Showing posts with label Tagore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tagore. Show all posts

2024/04/06

Nationalism: Tagore, Rabindranath Amazon Books

Nationalism: Tagore, Rabindranath: 9780143064671: Amazon.com: Books

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Nationalism Paperback – January 1, 2017
by Rabindranath Tagore (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 7,438 ratings
4.1 on Goodreads
2,380 ratings
Part of: Tagore Classics (6 books)


Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize. Nationalism is based on lectures delivered by him during the First World War. While the nations of Europe were doing battle, Tagore urged his audiences in Japan and the United States to eschew political aggressiveness and cultural arrogance. His mission, one might say, was to synthesize East and West, tradition and modernity. The lectures were not always well received at the time, but were chillingly prophetic. As Ramachandra Guha shows in his brilliant and erudite Introduction, it was by reading and speaking to Tagore that those founders of modern India, Gandhi and Nehru, developed a theory of nationalism that was inclusive rather than exclusive. Tagore's Nationalism should be mandatory reading in today's climate of xenophobia, sectarianism, violence and intolerance.
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Nationalism Paperback – January 1, 2017
by Rabindranath Tagore (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars    7,438 ratings 4.1 on Goodreads 2,380 ratings
Part of: Tagore Classics (6 books)
See all formats and editions

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize. Nationalism is based on lectures delivered by him during the First World War. While the nations of Europe were doing battle, Tagore urged his audiences in Japan and the United States to eschew political aggressiveness and cultural arrogance. His mission, one might say, was to synthesize East and West, tradition and modernity. The lectures were not always well received at the time, but were chillingly prophetic. As Ramachandra Guha shows in his brilliant and erudite Introduction, it was by reading and speaking to Tagore that those founders of modern India, Gandhi and Nehru, developed a theory of nationalism that was inclusive rather than exclusive. Tagore's Nationalism should be mandatory reading in today's climate of xenophobia, sectarianism, violence and intolerance.
Read less
   Report an issue with this product or seller
Part of series
Tagore Classics
Print length
156 pages
===

Books›Politics & Social Sciences›Politics & Government
Kindle  from $0.00
Hardcover  from $23.88
Paperback

Nationalism Paperback – January 1, 2017
by Rabindranath Tagore (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars    7,438 ratings 4.1 on Goodreads 2,380 ratings
Part of: Tagore Classics (6 books)
See all formats and editions


Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize. Nationalism is based on lectures delivered by him during the First World War. While the nations of Europe were doing battle, Tagore urged his audiences in Japan and the United States to eschew political aggressiveness and cultural arrogance. His mission, one might say, was to synthesize East and West, tradition and modernity. The lectures were not always well received at the time, but were chillingly prophetic. As Ramachandra Guha shows in his brilliant and erudite Introduction, it was by reading and speaking to Tagore that those founders of modern India, Gandhi and Nehru, developed a theory of nationalism that was inclusive rather than exclusive. Tagore's Nationalism should be mandatory reading in today's climate of xenophobia, sectarianism, violence and intolerance.
Read less
   Report an issue with this product or seller
Part of series
Tagore Classics
Print length
156 pages

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From the United States
THREEKAY
5.0 out of 5 stars The Cruel Idea Behind Making of a Nation
Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2014
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No wonder why this great poet and literature genius has been awarded the Nobel Prize. Anyone who reads this book clearly gets an understanding as to how much this author has studied human mind and its social aspects that had been troubling the humanity ever since power and materialistic possessions have taken over spiritual freedom.
The book is divided into three parts- Nationalism in the West, Nationalism of Japan and Nationalism in India.
Rabindranath’s idea about a Nation is that of an evolution of a great organization of human mind, wealth, machines and power to control the minds and bodies of all that is surrounding this great artificial body. As per him, Power is a scientific product made in the political laboratory of the Nation, through the dissolution of personal humanity. As per him the West is necessary to the East and vice versa. His main target is the British (whenever he referred as Nation) rule in India and its ill effects on the moral and spiritual efficacies of the people of India. He ripped apart the cruel motives behind the industrial, economic, educational, social and political policies of Europe against all those countries it invaded and captured with main focus on how it affected India, whose history has been made across different races over centuries of suffering and learning not by material organization but by natural social cooperation and spiritual freedom.
He praises Japan and America for its different approach towards Nationalism unlike Europe. He appreciates the ideology of these Nations which imbibed power and wealth through love and admiration but not through ambition and greed. He warns the forces of Nation against the creation of politicians, soldiers, manufacturers and bureaucrats which he says shall bring down the entire gigantic organization of the Nation one day to bite the dust. That would be the day when the East would come back into its hay days and start a new history. He appeals to Japan and America to view the ideologies and histories of many countries like India which cannot be called as Nations due to their diverse coexistence of different races with respect and positive approach instead of insulting them and treating them as beggars.

