diminished during the last 50 years in India. The latest authority that you quote is Leitner, whose History of Indigenous Education in the Punjab was published in 1882—50 years ago—and throughout your letter you do not give any literacy percentages at all. On the other hand, you appear to think that the number of schools is a guide to literacy percentages. I agree that that would be a natural conclusion, but, on the other hand, as has been pointed out in the census, a number of Indian schools in the past did not aim at literacy, and more recently the Education Committee of the Indian Statutory Commission, of which I was Chairman, pointed out that in the ten years 1917 to 1927 the number of primary schools in Bengal was increased by nearly eleven thousand, and the number of pupils by nearly 370,000 whereas in Class IV, the lowest class in which permanent literacy is likely to be attained under existing conditions, the number of pupils had actually diminished by nearly 30,000. I am afraid 379