FOUNDATIONS OF LIVING The Principles and Practice of Basic Education
Item
- Title
-
FOUNDATIONS OF
LIVING The Principles and Practice of Basic Education - extracted text
-
FOUNDATIONS OF
LIVING
The Principles and Practice of Basic Education
A wise man . . . built bis house upon a rock, And
the rain descended, and the floods came, and the
winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell
not; for it was founded upon a rock.
by
Marjorie
ASHRAM
Sykes
PRATISHTHAN
SEVAGRAM,
1972
First
Published
(in this form )
1956
Second Edition 1972
Copyright Reserved
: ion
COMMUNITY
HEALTH CELL
*********
-47/4,
i Iott.) St. Mtt!-1 s Rea,
Baz-^oro - 560-eetr-
Printsd by:
Nlrmala Printing Works, Kotagirl, Nilglris.
Publisher’s
Note
Gandhi’s "last and best gift" to the Nation is Nai Talim.
Gandhiji entrusted this work to the late F. W. Aryanayakamji and Asha Devi, both of whom dedicated themselves for the
■cause till the last day of their lives. Susri Marjorie Sykes is one
of the few sincere persons devoted to the cause of Sarvodaya SamaJ,
and represents in her life the true spirit of Nai Talim. She too
worked with the Aryanayakams.
We are extremely glad to republish this booklet, Foundations
of Living, on this unique occasion of the holding of a National
Education Conference at Sevagram, and hope that it may contribute
to serious re-thinking on the vital problems of education in which
all of us are engaged.
JAI JAGAT
Ashram Pratishthan,
SEVAGRAM (442102)
Wardha ( Maharashtra )
10th October 1972
Prabhakar
Secretary
4
Preface to 1972 Edition
☆
Foundations of Living was written in 1947, just twentyfive
years ago. The schools described in the first part are schools of
1947; the basic schools were to be found in the Champaran
District of Bihar; they were being developed under the auspices
of the State Education Authorities, and by administrators and
teachers many of whom had been inspired by contact with the
Hindustani Talimi Sangh at Sevagram. The essay is the fruit of a
visit to these schools, and reflects the experiences and the thoughts
which arose out of many happy and informal exchanges of ideas
with the Bihar workers.
It has been decided to reprint this essay in 1972 because it is
felt that its principals are still valid, and that it is our task to apply
them in our own generation. In essentials, educational needs and
problems have not changed during the past twentyfive years ; they
have only become more critical and urgent. If I had been writing
afresh today. I would probably have made only one change of
emphasis. I refer to the following short passage towards the end
of the essay :
"The life of the human family as a whole can only grow to
its full strength and beauty by accepting and obeying the ultimata
laws of the universe to which it belongs. The aggressive, selfish,
careless exploitation by the human race of other forms of life, and
of the resources of the world which is our home, wounds the life
of the world".
It is only during the last ten years (since the publication in
1962 of Rachel Carson’s famous book Silent Spring) that some
men at least have begun to realise the serious and perhaps fatal
nature of the wounds which our limitless greed for possessions
and profits are inflicting on "space-ship Earth". It is a measure
of the prophetic greatness of Gandhiji’s life and work that in 1947,
and long before, he had opened the eyes of his fellow-workers to
some extent at least, to the folly of some forms of "modern"
economics In 1972 the implications of this aspect of his teaching
both for education and for society ought to receive increasingly
serious attention.
Sept. 16, 1972.
Marjorie Sykes
5
1.
CHILDREN AND THEIR SCHOOLS
J. P. is six years old. She and her mother are sitting next
to me in the bus on our twenty-mile journey home. J. P crouches
near the outer edge, her eyes on the road, her face shining with
pleasure, counting—counting the furlongs, the mile stones, the
lines of bullock carts, the herds of buffaloes, counting anything
that can be counted, for the sheer delight of counting.
At home, she scrambles round the hillside collecting sticks and
twigs. 'Look what I’ve made, three brooms—one for you, one
for mother, one for me . • • See, come and see, I’ve swept the yard’.
She had swept the yard most thoroughly, lifting things up, replac
ing them, going into all the corners. A little later she finds me
preparing a meal, and perches herself on the corner of the kitchen
table. ‘Do let me cut up the vegetables too’. We work together
for a while, then we hear visitors coming. ‘You go and talk to
them’, says J. P- (She finds grown-up talk, in English, merely
dull ). ’I’ll cook. I can cook’. When the visitors have gone,
I return ; the vegetables are bubbling in the pot. She pleads to
be allowed to handle a small garden knife ; we adults hesitate a
little, wondering whether she may cut herself, but in the end we
agree. Very soon we see a set of straight rods, stripped and peeled
with commendable skill and neatness, assembled on a flat bit of
clean ground. J. P. is completely absorbed—she is building a
house.
This is how one small girl in her seventh year spends her free
time and her holidays, of her own free choice. Every one who
knows children well or remembers his own childhood, will know
that there are many like her Children love to cook and
clean and build and help Mother. They want work, real work,
to do
But the school which J. P. attends makes no use’ at all of
these active childish interests. She loves to use her hands, but
her teacher never thinks of manual training as a means to stimulate
and develop her mind. Her school does not even make intelligent
use of her zeal for counting—in school counting is a mechanical
routine. She and her school mates sit cramped on cumbersome
benches; the teacher talks, but their attention wanders, they
fidget and whisper. Very often the teacher’s only idea of
6
'discipline' is to scold, or slap, or rap them on the head with a
ruler. The children grow resentful, for they have a keen natural
sense of justice. The result of repression in school is rowdiness
outside. They ‘let off steam’, as we say, and the energy that
might have been used up in enjoyable work is spent on noise and
destructiveness.
