Chapter X: The Religious Element in Education

“Education, education--education about what? Education about matter, mere material things, thoughts and ideas. Education, according to the Vedas, is the opening of the petals of the mind-lotus to the rays of the spiritual sun, and that is what we now want first.” --Swami Baba Pramânand Bhârati.

The analysis of the religious element in education is a deep and subtle problem, and yet, at the same time, this element is the touchstone by which all systems of education are ultimately tested. The formation of independent thought and judgment, and of an upright character, spontaneously moral, may lead in adolescent years to the attainment of some unifying philosophy of life which shall dominate and satisfy the religious nature. The successful quest of this during the “silent period,” and the re-interpretation of it during a college career, must be the aim of all education. How is this aim to be achieved? The separation of religion from education in a Christian country, where morality is under the corporate sanction of inherited religious tradition, may be a dangerous experiment, but it is made under the supposition that the influence of home and Church will supplement the teaching at school. In India, a country of conflicting faiths, all in a period of transition, and withal a country of deep religious instinct, the case is different. There is no corporate sanction: religion and moral principles are not necessarily kindred terms; the influence of school and of home are often diverse, and thus the former, if it is in any sense to be the builder of character, must include religion as the only unifying educational factor. Theoretically, this statement is justified and endorsed, not only by missionary enthusiasts, but by official opinion and by Indian sentiment in so far as it is articulate; its practical endorsement, on the other hand, is one of the most difficult problems of Indian administration. A brief sketch of the attitude of Government in the past, and of the modern desire for its modification may serve to show the relation which this question bears to the present development of women’s education.

The great educational Charter of 1854 established the Indian system on the only basis which seemed in accord with our whole Indian policy--that of religious neutrality; but it was not, as is sometimes erroneously supposed, an endorsement of a wholly secular policy. The Government could not of itself undertake direct religious teaching in its own schools, but the system of “grants-in-aid” with which it endowed the voluntary schools was “based on an entire abstinence from interference with the religious instruction conveyed in the schools assisted.” “The framers of this Despatch entertained the hope that under its provisions Hindu, Mohammedan, and Christian managers would supply, each class in its own particular way, what was already known to be a great defect of the course of instruction in Government institutions. The same hope was one of the chief reasons that led the Education Commission to make and the Government of India to adopt the recommendation that ‘the improvement and extension of institutions under private management be the principal care of the Department.’”[151] At the same time many of its members believed that even the more secular instruction given in the Government schools would remove ignorance and superstition, and ultimately pave the way towards the acceptance of Christianity. Moreover, definite provision was made for the inquiring mind. “The Bible is, we understand, placed in the libraries of the colleges and schools, and the pupils are freely able to consult it. This is as it should be; and, moreover, we have no desire to prevent, or discourage, any explanations which the pupils may of their own free-will ask from the masters on the subject of the Christian religion, provided that such information be given out of school hours.” The agitation of those who wished a more definitely Christian attitude to be adopted aimed at voluntary teaching of the Bible, where a suitable teacher could be procured, and a suggestion of teaching the Indian religions parallel with it is scarcely found. The argument, as it might be presented to an Indian expostulating in favour of neutrality, is thus put in Sir John Lawrence’s Despatches:--“We offer you the Bible in our Government schools because we believe it to be for your inestimable good if you choose to listen to it. We do not wish you to study it unless you do so voluntarily. But you cannot expect us to help in teaching your religion, which we do not believe to be true. That you can do for yourselves.”[152] “The Indian religions ought not to be taught; they have ample means of their own for doing this.” It should be noted that at this time the Samājes had not arisen, nor the Hindu reform movement, and that the Western comprehension of things Indian and religious was much more limited than it is now. The Despatch of 1859, after reviewing the various arguments for the modification of the “secular” policy, finally sums up--“They [Her Majesty’s Government] are unable, therefore, to sanction any modification of the rule of strict religious neutrality, as it has hitherto been enforced in the Government schools, and it accordingly remains that the Holy Scriptures being kept in the library, and being open to all the pupils who may wish to study them, and the teachers being at liberty to afford instruction and explanations regarding them to all who may voluntarily seek it, the course of study in all Government Institutions be, as heretofore, confined to secular subjects.”[153] The emphasis on the place of the aided school and the Government school has varied in the different periods of Indian administration and in different localities, but in the main in the education of boys the Government or municipal school has predominated. Its possible religious influence has been negative; and while there is no record of the English teacher expounding the Bible to inquiring minds after school hours, as the Despatches fondly picture, there is ample evidence that the Western education introduced sapped the foundations of ancient belief and substituted no new positive sanction of moral principles. The Hindu and Mohammedan effort of the early days on Western lines was also, with the exception of Aligarh College, largely on a secular basis. Thus, the place of definite religious teaching was confined to the schools under missionary management, and though their influence, especially in South India, has been enormous, it can in no sense be considered conterminous with Western education in India. A predominantly secular education has therefore produced its own fruits, and a discussion of it when so much literature already exists on the subject is superfluous.

