All the time that I have been developing my ideas in this paper a secret uneasiness has never been absent from my mind, reminding me that these ideas would have to be submitted to the scrutiny of practical men - those men who have a natural suspicion of all pictures of completeness because of their perfection. They are sure to ask with pitiless gravity: 'All that you discuss and describe may be true, or what is far worse, beautiful - but is it possible.'
Not being a practical man myself, my answer will be: 'Whatever is true is real. Reality is related to truth, as the canvas to the picture - it must be there at the back.' And if my Ideal of the centre of Indian culture has any truth, it can be, and therefore must be, realized at all costs.
The one practical question which has to be answered, before all else, is the economic question: what adjustments should be made whereby such institutions can naturally maintain themselves and one day be independent, not only of the patronage of the rich, but of the dead imposition of their own accumulated funds. The wealth and honour which, once for all, are bequeathed to us, which we do not have to earn or produce, which never cease to be, whether we deserve them or not - these gradually and inevitably cripple our life and are sure to make us indolent and exclusive, bringing about stagnation of soul. They remain like the marble landing-stairs of a river, when the stream has changed its course. Therefore we must think out some scheme by which our truly national organization should be made to earn its own necessities by its own constant efforts, and thus perpetually keep in real touch with the life of the future ages and not continue its existence as a parasite feeding upon the charity of the past.
We are thus faced with two stupendous problems: the first, about our poverty of intellectual life; the second, about the poverty of our material life.
The first, I have discussed in some detail in this paper. I have come to the conclusion that for the perfection of our mental life the co-ordination of all our cultural resources is necessary. I have found that our present English education is, for our minds, a kind of food which contains only one particular ingredient needful for our vitality, and even that not fresh, but dried and- packed in tins. In our true food we must have co-ordination of all different ingredients - and most of these, not as laboratory products, or in a desiccated condition, but as organic things, similar to our own living tissues.
Our material poverty, likewise, can only be removed by the co-ordination of our material resources through the co-operation of our individual powers. And the basis of our institution should be laid upon this economic cooperation. It must not only instruct, but live; not only think, but produce. Our tapovanas, which were our natural Universities, were not abstracted from life. There the masters and students lived their full life; they gathered their fruit and fuel; they took their cattle to graze; and the spiritual education, which the students had, was a part of the spiritual life itself which comprehended all life. Our centre of culture should not only be the centre of the intellectual life of India, but the centre of her economic life also. It must cultivate land, breed cattle, to feed itself and its students; it must produce all necessaries, devising the best means and using the best materials, calling science to its aid. Its very existence should depend upon the success of its industrial ventures carried out on the co-operative principle, which will unite the teachers and students in a living and active bond of necessity. This will give us also a practical industrial training, whose motive force is not the greed of profit.
Such an institution must group round it all the neighbouring villages and vitally unite them with itself in all its economic endeavours. Their housing accommodation, sanitation, the improvement of their moral and intellectual life - these should form the object of the social side of its activity. In a word, it should never be like a meteor - only a stray fragment of a world - but a complete world in itself, self-sustaining, independent, rich with ever-renewing life, radiating light across space and time, attracting and maintaining round it a planetary system of dependent bodies, imparting life-breath to the complete man, who is intellectual as well as economic, bound by social bonds and aspiring towards spiritual freedom.
Not being a practical man myself, my answer will be: 'Whatever is true is real. Reality is related to truth, as the canvas to the picture - it must be there at the back.' And if my Ideal of the centre of Indian culture has any truth, it can be, and therefore must be, realized at all costs.
The one practical question which has to be answered, before all else, is the economic question: what adjustments should be made whereby such institutions can naturally maintain themselves and one day be independent, not only of the patronage of the rich, but of the dead imposition of their own accumulated funds. The wealth and honour which, once for all, are bequeathed to us, which we do not have to earn or produce, which never cease to be, whether we deserve them or not - these gradually and inevitably cripple our life and are sure to make us indolent and exclusive, bringing about stagnation of soul. They remain like the marble landing-stairs of a river, when the stream has changed its course. Therefore we must think out some scheme by which our truly national organization should be made to earn its own necessities by its own constant efforts, and thus perpetually keep in real touch with the life of the future ages and not continue its existence as a parasite feeding upon the charity of the past.
We are thus faced with two stupendous problems: the first, about our poverty of intellectual life; the second, about the poverty of our material life.
The first, I have discussed in some detail in this paper. I have come to the conclusion that for the perfection of our mental life the co-ordination of all our cultural resources is necessary. I have found that our present English education is, for our minds, a kind of food which contains only one particular ingredient needful for our vitality, and even that not fresh, but dried and- packed in tins. In our true food we must have co-ordination of all different ingredients - and most of these, not as laboratory products, or in a desiccated condition, but as organic things, similar to our own living tissues.
Our material poverty, likewise, can only be removed by the co-ordination of our material resources through the co-operation of our individual powers. And the basis of our institution should be laid upon this economic cooperation. It must not only instruct, but live; not only think, but produce. Our tapovanas, which were our natural Universities, were not abstracted from life. There the masters and students lived their full life; they gathered their fruit and fuel; they took their cattle to graze; and the spiritual education, which the students had, was a part of the spiritual life itself which comprehended all life. Our centre of culture should not only be the centre of the intellectual life of India, but the centre of her economic life also. It must cultivate land, breed cattle, to feed itself and its students; it must produce all necessaries, devising the best means and using the best materials, calling science to its aid. Its very existence should depend upon the success of its industrial ventures carried out on the co-operative principle, which will unite the teachers and students in a living and active bond of necessity. This will give us also a practical industrial training, whose motive force is not the greed of profit.
Such an institution must group round it all the neighbouring villages and vitally unite them with itself in all its economic endeavours. Their housing accommodation, sanitation, the improvement of their moral and intellectual life - these should form the object of the social side of its activity. In a word, it should never be like a meteor - only a stray fragment of a world - but a complete world in itself, self-sustaining, independent, rich with ever-renewing life, radiating light across space and time, attracting and maintaining round it a planetary system of dependent bodies, imparting life-breath to the complete man, who is intellectual as well as economic, bound by social bonds and aspiring towards spiritual freedom.
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