Our city and village schools are not all so bad as this, but
there are far too many in which the physical and intellectual
energy of our children is being wasted in this way. The Basic
Education movement is a challenge to start a completely different
kind of school, in which this tremendous energy of childhood will
be welcomed and used, and harnessed to creative activity, physical
and mental. How is this done? What happens in a Basic School?
Some of J P.’s contemporaries, four, five and six years old,
are attending a ‘pre-basic’ school. They sweep to their hearts'
content, they collect kindling, they help to prepare and cook their
'lunch', they polish their tumblers, they sit and eat together, and
they clean their vessels and put them away They clean cotton,
they pick out the round black seeds count them, weigh them, and
then plant them in a tiny garden, and build a tiny fence They
see older children and teachers spinning, and many of the little
ones pick up taklis and set to work too—sometimes with very good
results. All the time their muscular control and co-ordination is
growing stronger and more delicate. Like a good 'nursery school'
in any country, the ‘pre-basic’ school offers the healthful open-airlife, the balance of rest and activity, and the ordered security
which little children need : it lays the foundation of clean and
orderly habits ; but it does not use any equipment which would
be foreign to their own home traditions or beyond their parents’
financial reach.
The Basic School where the older children go is a long, low,
simple building standing in a couple of acres of land. There is a
small, neat flower garden, a well, a simple latrine screened with
bamboo or palm leaves. There is a village a few fields’ distance
away; within a mile, in another direction, is a second village.
Children come straggling accross the fields into school; the boys
are in the majority, but there are girls among them too. They get
out brooms, buckets, garden tools. Some sweep, dust and arrange
7
classrooms, laying out equipment in readiness and order; some
clean the garden paths of weeds and grass, hoe the beds, sweep up
dead leaves, carry away the refuse to a compost pit. The teachers
have arrived, and they also are preparing for the day's work, but
they do not stand and ‘supervise’ the cleaning The children
work under their own leaders. A bell rings ; the tools are put
away, the children gather, neat and orderly, in an open space for
their morning assembly. There is quiet, a simple song of worship,
quiet again. The Headmaster reads the notices for the day.
A boy of ten years, elected leader for the week, gives the word of
dismissal- Classes are beginning.
Here are the youngest, the first-grade children Their
taklis are banging on the wall, each in its little holder of hollow
bamboo, marked with its owner’s name. The children take their
taklis and winding frames and settle down to work. The teacher
calls out two of them and sets them to weigh the bundles of
prepared slivers, count them out in twos or fives, supply them to
their class mates as they are needed, and keep the record on a
slate After they have had a little practice, another pair takes
their places The other spsn ; when a child's takli is full of yarn
he goes up to the teacher and she checks his counting of the
rounds as he winds them on to the frame, and then watches him
record the correct number on the paper which. is stuck on the
frame for that purpose. Another child comes up, then an
other, then the teacher turns to see that the record of slivets is
being well kept. These are beginners—there is intense and
happy concentration on the mechanics of spinning. The talk,
the physical activity, the number and reading games based on
the work, the stories, singing, writing and other social enterprises,
will come a little later in the day.
Grade 2 has begun work differently; there is no hard and
fast time-table. These children are intensely inrerested in their
safai, in the names of tools and processes involved in it, and in
the mechanics of reading and writing The teacher is encourag
ing this enthusiasm, and oral and written composition is in full
swing, based upon the morning’s orderly duties. After three
quarters of an hour, may be, they will be busy ginning or carding.
8
Grades 3 and 4 use both the takli and the charkha. For
part of their craft period they are divided into groups, for cotton
cleaning, ginning, carding, slivering and charkha spinning, then
they all come together with their taklis. They are skilful now,
and their whole attention is no longer absorbed by the process
itself. As they spin, teacher and children talk over local and
national news, discuss the growing of cotton, or learn a new
song together. Grade 5 children are preparing from the raw
cotton, all the yarn they need for their own clothes ; they are
able also to gin and card cotton and make slivers for the little
ones, and to begin some of the simple types of weaving. In the
higher grades the country looms are installed, and the children’s
yarn is woven into cloth.
By the time the children reach the fourth and fifth grade
they read with ease and enjoyment. During the mid-day recess
the little school library is a popular attraction, and many children
settle down to read a book or magazine. Others wander round
the garden counting the fruit. The biggest of the young trees,
planted by these same children when they were little beginners,
are bearing now, and if you are lucky enough to visit them at the
right season, you will be charmingly offered a few treasured
guavas, and told of the great day when the whole school feasted
and made merry over its own groundnut harvest.
Every Basic School should have a garden, but some schools
are planned so that gardening and agriculture take the place of
weaving as the central productive activity of the older children.
Seven acres of land surround one such school, providing both
wet and dry cultivation in addition to the neat vegetable plots
which the little children tend. As we draw near, one sunny
August morning, the rice fields near the school building are alive
with little boys of ten and eleven, planting out their rice seedlings
and revelling in the mud. A class of older boys is going out to
cultivate its vegetable garden. Two large fields, planted with
maize and sugarcane, complete the picture: the maize, a fine
crop, is nearly ripe, the sugarcane is vigorous and healthy. These
fields are the great pride of the older boys, for every process,
from the first ploughing to the wearisome, necessary routine of
guarding the crops, has been done by their own labour.
-O.v./V.u./J Y H ‘-’.TH CfLL
2*'2zo
6 * Vv f’ /r», Ii ^locki
K 0 r a ro r c;
9 Banga.'cfB-5G0034
India
The work in the fields has not been an unthinking rule-ofthumb routine. The children have learnt something of the differ
ent varieties of seed, and chosen their strains to suit local con
ditions. They have studied fertilizers, and they know how much
seed and fertilizer they need per acre of their land, and how
much the initial outlay on their fields must be. They know what
interest they would have to pay on this capital, supposing they
had had to borrow, as their fathers might do. in the local market.