The modern reaction is manifest in popular speeches, in the Press, and in Government reports. An Indian writer pleads that the Durbar boon of additional grants for education is no boon, but a curse, if it perpetuate only the “nauseatingly materialistic, all-intellectual, and soul-killing system,” and is not in consonance with the “natural ideals, national aspirations, and the world-old mental characteristics”[154] of the Indian people. It would be easy to multiply quotations in grandiloquent language, which, for all their quaintness, have a strong element of truth. Parallel with the plea for religious instruction, and to a certain extent confused with it, is the plea for moral instruction, either apart from or based on religion. The most trustworthy evidence as to the extent of this demand and its somewhat incoherent nature was given at the Government Educational Conference held recently in Allahabad, when a whole day was devoted to the subject of Moral and Religious Education. The preceding questionnaire inquired (_a_) how far moral lessons were included in the ordinary Primary readers, (_b_) whether special moral text-books were in use, (_c_) whether direct moral instruction was given and appreciated, (_d_) whether the trend of public opinion was really in favour of moral instruction in the schools, and finally (_e_) whether any divergent views thereon were based on differences of creed. Most of the provinces reported a certain element of moral instruction in the shape of stories and poetry in the readers, with the comment that these were mainly used as reading or grammar lessons, or else were too didactically taught to have any lasting effect. Certain moral text-books are in use, but these are mainly of a religious nature and found in the newer Indian schools. The “Sanatana Dharma” series, issued by the Central Hindu College, Benares, which attempts to deal only with basal principles of religion, is used by the Surat municipality, in Mysore, in Baroda and elsewhere, but is not generally acceptable to orthodox Hindus. The classic Bhaghavat Gita--an eclectic synopsis reconciling different systems of Hindu philosophy and religion--is also taught as a class-book in the higher classes of certain schools in Bengal which were started as rivals to mission schools. The Anjuman-i-Islamia, Lahore, also prepares books for both Primary and Secondary classes in Mohammedan schools, and in these again moral instruction is imparted through religious references. Moral text-books pure and simple are not used except occasionally those of the International Moral League in some of the hostels in Baroda and elsewhere. As regards lessons in direct moral teaching, apart from religion, there seem to be exceedingly few. A few debating societies exist for this purpose. One school reports a weekly lecture thereon, but the boys of the school are credited with stoning a visiting cricket team which had defeated them! Moral instruction combined with religion is more common than it is thought in the Indian aided schools, and various instances are on record. The old-fashioned Koranic schools and Sanskrit “_tols_” are steeped in religion. “To describe the system of moral training in such institutions would be to write an account of the rites and tenets of the Hindu and Mohammedan religions.”[155] With two exceptions the reports show in detail a general state of dissatisfaction with things as they are, and a desire for definite moral instruction combined with a strong preference for a religious basis where such could be made possible. The words “moral instruction” seem also to have become a sort of shibboleth. “People are also rather vague as to what comes under the head of religion or morality.” A Brahman student is instanced as having devoted much time to religion, which was found to mean “breathing exercises.” “There are a few of exceptional intelligence who hold that the teaching of morality must be based on religion. These would advocate the teaching of a religion, or rather a combination of religious truths that all men could agree on.” “The public mind in Bengal is not ripe for the idea of moral instruction totally severed from religion.” At the same time it is noticed that little advantage has as yet been taken of the opportunity to teach religion in the Government schools in the United Provinces and in Burma. The restrictions which surround it in the former and the recent date of the permission for it in the latter may possibly account for this.

The bulk of the answers to the questionnaire issued by the Conference may be summed up in respect of moral instruction as follows: it is inefficient, unless impressed by the personality of the teacher, and unless based on religion; a merely moral system can be accepted only in circumstances which completely prohibit the religious element. Combined with the desire for it is a certain healthy scepticism as to whether moral instruction can be imparted in small doses, and whether the more effective influence is not the general discipline and tone of the school. The discussions at the Conference, which represented every shade of official and religious opinion, followed the same line. The emphatic testimony of Christian and Mohammedan dwelt on the need for the religious sanction, the Hindu testimony on the same need, but also on the impossibility for Hindus of finding a common ground amongst themselves. “No teaching which rests merely upon the basic principles of religion will be accepted by Hindus as taking the place of directly orthodox religion.”[156] The incorporation of moral teaching in the Government system by means of a general text-book seemed at best only a makeshift, and did not meet with universal approval.

