Education in Ancient India c13.s1.37

c13.s1.37

A general Estimate: It is therefore hardly fair to compare ‘the scanty remains of bye-gone better times’ with the tremenodus advance the West has made during the last century and half under very favourable circumstances³. The impartial historian will have to note that in the heyday of her glorv. education in India was broad-based, women and a large section of the masses being admitted to its privileges and advantages. It was able to develop character and personality, to inculcate civic virtues, and to turn out citizens well qualified to follow their professions and discharge their duties in life. It introduced a high standard of culture and emphasised the necessity of self-imposed discipline and stern regard for duty. It was not only able to preserve the heritage of the past, but also to enrich it from generation to generation. It produced a galaxy of able scholars and thinkers from age to age, who made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the spheres of philosophy, logic, mathematics, astronomy, medicine and chemistry. It enabled India to achieve high material prosperity by the excellent arrangements it made for training young men in commerce, industry and fine and useful arts. The general principles, which underlay the system,—e. g. intellectual freedom, individual attention to students, the monitorial system, *gurukula* ideal, plain living and high thinking, mass education, combination of useful and liberal education, the locating of educational institutions away from the din and dust of the city-life, etc.—are inherently sound and capable of yielding excellent results even in modern times, if applied with due regard to changed circumtances