They know something of the opportunities for cheap credit.
They know the current prices offered for the crops they are ready
to sell, are prepared to calculate their yield and their probable
profit. In other words, the enterprise of raising a crop of maize
has been the natural focus of much study of botany, soil chemis
try, bacteriology, arithmetic, and economics, much practice in
exposition, both in speech and writing, and much experience in
co-operative organization and equitable division of labour.
Nor do these young farmers accept, unquestioned and un
tested, the statements made in books- They experiment for them
selves. Here in a corner are twelve neatly labelled, equal rows
of sugarcane. These, the children explain, represent an experi
ment in which they are treating three different strains of cane
by four different methods of manuring; their growth is being
observed and the results recorded ; at harvest time the yield of
each of the twelve rows will be measured and compared.
The workshop in one wing of another school is a busy
place ; some two dozen boys of 13 or 14 are engaged, in twos
and fours, in various occupations. Here is a couple sawing
planks. They are making cots for the hostel. Some one else is
repairing charkhas. .others are making penholders, handles for
garden tools, shelves, windows and many other homely, useful
things Another whole section is working in metal ; they are
making bolts and nuts, hinges, simple field and garden tools.
and household utensils. They offer to supply bolts at an anna
each and say that they would cost four annas in the market town.
They repair spindles, and supply many small necessities and
conveniences for the building and equipment of school and home.
These boys’too have studied the nature of their materials
and the economic conditions of their craft. They know some
thing of local timbers, their seasoning, their price, and how they
10
can be most profitably worked. Their knowledge of their trade
is intelligent and experimental, and their knowledge is not
limited to their trade. In the classrooms, for example, a keen
discussion of national and local government is being carried on.
It has arisen from the celebration of Independence Day and
involves a considerable study of modern Indian and British history.
The boys' daily diaries are neatly written and clearly arranged
and reveal a great variety of interest. They record that during
the previous week they made a special study of the poet
Tulasidas.
In the afternoon we visit a class where the teacher is telling
a story- It is a great story—of the Buddha’s tenderness and
compassion, or the Christ’s heroic love, or the Prophet's courage
for truth. When the story ends there is a short period of silent
spinning. It is quiet, the hands are occupied, the thoughts are
free. Perhaps many children may be thinking of the story they
have just heard There is food here for the spirit, a suggestion
of the ultimate values and standards by which men live. Then
the period is over, and ten minutes later there is shouting and
laughter as the garden is watered or a drama practised for next
week’s festival.
The festival day has come. In the evening we walk over
to the village, conducted by some of the children. On the out
skirts ii a simple but adequate latrine ’We made that’, our
hosts explain, ‘like the ones in school’. In some cottage court
yards are the beginnings of little vegetable gardens, ‘like the ones
in school'. The village is clean —the whole school community
has been working to make ready for the day. A team has been
busy cooking, and the feast is ready in an open space. The
children and their guests sit down and eat, all of them together,
whatever their caste or creed. Their parents do not join them —
such doings are too new and strange and they will not easily
change their ways. But they look on, not hostile, but interested
and pleased, and they muster strong to see the entertainment
that the school has prepared for them. The seeds of a new
India are being sown.
11
II.
BASIC
NATIONAL EDUCATION
THESE are not imaginary pictures ; they are descriptions of
real events in real schools. The schools are few and scattered
and it has cost the teachers years of patient hard work to over
come the suspicion and hostility of the villagers and to win their
confidence; there are many other basic schools, perhaps even
the majority, of which the villagers are still suspicious This
may sometimes be the teachers’ fault: but far more often it is
the fault of circumstances beyond the teachers’ control. They
struggle very often against difficulties too great for their strength.
But if the basic school is still under suspicion in many
villages it is still practically non-existent in the towns. Village
Pancbayats may often be slow to recognize its value, but Univer
sity Boards of Studies are slower still. All competent critics agree
that the psychological basis of Nai Talim is sound, and that its
method and technique are in line with the best educational
work in other countries It has been shown clearly that children
who are taught by this method compare very favourably with the
products of the old schools in their intellectual achievement; in
general knowledge, and in social and scientific understanding
of their environment, they are much superior ; and in the ‘tool
subjects’ of reading and writing, spelling and arithmetic, they
are at least the equals of the children taught by the old methods.
Responsible committees of inquiry from 1940 onwards, have
reported unanimously that Basic Education. ‘Nai Talim’, is good
education, and that even in the hands of mediocre teachers and
in difficult circumstances it 'draws out’ and develops the child
ren’s powers of body, mind and character. Why then do we
not adopt it? Why do intelligent citizens, who do not share
the social prejudices which sometimes influence villagers, still
prefer to send their children to the old, bookish schools? Why
is there no popular demand for something better ?
Gandhiji placed his ideas of Nai Talim before the nation
in 19J7 under the name of Basic National Education. When
words are used too often, as these two words basic’ and ’national’
have been used, they tend to lose the sharp edge of their mean
ing and become dull and blunted. We need to recover their
original freshness What do we mean by national education?
What do we mean by basic national education ?
COMMUNITY
iFi.u floor) St. Mrrl-sRcao
Da;’.