The evidence of the Allahabad Conference reveals a need and a deadlock. The country needs morality taught under religious sanction, but how can a Government pledged irrevocably to religious neutrality provide this? The granting of equal opportunity in the Government and municipal schools for parallel instruction in the various faiths, as Sir Valentine Chirol suggests,[157] would not meet the special case of the Hindus, and might possibly complicate the position of the mission schools. The disintegration of a school where rival influences were at work would further render impossible the unity necessary to tone and discipline. The solution of the problem seems rather to lie in the _religious influence of a single kind_, and this is possible only in the aided schools. The development of these, and the allocation of a greater proportion of public funds to them, especially now that the indigenous Indian schools of the newer type are developing religious instruction, would be in historical continuity with the principles of 1854, and would not contradict the principles of neutrality.

The problem of female education was not considered separately at Allahabad, and there was no reference throughout the discussion to girls’ schools. But though girls’ education may be assumed to be some fifty years behind that of boys, a great deal of the report has a very direct bearing on our subject as indicating dangers to be avoided and a more profitable course to be pursued. The whole question is even more vital in their case, as the removal of religious and moral principles would be fraught with consequences even more serious to the community. How far is the education of women in India undermining their religious beliefs? How far is this influence being counteracted by moral teaching, or by definite instruction in the principles of their own religion or of Christianity?

As regards the vast proportion of girls who attain a mere literacy in the Primary schools, the disintegrating influence can scarcely be said to have begun; on the other hand, in the Government and municipal schools there is a lack of constructive influence guiding them towards that which is true, honest, and of good report. Exceptional women amongst the few trained teachers may use the opportunity afforded by the moral lessons in the readers, but only the exceptional women. Schools started for girls by Indian societies have arisen mostly in the later period of religious revival, and some of their Primary schools are saturated with religion. In so far as an outsider can judge, this tends mainly to the abnormal development of the repetitive faculty. In the Christian Primary schools the influence of the Biblical instruction given naturally varies enormously according to the method of the Indian teacher and according to the frequency of the visits of the English missionary. The writer has watched a Scripture lesson given by an Indian teacher to a group of Bengali girls aged about eight years; their attention, response, and independent questions compared favourably with those of English children of the same age. It is also part of the ordinary experience of the zenana visitor to find the influence and memory of these school lessons still alive amongst those who have long left school.

In the Secondary and Training stages, the question is totally different, and the beginning of the influence which has proved so disastrous on the men’s side is already felt. The Head of one Government Normal school stated, “Our education cannot fail to undermine their previous ideas,” and then commented afterwards on the ineffectiveness of the moral instruction she was trying to introduce. In some of the Government schools where the Principal is a woman of special ability and tact, moral instruction is given, but as a rule it is not attempted. In the Government mixed colleges there is naturally no influence of this nature. In the Indian schools religious instruction is the rule, its character, as indicated in the reports to the Allahabad Conference, differing enormously in different places. In some it is carefully thought-out moral instruction, linked with those ideas in the particular religious faith which bear it out. The Benares school is a typical example of this; the whole school join in morning _puja_, to Sarasvati, the goddess of learning, and there are special times during the week for instruction from the Sanatana Dharma series. The new Hindu High school in Bombay is visited once a week for the purpose by a Brahman, and a small catechism of a more orthodox nature is in use. The only Buddhist girls’ Anglo-Vernacular school in Burma is marked by a strong religious tone. Instruction is given daily by an elderly priest to the whole school together, “in order that they may feel religion is the most important thing in daily life and therefore must be daily.” A specimen of the catechism used is typical:--

“What are the three things to seek daily?
Truth, Knowledge, Righteousness.”

“What will you do when you go home?
We will do salutation to our parents.”

“And afterwards?
We will do our work.”

“And in the morning?
Our first thought will be of righteousness.”[158]

Religious and moral instruction is now given in most of the Parsi schools of Bombay under the auspices of a special Zoroastrian Association. This is, I understand, an innovation of the last ten years. In the schools under committees of different faiths the same difficulty is felt as in the Government schools. It is solved in one case by carefully prepared moral instruction on an eclectic basis, in another by parallel religious observances. There is no uniformity in practice, but the universal attempt is a clear proof that the Indian desire for education on a religious basis for their daughters is genuine.

