with here and there a dim link in the chain but showing added brilliance in the next. There she is, walking with her own majestic steps, my mother, to fulfil her glorious destiny, which no power on earth or heaven can check, the regeneration of man the brute into man of God. "Aye, a glorious destiny, my brethren, for from the days of the Upanishads we have thrown the challenge unto the world." Not by wealth, not by progeny, but by renunciation alone immortality is reached."Race after race has taken the challege up and tried their uttermost to solve the world riddles on the plane of worldly desires. They have all failed in the path-the elder have gone down under the weight of wickedness and misery which lust for power and gold brings in its train, and the younger are tottering to their fall. The question has yet to be decided by them whether peace will survive or war, whether patience will survive or non-forbearance, whether goodness will survive or wickedness, whether muscle will survive or brain, whether worldliness will survive or spirituality. We solved our problem ages ago, and held on to the solution through good fortune and evil, and mean to hold on to it till the end of time. Our solution is unworldli ness-renunciation. "This is the theme of India's life work, the burden of her eternal songs, the backbone of her life, the foundation of her being, the raison d'etre of her very existence, the spiritualisation of the human race." Preface to 'India's message to the world' (a posthumous work by Swami Vivekananda). After this impassioned address to the motherland, we shall quote Vivekananda's ideal of the Sannyasin: "Never forget that the Sannyasin takes two vows -one to realise the truth, and one to help the world, and the most stringent of stringent requirements is that he should renounce any thought of heaven!" The Master as I saw Him, page 245. We shall close with a few of Sister Nivedita's own impressions of Swami Vivekananda: "Just as Sri Ramakrishna, without knowing any books, had been a living epitome of the Vedanta, so was Vivekananda of the national life. But of the theory he was unconscious." (page 73, The Master as I saw him). "These, then, were the things I remembered and pondered over concerning the Swami...... first, the breadth of his religious culture; second, the great intellectual newness and interest of the thought he had brought to us; and thirdly, the fact that his call was sounded in the name of that which was strongest and finest, and was not in any way dependent on the meaner elements in man." "The time came, before the Swami left England, when I addressed him as 'Master' I had recognised the heroic fibre of the man, and desired to make myself the servant of his love for his own people.". (The Master as I saw Him.) An open-widow School in America. We have often urged that the absence of school-houses should never stand in the way of opening new elementary schools in the plains of India. For during the greater number of days throughout the year, a shady tree is all the protection that is necessary for school-children. Moreover, open-air is undoubtedly more conducive to bodily health and mental receptivity and alertness than confinement in ill-ventilated, ill-lighted and often damp and crowded rooms. Even in countries where the climate would seem to stand in the way of schools approximating open-air conditions, experiments are being made which show how we are throwing away our naturally superior opportunities. An experiment made by Dr. Walter W. Roach, one of the medical inspectors of the Philadelphia Schools, seems to show that pupils are better off, physically and mentally, when the school-room windows are wide open, even in cold weather. He has described the experiment in a the experiment in a pamphet entitled "Revitalizing Devitalized children-an openwindow experiment." At first Dr. Roach sent the following letter to the parents of the pupils: "To the Parents: "Your attention is called to an open-window classroom at the Bache School. Its purpose is to give Nature a greater opportunity to help our children to learn rapidly and to grow strong. The cold, fresh air of our new classroom will be soothing to the nerves and stimulating to mind and body. "The occupants of this room will be protected in extremely cold weather with extra wraps and suffi cient heat. They will not be subjected to drafts. They will be given exercise and freedom that is not possible in the ordinary classroom. Their physical welfare will be looked after constantly and noted regularly by the Medical Inspector. If you desire your child to be considered with others, as an applicant, please fill out and return enclosed blank. "Yours very truly, "WALTER C. BISHOP, "Principal. Appended to the circular was the fol lowing quotation from a report on openair work: "Fresh air increases the vitality of pupils and teachers, and makes them more alert mentally. Children taught in fresh air learn with avidity. They do not require perpetual reviews so common in hotair rooms. They are happier and grow more rapidly in cold air. The discipline of a class is reduced to its simplest problem. A cool, humid air is soothing to the nervous system and removes the sources of ordinary friction among pupils, and between them and their teachers." Dr. Roach says:— "Woolen blankets, sweaters, woolen caps and hoods, and knitted woolen gloves were also provided for use in exceptionally cold weather, to guard against disturbing the equilibrium of the circulation which might follow from the children sitting with their upper extremities in a stratum of air warmer than that to which their lower extremities were exposed. "The pupils were not fed at the school. None of them were tubercular children, and we were not conducting an open-air sanatorium for sick children. In all respects the room was equipped as the ordinary school-room except that it was shut off from the regular heating-plant of the building, save on those rare occasions when it was found necessary to bring the temperature up to 50. Fahr. The