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subjective world. From Sankar's point of view, the unreality is of two kinds—the unreality of the mind and the unreality of the objective world. Both have their separate existences which do not dissolve into one. Sankar calls the unreality of the wind and the world by the name of Maya, which is indescribable,being both existence and nonexistence-existence from the point of view of the worldly phenomena which exist to all practical purposes, and non existence from the stand-point of the Atma which really exists impervious to all changes to which the external and internal phenomena are subject. As far as the sweep of the chain of cause and effect goes there is Maya—that is phenomenal reality, which, if looked at from the point of view of the eternal and absolute reality of the Atma, is an illusion-a figment of the imagination, but looked at from the worldly point of view, is solid reality not to be brushed aside. People have asked for the cause of the Maya, The answer has always been ambiguous, simply for the reason that all causes are included in the Maya. The law of causation does not go beyond the periphery of the Maya and to ask for the origin of the Maya is to beg the question. question is absurd.

Such a

Another question is whether the Maya is eternal. The answer is that the Maya is the world, and is eternal in the same sense as the world is. it has also been questioned that since the existence of the Maya has been recognized by the Vedant, is it not relevant to say that instead of there

being only one-Reality as the Vedant declare S there are two realities-one the Atma which is also called Brahm, and the other, the Maya which is real for all practical purposes. The answer to this question is that there is only one Reality, the absolute Reality which is Brahm, the other is unreality not reality; so there are not two entities, but only One, and that One is Brahm or Atma.

Sankar's Brahm or Atma is the ultimate principle of existence, consciousness and bliss which pervades the whole creation and without which there is no creation, While it is not of the

form of any created object, it is the main basis on which the existence of every created object depends. It is the fount of light, the source of knowledge, the origin of consciousness, the Matrix of all existence, the fountain head of all happiness. There is nothing that it is not; there is nothing that it is. It is beyond all expression, it is beyond all thinking, it is beyond all that appears. Bram is the neplusultra of all knowledge, the last rockbed of existence, the infinite fount of joy. While severely one it appears as manifold as the creation. While really absolute it appears split up into as varied objects as the universe contains. There is nothing higher than it; there is nothing nobler than it; there is nothing more real than it. The aim of the Vedant philosophy is not to reach but to become Brahm, by throwing off veils of the nescience that cover it.

EDUCATION IN INDIA

BY

MR. P. A. SUBRAHMANIA IYER, B.A., L.T.

NE rises from a perusal of Mr. Sharp's reports on Education in India with mingled feelings. Statistics go to show, what would perhaps strike one as very satisfactory at first sight, that during the years 1912-18 the expenditure on education has increased by many lakhs of rupees, the number of schools by thousands and the number of scholars by the million, and yet the distressing fact remains that even now only 3 22 per cent, of the population is under instruction as against 17 38 per cent, in Scotland and 16:52 per cent. in England and Wales. One cannot hide from oneself the depressing thought that, things going on as at present, there is perhaps no chance in the near or distant future of a literate India in the sense of a literate America

or Europe. The very large mass of children yet to be brought into schools, the huge sums of money that will have to be spent and the apparent disinclination of the Government to launch on any bold measures of educational reformthese tend to confirm our fears. One looks in vain in the reports for any helpful suggestion as to how this serious problem has to be faced and solved.

Mr. Sharp draws, of course, pointed reference to the top-heaviness of Indian education by comparing the percentage of pupils and students in Secondary Schools and Colleges in this country to the total population with the corresponding percentages in other important countries of the world and comes to the conclusion that

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THE INDIAN REVIEW

"while the lower classes in India are largely illiterate, the middle class is, at least numerically, educated to a pitch equal to that attained in countries whose Social and economic condition is more highly developed......

.The middle class find that higher education pays and loudly make known their wants. The lower classes though no longer hostile are lukewarm and seldom calmour for a type of instruction which brings no immediate and tangible reward."

This statement would imply that the middle classes have not been particularly anxious to advance the interests of mass education and that the lower classes do not care much for it. The fact, however, is that private agencies in India, drawn mostly from the middle class, have done good work in the matter of elementary education, for, according to Mr. Sharp himself, out of a total of 1,24,000 primary Schools in this country as many as 86,900 are under private management and 14,000 of these receive no aid whatever from Government. Again, if the lower classes do not clamour for education, it only shows that they are human and are in no way different from, or superior to, the corresponding classes in other countries of the world. The history of education in all the civilized countries of the world points to the apathy and indifference of the masses to all popular education, and if they realize the good of it at all, it is only after they have been forced through it at first. Even now in spite of so many years of universal education in England and in spite also of the demands of the representatives of labour that the age of compulsion must be raised, do we not hear of large numbers of the labouring classes complaining that the new Education Act with all its guarantees against financial loss to the families of the adolescent acts as a great hardship and inflicts a heavy strain on the parent by depriving him of the wages of his adolescent children?

