Reg. No.

B 3092
Civil Liberties

Editor : MAHADEV DESAI

Under the hospice. of The Hal-lien Soul: Smgh

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van. v No. 441' POONA - SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1937 [One h a s ; "
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Prof. Shah's Note

Notes We said in our last issue that Prof. K. T.
Shah had written a minute of dissent to the
Gandhiiis Health
report issued - by the Zakir Husain
Gandhiji's decision to come to Juhu was . Gandhiji had some difiiculties in publishixl! ' e

almost unexpected. He himself had not the minute and he wanted to discuss them with
faintest notion a couple of hours before the Prof. Shah. ' And as Prof. Shah would not think
decision was made that he would have to go to of troubling Gandhiji in the present condition
Juhu. But Dr. Jivraj can make him 'do things of his health. its publication is postponed until
which very few other doctors can. He has known such time as Gandhiji can have a full discus
Gandhiji'Ior '23 years and has been near him sion with Prof. Shah. - 3'
during most of his facts and illnesses He there
fore knows his constitution as no one else does. A Correction
And however radical in other matters Gandhiji A Socialist friend sends me a gentle rebuke:
m a y be, he is ' so conservative in his attach
I was pained and surprised at a re! use
ments that he would not think of a n y other in your article Non-violence in Action to a press
doctor when a n y question of importance regard report show; an attempt _on the life at the
i n g his health is to be decided. _ Secretary of the. Labour Association. Yo u have
a - m . 8 u t * as:Ir that Gandbiii was been an advocate of the strictest truth in. jour
averse to leaving Segaon, and as he told me the nalism. This reference seemed to me to he in
day we left Wardha. he would not have left violation of the principle. I may tell you that
Segaon except to escape the charge of obstinacy: I was intimately connected with the strike since
" I am accustomed to cold, and to sleeping the 17th November and I can say that no
under the sky in the severest weather. But if such thing happened.
the doctor insists that the cold is having a The same day I had this letter I had one
detrimental efiect on the heart and hence on from Sit. Gulzarilal Nanda himself:
the blood pressure, I should listen to what he The press news you referred to seems to me
says, if only to avoid the charge of obstinacy." to be exaggerated. During the days of the
would appear that the weather h a d
And it strike I received several threats that I would be
something to do. The systolic pressure did show murdered, and some labourers gave me a written
some improvement immediately on arrival here statement to that effect. But there was no
and that improvement is being maintained. The actual attempt, and I think I owe it to the
Bombay public, I am grateful to acknowledge, public to make. this clear. There were of cOurso
have been more than considerate. They have several instances of assault and intimidation, and
two members of our stafi were belaboured, but
given him uninterrupted rest and quiet. and
so far as I am concerned, nothing happened to
Gandhiji does not think' he need go to a n y
me.
other place from that consideration at a n y rate.
I am glad to have to make this correction,
But the public will have to put up with a l o n g but let me say at once that I said nothing
spell of inactivity on Gandijis part. Their love more than this: There have been cases of
and prayers will help him to p u l l through. assault and intimidation. and a press report
A Mussalman friend sends lines which sum up says that an attempt was made on the life of
Gandhiji's creed beautifully: the Secretary of the Labour Association. That
I n the long r u n all love is paid by love, there was a report in the press to this etiect
Though undervalued by the heats of earth; there was no doubt, and I thought that in a
The great eternal Government above struggle that promised to be prolonged I owed
Keeps strict secohnt and it to the organisers of the strike to draw their
W i l l redeem its werth. attention to reports and rumours. Evidently the
Give thy love freely; do not count the cost. friend who has sent me the rebuke seems to
So beautiful a thing was never lost admit that there had been cases of assault and
In the long run. ' intimidation. May it not be that if the threats
'l
 382
of murder that were addressed to Sit. Nanda did
not materialize, it was due to reports of the
,kind I referred to having acted as a timely
warning?