The reader would be awestruck to come across such a vast expanse of usage of English verbatim in this book. I am totally perplexed by the way European organization has been constructively criticized apart by the author at the same time warning it of the detrimental effects it would have if they force upon spiritual countries like India.

The author seems to have totally targeted the European way of conquering the World through its massive Organization of military and commerce, but seems to have ignored the benefits it brought upon all those countries it went to. The benefits might be undervalued compared to the exploitation and conflicts it created in those Nations.

My rating is 4.5 out of 5
11 people found this helpful
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Olakunle Odetola
4.0 out of 5 stars A good read
Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2020
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A philosophical approach to understanding nationalism in the late 18th and early 19th century. Prescient in some areas, the author recognized the significance and importance of Japan; touched on the racial inequalities in America and highlighted the dangers of the Indian caste system.
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John Newton
5.0 out of 5 stars A book very much for our times
Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2010
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This Penguin reprint is important and timely. I believe that, among other things, Tagore's NATIONALISM should be thoroughly read and carefully thought about by every member of both the British Parliament and the U.S. Congress and White House. (There are also closely related things in the middle pieces of Tagore's CREATIVE UNITY and in his LETTERS TO A FRIEND.) The indictment of the nationalism developed in the West and the account of the contrasting ways in which human beings have related to each other in older civilisations of the East have the strongest application to our own times. Knowledge of them could also promote a more sympathetic understanding of current suspicion of and hostility to the West. The West has given much to the rest of the world, but Tagore shows and/or reminds us that it also owes the world the gravest apology. He himself writes at one point in the later CREATIVE UNITY that the post-WW1 move to 'internationalism' made little difference to the arrogance and greed that still governed much of the West's behaviour to the rest of the world. Those vices obviously still govern much of it now, as in the appalling invasion of Iraq. The full and proper making of that grave apology to the rest of the world could help promote worldwide peace by being the start of a more concilatory because penitent attitude in the West - to, among others, the so-called Islamic 'extremists'.
3 people found this helpful
===
deepesh r
5.0 out of 5 stars Every human being must read this book
Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2019
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The book is divided into 3 chapters of approximately 40 pages each. Tagore explains the true meaning of Nationalism and explains it in the context or Japan, western culture and India. He explains that the kind of political nationalism of the west is farcical and India must not get into its trap. Over all this is a very good book and every one must read it to understand the true nature of Nationalism. It is highly relevant in the current Indian political climate. The writing is lucid with metaphors and poetic prose. Poem lovers will enjoy reading it. Anyone with class 10 knowledge of English can read and understand this book. You will enjoy reading it and will read it again and again. It makes you think.
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Kindle customer Kenneth W. Hatridge, 13730 Lake City Way NE, Apt 208, Seattle WA 98125
5.0 out of 5 stars good book - informative. Thank you for selling me this bookInformative book - I read with passion.
Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2018
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- I recommend this book that anyone need to know more about politics. Thanks for selling it me. I will recommend the book to my two daughters, who are adults now. Regards,
Kenneth W. Hatridge
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Jay
4.0 out of 5 stars Demistified Nationalism
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2013
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The book enlightens us about when and how the term nationalism got into use. Rabindranath Tagor explain us the dangers of commercial and political short sightedness. Nationalism in practice makes people fight against each other under the pseudo identity given by nationalism.

Book is very interested for the people who think about the society at large, worried about the fights between people under various banners, tries to find out the solution.