It is indeed high time that the Government did something very substantial to remove the charge so often levelled against them of want of interest in the matter of the general enlightenment of the masses in this country. When a responsible member of Government like Sir Sankaran Nair who must be trusted carefully to weigh his words before giving public expression to them puts it on record that

'it is the universal belief, and there is little doubt that facts unfortunately tend to support it, that Primary English education for the masses and higher educa tion for the middle classes are discouraged for political reasons,'

the Government must rub their eyes and look about themselves indeed! The unfortunate thing

[JULY 1919

is that the Government themselves have to admit the indictment although they may not be willing to admit the validity of the grounds on which such indictment is based. The Resolution of the Government of India of 1913 indicated as an aim the doubling of the number of Primary Schools and pupils in the not distant future,' but such an advance has not yet been made.

"The number of Children undergoing elementary instruction is now 6,748,101, which is equivalent to 2.8 per cent. of the population, being 45 per cent. of the male and 95 per cent. of the female population. Discouraging as these figures are, they are still more so when it is remembered that 90 per cent. of the children are congregated in the lower primary classes." [Sharp.] “Higher education in India runs in a literary groove and the development of special Vocational Schools is far behind-hand." [Sharp.] "The greatest deterrant (to the expansion of industrial education) is the slow growth of industries and the shyness of capital in supporting them. Were industrial employment assured, students would readily come forward and technological institutions would fill and multiply." [Sharp.] There has been no regular financial programme for educational expenditure' in the past. [Sharp's Quinquennial report.-Page 16.)

The critic naturally asks, why all this? What has been Amiss that the Government should have blundered so? Surely, it is not for want of experience in tackling educational problems such as those they are confronted with in this country. The course of elementary education in England has run on much the same lines as here. Neither can it be said that India is a country with no educational traditions of its own where it is difficult to get education spread. If within less than a generation the backward Philippinos have been made literate, surely education in India cannot be an insuperable problem except perhaps for the will to action on the part of the Government. Nor can it be laid at the door of the people that they are unwilling to co-operate with the Government in the matter, for according to the latest returns, out of a total expenditure of Rs. 1,128 lakhs on education in India private funds contributed. 514 lakhs or 45'5 per cent., whereas in 1915 out of a total expenditure of $7,850 lakhs of dollars, private funds contributed only 375 lakhs or 4.8 per cent.

It is indeed pathetic-the confession of the Government of India that their educational policy 'bas at times been lacking in foresight and perspective,' and that they admit the errors of the past, and ask for time to repair them.' One would have thought under such circumstances they would be willing to transfer the whole of education to the charge of Indian Ministers in

the new era to be inaugurated and leave to them the task of repairing the admitted errors of the past. This indeed seems to have been the view urged by the committee that considered the question in 1917, from whose report the Government of India quote the following:

"At first sight this abandonment of control, by the central or provincial government of a department so vitally fundamental to a National Scheme of education, would appear to be fraught with grave dangers. Nor are all these wholly illusory. It is quite possible, even probable, that at first efficiency will be sacrificed to other considerations and that the popularly elected body will vote money for the less essential objects and neglect the provision for training and inspection. But unless an opportunity for mistakes is given, nothing will be learned. Experience will, we believe beget greater wisdom, and that in no long time once it is realized that education is the business of the people, then the people will see to it that the elected representatives procure them efficient teachers in their Schools. Again it is only thus that education can become really national, and if the demand arises, as we believe it will arise, an elected Council of this kind will be able to raise money for education from sources that never could be tapped by a Government of the existing official type."

And yet the Government of India think there is a compelling case for retaining Secondary and University education in the hands of the official and more experienced half of the provincial governments.' And if one looks into their reasons for the recommendations, one has to confess that at the back of their mind there lurks the fear that if transferred to the Ministers education may spread in a manner disconcerting to their views of guardianship and rule. The only answer to people holding such a fear is that contained in the words of a Governor-General of India in the middle of the 19th Century:

"Similar objections have been urged against our attempting to promote the education of our native subjects, but how unworthy it would be of a liberal Government to give weight to such objections! .

. . All that rulers can do is to merit dominion by promoting the happiness of those under them. If we perform our duty in this respect, the gratitude of India and the admiration of the world will accompany our name through all ages, whatever may be the revolutions of futurity."

Dr. Slater on "South Indian Villages

BY

MR. K. M. PANIKKAR, B.A., (Oxon).

Twas one of the standing complaints of Indian educationists that subjects which had purely

an Indian interest, however vital for the development of Indian Nationality and the progress of Indian culture, find no adequate place in the caricula of our universities. Till very recently this was undoubtedly true. Indian history was a secondary subject and no proper facilities existed anywhere in India for an intensive study of it. Indian economics were tabu as far as the University authorities were concerned and they even went to the extent of forcing down our throats the absolutely inapplicable principles of a system of national economics which the, peculiar conditions of England had given rise to. The university authorities seemed to have forgotten the very existence of economic phenomena in India, apart of course from the principles of Free trade, imperial preference, excise duty and

the rest.

