Uniyarity have to pay fees and support their professors... The course of study was confined to the sacred books of Hinduism and consisted entirely of Philosophy, Logic, and Grammar; whereas the course in a modern University includes a comprehensive study of the facts and laws of nature, and human history. The method of study, too, consisted very largely of discussions and disputationis, which apparently led to fierce quarrels and factions, and occasionally, l believe, even ended in blows. When I was engaged in educational work in Bengal I used often to wish that a little of this excessive zeal for truth could have been infused into the modern Indian student. I am afraid in this respect he compares somewhat unfavourably with his ancestor in the Sanskrit Tols, and I think it would be a very hopeful sign if I heard one morning that there had been a riot in Calcutta or anywhere else owing to a dispute among the students of the University over the suhject of the freedom of the will or the nature of the Absolute. And the most striking difference of all was that in the old Sanskrit Tols there was an entire absence of the spirit of utilitarianism. So far as I could gather, the course of study from a worldly point of view seemed to be of no practical use whatever. The object of the students in going through it was not to get a post under Government or further their worldly interests, but to save their souls. the object with which a modern Indian student wishes for a B. A. degree has very little connection with his spiritual and religious state in the future. Now there can be no doubt that, looking at the two systems of education the I need hardly remark that modern University has seldom any connection. with the Sanskrit Tol. The object of education in the former is to prepare the young for the work, life and responsibilities of manhood or womanhood. But the course of study in a Sanskrit Tol is entirely out of touch with Practical life. It leads the student into a region 13. EDUCATION AND RELIGION: ffisegrugnasarnute-Norffennus ܐܫܓܡ gg NM . . . ‛ ግም'• •.'ዖ• ቴ.....።። of abstract thought and involves him in a mniżżel of verbal controversies and hair-splitting disputes which have no relation to man's practical duties and responsibilities in the present world, and its exclusiveness is fatal to its freedom. The mere fact that the Tol is limited rigidly to a single caste is quite enough to roh it of that atmosphere of freedom which is essential for the true development of thought. At the same time, with all its narrowness and pedantry I cannot help feeling a lurking regard for those old-fashioned institutions. There is something very refreshing in the thought of those keen, eager discussions, even though they may have been about verbal trifles and abstract principles, and one cannot restrain a sigh of regret for the days when students were so zealous in their pursuit of truth that they actually fought over their rival theories. And then the Sanskrit Tol, with all its defects and failings, thoroughly grasped one great truth, which un-happily. our modern Univsrsities under the stress of circumstances have abandoned. They assumed as a matter of course that man is a religious being, that religion is the most important part of human life, and that every true system of education must be based and grounded upon religion. And however much they may have exaggerated and perverted this truth in applying it to their system of education, still, the principle itself is sound and cannot be abandoned without great injury to education. In the first place, religion is undoubtedly one of the most powerful instruments for forming and elevating character. And education can ill-afford to lose any help that it can get in this most difficult part of its work. The universal experience of the race is that naturally, . left to itself, the moral tone of every society tends to degenerate. Ancient literature both of East and West is on this point uniformly pessimistic. The “succession of the ages is never from the iron to the golden, but always from the golden to the iron. And every one