A Useful Article
THE MODERN REVIEW for December has a
very useful article on Mass Education and
Vocational Training by Sjt. Lakshmishwar Sinha,
the handiwork teacher in Vishwabharati. He
starts with a preposition which should be accept
able to all- mass educationiets :
The future mass education policy ought to
be, in my opinion, constructive, and it should
be real and suitable to the peculiar needs of
our soil, and should be directed towards the
bridging up of the gulf that exists today
botween intellectual and manual labour, and of
many other differences that exist among the
classes, castes and races in India.
In fact anyone who has studied Gandbijis
articles in HARIJAN will see that Gandbiji
founds his new scheme on this fundamental
preposition. Sit Sinha has also drawn attention to
two important factors of our present social and
economic life which should be borne in mind by
anyone presenting a scheme of mass education:
( 1 ) The agrarian population of India, which
forms the majOrity, have ample time at their
disposal after finishing their farm-Work. If they
could utilise leisure in handiwork:
and constructive activities . at hone, it would
make their lives more wholesome and the morale
of society better, to speak nothing of the
immense economic gain that would follow; ( 2 ) .
in the industrial area, a training in handicraft chaon System Not Sloyd
should prove to be a healthy and useful occupa
tion for the families of labourers; and they may note :
thus be saved from a good deal of moral evils
and laziness. Handicraft-s, while they bring .joy
and economic profit, also raise the moral standard
by offering an occupation for ones leisure.
The writer says that the introduction of hand
work should be methodical, and it is interesting
to observe that he thinks that spinning and
weaving can. be universally introduced as one
of the main crafts to be taught for the girls."
W h y he should have meant it only for the
girls it is diflicult to say, but it is something
that he regards it as of universal application.
It should also be noted that he emphasises
handwork teaching on educational lines", and
also the point that the work turned out
should combine utmost practical utility with a
fair degree of beauty of form.
The Zakir Husain Committee has attached to
its report a detailed syllabus of the Spinning
and Weaving course. The writer of this article
promises to supply detailed information regard
i n g the work and organization " of teaching
various handicrafts, and his kind offer should be
availed of by the Committee for handicrafts
5other than spinning; - i'that this is {education rthrough industry a
HARIJAN [DECEMBER 18, 1937'
The Handicraft of Writing
In a recent article I referred to the INDIAN
SOCIAL REFORMERS criticism of the Segacu
method and' wondered if its suggestion of writing
as a handicraft was seriously meant. Sit. Kishorelal
Mashruwala says that he is quite prepared to
consider it seriously as a handicraft-medium of
education, and writes:
I fancy that even the handicraft of writing
can, if adopted in the proper manner, he made
a centre of education. As a matter of fact,
about. two years ago, Gandhiji did suggest some
thing like this to his son, Sjt. Manila], who
sought his advice about his childs education.
Gandhijis advice was tothe effect that Sjt. M a n i l a ]
and his wife (who are conducting the INDIAN
0131:4on in South Africa 3 should train their
child for the same profession from n o w on. The
child, he said, should be taught systematically
and gradually all the principles and technique
of printing and jaurnalism, both theoretically and
practically. In the atmosPhero of the'press and
the editors office, theirs is hardly any. subject of
human importance, to which a child' could 'not '
be introduced by a well-informed and capable
editor who is also a father and a teacher. It is
entirely a different thing that Ghndhijis son and
daughter-in-law did not feel themselves equal to
the task. But this shows that, given proper
conditions, Gandhiji wonld not dismiss even the
handicraft of writing as outside the scope of
tho Seguon method. Only i t s scope is from the
nature of the ease s t r i c t l y : restricted, and n o t
one in a thousand schools could adopt the handi
craft of writing as a medium of education.
Sjt. Kishorelal Mashruwala sends this timely
The article Manual Training in Denmark
by O. S. is interesting. B u t the reader must
.be warned against confounding sloyd with the
Segaon system. In Gandhijis scheme industrial
education does not mean merely manual recrea
tion to accompany book-learning. It is not also
more laboratory work in an industry. But it is
the teaching of an actual productive occupation
of the people. The pupil will produce the same
kinds of goods as any manual artisan working
fer living may, and, so far as possible, with
the some implements. Only the output of the
child w i l l be necessarily less, and it will work
under expert guidance. Also all other training
w i l l centre round and be interested with that
industry. These do not seem to be the features
of the eloyd, where according to Kropotkin, - they
' teach the pupil to make some insignificant work
of house decoration. The difierenco between 320326
and Sag-eon is the some as between a spinning
wheel made from a enact-pm box and that made
in a workshop of the A. 1.8.11. It is necessary
to point out this difference because sloyd and
woman have already found place in several.
city schools and homes, and it may be imagined
<. .
