Tagore told me of his own early educational sturggles. "I fled from school after the fifth grade," he said, laughing. I could readily understand how his innate poetic delicacy would be affronted by the dreary, disciplinary atmosphere of a schoolroom.
"That is why I opened Shantiniketan under the shady trees and the glories of the sky." He motioned eloquently to a little group studying in the beautiful garden. "A child is in his natural settinig amidst the flowers and the songbirds. There he may more easliy express the hidden wealth of his individual endowment. True education is not pumped and crammed in from outwards sources, but aids in bringing to the surface the infinite hoard of wisdon within."
I agreed, and added, "In ordinary schools the idealistic and hero-worshipping instincts of the young are starved on an exclusive diet of statistics and chronological eras."
P 306 - Autobiography of a Yogi
No comments:
Post a Comment