December 11, 2018 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
Provisions of the English Education Act of 1835
We saw last night that thanks to the
vehement and convincing writing in the “Minute” of Lord Macaulay the
Governor-General William Bentinck passed the English Education Act of 1835
through the Council of India with the four provisions that almost verbatim
matched the ideas of Macaulay.
According to the first provision all the
funds either from the British Government or the East India Company ought to be
allocated towards the goal of promotion of English literature and sciences in
the education of the natives of India.
Secondly, though the education of the
native studies would not be abolished immediately and the current batch of both
the professors and the students would continue to receive their stipends.
But any student who were to join such
colleges or universities imparting native education would cease to receive
funding from the British government (in the form of loss of stipends) as such an
aid would artificially promote an education that that very little utility.
Thirdly, all funds from the British
Government that were being directed towards the printing of Oriental works
would cease with immediate effect.
Fourthly, all the revenue that will be
saved as a result of the above three reforms would be utilized for the
exclusive dissemination of English literature and sciences with English as the
medium of instruction to the native population of India.
And so it came to be that the story telling
chimpanzee writes to you in English and not in Arabic, Persian or Hindi.
I must point out that even though Lord
Macaulay showed remarkable foresight regarding English and Indians it is often
seen that ‘English Education’ can be acquired quite admirably by Hindus and
Moslems without necessarily (or rather almost certainly unlikely) acquiring its
cultural attributes.
For instance ‘English Education’ does very
little to liberate the Hindus and Moslems from their superstitious beliefs or
religious practices.
This is very much evident today when you
see scientists of the Indian Space Research Organization performing religious
rituals before launch of satellites not only in their personal capacity but
also in the official capacity of a government official.
There is nothing wrong or right about it
(though it surely is unconstitutional) but the message that is sent out
terrifies me because when the most learned and wise men publicly display such
attributes there is very little left to expect from the average apes.
After all the term “Rocket Science” is a
byword for something extremely complicated and intractable to grasp.
An Englishman by the name of John Stuart
Mill, a great philosopher and a deep thinker, also took a keen interest in the
behavior of the learned Indians who were getting English educated.
Like me he also took an interest in logic
and published a treatise ‘A System of Logic’ in 1843 which would later have an
impact on the German mathematical logician Gottlob Frege.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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