560 CO A.
12
In India for more than half a century the idea of ‘ national ’
education has been associated with the whole national movement
for political, economic and cultural freedom. Indian leaders have
demanded that national education should have Indian cultural
traditions as its basis, not foreign ones Indian languages, Indian
literature, Indian history. Iridian philosophy are the centre of
interest, and foreign cultures take a secondary place. ‘ National '
education also means that the interests of India as a whole are put
before any sectional interest, whether provincial or sectarian. In
this movement Rabindranath Tagore led the way ; Santiniketan,
and other schools inspired by national ideals, played a great part in
India during the first half of this century. In the best of them
there was no narrowness ; Indian national feeling did not conflict
with true local patriotism, or with religious loyalty; nor did it
conflict with the most universal human sympathy. Rabindranath
Tagore made Santiniketan, at one and the same time, a growing
point of the Bengali renaissance, an inspiration to the national
movement, and a world-famous centre of international friendship.
He demonstrated that a man can live fully in all of these ’ con
centric circles’ of interest.
These ideals of national education are good and true so far
as they go, and they are fully accepted in the daily practice of
Nai Talim. Basic schools do aim to give their children an entry
into Indian national culture, while at the same time they are
helped to appreciate their own special regional or religious herit
age, and to develop a wider outlook as citizens of ‘one world’.
But these ideals alone do not go far enough or deep enough.
A basically national education has to begin by asking what the
Indian nation as a whole ought to be giving to all its children,
and then it has to see that they get it. Basic national education.
must challenge not only foreign and sectional education, but
also class education ; it must serve not only the privileged mino
rity but the whole child population; it must plan for the welfare
of every human being in India.
There is no conflict between what is ‘basic’ and what is
’national’ in education. My needs as a human being do not
conflict with my needs as an Indian, though as an Iridian I may
satisfy my needs in a particular way which is determined by
the geography and history of my country.
13
But there is a real and deep conflict cf opinion about what
these basic primary human needs are This conflict is bound to
continue so long as we do not agree about the nature of man and
the meaning of human life. If we regard man as merely a clever
animal or a complicated piece cf chemical mechanism, we shall
regard his basic needs as essentially physical and material — the
fuel to run the machine. So long as food etc, can be had in
adequate quantity, the methods by which it is secured are un
important. But if we regard human life as more than the life of
the body, then the basic needs of life are more than physical. If
we value spiritual quality, and believe that the saints and poets and
creative thinkers of the world are the true representatives of
humanity, then we shall insist that our physical needs must be
supplied in ways that will increase the spiritual quality of
personality, and not in ways that stultify or destory it. In the
end our standards of social and educational good are derived from
our fundamental belief about the nature of man. What is man.
and in what does his welfare and happiness consist ?
Nai Talim, as Gandhiji planned it, has a definite answer to
these questions. It is not merely a good educational technique :
it is an educational technique based upon a distinctive philosophy.
Dr. Zakir Husain once called it 'an efficient technique of teaching
allied to a revolutionary social ideology’. Vinoba Bhave insists
that it is a new idea, not merely a new system. This new idea is
based on an ancient faith, the faith in the creative spiritual nature
of man. The ancient faith has been clothed afresh in the langu
age of today. The new vision, the new idea upon which Gandhiji
built his whole programme of Sarvodaya, is that the whole of our
living, including our schooling, must be in harmony with this high
estimate of the dignity cf human life. This, he proclaimed, is the
rock of truth ; this is where the foundations of society must be
laid, if they are to be secure.
The real reason wdiy Nai Talim does not make quick progress
in India is that people as-a whole do not fully understand or
accept the idea which inspires it There are some who do not
want ‘ Hind Swaraj ’ according to Gandbiji’s programme, because
they do not accept his interpretation of the nature of man and the
foundations of human welfare This is an honest difference of
outlook which has to be recognized and met. There is also the
14
heavy weight of inertia : it is always easier to remain in the old
ruts of habit, and many are passively content to do so. But there
is also a third type of opposition ; many people, especially in the
towns and especially among the ‘educated’, do not want any
foundamental change in the present system because they them
selves profit by its continuance.
These opponents are fully aware of the faults of the system
they support. They know that it was never intended to benefit
the nation as a whole, and that it is, in effect, a class education
for the middle classes, the bourgeoisie, who from the bureaucracy
of Government. It aims merely to secure a certificate, a ticket of
admission to a secure niche in the administrative machine.
Because its purpose is narrowly utilitarian, it cannot deal with the
fundamentals of living, but only with its superficialities: it
inevitably becomes materialist, egoistic, second hand Indepen
dence of thought, zest of life, generous adventure, all that goes to
build a wise, vigorous, wholesome manhood, are beyond the
range of its endeavour.
All this has often been said, and it is on the whole a true
analysis of our situation. There are many honourable exceptions.
teachers who aie real gurus. schools where children are taught
to think and taught to serve. But so long as these teachers and
schools are tied to the system we have inherited from the past,
they are working in chains- Vinoba remarks that when India
won her independence she would not tolerate for one day the flag
of the old regime. Why then does she still tolerate the bondage
of its education ?
The reason is. plainly, that the educated people whose voices
count in ‘public opinion' are the products of the old regime, and
have a strong vested interest in continuing the system. This
education has made us comfortable, it has given us 'safe’, salaried
jobs, and we hope it will do the same for our children. Comfort
makes us conservative, and behind our conservatism there is both
guilt and fear.
We know, if we ever stop to think where the national
wealth really comes from, that our education and comfort are paid
for by villagers who never enjoy the just reward of their own lab
our, and whose own children have to remain ignorant and illfed.
15
The village labourer feeds us, clothes us and educates us—we
ourselves are incapable of doing our fair share of the wealth
producing work of the world- We are, to put it bluntly, para
sites ; and so we are afraid of change, we are afraid of the
revolution which a serious acceptance of ‘basic’ and ‘national’
ideas would bring about in our own lives. Consciously or
unconsciously, we sabotage these ideas. We know that we have
built our house upon the sand, but we hope that it may last
our life-time before the winds and stroms sweep it away.
