The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c4.s7.6

c4.s7.6

It is suggested here—and there is voluminous data scattered in the British records themselves which confirm the view—that in terms of the basic expenses, both education and medical care, like the expenses of the local police, and the maintenance of irrigation facilities, had primary claims on revenue. It was primarily this revenue which not only maintained higher education, but also—as was sometimes admitted in the British records—the system of elementary education.⁸⁰ It is quite probable that, in addition to this basic provision, the parents and guardians of the scholars also contributed a little according to their varying capacities by way of presents, occasional feeding of the unprovided scholars, etc., towards the maintenance of the system. But to suppose that such a deep rooted and extensive system which really catered to all sections of society could be maintained on the basis of tuition fees, or through not only gratuitous teaching but also feeding of the pupils by the teachers, is to be grossly ignorant of the actual functioning of the Indian social arrangements of the time.