regular school program was followed during the term with some modified physical exercise. We were using that which Nature furnished from day to day in the matter of fresh air and humidity, and setting an example to the children in ventilation which they carried to their parents at home. At the same time we were driving home the idea that this group of normal and subnormal children could be taught better in fresh, cool air than in warm, vitiated air, and that by simply throwing open the school-room windows we could secure ideal conditions." Dr. Roach's tables show that the openair children were in better physical condition and did their work better than those in the room where ordinary conditions prevailed. In the In the twelve weeks during which the experiment lasted the scholars in the open-air school gained an average of two pounds each, while in the other room the average gain was only one pound. The class-work of the freshair children showed improvement in the same marked degree. They enjoyed studying in the cool air and learned rapidly. In tests made by the principal, the percentage of correct answers was always notably larger in the fresh air school. Financial Results of Industrial Research. In his Presidential address before the American Chemical Society A. D. Little cited some extraordinary figures to show the first fruits of the systematic indussystematic industrial research that has only just begun in America. Here are a few of them. Machinery has reduced the labor cost of seven crops $681,000,000 as measured by the methods of only fifty years ago. The boot and shoe trade has been revolutionised by the improvement of machinery. The entire automobile industry is the result of such research. It has reduced the price of aluminium from $12 a pound in 1886 to 22 cents. In less than twenty years it has given rise to absolutely new industries, such as the making of carborundum, of artificial graphite and calcium carbide and the industrial applications of acetylene. One company engaged in the manufacture of high explosives maintains a research laboratory employing 250 highly paid chemists, which yields $1, 000,000 a year profit. The Cayley invention of the dry air blast in the manufacture of iron is saving the American people from $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 annually. The Frasch device of melting sulphur in its beds, one thousand feet below the surface of the earth, and then pumping it Louisiana, and the substitution of comup, opened up the vast sulphur mines of pressed air further simplified the work. Another invention of Frasch's solved the long baffling problem of how to utilise the crude sulphur-bearing Canadian and Ohio oils. Rice-eating a crime. That "coloured" people are "coloured" has been a crime in the eyes of many white races for a long time. To this has been added the crime of rice-eating. Speaking at a civic reception given in his honour, at Wellington in New Zealand, General Sir Ian Hamilton said that he attributed the preparations for war of Australia and New Zealand to the shortening of distances owing to the advent of electricity, aeroplanes, and high explosives. The Pacific Ocean was the meeting place of continents. Here might be decided whether Asiatics or Europeans would guide the destinies of the world. He pointed out that the fine people of the Malay States were going down before cheap cooly labour, and that China showed signs of breaking up. These were illustrations of fundamental changes. Foreigners were invading British countries; they lived on rice and monopolised business. This was the real danger. The rice-eating Japanese beat the Russians in war, and now they are driving out European and Amerian goods and workers from many markets. For instance, Reuter has cabled from Victoria, British Columbia, that owing to the Japanese dominating salmon fisheries in the Fraser river, a White Fishermen's Protective Association has been formed to endeavour to prevent the issuing of licenses to Asiatics. The Japanese have been underselling the Whites and making a profit of £200,000 sterling per annum in the Fraser fisheries. It was all right so long as the eaters of wheat, oat-meal, potato and meat conquered other people and monopolised their markets and fields of labour. The oatmeal porridge-ea ting Scotchman and the potatoeating Irishman were tolerated, though disliked, because they were white. But to be beaten both in war and business by rice-eaters, that is intolerable. The calamity, though great, must, however, be borne with as good grace as white men can command. For all rice-eating races are not luckless and unorganised. Already, if the "Daily Mail's" Tokyo correspondent is to be believed, Sir Ian Hamilton's speech has created uneasiness in Japan. The "Nichi" states, the Japanese must prepare to fight the white races and must inform the other Asiatics of the fearful consequences of the prejudice and the unrighteous attitude of white men." It is sheer arrogance and foolishness to think that the destinies of the world are in the hands of the people of any particular continent. Liberal and Vocational Education. Mr. H. B. Garrod was secretary of the "Teachers' Guild" in England from 1886 till his death in 1912. He was an idealist in education, and his work was inspired by a high ideal of the teacher's task. His educational ideal is worth summarizing. A clear distinction must be made between the technical preparation that makes a man fit to take his place in the commercial and industrial world and and earn his living by performing some defined service for others, and the human preparation which, on the one hand, shall so train his faculties as to enable him to face the situa tions he meets and, develop the specialised powers he needs, whatever they may chance to be, and, on the other hand, shall so form his ideals, mould his affections, establish his principles and quicken his insight as to make his own life worth living to himself, and a source of worthy life to others. Both these preparations are education, the one