Jain Shwetambar Conference Herald 1910 Book 06

Author(s): Mohanlal Dalichand Desai
Publisher: Jain Shwetambar Conference

Page 326

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જૈન કોન્ફરન્સ હેરલ્ડ.
અકબર
the evil. Both boys and girls, but especially the girls, should be trained to take a part in housework. The school should devote as much time as possible to exercise. The children's life is too one-sided: they acquire knowledge, but they do not exercise their senses and their muscles, and in consequence of much dry learning, much of their vitality is destroyed. Too much is offered to them of what they do not really need, and accordingly many young lives lack harmony. For the sake of the future the present is ruined. This is why education wears such a materialistic, bureaucratic and aged look; the children are not children, the young are not young.
6 The co-operation of home and school is very necessary to remedy certain economic and social short--comings. The school must bave regard to the pecuniary circumstances amidst which the c'uild lives, and where the shadow of poverty darkens the young faces, the school must help.
Naturally in this connection, too, the parents, have an important part to play; they must impart faith and fortitude to their chidren that they may the better endure the burden of poverty, and believe that their very trials may make better men of them. The school must treat rich and poor with perfect equality, and must take special care of neglected and ill-fed children, because this co-operation of home and school will oppose moral deterioration.
7 Home-life is best adapted for teaching simplicity in taste, refinement in manners and faithfulness even in small things, while in school the influence of the majority is apt to have a contrary tendency. Our social instincts and our vanity tend to make us follow the majority, which demands the homage of the individual. As most of the boys in a school are somewhat rough and superficial, a child is very likely to become like them. To avoid this, demands a subtle co-operation between school and home life. The family must retain a hold on the child and the growing youth, while the school must educate the young to be loyal even in small things, and not to submit