The Christian factor so far has been the predominating one, for the “bulk of female Secondary education is provided by the missionaries.”[159] The religious atmosphere is one of unity and simplicity. It is part of the wonderful tolerance of Hinduism and its desire to embrace other faiths in its pervading atmosphere, that Hindu girls can share outwardly in Christian worship without apparent realization of its incompatibility with their ancestral religion. The daily instruction is given in class groups, and where the non-Christian element enters largely there is usually a separate classification for this. Its bearing is stated in simple direct terms by a teacher. “The education of any child is not complete which has not led it consciously to realize the supernatural, and the revelation of God in Christ.” In the few schools where a “conscience clause” exists, it is not as a rule taken advantage of. The girls in one convent who were thus exempted sat in the back row quietly and were not asked questions; they also attended chapel, but might take their own books with them. Another curious instance of the working of the Hindu mind is seen in the case of an Indian gentleman who withdrew his daughters from the regular school lesson by virtue of the conscience clause, but sent them back voluntarily to a special Scripture class held once a week. Caste prejudice was possibly justified by this arrangement. The tone and influence of the Christian schools is greatly appreciated; it is this which fills the Diocesan School in Calcutta with pupils, although a thorough education is available in the Bethune School. A high-caste Brahman lady in Bombay testified in the warmest tones to the wonderful character and spirit of the Catholic sisters who had educated her, and to whom she had sent her daughters. It is not only the English education which attracts, it is something more. It would be invidious to multiply instances, but the testimony is practically universal to the acceptability of educational work done in the name of Christ.

The three factors contributing to the education of women in India have thus a varying contribution to make to the most fundamental element in education, and it is this diversity which supplies the keynote to the whole problem, and indicates the line for Western action in the future. The share of the Government, as indicated by the present policy in Eastern Bengal, Madras,[160] the United Provinces, and elsewhere will of necessity become an increasing one in the direct establishment of schools, if there is not a sufficient development of aided schools to meet the rising tide. Its contribution to religion will be a negative one. The spontaneous Indian schools which attempt to supply the need are at their best--and they are not always at their best--only an imperfect solution. It would be but a poor form of Christianity which failed to recognize the diverse manners in which God has revealed Himself to the world, and the truth of permanent value in the great ethnic faiths of the world which finds its final interpretation in That which is Perfect. There is nothing more striking in the modern reform movements of India than the reflection in them of Christian thought and idealism, and this is specially seen in the instruction given in the girls’ schools. Christian hymns are used with certain specific verses left out, the Lord’s Prayer is printed in a Parsi manual of devotion, verses from Watts and Charles Kingsley are in the Benares series, and the hope of Christ as the Lode Star of Indian thought can be read in many a school manual. Together with all this is the perpetual allegorizing of such facts in Indian literature as will not bear the pure ethical light. Principal Paranjpe of the Fergusson College at Poona, in arguing at the Bombay Educational Conference for a secular basis for moral teaching, held that to make morality depend upon religion is dangerous if the religious sanction comes to be no longer regarded as binding. His speech is so illuminating as to be worth while quoting in full:--“In times like ours where landmarks that were but yesterday regarded as perennial are being removed to-day and are likely to be forgotten to-morrow, it is best not to cling to too many rocks. The one solid rock on which we can rest is our own reason. If eating pork is a heinous sin with one set of people, beef with another, and any meat at all with a third, how can the alleged basis of morality be regarded as absolute! Especially when, as in India, there are various religions, each religion divided into innumerable sects, and each sect divided into many separate sections; when the feeling aroused by any religious question is of a pitch which can hardly be conceived in Western countries; when the respectability of a man is in inverse ratio to the number of people he is able to associate with without coming into conflict with the prevailing religious ideas--it will be seen that the less we have to do with religion in moulding the character of young children the better for our national being. Let boys be taught to see that there are some principles which they can all believe irrespective of the fact that they belong to one religion or several. It is only in this way that our various races can be brought closer together.”[161] To bring morality into relation with a religion which is ethical to the core, and which has attained with modern science and historical criticism only a fuller and deeper content, is to place it on a new footing and to endow it with spiritual power. While full sympathy must be extended to the Indian effort, the emphasis must fall on the Christian schools. They alone can supply in full the religious element so needed in Indian education. The present situation offers to them in increasing measure an opportunity for a voluntary contribution of the needed spiritual force and power to the educational development of India. Their contribution, as already indicated, has been great, but modern conditions demand something more. Old schools must be remodelled, new schools started; independent work must be done in adapting curricula to Indian ideas and the special needs of girls; the whole educational machinery must be raised to the level of the standard required for men if the opportunity for imparting this spiritual power is to be retained.

