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JAINA GAZETTE.
[October
The Rishabh Brahm Charya Ashram holds its 3rd Annual Meeting at Hastinapur on the 30th and 31st October and the 1st November 1914.
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This admirable institution, like others, is suffering for want of earnest and devoted workers. The work, however, could be carried on through the agency of a well-paid efficient staff. But it appears that the Digambar Jain community has not yet come to fully appreciate the need and utility of a sound and thorough education. Our people still want to do things on the cheap. The idea of spending Rupees 20 a month on a student is simply extravagant and astounding to our stay-at-home people. Their idea of education is still limited to the village school and the street Chatshala in the towns, and cannot go beyond the system of school education imparted to day-scholars in Government and aided schools. The system of Boarding Houses attached to schools is certainly gaining ground in the country, but no special attention is anywhere paid to the students by the teaching staff after the school hours, and there is no real governance or guidance of the boys thereafter. The Boarding House Superintendents or house-masters simply look to the financial management and supply of provisions and now and then intervene to settle disputes among the students. But they do little to help the students in developing their character and in acquiring good habits. The Oxford Tutorial system is quite unknown.
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In the Ashram the object in view is to mould the characters of the students by constant contact and association with teachers, so that good habits may come to them as a second nature. To make this a complete success, we want more teachers and more money and our rich men cannot possibly make a better investment of their money in any other cause. The money spent in the education of the young citizens of the Empire would be an invaluable asset to the community, society and the Government, in the shape of worthy and loyal citizens and good, religious men, who shall come out of the Ashram.
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:
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