technical and the other liberal, and the liberal education is not only the most ultimately and humanly significant-for some one must be an engineer or teacher, but everyone must be a man, and some one else can do our engineering and our teaching for us, but each must do his manhood for himself-but it is also the only true basis for the technical education itself. Hence the greatest misfortune that can befall education is premature specialising, with a view to the scholar's future career. Testimony is singularly uniform to the effect that the mentally and morally best equipped boy or man (here and always including girl and woman), not the one in possession of the largest store of immediately applicable information or experience, makes the best technical student or the most useful subordinate in any practical position. As for the means of liberal education, in Garrod's opinion, the study of language (though not necessarily of Greek and Latin) is the best single instrument for training the mind, and literature (even if in translations) is the best instrument of culture. But however widened and reformed the study of language and literature may be, it is not in itself enough. Mathematics and natural science must be added, as well as history and geography, drawing (as a means of expression rather than as an art) and, where possible, music. And in none of these subjects must there be any differentiating, even of stress, between the boys and girls that are to follow this or that line of study or to practise this or that profession in after life. Then, say at from fifteen to nineteen, according to circumstances, should begin the specialised and advanced study, whether of the humanities or the sciences, or whatever it may be, the strictly technical studies always following the "liberal" studies, and never being hurried on. Opium and Ganja in Assam.. The Assam Government appointed a committee to enquire into certain aspects of opium and ganja consumption in that province with a view to suppress the excessive consumption of these drugs. regard to opium the committee report : With Opium "dens" are unknown but gatherings for the purpose of smoking are common and are largely responsible for the spread of the contagion. The moderate limit Committee consider that whilst a of consumption is rarely exceeded amongst those who eat or drink opium, there is a strong_tendency to excess amongst those who smoke. They are satisfied that unduly severe restrictions on opium would divert consumption to ganja or more dele terious stimulants. The proposals of the Administration of Assam based on the recommendations of the Committee, for the introduction of legislation with the object of suppres sing gatherings for the purpose of opium smoking, are under the consideration of the Government of India. The Chief Commissioner has accepted the recommendation of the Committee that the treasury price of opium should be enhanced in districts of heaviest consump tion. Sir Archdale Earle agrees with the Committee that the minimum age for purchase should be raised from 14 to 20 years, and orders giving effect to this suggestion have already been issued. With regard to ganja, the Committee record the opinion that excess in ganja. taking is the exception. And they report that there is abundant evidence of the consumption of wild bhang and think there is a very real danger of severe restrictions on ganja leading to the substitution of wild bhang. The Chief Commissioner has accepted the following recommendations of the Committee to check the increase of ganja smo. king-(1) That the duty on ganja should be enhanced to a level which would raise the retail price to 8 annas a tola. (2) That the limit of private possession and the minimum age for purchase should be raised from 16 to 20. (3) That village authorities, when these are constituted, should be utilised in restricting the growth of wild bhang. The provisions of the draft Local SelfGovernment Bill, which the Chief Commissioner hopes to introduce at the next session of the Legisiative Council, will enable Local Boards to utilise village authorities, in eradicating the growth of wild bhang. The Chief Commissioner will consider in connection with the legislation contemplated with respect to the restriction of opium smoking in company, the desirability of penalising the supply of either opium or ganja to persons under 20 years of age. been Why some School children are bad. All school-masters have had occasion to pronounce some boy or other incorrigibly bad. The boy may The boy may have warned, admonished and punished, without any improvement being perceptible. But one thing perhaps has not been attendWhat are the home-conditions of the boy? What are his environments outside school-hours? Eleanor Hope Johnson tells in The Survey of New York the story of an undersized eleven-year-old Italian boy named Nello which will illustrate what we mean. Nello was a pupil in one of New York's public schools and was considered utterly bad and incorrigible. A "visiting teacher" was sent to his home to investigate conditions there. He found that Nello's mother was dying of cancer, and that he was her only nurse. only nurse. He had also He had also practically to take entire care of his mother's three younger children. What was worse, his father, a heavy drinker and often out of work, instead of getting him proper food, shared his beer with with Nello. So the "visiting teacher" had no difficulty in coming to the conclusion that Nello's shortcomings were due to exhaustion, malnutrition and alcohol-poisoning. The proper remedies were applied and Nello became a better boy. Now home-conditions are not the same here as in New York, nor are the sources of moral corruption in the neighbourhoods where the homes of school children are situated the same in India as in the West. But Nello's case shows that, the world over, the problem of keeping the bodies and souls of children healthy must attacked both at school and home. We in India also must have our "visiting teachers" and our schools