EDUCATION through a foreign language entails a certain degree of strain, and our boys have to pay dearly for it. To a large extent, they lose the capacity of shouldering any other burden afterwards, for, they become a useless lot who are weak of body, without any zest for work, and mere imitators of the West. They have little interest in original research or deep thinking, and the qualities of courage, perseverance, bravery and farelessness are lacking. That is why we are unable to make new plans or carry out projects to meet our problems. In case we make them, we fail to implement them. A few who do show promise, usually die young. An Englishman writes that there is the same difference between Europeans and the people of other countries as between an original piece of writing and its impression on a piece of blotting paper. The element of truth contained in this statement is not to be attributed to any natural or innate incapacity on the part of the Asians. The reason lies, in a large measure, in the unsuitability of the medium of instruction.

Lord Curzon''s Charge

The school must be an extension of home ; there must be concordance between the impressions which a child gathers at home and at school, — if the best results are to be obtained. Education, through the medium of a strange tongue, breaks the concordance which should exist. Those who break this relationship are the enemies of the people, even though their motives may be honest. To be a voluntary victim of this system of education, is as good as the betrayal of our duty to our mothers. The harm done by this alien type of education does not stop here ; it goes much further. It has produced a gulf between the educated classes and the masses. The people look on us as beings apart from them. They do not rely on us ; they regard us as sahibs to be feared. If this situation lasts much longer, the time might well arrive when Lord Curzon''s charge, that the educated classes do not represent the common people, would be true.

Education Through Mother-Tongue

When we receive education through our own language, our relations with people at home will take on a different character. To-day, we cannot make our wives real life-companions. They have very little knowledge of what we do outside. In the same way, our parents have no idea of what we learn at school. If, however, we receive education through our mother-tongue, we can quite easily transmit all that we learn at the school to our servants—the washerman, barber, bhangi (sweeper) and others, and thus educate them. In England, we can discuss politics with the hair-dresser while he cuts our hair. Here, we cannot do so even with the members of our own families. It is not because they are ignorant. They also know about many things,—though, perhaps, different ones. We talk with them on the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and of sacred places of pilgrimage, because it is these things which our people hear and learn about. But the knowledge we get at school does not seep down to others, not even to the members of our families, because we cannot impart to them what we learn in English.

— True Education : pp. 7-17

Evils of Foreign Medium

The foreign medium has caused brain—flag, put an undue strain upon the nerves of our children, made them crammers and imitators, unfitted them for original work and thought, and disabled them for filtrating their learning to the family or the masses.

The foreign medium has made our children practically foreigners in their own land. It is the greatest tragedy of the existing system. The foreign medium has prevented the growth of our vernaculars. If I had the powers of a despot, I would to-day stop the tuition of our boys and girls through a foreign medium, and require all the teachers and professors, on pain of dismissal, to introduce the change forthwith. I would not wait for the preparation of text-books. They will follow the change. It is an evil that needs a summary remedy.

— Young India : Sept. 1, 1921