Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1915. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XI SHANTI NIKETAN Then they said to the mind, "Do you sing for us." "Yes," said the mind, and sang.--Upanishads. To know how education can be made musical, both in the old way and the new, we should turn to the school of peace at Shanti Niketan. In our idea of the Eastern mind the end of its intelligence was meditation; all Indian doctrine in our estimate pointed to a gradual absorption of the principle of life into the final perfection of rest. The path towards such a perfection being long and difficult, the exercises which were followed in order to attain it were correspondingly difficult and obscure. The whole of education seems to have consisted in the study of a moral and physical philosophy of definite character. The many gorgeous arts of India, her music, her science of healing, her language, her crafts, belonged to the domain of active life. Such accumulated knowledge of the arts of life was handed down from father to son, from mother to daughter. The schools and universities had no part in such knowledge; their training was for eternal ends. I am not sure that the training in reading and writing that came to be given to selected children in the village schools was not looked upon in the beginning as an initiation into the first step of the path to heavenly wisdom rather than as preparation for the art of living. The earliest shape taken by this idea of the philosophic school or university is found in the Ast am, or forest school, of ancient India. According to an old custom, the youth in his student days left home and went to stay with the Guru or wise man in his hermitage, there to lead the simple ascetic life of the learner and disciple, and to live close to the very heart of Mother Nature, away from all the excitements of cities. Thi...