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THE JAINA GAZETTE.
APRIL
will be economically used. Is it not then the duty of this latter class to safeguard their interests and make the most of the money they obtain and justify the faith reposed in them? Make up the deficiency in the existing system of education and that is all. A central college cannot answer our purpose to the fullest extent, while the same amount that will be required for a college of this sort, can much better serve the purpose if used in some other way. In the first place it will take a very long time, at least I cannot even conceive how much, before you can make your college so popular and attractive that students from distant provinces would like to join it leaving colleges nearer home and in some cases at their very doors. You must provide for every branch of study in arts and science, etc., to give every facility to students to choose their subjects. There are other considerations too, which prevent a student from joining & college in another province. For example, there are certain provincial services which are given to graduates of that province alone. No one can easily sacrifice these interests unless there is some attraction strong enough to overcome all his prejudices. And to accomplish this, much money and enterprise are needed, otherwise the all-Indian college would gradually glide into a local institution proving useful to a selected few. I do not, of course, mean that the Jains are lacking in wealth or enterprise but what I mean to say is that even if the college proves a success, what necessity there is to spend so much money on English education when it can also be had without it, I do not exactly see.
I want to propose the system of Boarding schools as the alternative. Establish boarding houses in connection with colleges where Jaina students mostly frequent, and appoint a Jain Pundit for each Boarding house who will act as Superintendent as well as give religious instruction to the boarders as a compulsary subject beyond college hours. It may be objected that efficient religious instruction will not be given outside the college but in the Central College too such education will have to be imparted beyond college hours. If, on the other hand, you compel the students to take up Sanskrit as a compulsary subject for the University, you practically speaking divorce science altogether from the Jaina community. This is an age of science and India has already suffered much by her neglect of science. Mental, Moral and Material progress should go hand in hand. Science should be encouraged rather than discouraged.
Thus by such institutions we will gain our object. University education will be received in the college and it will be supplemented by religious and Sanskrit education in the Boarding House. In this way
