NCERT Class 8 History Chapter 8: Civilizing the Native, Educating the Nation YouTube Lecture Handouts

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NCERT Class 8 History Chapter 8: Civilizing the Native, Educating the Nation

British wanted territorial conquest, control over revenue & civilize the native & change their customs and values

Education through Eyes of Britishers – Orientalist Culture (Knowledge of Asia)

Illustration: NCERT Class 8 History Chapter 8: Civilizing the Native, Educating the Nation YouTube Lecture Handouts
  • 1783 – William Jones in Kolkata – junior judge@Supreme Court & a linguist – knew Greek, Latin, French, English, Persian
  • In Calcutta – he started learning Sanskrit – his interested were shared with others
  • Henry Thomas Colebrooke and Nathaniel Halhed – were discovering ancient heritage, masking languages, translating Sanskrit and Persian
  • Jones + Colebrooke + Halhed – started journal called Asiatick Researches
  • Shared respect for culture of India and West
  • Explained that India attained glory in past but it has declined
  • Aimed to understand meaning and translate ancient texts – rediscover heritage & glory of past
  • Britishers became guardians of Indian culture & masters as well
  • Britishers should encourage Sanskrit & Persian and only then can they win the heart of natives – but idea was opposed by many
  • Madrasa was set up in Calcutta in 1781 to promote the study of Arabic, Persian and Islamic law
  • Hindu College was established in Benaras in 1791 to encourage the study of ancient Sanskrit texts
  • Monument to Warren Hastings, by Richard Westmacott, 1830, now in Victoria Memorial in Calcutta

Critics to Orientalists

  • James Mill – Was biggest critic
  • East was full of errors, unscientific, non-serious and light-hearted
  • Mill – Aim of education to teach what is useful & practical – make Indians familiar with scientific advances rather than sacred literatures
  • Thomas Babington Macaulay - India as an uncivilised country that needed to be civilized – β€œsingle shelf of a good European library was worth whole native literature of India and Arabia” – emphasized need to teach English
  • English Education Act of 1835 was introduced – English became medium of instruction for higher education & this stopped Calcutta Madrasa and Benaras Sanskrit College (these were considered as β€œtemples of darkness that were falling of themselves into decay” )

Education for Commerce

1854 - Court of Directors of the East India Company in London sent an educational despatch to the Governor-General in India. Issued by Charles Wood – known as Wood՚s Despatch

  • Emphasized benefits of European learning
  • Benefits were mainly economic – expand trade and commerce
  • Improve moral character – trustworthiness and honesty – supply with civil servants who could be trusted
  • Education departments established to control education
  • Steps taken for system of university education – universities in Madras, Bombay and Calcutta (during 1857 revolt)

Christian missionaries criticized practical education and focused on moral character of people

Till 1813, Britishers opposed Christian missionaries fearing that it would invoke suspicion in people

Serampore Mission by William Carey under Danish East India Company – Printing press established in 1800 and College in 1818

Story of Local Schools

Illustration: Story of Local Schools

1830 – William Adam (Scottish missionary) toured Bengal & Bihar on progress of education in vernacular schools

1 lakh pathshalas each with 20 students – around 20 lakh students in Bengal and Bihar – established by wealthy or local community

  • Flexible education
  • no fixed fee, no printed books, no separate school building, no benches or chairs, no blackboards, no system of separate classes, no roll call registers, no annual examinations, and no regular time-table
  • Under banyan tree or at guru՚s home
  • Rich paid more than poor for fee
  • Teaching was oral
  • No classes during harvesting season – so even peasants child can study

Formalization of Education

  • New rules
  • Less flexible
  • After 1854 – Company decided to improve vernacular education
  • Introduce order within system
  • Formalize routine
  • Establish rules
  • Ensure inspections
  • Government pandits to look after 4 - 5 pathshalas
  • Regular timetable
  • Textbook systems
  • Annual examination
  • Pay regular fee
  • Have fixed seats in classroom
  • No holidays for harvesting season – those who cannot join – was unwillingness to learn (lack of desire)

Those pathshalas which accepted new rules were given grants

Agenda for National Education

  • Need for Western education to modernize them
  • Open more schools, colleges and universities
  • Spend more money on education

Mahatma Gandhi՚s Views

  • β€œEnglish education has enslaved us”
  • Created sense of inferiority
  • We are charmed by West and admire everything from West
  • Education should be for sense of dignity and self-respect
  • Indian languages should be medium of instruction
  • We have become strangers in our own lands
  • Western education focused on reading and writing rather than oral knowledge; it valued textbooks rather than lived experience and practical knowledge
  • Education to develop mind & Soul
  • All round drawing - People had to work with their hands, learn a craft, and know how different things operated
  • Literacy in itself is not education

Tagore՚s Views

  • Adobe of peace
  • Shantiniketan in 1901 – within natural environment – 100 km away from Calcutta
  • As child he hated school – suffocating and oppressive & as prison
  • Child should be happy, creative and explore thoughts
  • Self-learning outside of restricted and rigid discipline of schooling
  • Teachers should be imaginative
  • Creative learning

Differences in Ideologies

  • Gandhiji was against Western technology
  • Tagore wanted to combine western with traditional ways – teach science and technology along with art, music and dance

Some wanted changes within British system

Others wanted to redefine British system

Education Act 1870 – no widespread education, child labour was common, poor children could not be sent to school

  • Number of schools limited to those run by the Church or set up by wealthy individuals
  • Most important educational thinkers of the period was Thomas Arnold - became the headmaster of the private school Rugby – favored secondary school curriculum - study of the classics disciplined the mind -To become civilized adults, they needed to understand society՚s notions of right and wrong, proper and improper behavior

✍ Manishika