 Dncsnznnn 18, V1937. l EARIJAN 383
r _ _ . _ . _ _ _ _

Gandhiji advocates. There is much educative " Good " Reading!

element in these things. Nevertheless, they fall
short of the Segaon meth . The PARADE seems to be a new' monthly " o f
the British digest of good reading ". This is the
Nor This . _ kind of " g o o d " reading it provides for its
Nor is the Segaon System to be mixed up readers :
with other schemes of education-cum-manual train Some years ago, following the celebrated
ing. Thus ,a correspondent sends the following Poona PaetI Gandhi launched a campaign for
extract from General Booths In Darkest England the entancipation of the untouchables. In one
and no Way Out: day he came close to losing his immense popu
' I also propose, at the earliest opportunity, to larity. Meetings followed meetings, in the large
give the subject of the industrial training of cities violent mobs spilled blood, and fanatic Brah
boys :1 fair trial; and, if successful, follow it on mins scoured the peninsula to organise resistance
with a similar one for girls. I am nearly satis to what they called sacrilegious refonns. Ye t all
fied in my own mind that the children of Gandhi proposed Was that the untouchables he allow
the streets. taken, any at eight years of age, and ed to enter the temples. Since the orthodox Hindus
kept till, say twentyone, would by judiciOus of Madras unanimOusly rejected this preposal, the
management and the utilisation of their strength untouchables decided to make a symbolic gesture.
and capacity, amply supply all their own wants They invaded the forbidden precincts and, as a
and would, I think, he likely to turn out sign of protest, ( a i d their hands on the sacred
thoroughly good and capable members of the elephants. The answer to this act was a massacre
community. of untouchables, then the purification of the
Apart from the mere benevolent aspect of the temple and the elephants, and finally the
questions, the present. system of teaching is, to organisation of processions. and expiatory
my mind, unnatural, and shamefully wasteful of sacrifices.
the energies of the children. Fully onehalf the
time that boys and girls are compelled to sit in the author of the article, Esmond
Where
school is spent to little or no purpose n a y , it Demaitre. got his information from we do not
is worse than wasted. The minds of the children know. Christianity has so many massacres to
are only capable of useful applications for so its credit that the writer must b r i n g massacres
9
many consecutive minutes, and'henee the rational and blood to make the story vivid. But let us
- be w,.,epmrfin.tho time 91; m Indeed. says the writer. there is no
""""""Ebildr3n'; shy; "half the finer-Irate es case ""on where an' untouchable has ever
given to their Rocks, and the other half to some succeeded in breaking the barriers of his thou
industrial employment; the garden would be most sand-year-old prison...No matter how courageous.
natural and. healthy in fair weather, while the intelligent or ambitious he m a y be. the
workshop should be iallen back upon when untouchable can have no hope of emancipation
unfavourable. as long as he remains in India." The writer
could not have given a better demonstration of
By this method health would be promoted,
the fact that he at a n y rate has not been in
school would be loved, the cost of education
India. But be next modifies the statement: " It
would be cheapened, and the natural bent of
is true that there is one means of escape:
the childs capacities would be discovered and
Conversion to Christianity. But the escape is
could be cultivated. Inetced of coming out of
not real, for the Hindu considers all those outside
school, or going away from apprenticeship, with
his own faith as untouchables. As a Christian
the most precious part of life for ever gone so
far as learning is concerned, chained to some untouchable the Indians life may be a little
pursuit ior which there is no predilection, and more tolerable. This explains in part why most .
which promises nothing higher than mediocrity if Hindus who accept Christianity belong to the
not f a i l u r e the work for which the mind was class of untouchables. What would Dr. Pickett
peculiarly adapted and for which, therefore, it say to this?
would have a natural capacity, would not only
British readers of HARIJAN m a y do at least
have been discovered, but the bent of tho incli
one service to journals like the PARADE. L e t
nation cultivated and the lifes work chosen
them digest facts for them and hot allow them
accordingly.
to feed their readers on untruth.