Book is not giving effective solution. It only makes readers to think over the issues.
3 people found this helpful
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Luis A. R. Branco
5.0 out of 5 stars It is a great book!
Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2014
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It is a great book, written by a great writer. Tagore with his triadic view that included Europe (West), Japan and India gives us a high meaning of the human kind and the formation of the society. It is a great book with an touching end with one of Tagore's poem.
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AB
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2017
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Makes me feel like a philosopher
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2016
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Good read
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Eddie Gould
5.0 out of 5 stars Culture view
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2013
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Such great insights. Wonderful to be able to compare culture and foresight from a century ago. Great and beautiful intelligence!
One person found this helpful
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Hindu Spirituality: Postclassical and Modern Bk. 2 (World Spirituality): Mukerji, Bithika: 9780334026976: Amazon.com: Books

Hindu Spirituality: Postclassical and Modern Bk. 2 (World Spirituality): Mukerji, Bithika: 9780334026976: Amazon.com: Books

https://www.scribd.com/document/566253577/Hindu-Spirituality-Post-Classical-and-Modern-Krishna-Sivaraman-text

https://archive.org/stream/GmjK_hindu-spirituality-post-classical-and-modern-krishna-sivaraman/Hindu%20Spirituality%20Post%20Classical%20and%20Modern%20-%20Krishna%20Sivaraman_djvu.txt



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Hindu Spirituality: Postclassical and Modern Bk. 2 (World Spirituality) Paperback – Import, July 1, 1997
by Bithika Mukerji (Editor)













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The Indian Testimony by Amiya Chakravarty | Goodreads

The Indian Testimony by Amiya Chakravarty | Goodreads







The Indian Testimony

Amiya Chakravarty
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In a very interesting essay Amiya Chakravarty discusses the Indian philosophy of peace. The great merit of this philosophy consists in the fact that it goes back to first principles. Peace, it insists, is more than a mere matter of political and economic arrangements. Because man stands on the borderline between the animal and the divine, the temporal and the eternal, peace on earth possesses a cosmic significance. Every violent extinction of a human life has a transcendent and eternal significance. Moreover the mind of the universe is, among other things, the peace that passes understanding. Man’s final end is the realization that, in his essence, he is one with the universal mind. But if he would realize his identity with the peace that passes understanding, he must begin by living in the peace that does not pass understanding—peace between nations and groups, peace in personal relationships, peace within the divided and multiple personality. There are many excellent utilitarian reasons for refraining from violence; but the ultimate and completely cogent reason is metaphysical in its nature.




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Published August 11, 2017

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April 3, 2022
The pamphlet reflects the religious and nationalistic beliefs of the author, interpreting India’s historical blending of Hindu, Jainism, Buddhist, Islam and Christianity. Pacifism is so greatly the goal that the warring aspects of the Gita are simply dismissed as errant. The violent aspects of the other religious texts and histories are not mentioned. Perhaps the interpretation reflects the enthusiasm of the times for Indian, a young independent nation still setting its borders and relationship with newly formed Pakistan. And the country’s desire to stay neutral in the growing polarization of the Cold War. Yet there is also recognition of young India’s deep challenges in addressing poverty, hunger and population growth.

The forward by Aldous Huxley contains a few statements worth quoting:

“Those who seek simple solutions for complex problems may have the best of intentions; but unfortunately, there is an original sin of the intellect in our habit of arbitrary over-simplification.” (p. 3)

“The principal elements of our complex problem are these: First, some persons are organically tough, aggressive, ruthless, and power-loving. Second, the effective, although not yet the nominal, religion of the twentieth century is nationalistic idolatry. Monotheism, which never enjoyed more than a precarious experience, has everywhere been replaced by the worship of homemade local dieties… The Third major element in our problem is the fact that the population of our planet is increasing much faster than presently available supplies of food and raw materials. Hunger is a principal cause of political revolution and, in a nationalistic context, of war.” (p. 4)

From Chakravarty, we receive this reminder: “the greatest danger comes from minds which will oppose evil with evil and call it good.” (p. 12)

“Violence or evil, in an external form or intent, can never be a cure for violence and evil. Both oppose the law of existence; they deny, arbitrarily, the right of existence of others. In this sense, we have already participated in the crime of homicide if we have mentally considered others to be expendable, if we have denied them the right to live.” (p. 15)
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tagoreanworld
https://tagoreanworld.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/tagores-brief-writings/
World Change as conceived by Rabindranath Tagore

Theorising World Change
Chris Marsh
← The Occupy Movement: a commentaryTagorean Swadeshi →

The Essential Tagore — Harvard U Press

The Essential Tagore — Harvard University Press





The Essential Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore

Edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarty

Paperback
eBook


ISBN 9780674417045

Publication date: 11/24/2014

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The Essential Tagore showcases the genius of India’s Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian Nobel Laureate and possibly the most prolific and diverse serious writer the world has ever known.