No social or religious problem can bear isolation, and if this book has treated the question of the education of women in detail and in its technical bearings, the relation of that question to the Christianizing of Indian life and thought is the main interest in its composition. The problem is a question of character, but of character built upon personal contact with the Christ-life in God--a question of environment and curricula, but also of showing that Christianity is of the East, and Eastern in its spiritual appeal; a question of womanhood, but also of that more perfect human fellowship where Christ is all and in all. “Jesus Christ, by the silent action of a lifetime, laid the first emphasis on the identity of woman’s humanity rather than on the difference of her sex, thus both dignifying her and man in his attitude to her.”[162] The solution of India’s social problem lies in the fulfilment of the Christian ideal, and the progress towards it must be a united one, in which both sexes share alike. The negative influence of the home is often found to be the strongest in the student life of the great Christian colleges, and many an earnest man has fallen back from what he seemed to have gained because of a silent, unseen woman. The work of Christian education in leavening thought and producing the atmosphere in which there is hope of the ultimate acceptance of Christianity is regarded by many as the most potent influence for the Kingdom of God in India. The great majority of converts in later life, who belonged to the high-castes, have been drawn from the ranks of those who have been educated in Christian schools, and in spite of intense opposition there are actually men to-day who seek for baptism during their college career.[163] There is the further, and perhaps in the sure Providence of God the greater, result in the permeation of Hindu society by Christian thought and sentiment, which may yet pave the way for a movement of the higher castes to Christ. At the recent anniversary services of the Prārthanā Samāj in Bombay, the sermon preached by a Justice of the High Court, on the present day as “The Age of the Holy Spirit, the Age of Education,” throbbed throughout with the reverence of one who had studied at the feet of Jesus. The long open hall was packed from end to end with young men who had been touched by the new ideas; in one corner sat some twelve Indian women whose sympathies were with them. The disparity of the two sexes in the audience indicted how the leavening influence of Christian education will be deprived of half its power unless it touches the family as the unit of civilization. The “direct result” longed for by those who teach in Christian schools is not lacking. It is unnecessary in these days to contradict once more the impression that the baptism of children and girls of immature age is attempted. There are some cases of the baptism of mother and child together, where careful zenana visiting has followed up the school pupil; others--and these are the majority--are secret disciples whose whole environment is massed up against an open confession. One Moslem girl in the higher classes of a Christian school is convinced of the truth of Christianity; every vacation her parents inquire whether she is a Christian yet, and she knows that if she replies in the affirmative all the advantages which her younger sisters are enjoying in another Christian school will cease. The case is not an extreme one. There is a different story of a girl in Burma who was found teaching the children of her jungle village daily, and gathering them on Sundays for Bible stories and hymns, “until,” as she put it, “some one comes who can do it better than I.” Her former school knew nothing of it, and but for the chance visit of a Commissioner’s wife the tale would never have been told. Surely this is direct result.

Christian educational work has also its place in the problem of the Indian Church. Ultimately the interpretation of Christ to India must be through the Indian, and the building up of a strong Indian Christian community is strategically necessary. The power of the Indian Christian home is in proportion to the power of the woman. Yet only 43% of the Christian community are being educated. The dangers of mass movements and of illiterate, uninstructed Christianity on one side, of europeanizing the convert and educating him beyond his capacity on the other, show at the same time the necessity and the difficulty of action. The less romantic educational work of industrial orphanages has its place in the building up of a strong, true community. The training of Christian girls as teachers, through whom the leavening process will again work on the non-Christian village life, is perhaps the most definite and most direct form of influence.

There is no more subtle problem than the lack of any characteristically Indian note in the Indian Christianity which is now assuming some numerical importance. “There is no doubt that the lack of vitality, the half dead and half alive spirituality which is the present characteristic of the Indian Church, is due to enforced conformity to Western standards of what is Christian and what is not Christian.”[164] It may be that this problem too has its relation to the education on Christian and Oriental lines of the women, who have been from all time the custodians of religion, the upholders of traditional custom, and conservative rite.[165]

From whatever point the larger question of the whole country is viewed, it seems to attain perspective and reality in relation to the education of its womanhood, and it is only thus as part of one great Christian movement that the feminist problem receives its right emphasis and value.