CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION 13 



passing, that ' idolatry ' is not so idolatrous as we are often 

 told, but may be purely symbolic. This well-kneaded clay 

 was valued by the children for their less spiritual efforts ; 

 and the little Jagadis was wont to wait patiently until 

 worship was over, and he could claim the image, no longer 

 sacred, for modelling of playthings. But one day the de- 

 votions were unusually long-continued, and the child could 

 restrain himself no longer and so ran off with the image, 

 while in use. The grandmother's shock was great when 

 she realised the sacrilege ; and though the offender was 

 gently dealt with, Brahmins and poor folks were fed, and 

 other expiatory rites performed. 



As said before, the Bose family lands were at Rarikhal, 

 a Vikrampur village 35 miles east from Faridpur, so that 

 the old home was visited at most hardly once a year ; 

 and the main environment for the children's years 

 was that of the Faridpur official residence a fairly 

 spacious dwelling, with good-sized compound and garden, 

 beside the main road and separated only by this and a 

 large meadow from a branch of the Padma river : one not 

 of great size, as the main East Bengal rivers go, but strong 

 and turbulent in flood-time. 



The roadside stream too then ran strong, and especially 

 where narrowed by the little bridge leading to the house : 

 so there the child would watch the river ' Water moving ! 

 Moving water ! 'with an intensity, a strong fascina- 

 tion still vividly remembered by the ageing man. Here 

 plainly was one of those deep and elemental child-experi- 

 ences of matter and motion which were needed to make 

 the physicist later ; to whom ' kinetic energy/ ' wave- 

 motion/ and the like, were never the mere book-terms 

 of the crammed student, but expressed and defined real 

 imagery from early experience. Thus the man's scientific 

 and speculative thoughts find ready store of early and vivid 

 images to attach themselves to images at once concrete 

 and beautiful, fascinating and mysterious. And does not 

 the electrician's mental conception owe such clearness" as 



