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No central organisation could arrange a scheme like this. Only by a common impulse of the people and the students themselves could it be made a reality. But it is not impossible. The initial thought comes, it is true, from the city, but once sent out, all depends upon the number of lives that can be laid upon its altar.
All must always in the last resort depend upon this, the quantity and quality of human life that can be sacrificed to it, Without men's lives, no seed of the mind germinates. How many will give up comfort, place, opportunity, ease, even perhaps their whole life, for this, the elementary education of the Indian people ?
A SYSTEM OF NATIONAL EDUCATION.
CHAPTER VIL
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KAEMATOGE
first thing the is to accustom the pupil to con centrate attention.
A
The training of the Mental Faculties. The first qualities of the mind that have to be developed are those which can be grouped under observation. We notice some things ignore others. Eses of what we notice, we observe very little. A general perception of an object is all we usually carry away from a cursory half-attentive glance. closer attention fxes its place, form, nature as distinet from its surroundings. Full concentration of the faculty of observation gives us all the knowledge that the three ahief senses can gather about the object, or if we touch or taste, we may gather all that the five senses can tell us of its nature and properties. Those who make use of the sixth sense, the poet, the painter, the Yogin, can also gather much that is hidden from the ordinary observer. The scientiat by investigation ascertains ather facts open to a minuter observation These are the components of the faculty of observation, and it is obvious that its basis is attention, which may be only elose, or close and minute. We may gather much even from a passing glance at an object, if we have the habit of concentrating the attention and the habit of Batwio receptivity. The
flowers, leaves, plants, treas will lay the foundations, of botanical knowledge without loading the mind with names and that dry sot aequisition of informations which is the beginning of cramming and detested by the healthy human mind when it is fresh from nature and unspoiled by unnatural habits. In the same way by the observation of the stars astronomy, by the observation of the earth, stones etc. geology, by the observation of insects and animals, entomology and zoology may be founded. A little later chemistry may be started by interesting observation of experi ments without any formal teaching or heaping on the mind of formulas and book knowledge. There is no scientific subject the perfect and natural mastery of which cannot be prepared in early childhood by this training of the faculties to observe, compane, remember and judge various classes of objects. It can be done easily and attended with a supreme and absorbing interest in the mind of the student. Once the taste is created, the boy can be trusted to follow it up with all the enthusiasm of youth in his leisure hours. This will prevent the necess sity at a later age of teaching hinu everything in class.
The Judgment will naturally be trained along with the other faculties. At every step the boy will have to decide what is the right idea, measurement, appreciation of collour, sound, scent, etc. and what is wrong. Often the judgments and distinctions made will have to be exceedingly subtle, and delicate. At first many errors will be made, but the learner should be taught to trust his judgment without being attached to its results. It will be found that the judgment will soon begin to respond to the calls made on it, clear itself of all errors and begin to judge correctly and minutely. The best way is to an custom the boy to compare his judgments with those of others. When he is wrong, it should at first be pointed out to him how far he was right and why he went wrong. afterwards he should be enconraged to note these things for him elf.
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We may take the instance of a flower. Instead of looking casually at it and getting a casual impression of scent,form and colour, he should be encouraged to know the flower-to fix in his mind the exact shade, the peculiar glow, the precise intensity of the scent, the beauty of curve and design in the form. His touch should assure itself of the texture and its peculiarities. Next, the flower should be taken to piecos and its structure examined with the same careful fulness of observation. All this should be done not as a task, but as an objeet of interest by skilfully arranged questions suited to the learner which will draw him on to obeerva and investigate one thing after the other until he has almost uneonaciously mastered the whole.
Memory and judgment are the next qualities that will be called upon,and they should be encouraged in the same unconscious way. The student should not be made to repeat the same lesson over again in order to remember it. That is a mechanical burdensome and unintelligent way of training the memory. A similar but different flower shoukl be put in his hands. and he should be encouraged to note it with the same care, but with the avowed object of noting the similarities and differences. By this practice daily repeated the memory will naturally be trained. Not only so, but the mental centres of comparison and contrast will be developed. The fearner will begin to observe as a habit the similarities of things and their differences. The teacher should take every care to encourage the perfect growth of this faculty and habit. At the same time the laws of species and genus will begin to dawn on the mind and by a skilful following and leading of the young developing mind, the scentific habit,the socintific attitude and the fundamental facts of scientific knowledge may in a very short time be made part of its permanent equipment. The observation and comparison of
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