This is being done at present in m a n y schools.
What the Segaon system aims at is an all M. D.
round education through manual t r a i n i n g or
making manual training a process or instrument
of education. What the quotation from General SUBSCRIPTION RATES
Booth and the instances of manual t r a i n i n g in INLAND
other countries given in these columns prove is One Year, poet tree RI. 4 a
that children can be taught to produce things Six Months, .. Ra. 28
f o r use and that those schools are by. no means FOREIGN
" afootoryi' schools ' or where slave-driving is One Year. pout free: RI. 58
pavement; . orShBoc I t
 , 384 _ HARIJAN . [DECEMBER 18, 1937

a n y condition whatsoever. It plainly means the

HARIJAAC liberty of association with a view, maybe. to
intimidate and molest and even to assault;
the liberty of going on strikes, maybe for no
Dec. 18 1937 grievances whatsoever; the l i b e r t y of making
speeches inciting to plunder and violence. '
If this indeed is the meaning of the term
C I V I L LIBERTIES civil liberties " in the whole of the civilned
We have before us a manifesto signed by world, we should like to know the countries in
several Communist leaders which makes one which such liberty is being enjoyed. And if
"wonder whether every one of no means by the indeed there are such countries, our country at
. least! had better. remain. without the pole of that
ester-isms against civilised sphere. That certainly was not the
It charges them with kind of' civil liberties to which our Ministers
mission of Congress pledges. the principal one were pledged, and that certainly was not the
meaning attached to it by the Congress Election
if ~liberties, to the people of the land. This is the Manifesto. If that is the meaning of " civil
" language of the manifesto (I am translating liberties", the term would be self-contradictory.
_1 from Hindi, which perhaps is the language in Liberty does not mean licence; and civil liberty
which it was originally issued): for which the Congress, pledged to truth and
non-violence, stands means liberty conditioned by
I s this the way in which the Ministers are the use of truth and non-violence. That is the
safeguarding our civil liberties? The Congress plain and natural meaning of the term, and we
Ministers have on several occasions made state can say without fear of contradiction that every
ments which may be summed up in these words: member of the Civil Liberties Union, from the
The people will have i n l l civil liberties on venerable President Gurudev Tagore to the
condition that class war and violence are not humblest member of i t , would accept our
- preached. On this pretext several restraint
meaning of civil liberties
g: orders and prosecutions have been sought to be
T. justified. \ Again one would like to know what meaning
the signatories give to the adjective civil '
The Inapio of India (10 not want civil liberties which precedes and qualifies l i b e r t y '. To us, '
with conditions attached to Mom. 0:: the contrary who have been used for the last seventeen years
the M i a qundsa, " fi d d l y tire workers, must have
to the adjective to mean non-violent as in
the unconditional liberty of 'assooicucn, of going on
civil disobedienoe, it can have no other mean
writes, afflicting speeches and of touring newspapers. ing. If one may preach with impunity violence
In the whole of the civilised world this including murder, why should the act be punished
indeed is the meaning of civil liberties on which and the incitement thereto go soot-free?
depends our Freedom.
