Education. 



440 



[May, 1912. 



advantage, or to add to the area of 

 their holdings, and of some who, by 

 means of a succession of such loans, 

 have risen from the position of labourers 

 to that of substantial small-holders. 



The establishment of these societies in 

 the rural villages in which they are found 

 has evidently not only added to the pro- 

 sperity of many of the villagers, but 



has stimulated neighbourly feeling by 

 showing men how they can help their 

 fellows by the exercise of care and 

 mutual trust, without any real pecuniary 

 risk to themselves, Las encouraged thrift 

 and efficient methods of cultivation, and 

 has at the same time increased the self- 

 respect of the individual members, and 

 inspired them with hopes of progress. 



EDUCATION. 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 



(Prom the Indian Agriculturist, 

 Vol. XXXVII., No. 3, March 1, 1912.) 



To the Editor. 

 Sir, — As one who knows something of 

 technical works as carried on in this 

 country from the practical (not the edu- 

 cational) point of view, you will perhaps 

 accord me a little space for remarks 

 forming a corollary to Mr. Harold Cox's 

 excellently sensible article in your last 

 issue. Mr. Harold Cox very properly 

 scouts the idea of dry theoretical tech- 

 nical education, but let him further 

 investigate the subject, and he will 

 find that among the Indians there are 

 very excellent technical workmen, who 

 have been trained not in schools, but in 

 practical concerns, manufacturing and 

 other trades. People, as Mr. Harold 

 Cox remarks, may say that India cannot 

 possess industries for the reasons ad- 

 vanced, but the fact that India does 

 possess industries rather works against 

 the theory that India does not possess 

 an industrially trained class. 1 do not 

 claim the wider sweep cf population. 

 As the cobbler should stick to his last, 

 I mention first the Engineering trade in 

 which I am employed. Look round Cal- 

 cutta, and you will find the tall chimneys 

 everywhere. Of all the thousands and 

 thousands employed in these works, 

 how many are Europeans ? Let our 

 British visitors take a walk round one 

 or two of these workshops — and one or 

 two in Calcutta are worth a visit, as 

 being quite comparable in size and 

 efficiency with any shops at Home, and 



they will find trained Indians turning 

 out important jobs, while the Home- 

 trained European supervisors scarcely 

 need to overlook them. That is the true 

 technical education. These prime Indian 

 workmen do not possess university de- 

 grees, and many cannot read or write, 

 but they can command higher wages 

 than the overflow from the learned pro- 

 fessions. Look into the great railway 

 workshops at Jamalpur, Khargpur, 

 Lahore, Ajmere and other centres, and 

 you will find technically educated Indians 

 working and working well everywhere, 

 and but for certain drawbacks in- 

 herent in the age-old-customs, from 

 which they are now breaking loose, 

 excellent material they form out of 

 which to fashion craftsmen of the best. 



The cry for '' technical education " 

 does not come from the class really 

 interested in becoming craftsmen, but 

 from the class— no blame to them— 

 whose tradition is against manual labour, 

 in Bengal called the bhadr-log. , Their am- 

 bition is not to become craftsmen, but 

 supervisors, learning theoretically in 

 order to direct the manual labour of 

 others. They are not yet sufficiently 

 instructed to know that we, whom they 

 see in the position of directing others' 

 labour, have had to pass through the 

 mill of hard manual labour ourselves. 

 If an English or Scottish lad is intended 

 for the engineering trade, he has as a be- 

 ginning to serve his apprenticeship 

 working at bench and lathe side by 

 side with the actual wage-earning work- 

 men and on an absolute equality with 

 them under the orders of foremen 