III.
THE FOUNDATIONS
SUPPOSE however that we do decide to abandom out ‘safe’
education, and throw away our certificates, and make 'whole'
vigorous, wise manhood' the aim of our schools, where does
Nai Talim lead us? What is the rock upon which Basic
Education is founded ?
Nai Talim or Basic Education, is based upon the belief that
every human being needs to make, needs to love, and needs
to know.
He needs to make. He has within him a creative urge that
finds satisfaction when he can look upon the work of his own
hands and see that it is good. He makes a farm or garden out of
a wilderness; he makes fine tissues from raw cotton; he makes
things of use and beauty from the raw timber and the rough metal.
He makes a harmony of rhythm and sound, and calls it music;
he makes a harmony of colour and form, and calls it art. By
doing these things, it is true, he supplies his physical Minimal needs,
but he satisfies at the same time his human need for creative
craftsmanship, and he rejoices in work well done for its own sake.
All over the world, in the religions which reflect his picture of
the universe, he has set the master-craftsman, the master-artist,
among the gods. Work, patient loving mastery of a craft, is not a
mere physical necessity, it is a part of the pattern and meaning
of life.
16
Secondly, man needs to love, and to be loved. He needs to
express and share his hopes and plans, his successes and his dis
appointments. He needs to belong to a group, to a family and a
clan, by which he can be upheld in weakness and to which he can
give his strength and skill. He needs to be a member of a team,
and to accept duty and responsibility in the service of his fellow
men. Certainly man’s social habits aid him to supply his material
needs, but they too, like his creative impulses, are felt to be part
of a pattern of living that gees far beyond material necessity.
Thirdly, man needs to know. There is in him a desire to
discover, and to understand, which has nothing to do with any
practical use to which the new knowledge may be put. There
is in every normal human child a spirit of pure, objective dis
interested inquiry. He sets himself to find out the nature and
meaning of what he sees around him. He questions and experi
ments with all kinds of things that have no bearing upon his
immediate physical needs. The history of science shows that
inquiries which man has undertaken to satisfy this pure thirst for
‘useless’ knowledge, have often led indirectly to some very useful
practical inventions. But the spirit which wonders and questions,
which seeks knowledge and understanding for their own sake, is
something much deeper and much more universal, than ths
desire to find easier and better ways of supplying humanity with
its physical needs and conveniences.
If these are man’s basic needs, then the progress of human
society must be measured in terms of its success in satisfying those
needs- That society is the most fully human in which every
member finds scope for his creative powers, for his social impulses.
and for his intellectual curiosity. ‘There is no true progress,’
says a French student of Sarvodaya, ‘except towards peace,
freedom, and content’. This is to put the same essential truth
in different words: peace is the fruit of true social living;
contentment is the fruit of satisfying work ; and the basic freedom
is the freedom of the mind, A great deal of what is commonly
called 'progress' nowadays is not progress at all. it is merely
the accumulation of material conveniences. To say that India is
‘backward’ because she has fewer motorcars, or radios, or electric
lights in proportion to her population than are possessed by
France or U. S. A , is simply to admit that one’s idea of progress.
and of human life, is materialist. But ‘a man's life does not
17
consist in the number of things that he possesses’. A man is rich
if his life holds a wealth of soul-satisfying work, a wealth of
friendship and family affection, a wealth of opportunity to grow
in wisdom and knowledge. It is very doubtful whether the 'pro
gressive' countries have really made any progress in these matters
in recent years.
Our progress in education must be measured by similar stan
dards. Good education must draw out and develop these distinc
tively human powers of creative activity, unselfish co-operative
living, and intellectual curiosity and wonder. The growing hum
an being has very simple, but deep needs. He needs a chance to
develop his physical strength, his manual skill and his intelligence;
he needs to serve and to love, and to find joy in his dealings with
other men and with the world around him, Joy does not depend
on material possessions, it depends on the free full development
of the whole man
IV.
LABOUR
AND SCIENCE
NAI TALIM is based on the principle that the best, simplest
and most natutal way to wholeness of manhood is through active,
useful work. Our bodily needs have to be met by bodily labour
and so bodily labour is a necessary part of the pattern of the good
life. It is unmanly, unjust, and untruthful to shirk our share of
this labour and so put the burden of it upon others Nai Talim is
centred on a handicraft, on the production of primary physical
needs, because labour is the key to the meaning of life. Productive
work is a practical expression in daily living of the meaning of
truth and non-violence.
In growing his food, in making his clothing, in building and
furnishing his home, in shaping his tools, a man gains health and
vigour of body; he dovelops a sure eye and a sure touch; he
tastes the craftsman's pleasure in work svell done; he exercises
and trains his intelligence ; he enjoys the satisfaction of working
with other men, and with parents, wife and children, for their
common good. He learns to understand and co-operate with the
laws of life, to be 'at home' in the world of nature and of man.
18
Such intelligent purposeful work is capable of 'calling out the
best in child and man. body, mind, and spirit’, and make possible
'the highest development of the intelligence and the soul It
satisfies not merely the physical needs, but all the basic non
physical needs of human nature.
Therefore the Immediate end of the work programme of a
basic school is something material and practical ; to make cloth,
to grow crops and vegetables, to prepare compost, clean and
repair buildings, cook meals, and so on These are things the
child can understand : they appeal to his deep-seated desire to be
an active and useful member of society. He works with his
teacher and his classmates, planning, executing, recording and
assessing the results. The ‘acid test’ of his efficiency and success,
as Gandhiji said, is its economic value, the amount of usable cloth,
food, manure etc , actually produced by his labour.
Because Nai Talim is tested by its material results, it is often
said to be a narrowly vocational or utilitarian type of education.