Our Ministers task is eminently simple. Let
The three paragraphs quoted above contain the them take not only the Provincial Congress
gravamen of the Communist friends charge Committees or the Wo r k i n g Committee b u t the
against the Congress Ministers, and if they have whole public into their confidence, and plainly
nothing more to s a y, our Ministers need fear analyse articles or writings and speeches that
nothing. The first paragraph sums up the pledge cross the boundary line and show them that
that our Ministers have given in season and they infringe the letter and spirit of non-violence.
o u t of season. Evidently in that paragraph the Objection is often taken to police reports, and
signatories quarrel is not with the pledge, but with considerable force and justice. Let the
with the manner in which that pledge has been Ministers not depend wholly on police reports.
made a pretext for restraint orders and prosecu Let'them depute members of the Congress to
tions. That is a plain question of fact: whether take notes of speeches and let them assure
a particular restraint order or prosecution was themselves that the official stenographers reports
for a speech alleged to incite to violence or are correct. Let them go a step further. L e t
class war, and whether the speech did really do them send these reports to those who make the
so or' not. If it can be proved that the pledge speeches and give them a chance of confirming,
has been turned into a pretext and that the contradicting or correcting them. A n y action in
restraint order or prosecution was for a speech restraint of liberty of speech or writing, taken
which had nothing to do with clam war or after these preliminary conditions are satisfied,
violence, the pledge is violated and the Ministers would be upheld by all Congressmen who believe
would deserve to vacate their offices. in the Congress creed of Non-violence.
B u t the next two paragraphs show up the M. D.
hollowness of the indictment. The signatories
charge is not that the pledge has been broken, A Correction
but their quarrel is with the terms of the 1n Hanrmx dated Dec. 11 on Page 362, Col.
pledge itself. They object to the very conditions 1, delete words a n d Professor in the description
of the pledge. They want liberty unfettered by of Sit. K. G. Mashruwala.
Dscsnsss 18, 1937'] HARIJAN
_ .
FURTHER DAMAGING EVIDENCE
II
Having thus described the present position the
-ooinmunique sets about to explain the causes
far these facts It is somewhat gratifying to
note that instead of adapting a high-browed
manner and finding fault with the people, the
communique lays the blame principally at the
door of the educational machinery itself:
A p a r t from the reluctance of certain . classes
of parents to keep their children in school and
the economic necessity for many children, parti
cularly of the poorer classes, to be occupied in
domestic, agricultural and industrial work, tile
Government believe that the main reason for the
abnormal roastage in elementary schools lies in the
schools themselves. Large numbers of schools do
not by their structure provide for a complete
primary course and many such schools have
remained incomplete and ineffective for a long
period of time. In addition, there are many
schools which, by reason of their uneconomic
strength, their incompleteness and the adequacy
of other school provision in the lean] area, do
not deserve to centinuc in existence. Further, a
very large proportion of the total number of
schools are single-teacher schools in which obvi
ously one teacher engaging several standards and
:octions of standards cannot, unassisted and.
adequately supervised, be expected to give proper
a n d adequate.
in his bharge.... The existiznce of many
incomplete, under-stuffed and improperly equipped
schools has resulted not only in high wastage
but in stagnation as the result of which pupils
even when they are successfully retained in
school remain in the lowest standardsior a number
of years and never secure any education of real
value.
Then again large numbers of under-aged
:pupils are admitted to schools. " occupying much
needed school places and using the school i
practically as a creche Government, says
the communique, have dehided to exclude a l l
boys of under 511: and all girls of under 5 from
school, except in the case of kindergarten,
nursery or model schools. " The incomplete ,
structure of the lower elementary schools herves
as a great handicap. Out of 42,574 lower
elementary schools, only 7,159 are complete
schools with five standards. But that is not
their only defect.
Had these schools adequate staffs, says the
communique, even though they were incomplete
in structure, better education and less wastage
might have been obtained, but o u t of the total
number of lower elementary schools as many as
18,639 schools [ i . 0.43 per cent] have only one
teacher ...... The stafi oi the remaining schools The Government also proposed to institute a
is in many cases insufficient, as many as 1,891 widespread. system of refresher courses in training
schools with 5 standards having only two teachers for elementary school teachers who trained long
and as many as 9,537 schools with 4 standards ago probably in antiquated methods do need
having only two teachers. The inefficiency of. further instruction in up-to-date methods".
uneconomic schools is illustrated by the There arejagain zschool's whiohta're irregular gin, "5
335
* _ . _ .
fact that of the total number of lower clemati
tory schools as many as 11,819 are working with
less than thirty pupils on the rolls and a much
smaller number than that in' actual attendance.