Marking the 150th anniversary of Tagore’s birth, this ambitious collection—the largest single volume of his work available in English—attempts to represent his extraordinary achievements in ten genres: poetry, songs, autobiographical works, letters, travel writings, prose, novels, short stories, humorous pieces, and plays. 

In addition to the newest translations in the modern idiom, it includes a sampling of works originally composed in English, his translations of his own works, three poems omitted from the published version of the English Gitanjali, and examples of his artwork.

Tagore’s writings are notable for their variety and innovation. His Sonar Tari signaled a distinctive turn toward the symbolic in Bengali poetry. “The Lord of Life,” from his collection Chitra, created controversy around his very personal concept of religion. Chokher Bali marked a decisive moment in the history of the Bengali novel because of the way it delved into the minds of men and women. The skits in Vyangakautuk mocked upper-class pretensions. Prose pieces such as “The Problem and the Cure” were lauded by nationalists, who also sang Tagore’s patriotic songs.

Translations for this volume were contributed by Tagore specialists and writers of international stature, including Amitav Ghosh, Amit Chaudhuri, and Sunetra Gupta.View More


Praise

There have been a number of attempts, in the century since Yeats made [the] request, to give the English reader a fuller and more accurate sense of Rabindranath Tagore—through new translations, anthologies of his work, critical studies, and biographies. But The Essential Tagore, published to coincide with the hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of Tagore’s birth, is the most substantial one yet.

—Adam Kirsch, New YorkerView More

Authors
Fakrul Alam is Professor of English at the University of Dhaka.
Radha Chakravarty is Associate Professor of English at Gargi College, University of Delhi.

A Tagore reader : Tagore, Rabindranath, 1861-1941 : Internet Archive

A Tagore reader : Tagore, Rabindranath, 1861-1941 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

A Tagore reader

Letters From A Young Poet (Chaudhuri, Rosinka Tagore, Rabindranath) | PDF

Letters From A Young Poet (Chaudhuri, Rosinka Tagore, Rabindranath) | PDF | Rabindranath Tagore

Letters From A Young Poet (Chaudhuri, Rosinka Tagore, Rabindranath)


Letters from a Young Poet 1887-1895 Mass Market Paperback – 27 August 2014


As a young man, Rabindranath Tagore wrote a series of letters to his niece during what he described as the most productive period of his life. By turns contemplative and playful, gentle and impassioned, Tagore's letters abound in incredible insights - from sharply comical portrayals of English sahibs to lively anecdotes about family life, from thoughts on the nature of poetry to spiritual contemplation and inner feeling. And coursing through all these letters, like a ceaseless heartbeat, is Tagore's deep love for the natural splendour of Bengal. In this manner, this volume also serves as a prose companion to his magnificent work Gitanjali. Shimmering with wit and warmth, Letters from a Young Poet offers unforgettable vignettes of the young poet in those happy days before extraordinary fame found him.

Translated by Rosinka Chaudhuri

'A towering figure in the millennium-old literature of Bengal.' Amartya Sen

Letters from a Young Poet 1887-1895 Mass Market Paperback – 27 August 2014
by Tagore Rabindranath (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars    9
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As a young man, Rabindranath Tagore wrote a series of letters to his niece during what he described as the most productive period of his life. By turns contemplative and playful, gentle and impassioned, Tagore's letters abound in incredible insights - from sharply comical portrayals of English sahibs to lively anecdotes about family life, from thoughts on the nature of poetry to spiritual contemplation and inner feeling. And coursing through all these letters, like a ceaseless heartbeat, is Tagore's deep love for the natural splendour of Bengal. In this manner, this volume also serves as a prose companion to his magnificent work Gitanjali. Shimmering with wit and warmth, Letters from a Young Poet offers unforgettable vignettes of the young poet in those happy days before extraordinary fame found him.

Translated by Rosinka Chaudhuri

'A towering figure in the millennium-old literature of Bengal.' Amartya Sen

Review
Of all of Rabindranath s prose, I have read Chinnapatra the most frequently throughout my life. When I first went abroad, I was very careful to keep it with me always - so that, from a distance of twelve thousand miles, I could sometimes touch the heart of Bengal --Buddhadeva Bose

A towering figure in the millennium-old literature of Bengal --Amartya Sen
About the Author
Rabindranath Tagore (1861 1941) received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He produced some sixty collections of verse, nearly a hundred short stories, several novels, plays, dance dramas, essays on religious, social and literary topics, and over 2500 songs, including the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.

