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

XI] ACHIEVEMENTS AND FAILURES 261
special permission of the Provincial.¹ India however
could have been much in advance of the world ideas in
this matter if the impetus that was given to the cultiva-
tion of vernaculars by the two gifted Seers, Mahāvīra
and the Buddha, had not died down owing to the
revival of Sanskrit.
Depth at the cost of Breadth : Hindu education
was thorough, but it was not sufficiently broad. Each
branch was thinking of its own problems. Education-
alists do not seem to have bestowed much thought on
the relative utility of the study of the different branches
like grammar, literature, logic, philosophy, mathematics
and fine arts for the development of the intellect, the
mind and the imagination. Specialisation was started
too early. A broad-based secondary course embracing
a study of grammar, literature, mathematics,
astronomy and history did not exist.² Subjects of
æsthetic value like music and painting did not form part
of the general course, as they did in ancient Greece.
An undue emphasis was laid on grammar, literature
and logic at the cost of history, mathematics and
astronomy. Here again the impartial historian has to
point out that this defect of the Hindu educational
system was not peculiar to India, but was to be seen
all over the civilised world. In Europe all the energies
of teachers and students were concentrated on
grammar, rhetoric and dialectics down to the 13th
century ; only that much knowledge of arithmetic was
given which was necessary to calculate Church
festivals. Geography was ignored altogether till an
incentive to its study was given by the discoveries
of Columbus and Vasco de Gama. Natural sciences
1 Quick : The Essays, p. 81.
2. Many sided interests were not created probably because it
was difficult to maintain them in after life in an age when cheap
books were unknown. Crowded curriculum also has its own evils as
. the Matriculation student knows to his cost.