प्राचीन भारत में शिक्षा (डॉ. ए.एस. अल्तेकर - गुरुकुल एवं बौद्ध विहार शिक्षण इतिहास)

178 EDUCATION IN ANCIENT INDIA [Ch.
dārakāchāryas (teachers of little children) respectively.¹
Public schools even for higher education did not exist
down to c. 400 A. D,; it is no wonder that they
should have been very scarce also for primary education
for a long time. Education was thus mostly imparted
by private teachers in private schools. Family priests
continued to impart primary education for a fairly
long time. From about the 5th century A. D. a great
impetus was given to higher education by the founding
of a number of public schools and colleges. This must
have given an indirect impetus to primary education
also; for the less capable products of these institutions
may have taken to primary education as a career.
Primary teachers, by no means highly qualified for
their task, figured in Kashmir society during the 10th
century A. D.;² the same may have been the case
elsewhere also. Sometimes primary teachers were
employed by the rich to educate their family children
and the children of other villagers were also allowed
to read along with them. If a village had not a rich
person to engage a teacher on his own account, a
number of guardians used to cooperate in engaging the
services of a teacher, each paying according to his
ability. In the majority of cases, however, private
teachers used to start schools on their own initiative,
relying upon the uncertain income of voluntary fees and
contributions from the guardians of students. The
average income of a teacher in Bengal just before the
advent of the British rule was more or less equal to
the emoluments of the village accountant :³ the same
1 लिपिशालामुपनीयते स्म कुमारः । तत्र विश्वामित्रो नाम
दारकाचार्यः । Lalita-vistāra, Chap. X.
2 Rājataraṅgiṇī, Vol. I, pp. 134 & 196 (Eng. Tr.)
3 Stark, Vernacular Education in Bengal, pp. 28 ff.