The Washington herald., 1917-01-05
A New Kind Of Education
BY ORIsoN SWEET MARDEN,

Americans have had the privilege of
hearing during his recent lecture tour
in this country, has high ideals Of
education.
Struggling as we are with the prob
lem of adjusting our educational sys-
TEN to the practical needs and spirit
ual upliftment of Young America, the
great success of Tagore's expert
mental school at Bolpun. India, is
highly interesting and suggestive.
In his boyhood the great Hindu
poet, philosopher and teacher hated
the regulation schoolhouse. To him
it was prison house, which aroused
in him resentment and antagonism.
In those early days his eldest sister
said of this man, now among .the
most famous in the world, "We all
expected that Rabi would make a
mark in the world, but all our hopes
have been nipped in the bud by the
waywardness of this boy, and. now he
will be the only unsuccessful man in
the family"
1t was in 1908 that Tagore started
his school for boys. 1t opened with
only three or four pupils, and has
now some two hundred, with twenty
teachers, for its founder will not al
low any teacher to have more than
ten pupils.
His object is to make original, in
dependent thinkers, individual men,
and not uniform machines, of the
boys. Natural, normal self-expres-
sion, with the utmost freedom for
the development of individuality
seems to be one of the fundamental
objects of the school In this re-
spect the system is not unlike that
which has come to be known in
America as the Gary system"
How successfully it works may be
gathered from the fact that the boys
develop marvellous qualities, and are
really prepared to enter the univer-
sity two years earlier than the stu
dents in the government schools.
They also stand much higher in ath-
letics and in military training. This,
too, in spite of the fact that most of
them are boys whose parents send
them to the Tagore school because
they cannot control them at home.
AS one would naturally expect from
the high spiritual ideals of its founder,
the love atmosphere prevails in the
school in a most remarkable de-
gree. Teachers and pupils all speak
of it as "our school" So fas-
cinated are the boys with the life
there that many OF them cannot be
induced to go home at vacation, and
those who do go home beg to return
long before the vacation is over.
In other schools in India the teach
er is the terror of the pupils. But
Tagore's school is always one great
family. No one is afraid OF, or stands
in awe of any one else. No cross
words, no scolding, nagging or de-
nunciation are allowed in the school;
and, needless to say, no teacher is al
lowed to whip a pupil. In fact, all
matters of discipline are left to the
boys themselves. They conduct a
court in the school, to which all COM
plants are submitted, and when boy
is convicted of any offense he is al
lowed to name his own punishment.
Sometimes this will be to forego the
games which he loves for a certain
number of days, or some other form
of moral self-discipline. Corporal
punishment is tabooed.
The entire system Of living and
teaching is along lines of the. utmost
simplicity. Teachers and pupils all
rise at half past four o'clock in the
morning, make their own beds and
then so out singing songs and chant
ing hymns in praise Of the Lord Of the
universe, who is in the wood, in FIRE,
in medicine, who in fact, pervades
and permeates the universe with His
loving spirit.
The pupils are taught that human
brotherhood, which is unselhshness, is
one Of the great carnal principles of
life, and that it is a part of their edu-
cation to put the principle in practice.
This has such an effect on them that
even under the tropical sun they will
often work through the entire day,
without any remuneration, to help
some poor struggler.
Tagore does not believe in shut-in
schoolhouses or schoolrooms. He
wants to see the children grow with
the plants. So each student brings
his mat, spreads it on the earth, and
all study outdoors under the trees.
Everything is done naturally. Some
times the students will be found
studying an insect, sometimes the
trees, the flowers, or other objects of