Jain Gazette 1905 10

Author(s): Jain Student Institute Kolhapur
Publisher: Jain Student Institute Kolhapur

Page 8

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Jain Gazette.
But it must be admitted that the peculiar atmosphere of the school-room shapes the mind of the receptive pupil to a muchlarger extent than is ordinarily believed. When there is that faithful confidence of a true disciple eagerly proceeding to meet the anxious solicitude of the teacher for his pupils--when the teacher and the taught mutually reciprocate the feeling of reverent love—when the student approaches his Guru in the mood of humility and appreciation and the Guru in turn takes care of the interests of his pupil with a sincere wish to be outrivalled by him--surely it would never be the unfortunate lot of the pupil to complain that his educational alma mater is but a cramming house, nor would it ever be necessary for the teacher to disavow all responsibility for the habits and training of his student by saying that his influence is a very small factor in the formation of his character. The lamentable estrangement of feelings between the scholar and his Professor-no doubt widening day by day—which all of us regret in these days, gives countenance to the oft-repeated cry that the scholar of these days kes his chief lessons not from the lecture-room which he antifies with a factory for turning out dissatisfied clerks and
norous Vakils but to a very large degree from the adjecent hading-room governed by the wiseacres of the editorial profession. With such surroundings, our boys can derive very little inspiration from their public schools either for good or for evil. And such of us as would confine their observation to this unnatual state of things, will find it hard to realise adequately what an immense force the school is in the progres of the student. No one will claim for Mr. Premchand Roychand any considerable amount of literary accomplishment as a result of his association with the Elphinstone Institute. But there is a far more valuable function of education in the development of a young man and we see in the life of Shet Premchand that his connection, even though not of a long duration, with this greatest of our Bomay schools and the mother of the largest number of our notable leaders, produced very healthy effects on the mind of young Premchand. It imbibed on his mind a rare catholicity and