Rosinka Chaudhuri completed her DPhil at Oxford University and is a professor in the cultural studies department at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. She has been visiting fellow at the Southern Asian Institute, Columbia University, and Charles Wallace Fellow at Cambridge University. She is the author of Gentlemen Poets in Colonial Bengal, Freedom and Beef-Steaks and The Literary Thing. She has edited Derozio, Poet of India and co-edited The Indian Postcolonial.
Product details
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin; 1st edition (27 August 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 424 pages

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jaya
5.0 out of 5 stars It is the best choice for someone seeking philosophy and humor at same ...
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It's the way of life seen through nature. It is the best choice for someone seeking philosophy and humor at same time. You feel the landscapes described
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The book didn’t reach me in the best condition.
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Indian Writing in English Poetry Syllabus | PDF | Rabindranath Tagore | Poetry

Indian Writing in English Poetry Syllabus | PDF | Rabindranath Tagore | Poetry


 
CONTENTS

Sl.NoSl.No TitleTitle

1Gitanjali
2Enterprise
3The Fancy Dress Show
4Father Returning Home
5Servants
6ExileAThe Garden
7BObituary
8Recollections of my Early Life
9Tughlaq
10Waiting for the Mahatma



Rabindranath Tagore’s School at Shantiniketan - New Learning Online

Rabindranath Tagore’s School at Shantiniketan - New Learning Online

Rabindranath Tagore’s School at Shantiniketan

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), poet, short story writer, playwright and novelist, is regarded as one of the greatest of modern Indian writers, winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. Born into a wealthy Bengali family during the period of British rule, he became a friend of the founders of independent India, Nehru and Gandhi. Educated by private tutors, Tagore went to study law at University College, London, but dropped out after a year. 

He developed an intense dislike of conventional, Western education and put a great deal of energy into establishing a school and later a university at a place in the poor, rural hinterland of Bengal, Shantiniketan. When Maria Montessori visited the school in 1939, she declared that she was in complete sympathy with its founder’s philosophy of education.

 In India, Rabindranath Tagore created a form of authentic education which he believed was more true to the needs children growing up in rural India than conventional, didactic schooling.



Children’s minds are sensitive to the influences of the world. Their subconscious minds are active, always imbibing some lesson, and realizing the joy of knowing. This sensitive receptivity allows them, without any strain, to master language, which is the most complex and difficult instrument of expression, full of indefinable ideas and abstract symbols … Because of this, their introduction to the world of reality is easy and joyful.

In this critical period, the child’s life is subjected to the education factory, lifeless, colourless, dissociated from the context of the universe, within bare white walls staring like eyeballs of the dead. We are born with that God-given gift of taking delight in the world, but such delightful activity is fettered and imprisoned, muted by a force called discipline which kills the sensitiveness of the child mind which is always on the alert, restless and eager to receive first-hand knowledge from mother nature. We sit inert, like dead specimens of some museum, while lessons are pelted on us from on high, like hail stones on flowers.

In childhood we learn our lessons with the aid of both body and mind, with all the senses active and eager. When we are sent to school, the doors of natural information are closed to us; our eyes see the letters, our ears the abstract lessons, but our mind misses the perpetual stream of ideas from nature, because the teachers, in their wisdom, think these bring distraction, and have no purpose behind them … [N]ature, the greatest or all teachers, is thwarted at every step by the human teacher who believes in machine-made lessons rather than life lessons, so the growth of the child’s mind is not only injured, but forcibly spoiled.

Children should be surrounded with the things of nature which have their own educational value. Their minds should be allowed to stumble upon and be surprised at everything that happens in today’s life …

The child learns so easily because he has a natural gift, but adults, because they are tyrants, ignore natural gifts and say that children should learn through the same process that they learned by. We insist upon forced mental feeding and our lessons become a form of torture. This is one of man’s most cruel and wasteful mistakes.

