Civilising the natives education the nation

English education act- 1835

Despatch of charles wood- 1854
Establishment of shantiniketan-1901
NCERT

Q.1 Why did William Jones feel the need to study Indian history, philosophy and law?

Ans. 1. In order to understand India it was necessary to discover the sacred and legal texts that
were produced in the ancient period. 2. For only those texts could reveal the real ideas and laws
of the Hindus and Muslims, and only a new study of these texts could form the basis of future
development in India.
3. This project would not only help the British learn from Indian culture, but it would also help
Indians rediscover their own heritage, and understand the lost glories of their past. In this
process the British would become the guardians of Indian culture as well as its masters.

Q.2 Why did James Mill and Thomas Macaulay think that European education was
essential in India?

Ans.
1. James Mill was one of those who attacked the Orientalists. The aim of education ought
to be to teach what was useful and practical. So Indians should be made familiar with the
scientific and technical advances that the West had made, rather than with the poetry
and sacred literature of the Orient.
2. Thomas Babington Macaulay saw India as an uncivilised country that needed to be
civilised.
3. He urged that the British government in India stop wasting public money in promoting
Oriental learning, for it was of no practical use.
4. Macaulay felt that knowledge of English would make them aware of the developments in
Western Science and philosophy. Teaching English could civilise people, change their
tastes, values and culture.
Q.3 Why did Mahatma Gandhi want to teach children handicrafts?

Ans. Mahatma Gandhi wanted to teach children handicraft because that would develop their
minds and their capacity to understand. This would also enable them to know how different
things operated. This would help them to have lived experience and practical knowledge.
2. Literacy is just a means of education handicraft develops the mind and soul to the highest
level.

Q.4 Why did Mahatma Gandhi think that English education had enslaved Indians? What
kind of education Gandhiji desired for Indians?
Ans. Mahatma Gandhi argued that colonial education created a sense of inferiority in the minds
of Indians. It made them see Western civilisation as superior, and destroyed the pride they had
in their own culture.
2. There was poison in this education, said Mahatma Gandhi, it was sinful, it enslaved Indians, it
cast an evil spell on them.
3. Charmed by the West, appreciating everything that came from the West, Indians educated in
these institutions began admiring British rule.
4.Mahatma Gandhi wanted an education that could help Indians recover their sense of dignity
and self-respect.
5.Mahatma Gandhi strongly felt that Indian languages ought to be the medium of teaching.
Education in English crippled Indians, distanced them from their own social surroundings, and
made them “strangers in their own lands”.
EXTRA QUESTIONS

Q.1 What was Wood's Despatch? How did it affect the Indians?
Ans. 1. Charles Wood, the President of the Board of Control of the Company, has come to be
known as Wood’s Despatch.
2. One of the practical uses the Despatch pointed to was economic. European learning, it said,
would enable Indians to recognise the advantages that flow from the expansion of trade and
commerce, and make them see the importance of developing the resources of the country.
3. Introducing them to European ways of life, would change their tastes and desires, and create
a demand for British goods, for Indians would begin to appreciate and buy things that were
produced in Europe.
4. Wood’s Despatch also argued that European learning would improve the moral character of
Indians. It would make them truthful and honest, and thus supply the Company with civil
servants who could be trusted and depended upon.
5.It will instil in people a sense of duty and a commitment to work, and develop the skills
required for administration.

Q.2. What measures did the company undertake to improve the system of vernacular
education ? Ans.
1. The company appointed a number of government pandits, each in charge of looking
after four to five schools.
2. The task of the pandit was to visit the pathshalas and try and improve the standard of
teaching.
3. Each guru was asked to submit periodic reports and take classes according to a regular
timetable. Teaching was now to be based on textbooks and learning was to be tested
through a system of annual examination.

Q.4. How was a village pathshala different from that of the school system introduced by
British East India Company?
Ans.
Pathshala British school
 Flexibility- classes were not held during The discipline of the new system demanded
harvest time when rural children often worked regular attendance, even during harvest time
in the fields. The pathshala started once when children of poor families had to work in
again when the crops had been cut and the fields.inability to attend school came to be
stored. This meant that even children of seen as indiscipline, as evidence of the lack
peasant families could study. of desire to learn.

Fee structure- fee depended on the income Students were asked to pay a regular fee.
of the parents: rich had to pay more than the
poor.

Teaching Style- teaching was oral, and the Teaching was now to be based on printed
guru decided what to teach, in accordance textbooks and learning was to be tested
with the needs of the students. There were no through a system of annual examination.
printed books.

Sitting arrangement- No separate school Students were asked to sit on fixed seats,
building, no benches or chairs, no and obey the new rules of discipline. And
blackboards, and no regular timetable was classes were to be held according to a
followed. regular timetable.

Q.5 What were the ideas of Tagore's "abode of peace"?

Ans.
1. Rabindranath Tagore started the institution in 1901, 100 km away from Calcutta, in a
rural setting. He saw it as an abode of peace, where living in harmony with nature,
children could cultivate their natural creativity.
2. In his view, a school where the child was happy, where she could be free and creative,
where she was able to explore her own thoughts and desires.
3. Tagore felt that childhood ought to be a time of self-learning, outside the rigid and
restricting discipline of the schooling system set up by the British.
4. Teachers had to be imaginative, understand the child, and help the child develop her
curiosity.
Q.6 List out the changes that came with the passing of the english education Act 1835.
Ans Following Macaulay’s minute, the English Education Act of 1835 was introduced.
1. The decision was to make English the medium of instruction for higher education. Stop
the promotion of Oriental institutions like the Calcutta Madrasa and Benaras Sanskrit
College.
2. English textbooks now began to be produced for schools.