And then comes the summing up on this
particular point:
Taking all things into consideration, Govern-
ment feel strongly that the most urgent need in
more education at the moment is to eliminate
insist-lice and imficr'cnt schools and to build up i
in their places a system of complete, economically
well-fitted, well-staffed, five standard primary
Schools; schools which ineiicet, by their structure
and equipment, shoald give manifest assurances
of. adding to the literacy of the population.
This should serve to 'disillusion those who
have been in the habit of measuring progress
by more i n c h in the number of schools and
amounts of expenditure and. who advocate e x p a n - '
sion at a n y cost The communique. however, does
not step here. It lays its finger rightly on a
still deeper cause of the f a i l u r e inadequacy
and unsuitability of the curriculum in the
schools, and the unsatisfactory methods of teach
i n g employed. Its observations in this connec
tion are valuable as they go elmcst to the root
of the matter and also suggest a remedy
through a radical reorganization of the whole
curriculum and methods of teaching:
11%: fallen'oof-uudiu for. elementary wheels 3':
not suficisntly related to the It'sz and surroundings
of bail: parents and pupils. This is particularly
so in the case of rural elementary schools. It
the village school is to be of real value to the
village children and to the surrounding rural
life generally, the teaching imparted in the
school must be directly related to the
realities of life in its environment. The
stereotyped methods now generally employed by
schoolmasters, many of whom do not belong to
rural areas, tend to make study in the school
something foreign and extraneous and therefore
something difficult and uninteresting to the majo
r i t y of the pupils. The teaching of nature
study, for example, from a text-book without its
being in uny.woy related to the actual life in
and around the school is of no practical value.
There is little or no training in the powers of
observation, hardly any practical work, and no
interest is taken ill gardening. Tire (earlier usual.
ly tends to divorce the pupil from village Iifi and
hereditary ocwpatiom rather than list to train up
better villagers. The unsuitability oi the present
curriculum is also evinced by the fact- that the
most important subjects such as hygiene, civics
and practical instruction are now only optional
subjectS. (Italics ours)
C.
v
 386 HARIJAN [ DECEMBER 18, 1937

their working and in some cases .actually bogus Bengal method of tapping is introduced, as under
in their existence. " There is a wide diflerence," the local system a date-palm can be tapped only
says the communique, between the reported once in alternate years while under the Bengal
,number on the rolls of many schools and the system a date-palm can be tapped every year,
reported number in daily attendance. If this is Besides the tappers, a number of jaggery manu
so as shown in the actual reports from the facturers will also get employment. These cal
schools themselves, there is unfortunately every culations are made by taking it for granted that
reason to believe that the actual difference in there will be no excise tree tax on date-palms
daily practice is much larger than what is tapped for jaggery manufacture as in Madras
reported. And this they ascribed to the and Bengal Provinces. Also the landlords should
absence of a strong inspectorate and proposed take only a nominal rent for such trees, and
to appoint a number of additional inspectors. not exact a h i g h rent as they get for the trees
C. S. g i v e n for teddy drawing. The 'last 'but the most
( To be concluded) important basis of the calculations is that the pre
ducers w i l l find customers for their jaggery next
POTENTIALITIES OF PA L M door. The date-palms are distributed almost all over
JAGGERY the district, and the nature of the raw material
is such thdt the manufacture of date-palm j a g
( By Gqfamm N a i k )
g e r y can be done only as a village industry,
VI Again a l l the local tappers belong to the Harijan
Teddy v. Jaggery community. A good number of Harijans knowing
The average annual consumption approximately the a r t are unemployed at present. So a l l
of fermented teddy in Wardha district is 155,179 champions of Harijan welfare and village indus
gallons for which the consumers p a y, merely tries can join hands to pepularize the production.
to get intoxicated, Rs. 72,194100. This is a and consumption of palm jaggery through which
disastrous drain on the poor man's pocket. A visit about seventeen thousand rupees w i l l be distri
to a teddy booth will show that the bulk of buted among the Harijans in the villages.
'1
the teddy consumers is fprmed by day labourers 'I' I
and farmers. The villagers are consuming more
teddy than the townsfolk. CORRESPONDENCE
Gallons. Price.