This is not so. The aim of Nai Talim is to educate the whole
man, not to train a farm labourer or a factory ‘hand’. The
immediate end of its programmes is certainly efficient material
production, but their ultimate end is the maturing of the child's
personality in strength of body, alertness of mind in qualities of
accuracy, thoroughness, patience, good humour, friendliness and
unselfish service. The soul grows through joy. and joy is best
found in good work done, difficulties conquered and beauty
achieved. Success in the immediate end, in production, is essential
to success in the ultimate end, but the ultimate end is what
determines the programme and spirit of the school
Basic
education is not a mere vocational training ; its purpose is
humanist, liberal, and cultural, in the best sense of those terms.
Both for its immediate end of productive efficiency, and also
for its ultimate end of free, stable, vigorous manhood, the basic
school must make the fullest use of the achievements of the
human spirit. It must use the wealth of scientific knowledge ; it
must use the riches of literature, philosophy and the arts. ‘There
must be no narrowness', wrote Vinoba Bhave, 'in our vision of
19
Nai Talim. We are out to build up a great India : therefore
our intellectual training must be broad-based. Let us spend our
lives in the village, but let us nourish them on the culture of the
whole world. This can only come about by the yoking together
of ahimsa and science . . . Nai Talim means the partnership of
ahimsa and science ; from that partnership we can create heaven
upon earth’.
This is the place to deal with the criticism that Basic Educa
tion is opposed to scientific development and technical and
mechanical progress, and that in making handicrafts the basis of
education we are ’putting the clock back’ and turning our backs
on the achievements of the twentieth century. This criticism is
at the back of the often repeated statement that Basic Education
may be a good type of education for villages ( where technology
is still primitive) but is unsuited for the (technically more
advanced ) towns.
There are two things that must be said in this connection.
1. When people speak of ‘science’ very often they really
mean technology, and so thought and argument become confused.
Science and technology are two distinct things. Science is essen
tially a discipline of the mind ; it is a method a tool, for the
investigation of the nature of the world, and its driving force is
the human impulse of pure disinterested curiosity. It is the
result of man's efforts to understand his environment by disci
plined observation and analysis. Its primary aim is not practical
utility but intellectual comprehension.
Nai Talim places a very high value on the development of this
objective, inquiring attitude of mind. But for real comprehen
sion of their nature, essential processes must be carried out in
their simplest form. The child who draws water from a river or
a well, and watches the level rise and fall with the season, has
a more realistic and more scientific knowledge of the sources of
water supply than the child who turns a tap in the bathroom.
The child who uses a takli and gains a practical mastery of the
twist and strength and evenness of yarn, .has at his command the
raw material of a scientific comprehension of the processes of spin
ning which he will never gain by turning a handle or pressing
a switch and watching a machine do the work. As an aid to the
20
scientific understanding of the essential nature of our environ
ment, the hand - tool and the experience of persona! mastery
over matter which can be gained by its use, are of far greater
value than a machine which eliminates the need for skill. ‘Adv
anced technology' may be the enemy, not the friend, of the sprit
of scientific investigation. Does even one in a hundred of the
people who press an electric switch understand anything of what
happens inside it?
2. Mechanical ‘progress' is only of value in education or in
society if it helps forward the fulfilment of humanity’s basic needs.
These needs, as we saw, are the need for creative work, for
loving unselfish service, and for knowledge and understanding.
In fulfilling these needs man provides at the same time for his
simple physical necessities. Mechanical aids are not good or
bad in themselves, they are good or bad as they help or hinder
man’s development as man. The immense technological develop
ments of the last century have resulted in a huge increase in
the production of material ‘goods’, but they have also taken
away from very large numbers of people the experience of joy in
creative work. The workers no longer understand the process of
manufacture, and cannot share in it as a team. Men are no
longer masters of their tools; they are servants of a machine.
The meaning of work, and with it the meaning of life, have
been degraded, because we have acted on the assumption that
all that matters for our welfare is the number of things that
we possess. Technology is merely a tool for increasing material
production; its use must be secondary to the basic aims of life.
‘What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and
loses his own soul?' Nai Talim is not opposed to machinery,
but it insists that machines must be kept in their proper place.
They are tools, they must not be tyrants.
V.
THE
NATURE
OF
NAI
TALIM
THE characteristics of Basic Education, as an attempt to work
out these principles in practice, may ba recapitulated under five
heads.
First, Basic Education is child-centred. The natural interests of
children reflect their need to understand the world in which they
find themselves and to find their own place in it. As we saw at
21
the beginning, their freely-chosen activities show their impulse to
learn, to construct and to share in the family work. The child
of five or six years old is interested in the living plants and crea
tures which he sees around him, and in all kinds of inanimate
objects which he can manipulate .and master. He is interestsd in
people, in his parents, brothers and sisters, and in other children.
He is deeply interested in how things are done, in dressing and
undressing, sweeping, cooking, cleaning vessels; in how men
plough and fish and weave, in the potter’s wheel and the carpen
ter’s hammer and saw. A large part of the 'play' of young;
children consists in imitation of the serious adult activities of
the community; they are happy and absorbed in any occupation
which satisfies at one and the same time their love of manipu
lations, their social interests, and their urge to creative and
productive activity.
