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

24 EDUCATION IN ANCIENT INDIA [Ch.
Steps Taken to Realise the Ideal: Society also
took several other important steps to realise this ideal.
To ensure an adequate supply of teachers, it enjoined
that teaching was a holy duty which a Brahmana was
bound to discharge irrespective of the consideration as to
whether any fee was likely to be received or not. It
made education free and held to public opprobrium any
teacher who would stipulate for fees. In order to bring
education within the reach of the poorest, it not only
permitted students to beg, but elevated begging into the
highest duty of the student life. In order to ensure a
reasonable maintenance to teachers, who were expected to
devote their lives to the cause of teaching in the missionary
spirit of self-sacrifice, society laid down that both the
public and the state should help learned teachers
and educational institutions very liberally. How these
arrangements worked in practice will be explained in
Chapter IV.
Education a serious Proposition: Though ancient
Indians held that all should normally receive the benefits
of education, they have also laid down that persons who
were morally and intellectually unfit to receive it should
be excluded from its benefit (Nirukta, II. 4); this was a
necessary precaution to avoid waste. They further point
out that real scholarship cannot be obtained by dilettanish
or perfunctory studies; impatience is as great an enemy
of learning as self-complaceney¹. The rich and the poor
have both to submit to stern discipline in order to become
learned. Long continued and laborious preparation is
necessary to aquire real grounding and efficiency in a
subject. One who is lazy or anxious to dabble in several
matters, or one who wants to have a merry time during

1. अशुश्रूषा त्वरा श्लाघा विद्यायाः शत्रवस्त्रयः। Mbh., V. 40.4.