should have sufficient resources to do or help in social service work of this description, viz., ensuring healthy home-conditions and neighbourhood-conditions for school children. Decrease of Schools and Pupils. Mr. Beatson-Bell, then Commissioner of the Dacca Division, wrote in a report dated August 4, 1913 : "In Mymensing the number of Upper Primary pupils to 103 schools with 5,798 pupils. The number Schools aided by the Board fell from 146 with 7,875 of Lower Primary Schools fell from 2039 to 1,451 with a corresponding decrease in the number of pupils from 68,002 to 40,177." Of all countries under a civilized government, India is the most conspicuously illiterate. Spread of education, not contraction, is, therefore, what one would expect to find in this country. But we are told by Mr. Beatson-Bell, "The decrease is attributed to the policy of concentration as also the conversion of Aided Schools to Board Lower Primary Schools." The Bengalee says The policy of concentration means the establishment of one Board Lower Primary School in each Panchayet Union within an area of 10 to 12 square miles; and we further learn that the number of pupils in each such school is limited to forty. The conversion of aided schools to Board Lower Primary Schools means the extinction of all aided primary schools within the area of the Union. Thus we have only one primary school in a Union instead of several such aided schools. This is concentration with a vengeance; but it is extinction in disguise. Let it be noted that this policy of concentration has evoked official protest. The Magistrate of Backergunge protested against it. He wrote to the Commissioner of the Division: "The peculiar local conditions and the difficulties of communication in this district render it impossible to reduce the number of aided Primary Schools by concentration as conveniently as in other districts, and it is necessary to help them substantially if Primary education is to be improved and expanded." The least one can expect is that on no plea of improvement of any kind whatsoever should there be any decrease in the number of schools or pupils. If Board Schools are wanted, why could not they be established as models, whilst the Aided schools were maintained and encouraged to attain the level of efficiency of the former? The financial difficulty may be brought forward in reply. But seeing that Government has never found the least difficulty in meeting the expenses of the most extravagant and unnecessary schemes that it may have set its heart upon, the plea of want of funds is one of the most unconvincing that can be thought of. In the cold countries of the West, openair schools and open-window classes are coming into vogue. In Bengal and in the plains of India generally primary schools may meet under a tree, if necessary, for the greater part of the year. The pupils may squat on a mat spread on the ground instead of sitting on benches. Black boards manufactured in England are not indispensably necessary. We appreciate fine school-houses and school furniture; but obviously they do not necessarily mean either more education or better education. We want plain wholesome food for all our children, even if it were served on plantain leaves, rather than that only a few of them should have delicacies served on silver dishes. Nor can it be said that the doubling or tripling of the district inspecting staff is educationally justifiable. This increase may have been politicaly necessary. But in that case the salaries of the additional inspecting staff should not be paid from the inadequate educational allotment, but from some other grant. The increased educational expenditure is to a great extent misleading. The horse in Æsop's fable who complained of inadequate nourishment coupled with excessive grooming was no mean prophet. Where are the schoolless Every village pays taxes, and therefore it is the bounden duty of the State to provide educational facilities for the children of every village. We are told that each Board Lower Primary School may not admit more than forty pupils. In Mymensing the population per square mile is 724. So that per square mile that district contains, according to the official estimate of 15 per cent. of the total population, 108 children of school-going age. Hence per square mile Mymensing ought to have at least two schools. But it is stated that there is to be established "one Board Lower Primary School in each Panchayet Union within an area of 10 or 12 square miles." It is obvious how utterly inadequate this provision is to the needs of the district. Mymensing contains a population of 4,526,422. Children of school-going age, therefore, number 678,963. For these, at the officially prescribed limit of 40 pupils per school, 16,974 elementary schools are required. there are only 1554, or less than onetenth of the number necessary. But If the education department had rested content with simply providing inadequate educational facilities for the district, we should have had cause to congratulate ourselves on the educational enthusiasm of the department. But the authorities have, on the plea of improvement, actually reduced the number of schools and deprived twenty-nine thousand nine hundred and two children of the blessings of education which they formerly enjoyed. What justification is there for such injustice and unkindness to these children? Granted that other children who are still in the enjoyment of the right of attending a school, do now have better schools to attend than before; what consolation does that afford to the parents of the pupils who have been deprived of education? If Ram's children are well-fed, that does not appease the hunger of the starving children of Hari. Improvement is an endless process, and educational theories, methods and ideals are ever changing. One may say that village schools must be taught by brilliant Oxford graduates, and advocate keeping only one elementary school in province to excite the wonder of educational idealists. But this sort of quixotic each |