The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c4.s8.2

c4.s8.2

The question of content is crucial. It is the evaluation of content which led to indigenous education being termed ‘bad’ and hence to its dismissal; and, in Gandhiji’s phrase, to its uprooting. Yet it was not ‘the mere reading and writing and a little arithmetic’ which was of any consequence in such a decision. For, school education in contemporary England, except in the sphere of religious teaching, covered the same ground, and probably, much less thoroughly. As mentioned earlier, the average period of schooling in 1835 England was just about one year, and even in 1851, only two. Further, as stated by A.E. Dobbs, ‘in some country schools, writing was excluded for fear of evil consequences.’