The syllabuses which have been worked out for the various
stages of basic education are really a series of suggestions as to
how these natural interests and occupations of children can be
made the starting-point of their education, of the ‘drawing-out,
of all their faculties. These activities give plenty of scope for
counting and calculation, and so for arithmetic. It soon becomes
clear that reading and writing have a practical use, and they
are therefore eagerly learned. Cotton and grain and vegetables
have to be weighed and measured, prices calculated, profit and
loss recorded, planks sawn to size and buildings planned. When
gardening and farming become a serious enterprise, it is of
urgent practical importance to learn somthing of the soil and its
variations, of the different plants in all their stages, of the birds
and insects which are the farmer’s friends and foes, of the care
of stock, and of the significance of months and seasons. The
manuring of a crop, the planning of a home, the preparation
of a loom, can all lead into very w'ide fields of knowledge and
interest, if only they are dealt with in a scientific spirit. That
does not mean that a lot of second - hand ‘scientific’ jargon
should be introduced: it means that the children should be
encouraged to ask questions, to try experiments, to make
discoveries, to reason out cause and effect.
Secondly, Basic Education is dynamic. Every text book of
educational principles and method reminds us that 'education'
means a drawing-out of the latent, undeveloped potentialities of
4-8?—
6 bo -
22
the child, and insists that we are not to think of the pupil's
mind as an empty box which we must stock, little by little, with
logically arranged, conveniently divided little packets of infor
mation Yet most of our schools go on stuffing their pupils with
this kind of verbal information, and measure their success by
their pupils' ability to repeat’ it in examinations. We do not
ask whether they can think independently, reason clearly, or
apply familiar principles to a new situation. Basic schools try
to change this, and to remember that the child is a living crea
ture, and that what it needs is a healthy, rich, nourishing soil
to grow in. The syllabus is not so much 'information' which
each child, at the end of each grade, is required to reproduce
in the form in which it received it. It is an indication of the
kind of food which ought to be present in the 'soil' of the school
and community environment; that is to say, in the teachers’
own field of interest, or in the books in the library, or among
the craftsman, the musicians and the wise elders, of local society
Different plants grow in different ways, each taking from the
soil what it can assimilate and use.
Children do the same,
Given their freedom they will not all ask the same questions or
read the same books. The fact that they cannot always repro
duce verbally what they have read or heard is no proof that it
has not been assimilated. Healthy life takes what it needs, and
transforms it. The only way in which we can assess the develop
ment of a living child is by the methods we apply to the living
plants; by its vigour, sturdiness and self-reliance (mental and
emotional as well as physical) and by the quality of its flowers
and fruit- Dynamic education, education throuh life, roust
transform our static syllabuses and our static examination systems.
And first and foremost it must transform the teachers. Most of
our teachers do not need trainning, they need conversion; *
they need to be turned right round, mentally, to look at their
work from a new point of view, to see life with something of
the eager, experimental interest of the children they teach.
Without that conversion, mere training in a new ‘technique’
will only end in replacing one static system by another.
Thirdly Basic Education is co-operat/ve Human beings are
not solitary animals; they grow and live in families and in com
munities. The basic work of the word, even in the most
conversion means, literally, turning round.
23
primitive societies, is a co-operative enterprise, To base education
on real work, to aim at real production, means teaching children
to work together This practice of co-operation must go right
through the planning the organization and the execution of
every piece of work. It must influence the incentives that are
employed and determine the way in which the things that are
produced are to be used.
At present the spirit of competition is still far too prevalent
in the average school, largely because parents and teachers, who
have themselves been educated under a competitive system, can
not conceive of any other incentive. One is constantly told that
children will work for a prize, or for the honour of being ‘first’,
or for a certificate, but that without these inducements most
children would not work at all. This is a libel on child nature.
So far as it is true of school children, it is one of the shameful
results of the utilitarian, egoistic aims of our educational system.
The terrible consequences of this competition for external rewards
are only too painfully clear. Our examination-ridden classrooms
are no training grounds for truth or non-violence.
But the lesson of real life is that the best things (material
things, and also intellectual and emotional and spiritual things),
can be had only by working together for the common welfare.
Therefore in Basic Education there is no setting of one child
against another; careful records are kept of the individual’s pro
gress, but the goals are common goals, and they are to be atta
ined by the united effort of a group of children working together.
Let us take as an example the treatment of the work of
spinning. It would be very easy to introduce the element of
competition into such an outwardly individualist occupation. A
teacher who makes the old false assumptions about incentives
would set the little ones to 'see who can do most’, and call for
a handclap or cheer for rhe winner. But in a basic school the
children themselves ( with the teacher to restrain them from
setting an impossibly high standard), have decided how much
yarn, they will together aim to produce in a week. At the end
of each day’s spinning they add up to find their total group
achievement, and measure it against the goal they want to reach.
24
If it falls short, everyone must try to do a little better tomorrow.
This method puts the whole affair cn to a completely co-opera
tive basis. This is only one example. The very powerful influence
of suggestion is at work throughout the school day, silently
teaching the children that co-operative work is the normal,
natural, right method of managing one’s affairs.
Nevertheless, as has been said, the individual is not lost sight
of in the group The teacher keeps careful record of his progress
in the various aspects of school life ; and the child himself is
required to keep his own individual record of the day’s work, of
the decisions of his group, and of his own plans, interests and
achievements. The record in its simplest form begins as soon as
he has mastered his letters. By the time he has completed his
course the daily practice in self-expression on subjects within the
range of his comprehension which is afforded by class discussion
on the one hand, and on the other by the writing of his diary,
has given him a readiness and clarity in oral and written expo
sition which is notably superior to the average of the ordinary
school
In this way personal responsibility and individual talents are
developed within the framework of a co-operative community,
and in these simple concrete ways the Basic School child expe
riences the essentials of democratic freedom, which is freedom
within the limits of laws freely accepted for the common good.