Because I underwent this process when I was young, and remember the torture of it, I tried to establish a school where boys might be free in spite of the school. Knowing something of the natural school which Nature supplies to all her creatures, I established my institution in a beautiful spot, far away from town, where the children had the greatest freedom possible …

[T]he schools in our country, far from being integrated to society, are imposed on it from the outside. The courses they teach are dull and dry, painful to learn, and useless when learnt. There is nothing in common between the lessons the pupils cram up from ten to four o’clock and the country where they live … It is clear, therefore, that although we might succeed in copying to perfection the externals of the European school … we shall only be burdening ourselves with tables and benches, rules and curricula … We must put the European model entirely out of our minds, if only for the reason that the European history and European society are different from our history and our society.

[In] the ancient India the school was where life itself was. There the students were brought up, not in the academic atmosphere of scholarship and learning, or in the maimed life of monastic seclusion, but in the atmosphere of living aspiration. They took the cattle to pasture, collected firewood, gathered fruit, cultivated kindness to all creatures and grew in their spirit with their teachers’ own spiritual growth …

That this traditional relationship of masters and disciples is not a mere romantic fiction is proved by the relic we still possess of the indigenous system of education which has preserved its independence for centuries to be about to succumb at last to the hand of foreign bureaucratic control. These chatus-pathis, which is the Sanskrit name for the university, have not the savour of the school about them. The students live in their master’s home like the children of the house, without having to pay for their board and lodging or tuition. The teacher prosecutes his own study, living a life of simplicity, and helping the students in their lessons as a part of his life and not his profession.

L.K. Elmhirst was an English agricultural scientist who became Tagore’s friend and took responsibility for the operation of Tagore’s school. Here he describes what the children in the school did:

[T]he following functions [are] treated as of primary educational importance:

  • Care and cleaning and construction of quarters.
  • Care and proper use of latrines; sanitary disposal of waste.

  • Cooking and serving of food; clothes washing and repair.

  • Personal hygiene and healthy habits.

  • Individual self-discipline; group self-government.

  • Policing and hospitality; fire drill and control.

In every one of these, there is some art to be mastered, some business or organizing capacity to be developed, some law of science to be recognised, and in all of theme there is a call for the recognition of the need for individual self-preservation as well as of the duties, responsibilities and privileges of family membership and citizenship.

Much of what is termed housecraft is in the nature of handicraft, but, from the earliest years, it is well to introduce to the children some special craft, easily grasped by small hands, which is of definite economic value. The product should be of real use in the home, or have a ready sale outside, and thus enable the child to realize his capacity for self-preservation through the trained experience of his hands.

Any of the following can be mastered in a few weeks:Cotton wick, tape and band making; scarf weaving and belt making; cotton rug and duree making (the looms can easily be made by the children themselves, out of bamboo.)

Straw-sandal making. Straw-mat and mattress making.

Sewing; paper making; ink making.

Dyeing with simple vegetable dyes; cotton and calico printing with wood blocks.

Making sun-dried mud bricks …

There are few of the crafts mentioned above which are not in some way intimately bound up with the life of the country-folk. With each of them there is a grammar of procedure which has to be learned, but it is a grammar which is not detached from life …

Of all workshops the one provided by Nature herself is the most commodious and helpful. Under skilled stimulation and guidance there is out-of-doors an unlimited field for experiencing and experimenting with life. The schoolmaster here is an anachronism. He can no longer tower over his pupils from his rostrum and threaten them with his power to grant or withhold marks and certificates. He is forced to adopt his rightful place behind the student, ever on the watch, ever ready with a word of advice or encouragement, ever ready to be a student himself, but never in the way.

***

Also, an educational parable by Tagore, The Parrot's Tale.

Tagore, Rabindranath. 1925 (1961). ‘Talks in China.’ in A Tagore Reader, edited by Amiya Chakravarty. Boston: Beacon Press. pp. 213–215.

—. 1961 (1906). ‘The Problem of Education.’ in Towards Universal Man. London: Asia Publishing House. pp. 68–69.

—. 1917 (1961). ‘My School.’ in A Tagore Reader, edited by Amiya Chakravarty. Boston: Beacon Press. p. 222.

Elmhirst, L.K. 1961 (1925). ‘Siksha-Satra.’ in Rabindranath Tagore, Pioneer in Education: Essays and Exchanges between Rabindranath Tagore and L.K. Elmhirst, edited by Rabindranath Tagore and L.K. Elmhirst. London: John Murray. pp. 69–70, 71–72. || Amazon || WorldCat