Such was the state of affairs in 1882, but the contrast will
become more startling if we look at the figures already repro-
duced in ‘Young India’.
A mere glance at that statement will show how the
indigenous education has declined, and how stagnant the state
of education has remained from 1882 to 1918-19. In a period of
37 years the government has done nothing whatsoever for mass
education. In a period less than this, England was able to
educate the whole of its populations; in a period considerably
less than this, America could give education to a population
without any records of civilisation or intellectual stamina; and in
a period equal to this, Japan was able to work out its destiny.
But such is the way of doing things in India that during all this
time nothing was done except to shift schools from one place to
another, to shift the expenses of education from one source to
another, to shift the responsibility from man to man; in fact to
make shifts as best as could be done.
Such in brief is the history of the decline of indigenous
education, and as to how it was crushed in the Punjab will form
the subject matter of the next article.
...
COPY OF ARTICLE TAKEN FROM ‘YOUNG INDIA’
OF 29TH DECEMBER 1920HOW INDIGENOUS EDUCATION WAS CRUSHED IN
THE PUNJAB
1849-1886The Punjab was the last of all the Provinces of India to come
under the direct influence of the English. The Honourable the
East India Company had during a couple of centuries, extended
their sphere of influence from the Cape to the Jamuna; but its
administrators never thought it worth the trouble to go beyond
the Moghul Court. The Moghul Court itself was jealous of any
encroachments upon its northern province—the gateway to
Kabul—which they still looked upon as their ancestral home.
When the descendants of Aurangzeb began to bungle
things in this province, the invaders from the North and the
people from within threw in a state of anarchy and misrule.
Under such circumstances the hardy Sikh began to realise his
own importance and individuality. Ever afterwards till 1849, the
Sikhs kept the