Class 8 History Chapter 6 Question Answers - Our Pasts III (Part - II)

Q1: Why many British officials criticized the Orientalists?
Ans: From the early nineteenth century many British officials began to criticise the Orientalist vision of learning. They said that knowledge of the East was full of errors and unscientific thought; Eastern literature was non-serious and light-hearted. So they argued that it was wrong on the part of the British to spend so much effort in encouraging the study of Arabic and Sanskrit language and literature.

Q2: Why did Mahatma Gandhi think that English education had enslaved Indians?
Ans: Mahatma Gandhi thought that English education had enslaved Indians because:

• Colonial education created a sense of inferiority in the minds of Indians.
• It made them see Western civilisation as superior, and destroyed the pride they had in their own culture.
• Indians educated in these institutions began admiring British rule.

Q3: How were the views of Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi on the west different?
Ans: In many senses Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi thought about education in similar ways. There were, however, differences too. Gandhiji was highly critical of Western civilisation and its worship of machines and technology. Tagore wanted to combine elements of modern Western civilisation with what he saw as the best within Indian tradition. He emphasized the need to teach science and technology at Santiniketan, along with art, music and dance.

Q4: Why did many company officials in India want to promote Indian rather than western learning?
Ans: Many Company officials argued that the British ought to promote Indian rather than Western learning. This so because:

• They felt that institutions should be set up to encourage the study of ancient Indian texts and teach Sanskrit and Persian literature and poetry.
• The officials also thought that Hindus and Muslims ought to be taught what they were already familiar with, and what they valued and treasured, not subjects that were alien to them.
• Only then, they believed, could the British hope to win a place in the hearts of the “natives”; only then could the alien rulers expect to be respected by their subjects.

Q5: What type of education did Mahatma Gandhi want in India?
Ans: Mahatma Gandhi’s views on education were:

• Mahatma Gandhi wanted an education that could help Indians recover their sense of dignity and self-respect.
• Mahatma Gandhi strongly felt that Indian languages ought to be the medium of teaching. Education in English crippled Indians, distanced them from their own social surroundings, and made them “strangers in their own lands”. Speaking a foreign tongue, despising local culture, the English educated did not know how to relate to the masses.
• He argued that education ought to develop a person’s mind and soul. Literacy – or simply learning to read and write – by itself did not count as education. People had to work with their hands, learn a craft, and know how different things operated. This would develop their mind and their capacity to understand.

Q6: What was the report of William Adam about education in vernacular schools?
Ans: The report Adam produced is interesting.

• Adam found that there were over 1 lakh pathshalas in Bengal and Bihar. These were small institutions with no more than 20 students each. These institutions were set up by wealthy people, or the local community. At times they were started by a teacher (guru).
• The system of education was flexible. There were no fixed fee, no printed books, no separate school building, no benches or chairs, no blackboards, no system of separate classes, no rollcall registers, no annual examinations, and no regular time-table. In some places classes were held under a banyan tree, in other places in the corner of a village shop or temple, or at the guru’s home.
• Teaching was oral, and the guru decided what to teach, in accordance with the needs of the students. Students were not separated out into different classes: all of them sat together in one place. The guru interacted separately with groups of children with different levels of learning.
• Adam discovered that this flexible system was suited to local needs. For instance, classes were not held during harvest time when rural children often worked in the fields.

Q7: What measures were taken by the English Education Act of 1835?
Ans: Measures taken by the English Education Act of 1835 were:

• English was made the medium of instruction for higher education.
• Promotion of Oriental institutions like the Calcutta Madrasa and Benaras Sanskrit College was stopped. These institutions were seen as “temples of darkness that were falling of themselves into decay”.
• English textbooks began to be produced for schools.

Q8: What measures were taken by the British after issuing of Wood’s Despatch?
Ans: Following the 1854 Despatch, several measures were introduced by the British.

• Education departments of the government were set up to extend control over all matters regarding education.
• Steps were taken to establish a system of university education. Universities were established in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay.
• Attempts were also made to bring about changes within the system of school education.

Q9: Why did James Mill and think that European education was essential in India?
Ans: James Mill and Thomas Macaulay criticized the Orientalists.

• According to James mill, the aim of education ought to be to teach what was useful and practical. So Indians should be made familiar with the scientific and technical advances that the West had made, rather than with the poetry and sacred literature of the Orient.
• Thomas Macaulay felt that knowledge of English would allow Indians to read some of the finest literature the world had produced; it would make them aware of the developments in Western science and philosophy. Teaching of English could thus be a way of civilising people, changing their tastes, values and culture.

Q10: What measures did the Company undertake to improve the system of vernacular education?
Ans: Measures taken by the Company to improve the system of vernacular education were:

• It appointed a number of government pandits, each in charge of looking after four to five schools. The task of the pandit was to visit the pathshalas and try and improve te standard of teaching.
• Each guru was asked to submit periodic reports and take classes according to a regular timetable.
• Teaching was now to be based on textbooks and learning was to be tested through a system of annual examination.
• Students were asked to pay a regular fee, attend regular classes, sit on fixed seats, and obey the new rules of discipline.

Q11: What was the importance of Wood’s despatch?
Ans: Importance of Wood’s despatch

• One of the practical uses the Despatch pointed to was economic. European learning, it said, would enable Indians to recognise the advantages that flow from the expansion of trade and commerce, and make them see the importance of developing the resources of the country. Introducing them to European ways of life, would change their tastes and desires, and create a demand for British goods, for Indians would begin to appreciate and buy things that were produced in Europe.
• Wood’s Despatch also argued that European learning would improve the moral character of Indians. It would make them truthful and honest, and thus supply the Company with civil servants who could be trusted and depended upon.