Education in Ancient India c13.s1.30

c13.s1.30

Depth at the cost of Breadth: Hindu education was thorough, but it was not sufficiently broad. Each branch was thinking of its own problems. Educationists do not seem to have bestowed much thought on the relative utility of the study of the different branches like grammar, literature, 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 aesthetic 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 were introduced very reluctantly only by the middle of the last century.¹