द ब्यूटीफुल ट्री: १८वीं सदी में भारत की स्वदेशी गुरुकुल शिक्षा (धर्मपाल)

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(c) BOOKS USED IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
Abbreviations: Murshidabad = MD; South Beerbhoom = BM;
S. Behar = SB; Burdwan = Bun; Tirhoot = TT
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Annexure E
History of Education in the Panjab since Annexation and in 1882
LEITNER ON INDIGENOUS EDUCATION IN THE PANJAB
(EXTRACTS)
GENERAL:
I am about to relate—I hope without extenuation or
malice—the history of the contact of a form of European with
one of Asiatic civilisation; how, in spite of the best intentions, the
most public-spirited officers, and a generous Government that
had the benefit of the traditions of other provinces, the true
education of the Panjab was crippled, checked, and is nearly
destroyed; how opportunities for its healthy revival and
development were either neglected or perverted; and how, far
beyond the blame attaching to individuals, our system stands
convicted or worse than official failure. Whether it is possible to
rouse to renewed exertion, on behalf of its own education, the
most loyal population that has ever been disappointed, is a
question which the following pages will only partially attempt to
answer. Much will of course, depend on the wise adaptation of
the noble principle just propounded—of ‘local self-government’—
to a department of the Administration,—that of education,—in
which, above all others, it can be introduced with perfect safety
and the greatest political advantage.
Respect for learning has always been the redeeming feature
of ‘the East’. To this the Panjab has formed no exception. Torn
by invasion and civil war, it ever preserved and added to
educational endowments. The most unscrupulous chief, the
avaricious money-lender, and even the freebooter, vied with the
small landowner in making peace with his conscience by
founding schools and rewarding the learned. There was not a
mosque, a temple, a dharmasala that had not a school attached
to it, to which the youth flocked chiefly for religious education.
There were few wealthy men who did not entertain a Maulvi,
Pandit or Guru, to teach their sons, and along with them the
sons of friends and dependents. There were also thousands of
secular
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schools, frequented alike by Mahomedans, Hindus and Sikhs, in
which Persian or Lunde was taught. There were hundreds of
learned men who gratuitously taught their co-religionists, and
sometimes all-comers, for the sake of God-‘Lillah’. There was not
a single villager who did not take a pride in devoting a portion of
his produce to a respected teacher. In respectable Mahomedan
families husbands taught their wives, and these their children;
nor did the Sikhs prove in that respect to be unworthy of their
appellation of ‘learners and disciples’. In short, the lowest
computation gives us 3,30,000 pupils (against little more than
1,90,000 at present) in the schools of the various denominations
who were acquainted with reading, writing, and some method of
computation; whilst thousands of them belonged to Arabic and
Sanskrit colleges, in which Oriental Literature and systems of
Oriental Law, Logic, Philosophy, and Medicine were taught to the
highest standards. Tens of thousands also acquired a proficiency
in Persian, which is now rarely reached in Government and
aided schools or colleges. Through all schools there breathed a
spirit of devotion to education for its own sake and for its
influence on the character and on religious culture; whilst even
the sons of Banyas who merely learnt what they absolutely
required in order to gain a livelihood looked with respect,
amounting to adoration, on their humble Pandhas, who had
taught them the elements of two ‘Rs’.
We have changed all this. The annexation disturbed the
minds of believers in Providence, and all that was respectable
kept, as much as possible, aloof from the invader,—just as the
best Englishman would not be the first to seek the favour of a
foreign conqueror.
CLASSIFICATION OF INDIGENOUS SCHOOLS
I. SIKH INDIGENOUS EDUCATION

1. Gurmukhi Schools
   II. MOHAMMEDAN INDIGENOUS EDUCATION
2. Maktabs
3. Madrasas, religious and secular
4. Koran Schools.
   III. HINDU INDIGENOUS EDUCATION
5. Chatsalas (for the trading community)
6. Patshalas (religious)
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