With the growth of Indian influence in the Universities all these have changed and new ten

*Some South Indian Villages By Dr. Gilbert Slater Prof. of Economics, Madras University; Published by the Oxford University Press 1918.

99*

dencies have asserted themselves separate chairs for Indian economics have been established and students have been encouraged to study economic principles in relation to the main facts around them. The result has been that during the last few years we have an increasing mass of accurate information about the economic conditions of rural India. Such a collection of statistics and information is absolutely invaluable both for a proper understanding of Indian life and for the gradual development of a school of scientific Indian economics. Real India is rural India and therefore it is in relation to agricultural conditions that we in India have to study economics.

The essential preliminary to the establishment of a proper system of national economics for India is the scientific collection of facts with regard to the life land and labour of the people who live in the non-urban areas. Without a vast amount of authenticated facts on this matter with regard to every part of India, nothing in the nature of an Indian school of economics is possible. Thus the first stages of Indian activity in economic study is bound to be an intensive survey

of local facts, in fact a fragmentation of the main

field of economics. This principle has been well recognised of late in India and the last two years have seen such notable contributions as Dr. Harold to Otauns's "Land and Labour in a Deccan village" Juck's "Economic Life of a Bengal District," Prof. Mukherjea's "Foundation of Indian economics" and more important than these to us in Southern India Dr. Gilbert Slater's book on "Some South Indian Villages."

The work under review is a collection of essays by selected students on the economic life of their native villages. The essays are written after a pattern supplied by Dr. Slater in which sufficient care is taken to bring out the main facts. For this purpose he prepared a question at once elaborate and comprehensive dealing with all the phases of the economic life of the village. This gives the work a certain uniformity and Arrangement which are most useful for purposes of reference. In a work like this meant as ground work for further study, arrangement of facts is almost everything. One who is for instance studying the system of wages in South India has now only to turn to the sections dealing with it in these Essays, and has not got to wade through the whole book before they come across their necessary bits of information. We congratulate Dr. Slater on the plan and arrangement of the work.

It is when we come to the conclusions drawn by Dr. Slater that we feel bound to dissent. Dr. Slater shows a fatal facility to draw conclusions Thus he asserts based on insufficient grounds.

on the basis of his experience of a few villages that Indian labour is extraordinarily inefficient, and estimates that one day's work by a British agricultural labour is roughly equal to a week's work by an Indian ryot (P. 17). We may bə permitted to observe that Dr. Slater's experience is too slight and the bases of his observation too mengre to justify any such wild assertion. Dr. Slater may be a thoroughly sound authority on English agricultural economics and he may even be credited with some knowledge inevitably superficial of the working of some South Indian Villages. To make such a wild and sweeping assertion as that a day's work by a British agricultural labourer is equal to a week's work by any way indicating an Indian ryot without in the grounds on which he takes his stand or the process of thought by which he came by that conclusion, is only to take away from such a book as the one under Review its essentially scientific character and give to it the appearance of a prejudiced Anglo-Indian production.

But after all to the really scientific students such rash statements, which are by no means rare either in the introduction or in the conclusion do not count for much. We are not concerned as to what Dr. Slater thinks or what opinion he holds of Indian labour on Indian Village. The value of the book to the student lies in the fact that in these essays we have for the first time the true picture of South Indian Villages set in correct economic perspective. We may not agree with Dr. Slater either that "low wages, low efficiency and high abstinence form the ground plan of the pattern" or that "social and religious conditions and customs contribute to such a state." But the facts of economic life are there reproduced with accuracy and colouring and the intelligent reader need not necessarily take Dr. Slater either as a guide or as an interpreter.

Sensitive Plants.

'Sir Jagadis Bose, of the Presidency College, Calcutta, announces that he has discovered that plants receive and respond to the long ether waves used in wireless signalling."-(Reuter.)

The lilies in the garden,

The daisies in the corn.
They know all men's secrets
As soon as they are born.
If you would learn the history
Of the European Powers,
Don't go to the newspapers.

Go to the flowers.

The Rose has sent an answer

To many an S. O. S.;
The Olive got the Peace-news

An age before the Press;
The Cactus knew the temper

Of the Great Four in a week; And the private views of Parliament Filter through the Leek.

The lilies in the garden,

The daisies in the corn. They knew all men's secrets

Before the men were born They didn't come through wireless, But through still stranger powers: The universal secrets

In the keeping of the flowers.