Rs. as. To Ernakulam,
( 1 ) Rural consumption 117,839 , .189 10 THE EDITOR, 5 Nov. 1137
( 2 ) Urban ,, 37,340 28,005 0 Harbor:
Total 155,179 72,194 10 Sir, '
The teddy is drawn from date-palms only. In Vol. V, No. 35, of the HARIJAN dated 9th
October 1937. I read an interesting article on
Instead of consuming the fermented teddy if Prejudices against Palm Jaggery by Sjt.
jaggery is made from sweet teddy that can be
Gajanan Nails 1 am w r i t i n g this to point out
obtained from the same number of trees, the
that the orthodox objection to the use of palm
consumers w i l l have to pay for the jaggery only
jaggery in Kerala is not merely because of the
Rs. 17,457-100. Fernrented teddy is made of
question of pollution where Harijans are tappers.
night and day drappings while only n i g h t drOp
L u c k i l y this objection is wearing out for one
pings are useful in jaggery-making. Supposing
reason or another. The more serious objection
the day droppings will be 'To-th of the quantity
p u t forward especially against its use in temples
of juice obtained, 139,661 gallons of sweet teddy
and for religious functions is because of the use
w i l l be procured from the trees from which of bones of. the cow for purposes of tapping.
155,179 gallons of fermented teddy is obtained
If a p r o p e r substitute for the bones is available,
at present. The percentage of jaggery to date palm jaggery will have no more religious
palm juice is 10; so 139,661 lbs. of jaggery will prohibition in most parts of the country, especially
be yielded. At the rate of 16 lbs. of jaggery in Travancore after the Temple E n t r y Proclamation.
per rupee the price of the jaggery will be
Rs. 17,457100. K. P. MADHAVA NAIR
To,
The average number of trees tapped in one THE EDITOR, Harijan
year in the. district for teddy drawing is 3,309 Sir,
and only 115 tappers are engaged in i t . There
are abeut 300,000 date-palms in the district. W i l l y o u please publish. the following few
A local tapper can attend to 30 trees daily. lines which I wish to submit in reply to the
If the Bengal method of resting the tree while points raised by Sjt. K. P. Madhava Hair 13. A,
tapping is adopted, at least 2,500 tappers can be B. L . , of Ernakulam?
employed to draw sweet teddy for making jag The objection of the orthodox is not only to
gery during six months, from November to April, jaggery made from coconut palms but to palm
in case all the trees are utilised. The trees will jaggery in general. In Kerala jaggery is manu
yield 9,000,000 lbs. of" jaggery annually if the factured from the sweet juice of the following
l
 Dreams 18, 1937- ]
palms: Palmyra-Karimpana, SagoIrampana,
Coconut Palm-Thongs. The use of a bone is
required for tapping the coconut palm only.
So far as I know, the bone of a deer is used.
The handles of knives used for cutting ripe
fruits, etc., are sometimes made of stag horn;
the combs used by ladies are also made of horns
of bulls which are patronised without objection.
For tapping sage and palmyra palms bones of
.any kind are not at a l l required by the Kerala
*tappers. But the taboo is equally rigorous on
the jaggery produced from these palms as well.
Instead of depending on religious scruples for
strengthening the taboo, the Keralites should
see their w a y to popularize palm jaggery with
.an open mind. ' While industry, especially by the end of the
Yours sincerely,
GAJANAN NAIK
A. I. V. I. A. Manager,
Wardha ~ J aggery Department
'KROPOTKIN Ax HANDICRAFTS
( B y K. G. Mashruwala)
The following quotations from KrOpotkins
Fields, Factories and Workshops seem quite. in
season when so much is being thought and
written about education through handicrafts:
In olden tirnes men of Science, and especially
those who have done most to forward the growth
of natural philosophy, did not despise manual
mf'his own hands. Newton learned in is
boyhood the a r t of managing tools; he (mercies-d
his young mind in contriving most ingenious
machines, and when he began his researches in
optics he was able himself to grind the lenses
for his instruments, and himself to make the well
lrnown telescope which, for its time, was a fine
piece of workmanship. Leibnitc was fond of
_ inventing machines Linnaeus became a botanist
while helping his father - a practical gardener
_ in his daily work. In short, with our great
geniuses handicraft as no obstacle to abstract
researches it rath favoured them......