> Fourthly. Basic Education is non-violent. There is a sense in
which this quality is implied in what has gone before Because
it is child-centred, it does no violence to the child's natural im
pulses ; because it is dynamic, it respects the infinite variety of
human personality; because it is co-operative, it trains children
in the mutual respect, the willing acceptance of law, which is
essential for a non-violent society But this non-violence is not
simply the negation of violence. It is. to go back to Gandhiji’s
words, 'that which gives true freedom'. Freedom is a positive
thing, it is a condition of healthful growth, whether physical,
mental or spiritual. The basis of freedom is the knowledge of
what things are truly to be desired. Simple healthful food, clean
clothing, good shelter, good health, the pleasure of music and
of rhythmic motion, the creation of beauty with one s own hands.
25
the joy of friendliness and fellowship in work and play, these
are the things that count. These make up the happy atmosphere
of a good basic school. To accept this standard of true wealth is
to be set free from the craving for gold and silver, for luxurious
clothes, or for artificial entertainment. The non-violent society
knows what true wealth is. and being content with that, has no
need to envy its neighbour. Contentment, self-restraint, the
willing limitation of possession and desire, are an essential part
of the ethic of Nai Talim
This scale of values is not complete, and is not secure, unless
it is founded upon a truth even deeper than the welfare of
society. If the good of the nation, or even the good of humanity,
is the ultimate standard of reference, there will always be a
danger that the intangible 'goods’ of character and intellect will
be sacrificed to the supposed welfare of the group. In other
words, there will be a danger of 'totalitarianism', in one form
or another. The ultimate 'good' of the individual and of society
can only be secure if they conform to the very nature of things,
in religious language, to the will of God. Unless Nai Talim
breeds individuals who can stand up against social pressure in
the name of what is ultimately right and true, as Gandhi him
self did, it will fad humanity at a vital point.
Finally, therefore. Basic Education sets truth in the highest
place. The most delicate task of education, and the supremely
important one, is to help the growing personality to feel and
respond to the claims of this absolute standaid of truth and
goodness. Every child has to learn that his self-regarding and
aggressive impulses must be sublimated and re-directed, because
his own life can only reach its full flowering and fruition in the
community of his fellows. But this alone is not enough He
must also understand that the life of the human family as a
whole can only grow to its full strength and beauty by accepting
and obeying the ultimate laws of the universe to which it
belongs. The aggressive, selfish, careless exploitation by the
human race of other forms of life, and of the resources of the
world which is our home, wounds the life of the world in the
same way as a selfish aggressive child wounds the life of the family.
This means that the bosic virtues, which are the f mu tation
of lasting freedom, are wisdom and charity. Wisdom is a hold
on the ultimate, absolute truth, though it may be very simply
26
expressed. A wise man is one who sees the pattern of life as
a whole, and shapes bis own life to fit the pattern. Charity is
a hold on the ultimate goodness : the truly loving, charitable
soul sees the ultimate goodnes reflected in the many, in all
the individual lives which he meets, he feels a deep reverence
for these varied personalities, he does no man any violence.
The other virtues of humanity must serve these two.
Honesty, loyalty, courage, a clear and alert intelligence, a
sure and skilful hand and eye, are all good qualities. Nai Talim
aims at developing them, as we have seen. But in themselves
they are secondary virtues: unless they are founded on wisdom
and charity, they can too easily be twisted to serve sectional
interests or materialist philosophies. That is what has happened
in Hitler's Germany, and in many other totalitarian and tyranni
cal states; honest men have given their skill and intelligence.
their loyalty and courage, in the service of a fundamentally
false and violent way of life. Only an education in wisdom and
in charity can claim to be basically truthful and non-violent.
if Nai Tahm fosters wisdom and charity it is a spiritual educa
tion, whether or not it uses the name of God.
If India chooses Gandhiii's path, she will set to work to
develop a society which respects and values human personality,
and which measures progress in terms of peace and freedom and
content for all, down to the humblest citizen of the remotes
village. In this development the teacher and the school have a
central place.
The small village communities of India, which so largely
satisfied their own needs and controlled their own affairs, were
also the soil which nourished her greatest thinkers, poets and
saints. These communities came near to the non-violent ideal,
and that ideal is still alive in the heart of India. The aim of
Nai Talim is to make it, by conscious revolutionary purpose,
the foundation of a new but stable Indian society. The lovely
culture of the past endured because it was founded on the rock of
truth. The new culture may be built of different materials,
enriched by contacts with other lands and with wider know
ledge, but it must be founded on the same rock, on the same
evaluation of man's true nature and need.
•••
H3ALrH
Ka,:
. ' '•1- 'Sleek
Ban
--'034
CELL
“ At this'fateful moment in our history we have the extreme
good fortune to have had presented to us a pattern and philosophy
of education of such universal and fundamental worth that it may
well serve as the type for bringing into being the new India which
is the desire of many of us. We have no sympathy for heroworship, and feel that there should be no withholding of criticism
of an educational plan because it was presented by our great leader.
With some details of Gandhiji's programme of basic education we
may not agree. However, taking his concept as a whole, it
presents the seeds of a method for the fulfilment and refinement
of human personality, the wisdom and excellence of which will
become more apparent through the year . .. inherently the concept
is one of the world’s great contributions to education ”
Report of the University Education Commission (1950) p 557
" The movement of Basic Education launched by Mahatma
Gandhi, ... centering round some form of manual and productive
work and linking it intimately with the life of the community,
was a landmark in the history of education in India. It was a
revolt against the sterile, book-centred and examination-oriented
system of education. It created a national ferment which may
not have transformed the quality of education at the primary
stage, but which has certainly left its impact on educational
thought and practice. The essential elements of the system are
fundamentally sound, and with necessary modifications these
conform a part of education, not only at the primary stage but
at all stages.”
Kothari Education Commission Report (1969) p. 2C8
- Media
482.pdf
Export
Not viewed