Daily Herald,

HE Rt. Hon. Mr. E. S. Montagu, Secretary of State for India, in moving the Second Reading of the Government of India Bill in the House of Commons on the 5th June, said :

I beg to move :

"That the Bill be now read a second time." The House having now somewhat approximated, but by no means reached its ordinary aspect on Indian Debates, I rise to discharge the highly important task, a task of which I fully realise the responsibility, of asking this House, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, to read a second time the Bill which has been printed and circulated. I desire to avoid going into details upon this necessarily complicated and technical measure. I have flooded the House, in response to requests, and in order to give information to it as far as I possibly could, with a series of elaborate documents, and these will obviate, because I will assume that the House has mastered these documents, a large amount of technical disquisition.

Answering Criticisms

But in view of certain criticisms I want once again to repeat the origin of this Bill. When I took office two years ago much work leading up to the preparation of a Bill of this kind had already been done. Despatches containing schemes for reform had passed between the Government of India and my predecessor, and out of their proposals and his criticisms of them had emerged this principle, that to my predecessor no reform of the Government of India would be acceptable which did not involve the transfer of responsibility from these Houses to the people of India. I took up the work where the Chancellor of the Exchequer left it, and the pronouncement of the 20th August followed, a part of which was that my acceptance of the Viceroy's invitation to proceed to India had been authorised by His Majesty's Government. No sooner was that pronouncement made than I appointed a very important India Office Committee, presided over by Sir William Duke, an ex-Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, a member of my Council and an Indian Civil Servant I repeat all his qualifications because it is suggested in some quarters that this Bill arose spontaneously in the minds of the Viceroy and myself without previous inquiry or consideration, under the influence of Mr Lionel Curtis. I have never yet been able to understand that you approach the merits of any discussion by vain efforts to approximate to its authorship. I do not even now understand that India or the Empire owes anything more or anything less than a great debt of gratitude to the patriotic and devoted services Mr. Curtis has given to the consideration of this problem. But this Committee, presided over by Sir William Duke, sat at the India Office from the 20th August until I left for India, accompanied by Sir William Duke, Lord Donoughmore, and Mr. Char les Roberts, on the 20th of October. We held repeated conferences in the enforced leisure of a long sea voyage, and discussed the problem almost daily on board-ship up to the time when we reached India, where we were joined by Mr. Bhupendra Nath Basu and Sir William Vincent, a member of the Viceroy's Executive Council. Spontaneously, as a necessary consequences of all these deliberations, as a necessary

consequence of the terms of the pronouncement of the 20th August, and as a necessary and inevitable consequence of an unprejudiced study of the question, we reached the conclusion upon which this Bill is based, a conclusion reached after listening to innumerable deputations, after six months of Conference with nonofficials and officials, after continuous discussion with the Government in the provinces, and at Delhi with the heads of all the local Governments. From the time I returned to London, a new India Office Committee, presided over by Mr. Charles Roberts, and containing a large number of those Civil servants who have taken part in this discussion, and whose services I have had the privilege to command, have sat upon and discussed all the criticisms that have reached us on the Bill. Sir William Duke, Sir James Brunyate and Sir Thomas Holderness were members. Sir James Meston, the present Finance Member of the Government of India, was home last year and helped in the deliberations of this Committee. In recent months it has been assisted by Sir Frank Sly, Mr. Feetham, Mr. Stephenson, and Mr. Maddiman.

The Drafting of the Bill.

This Committee has been concerned in drafting the Bill, and in considering all despatches and telegrams and criticisms upon the scheme originally proposed. After this prolonged discussion and deliberation of almost exactly two years in extent, I now ask with some confidence for the Second Reading of the Bill, which I do not hesitate to say has been as carefully prepared and considered in all its aspects as it is possible to consider a measure of this kind.

A General Agreement.

I ask for the Second Reading of the Bill to-day for two reasons. First of all there is so much general agreement on all sides in India and here as to its provisions, so much general agreement and such important points of difference on methods side by side, that I do not believe there is any way of getting on until we examine the details of the measure in a Committee representing Parliament. Second Reading points, as I think I shall show, are points on which there is general agreement, both in India and here. There are very important differences-differences which I do not wish to minimise-as to methods, and you will never get to a discussion of those methods infinitely technical, until you have a small body constituted which will take evidence and consider the alternative merits or demerits of the different plans. It is our intention, if the House gives a Second Reading to this measure to-day, to ask that it should be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses, and that Joint Committee should consider all the questions that are involved. I cannot emphasise too strongly that it is the Government's wish that that Committee should discuss the matter not only from the point of view of detailed examination, but from the point of view of the examination of alternative methods. Let it have free scope. Let the House appoint a Committee to go into the whole question, and, as I have said before, so recently as a fortnight ago, although I believe from the bottom of my heart that you dare not and ought not to do less than we propose in this Bill, I shall be glad, and the Government will be glad, to take the advice of the Committee on any alternative method which really and actually promises at least as much.

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