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keep myser, the farm a, Training: Literary and Spiritual, kept after, for the sch, We gav, Tamil, Gu, through th, It was als, with a lits, M.K. Gandhi, These two short passages are from M.K. Gandhi's, history, g-, I had u, training-that which is concerned with training the faculties, the mind,-and spiritual training, dealing with the training of Urdu ser, the spirit and the inculcation of moral values. The reader should, note how Gandhi's approach is a practical, open one relying, more on resources available to him than on a prescribed course., Again, the student body is a varied one, made up of people who, speak different languages and belong to different backgrounds. which on, Gandhi, as a teacher, is able to relate to the students because, he has no ego problem., Gandhi wrote his autobiography in two volumes. The first, volume was published in 1927, the second volume in 1929., The original was written in Gujarati. This section is about nb, life in Tolstoy Farm when he was in South Africa and where he, knew wa, beyond P, my know, sian and, Musalma, at the hi, Such, of literan, my, love, capacity, more th, The, knew ve, tance against racial discrimination. If you have not seen, d, had to, help you understand Gandhi's political ideas better., That wa, beat me, ing Eng, along, rance fi, exactly, rance o, compar, knew t, reading, The, schoole, little to, thoroughly, my being fresh for the class, I could with the, 10, greatest difficult

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Training: Literary and Spiritual 17, keep myself awake. The mornings had to be devoted to work on, the farm and domestic duties, so the school hours had to be, kept after the midday meal. There was no other time suitable, for the school., We, three periods at the most to literary training. Hindi,, gave, Tamil, Gujarati and Urdu were all taught, and tuition was given, through the vernaculars of the boys. English was taught as well., It was also necessary to acquaint the Gujarati Hindu children, with a little Sanskrit, and to teach all the children elementary, history, geography and arithmetic., I had undertaken to teach Tamil and Urdu. The little Tamil I, knew was acquired during voyages and in jail. I had not got, beyond Pope's excellent Tamil Handbook. My knowledge of the, Urdu script was all that I had acquired on a single voyage, and, my knowledge of the language was confined to the familiar Per-, sian and Arabic works that I had learnt from contact with, Musalman friends. Of Sanskrit I knew no more than I had learnt, at the high school, even my Gujarati was no better than that, which one acquires at the school., Such was the capital with which I had to carry on. In poverty, of literary equipment my colleagues went one better than I. But, my love for the languages of my country, my confidence in my, capacity as a teacher, as also the ignorance of my pupils, and, more than that, their generosity, stood me in good stead., The Tamil boys were all born in South Africa, and therefore, knew, Pgra-, rary, es of, ng of, ould, ying, urse., who, nds., ause, first, 929., t his, e he,, resis-, little Tamil, and did not know the script at all. So I, very, had to teach them the script and the rudiments of grammar., That was easy enough. My pupils knew that they could any day, beat me in Tamil conversation, and when Tamilians, not know-, ing English, came to see me, they became my interpreters. I got, along merrily, because I never attempted to disguise my igno-, rance from my pupils. In all respects I showed myself to them, exactly as I really was. Therefore, in spite of my colossal igno-, rance of the language I never lost their love and respect. It was, comparatively easier to teach the Musalman boys Urdu. They, khew the script. I had simply to stimulate in them an interest in, reading and to improve their handwriting., These, sehooled. But I found in the course of my work that I had very, little to teach them, beyond weaning them from their laziness,, o try, will, neither, dI had, cct. The, roughly, classes, fore, of, youngsters were for the most part unlettered and un-

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want. I do not even of the, books that were I not find it at all to, pull on with boys of sub-, and As I was with I could, Of about which we hear so much, I felt the, 18 The Many Worlds of Literature, I am familian, possible only in, tion). But it is a, defer preparatic, stage of life atta, second and piti., I have a full re, was teaching,, expressed them, How then w, children memc, on moral train, jects in one and the same classroom., load the boys with quantities of books. I have always felt that, the true textbook for the pupil is his teacher. I remember, little that my teachers taught me from books, but I have even, now a clear recollection of the things they taught me indepen-, dently of books., Children take in much more and with less labour through, their ears than through their eyes. I do not remember having, read, very, came into clos, books that on, book from cover to cover with my boys. But I gave, any, them, in my own language, all that I had digested from my read-, ing of various books, and I dare say they are still carrying a, recollection of it in their minds. It was laborious for them to, remember what they learnt from books, but what I imparted to, them by word of mouth, they could repeat with the greatest, ease. Reading was a task for them, but listening to me was a, pleasure, when I did not bore them by failure to make my, subject interesting. And from the questions that, prompted them to put, I had a measure of their power of under-, standing., cal training w, intellectual th, the spirit was, And the exer, character of, of his p's and, It is possi, spirit of the, if I were a lia, would never, to self-restra, restraint. I, lesson to th, my, talks, Training of the Spirit, The spiritual training of the boys was a much more difficult, matter than their physical and mental training. I relied little on, rėligious books for the training of the spirit. Of course, !, believed that every student should be acquainted with the ele-, ments of his own religion and have a general knowledge of his, own scriptures, and therefore I provided for such knowledge, best I could. But that, to my mind, was part of the intellectual, training. Long before I undertook the education of the, sters of the Tolstoy Farm I had realized that the training of the, spirit was a thing by itself. To develop the spirits is to build, character and to enable one to work towards a knowledge of, God and self-realization. And I held that this was an essential, part of the training of the young, and that all training without, my teacher:, only for th., and restrain, due to thos, One of, some. On C, perated. I, angry. I tri, tried to ov, and delive, dare, as, -Bunok, say, them all., not becau

