The Economy of Permanence: A Quest for a Social Order Based on Non-violence (स्थायी अर्थतन्त्र)

Economy of Permanence
hour spent by those children in thinking these things out for themselves
stimulated their faculties to greater extent than the cramming of economic
theories from Adam Smith to Marshall. When theories are based on experience,
it leads gently on to the next stage of creation and originality.
The present system is not capable of producing original thinkers. Even
Graduates of our universities have not reached this third stage. It is because of
this defect that we are stagnating. As we have already seen, the instruction we
were given was designed to make clerks of us and original mind is no part of the
equipment of a clerk. This stage requires some initiative and a good deal of
self-confidence. The part the teachers should play is to stand by, watch and
suggest.
No vocational training or education can be complete unless it has some relation
to art. This part of our education has been attended to by Poet Tagore. The
emphasis placed on folk songs, music and art must form part of every village
school. If such schools can be found to function with a vocation of craft as the
base and art as an aid, however simple the courses may be, the result will be
an outturn of men and women with a backbone of character and self-respect
who will not purr round the feet of foreign masters for a silken couch to lie on
but who will hold their head erect, be independent, and be prepared to share
the lowly life of the general run of the people. Unless we bend all our might to
produce such a stalwart nation, broad based on the sound culture of the
masses, it will be futile to attempt to build a superstructure. No nation can
ever hope to take its place in the vanguard of the nations which has not got its
roots in its own culture. We cannot shine on borrowed feathers. We have to de-
velop our own contribution to the world of literature, art and music.
Of course, as Gandhiji suggested, college education must be made self-
supporting. An agricultural college which cannot maintain itself on the land
allotted to it belies the object for which it exists. Similarly, all other
professional and technical colleges should be made to pay for themselves.
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