Civilising the Native Educating the Nation

How the British saw Education

Ideas of education - presently we are following

Ideas rejected

Different policies about how Indians were to be educated

The tradition of Orientalism

In 1783 - William Jones arrived in Calcutta

Junior judge at the supreme court of Calcutta

Expert in law, He was a linguistic. (greek, latin at Oxford)

He knew french and English, Arabian and Persian

Learnt Sanskrit in India

Jones discovered that his interests were shared by many British officials.

Henry Thomas Colebrooke and Nathaniel Halhed - Ancient Indian Heritage and Mastering Indian languages into English

James, together with them set up the Asiatic Society of Bengal

Started Journal called Asiatick Researches

Jones and Colebrooke came to represent a particular attitude towards India.

Deep respect for ancient cultures

They felt Indian civilization attained its glory in the ancient past and had subsequently declined

They wanted to discover legal and sacred texts

Jones and Colebrooke went on discovering ancient texts, their meanings, translating them

They believed that it would help British learn from Indian culture as well as help Indians rediscover their own heritage

By this process British would become the guardians of Indian culture as well as its masters

Many company officials argued that the British ought to promote Indians rather than Western learning

They felt that institutions should be set up to encourage that study of ancient Indians texts and teach Sanskrit and Persian literature and poetry

They also thought the Hindus and Muslims should be taught what they were already familiar with

This step may win a place in the heats of the natives

With this object in view a Madrasa was set up in Calcutta in 1781

Hindu college was established in Benares in 1791

Grave errors of the East

from early 19th century many officials began to criticize the Orientalist vision of learning

They believed knowledge of the East was full of errors and unscientific thought

Literature was non-serious and light hearted

James Mill

He was one of those who attacked the Orientalists

British should not teach what the natives wanted

the aim of education ought to be to teach what was useful and practical

By the 1830s the attack on the Orientalists became sharper

Thomas Babington Macaulay - He saw Indians as an uncivilized country that needed to be civilized

No branch of knowledge should be compared with Eastern knowledge

–Macaulay

“A single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and

Arabia.”

English education has enslaved us

MKG argued that colonial education created a sense of inferiority in the minds of Indians

Destroyed the pride of indian culture

there was poison in the education. It was sinful, it enslaved Indians

He urged that British Govt should stop wasting money in promoting oriental learning

He emphasized the need to teach the English language

Knowledge of English would allow Indians to red some of the finest literature the world had produced

It will make them the award of the developments in Western science and philosophy

Teaching of English could thus be a way of civilizing people

The English Education Act of 1835 was introduced

English as a medium of language for higher education and stop promotion of Oriental institutions

Temples of darkness that were falling of themselves into decay

Language of the Wise

Education for commerce

in 1854, the court of directors of the East India Company in London sent an educational despite to the Governor - General in India - Charles Wood (Woods’s Despatch)

It opposed the Oriental knowledge

One of the benefits of Despatch pointed to was Economic

Advantages of trade and commerce

Developing the resources of the country

Introduction of European ways of life - this later will change their tastes and desires and would begin to appreciate and buy things produced in Europe.

Wood’s Despatch also argued that European learning would improve the moral character of Indians

Will make them truthful and honest.

Will get honest servants

Literature could not install in people a sense of duty and a commitment to work.

Following the 1854 Despatch several measures were introduced by the British

Education departments of the government were set up to extend control over all matters regarding education

Steps were taken to establish a system of university education

in 1857, while the sepoys rose in revolt in Meerut and Delhi, universities were being established in Calcutta

Madras and Bombay also an attempt was made to change - school system

The Demand for Moral Education

What happened to the Local Schools?

in the 1830s William Adam, toured the districts of Bengal and Bihar to report on the progress od education in vernacular schools

Adam fount that there were over 1 lakh pathshalas in Bengal and Bihar

Small institutions with not more than 20 students. Total 20 Lakh

established by wealthy people, local community or Guru

The system of education was flexible…

New routines, New Rules

up to mid-nineteenth century, the company allowed pathshalas

After 1854 the company decided to improve the system of vernacular education

Introduced new routines, establish new rules - regular inspections

Appointed government pandits - each in charge of looking after four to five schools

Their task was to visit pathshalas and try and improve the standard of teaching

Each guru was asked to submit periodic reports and take classes according to a regular timetable

teaching through textbooks and tested through a system of annual examination

regular fees, attend regular classes, sit on fixed seats

Pahshalas which accepted the new rules were supported through govt grants

Later those gurus who did not accept govt policy found it difficult to compete with the government aided and regulated pathshalas

Fixed timetable

The Agenda for a National Education

British officials were not the only people thinking about education in India.

Early 19th century many thinkers from different parts of India began to talk of the need for a wide spread of education

Some were impressed from western education would help modernize India

they urged British to open more school, colleges and universities and spend money on that

Few Indians reacted against western education

Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore

Gandhiji wanted an education that could help Indians recover their sense of dignity and self -respect

During National Movement he urged students to leave educational institutions.

MKG strongly felt the Indian languages ought to be the medium of teaching

Education in crippled Indians, distanced them from their own social surroundings and made them strangers in their own lands

Western education focused on reading and writing rathe than oral knowledge

It valued textbooks rather than lived experience and practical knowledge

Education ought to develop a person’s mind and soul

Literacy - learning to read and write is not education

People had to work with their hands, learn a craft, and know how different things operated

–Mahatma Gandhi

“Literacy in itself is not education.”

Tagore’s abode pf peace

Shantiniketan

Started in 1901

Tagore hated going to school

For him school was like a prison