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ing driven to this this inci-, dent did he me. I still that I am, stoutly-built of but he realized my pain in be., 20 The Many Worlds of Literature, been so minded, have paid me back in the same coin, beine, 2. Why was Ga, List the lang, 3., How manyI, afraid I exhibited before him that day not the spirit, but th, brute, in me., I have always been opposed to corporeal punishment. I, member only one occasion on which I physically punished one, of my sons. I have, therefore, never until this day been able to, decide whether I was right or wrong in using the ruler. Probably it, was improper, for it was prompted by anger and a desire to pun-, ish. Had it been an expression only of my distress, I should have, considered it justified. But the motive in this case was mixed., This incident set me thinking and taught me a better method, of correcting students. I do not know whether that method would, have availed on the occasion in question. The youngster soon, forgot the incident, and I do not think he ever showed great, improvement. But the incident made me understand better the, duty of a teacher towards his pupils., Case of misconduct on the part of the boys often occurred, after this, but I never resorted to corporeal punishment. Thus, in my endeavour to impart spiritual training to the boys and, girls under me, I came to understand better and better the power, of the spirit., 4., Which were, 5., 6. How did Ga, 7. What accon, 8. What are ti, re-, 9. Why does, role-model, 10. Why did G, What was, 1., 12. In what wa, III. Composit, Write a pa, Ask yourse, Who is m, feel intere, he/she app, Gramma, AI, Read this, It would, truth., Can you, tion does, and 'tell", L Glossary, vernacular-language spoken in a country but is not the offi-, dal language, in this case it means their mother tongue., stimulate-to encourage, to arouse their interest., prompted-to remind, to help and encourage., unruly-indisciplined, uncontrollable., exasperated-annoyed or extremely angry, at the end of one's., patience., adamant-firm, refusing to budge, stubborn., overreach-try to do too much, to exceed limits., corporeal-physical, Some rula, would, 'were' e, other ve, Modal, should,, They de, .PIP, 10, II. Comprehension, 'would, 1., Why was literary training more difficult than physical train, ing? List some of the reasons mentioned by Gandhi., "Teach", but do-

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Training: Literary and Spiritual 19, Pinc, sub-, I am familiar with the superstition that self-realization is, possible only in the fourth stage of life, i.e. sannyasa (renuncia-, tion). But it is a matter of common knowledge that those who, defer preparation for this invaluable experience until the last, stage of life attain not self-realization but old age amounting to, second and pitiable childhood, living as a burden on this earth., I have a full recollection that I held these views even whilst I, was teaching, i.e. in 1911-12, though I might not then have, expressed them in identical language., How then was this spiritual training to be given? I made the, children memorize and recite hymns, and read to them books, on moral training. But that was far from satisfying me. As I, came into closer contact with them I saw that it was not through, books that one could impart training of the spirit. Just as physi-, cal training was to be imparted through physical exercise, and, intellectual through intellectual exercise, even so the training of, the spirit was possible only through the exercise of the spirit., And the exercise of the spirit entirely depended on the life and, character of the teacher. The teacher had always to be mindful, of his p's and q's, whether he was in the midst of his boys or not., It is possible for a teacher situated miles away to affect the, spirit of the pupils by his way of living. It would be idle for me,, if I were a liar, to teach boys to tell the truth. A cowardly teacher, would never succeed in making his boys valiant, and a stranger, to self-restraint could never teach his pupils the value of self-, restraint. I saw, therefore, that I must be an eternal object-, lesson to the boys and girls living with me. They thus became, my teachers, and I learnt I must be good and live straight, if, only for their sakes. I may say that the increasing discipline, and restraint I imposed on myself at Tolstoy Farm was mostly, due to those wards of mine., One of them was wild, unruly, given to lying, and quarrel-, some. On one occasion he broke out most violently. I was exas-, perated. I never punished my boys, but this time I was very, angry. I tried to reason with him. But he was adamant and even, tried to overreach me. At last, I picked up a ruler lying at hand, and delivered a blow on his arm. I trembled as I struck him. I, dare say he noticed it. This was an entirely novel experience fer, them all. The boy cried out and begged to be forgiven. He cried, not because the beating was painful to him; he could, if he had, the, the, VA, to, hat, ery, IE, HIN, ve, IN, a., st, a