parts of the country of which this might be said. I told Mr
Gandhi that my interest in primary education in India was no
new thing; and that when as a member of the Sadler
Commission I had seen Mr Montagu and Lord Chelmsford in
1918 I had told them both that although university reform was
perhaps the most urgent matter, the problem of primary
education was the fundamental one for India, although I could
not advise on it then. I said that India had probably not yet
found the solution of the problem of giving the agricultural
labourer an education that would make him a more efficient
cultivator without making him want to be a clerk, but that the
Punjab, under the inspiration of the late Mr Richey whose work
had been carried on by Sir George Anderson, had made great
strides in the last ten or fifteen years. I described the system
adopted in Punjab and Mr Gandhi said he had heard of recent
progress in that province. I then told him that Bombay had
probably the most efficient schools in some ways under the
system initiated by Dr Paranjpye, but that the complete transfer
of control to local bodies by his successor had unfortunate
results, as so many district boards were more interested in
politics than in education of which they knew very little.
I next told Mr Gandhi that I could not accept his
suggestion that universal primary education must necessarily be
very remote, and that my Committee had estimated than an
additional recurring expenditure of about 19 crores would bring
about 80 percent of boys and girls into the primary school
system. Mr Gandhi then asked me if I thought that primary
education would be much use unless the children went on to
middle schools. I said that was the next step that would follow,
and that I regarded the encouragement of vernacular middle
schools as of the greatest importance not only for the sake of the
children, but because they produce the primary teachers. I said
that I was sorry that Bengal despised vernacular middle schools
and insisted on English teaching middle schools.
We then spoke of girls’ education and I quoted the opinion
of my Committee that in all schemes of expansion priority
should be given to the claims of girls. Mr Gandhi said that he
entirely agreed, but he asked himself whether primary education
would make girls better mothers. Mr Gandhi said that he had
not read the Report of my Committee. I asked him if he would
like to do so on his journey back to which he said yes and I
promised to send him a copy.
(These notes were dictated on December 2nd and December 4th)