We have changed all that. Under the pretext
of division of labour, we have sharply separated
the brain worker from the manual worker ......
The men of science... despise manual lahonr....
Most of them are not capable of even designing
a scientific, instrument, and when they have given
a vague suggestion to the instrument-maker,
they leave it with him to invent the apparatus
they need. Nay, they have raised the contempt
of manual labour to the height of a theory ..... .
As regards the masses of the workmen of
Europe Knopotkin says:
They do not receive more scientific education
than their grandfathers did; but they have been
deprived of the education even of the small
workshop, while their boys and girls are driven
intoaminc er a factory from the age of thirteen
and there they soon forget the little they may
have learned at school.
At the outset of modern industry, three genera
tions of workers bare invented; new they
cease to do so. As to the inventions of the
engineers, specially trained for devising machines,
they are either devoid of genius or not practical
r .enough. Those nearly ,to nothings! of which
5
1
. 4
HARIJAN 387
Sir Frederick, Bramwell spoke once at Bath, are
missing in their inventions those nothings which
can he learned in worksh0ps only and which
permitted a MurdOch or the Soho workers to
make a practical engine of Watt?s schemes. None
but he who knows the machine n o t in its
drawings and models only, but in its breathing
and throbbings - who unconsciOusly thinks of it
while standing by i t , can really improve i t .
Smeaton and Newcomen Surely were excellent
engineers; but in their engines a boy had. to
Open the steam valve at each stroke of the pis
ton; and it was one of these boys who once
managed to connect the valve with the remainder
of the machine, so as to make it open'antomati
Cally, while he r a n away to play with other
hove
' At another place he s a y s :
last century and during the first part of the
present, has been inventing on such a scale as
to revolutionise the very face of the earth,
science has been losing its inventive powers.
Men of science invent no more, or very little.
Is it not striking, indeed, that the steam engine,
even in its leading principles, the railway-engine,
the steamboat, the telephone, the phonograph,
the weavingmachine, the lacemachine, the light
house, the macadamieed road, photography in
black and in colours, and thousands of less
important things, have N01: been invented by
professional men of science, although none of
them would have refined to assodate his name
with any of the above-named inventions? Men
who hardly had received any education at school,
who had merely picked up the crumbs of
knowledge from the tables .of the rich, and
who made their experiments with the most
primitive means - the attorneys clerk Smea
ton, the instrument-maker Watt, the I'brakes- _
m a n Stephenson, the jewellers apprentice Fulton,
the millwright Rennie, the mason Telford, and.
hundreds of others whose very names remain un
known were, as M r. Smiles justly says, the
real makers of modern civilisation , while the
professienal men of science (except in the domain
of Chemistry) provided with all means for
acquiring knowledge and experimenting, have
invented little in the formidable array of imple
ments, machines, and prime motors which has
shown to humanity how to utilise and to manage
the forces of nature. The fact is striking, but
its explanation is very simple; those men the
.Wattses and the Stephensons knew something
which the accents do not know - they knew the
use of their hands; their surroundings stimulated
their inventive powers; they knew machines,
their leading principles, and their work; they
had breatlred._ the atmosphere of the workshop
and the building-yard.
at at: :1: Ir
We maintain that in the interests of both
science and industry, as well as of society as a
whole, every human being, without distinction of
birth, ought to receive such an education as would
enable him, or her, to combine a thorough know
ledge of science with a thorough knowledge of
handicraft. We fully recognise the necessity of
specialisation of knowledge, but we maintain that
specialisation must follow general education, and
that general education must be given in science
and handicraft alike. To the division of society
into brain workers and manual workers we
oppose the combination of both kinds
of activities ; and instead of technical
education , which means the maintenance of
the present division between brain work and.
manual work, _we advocate the education, {rascal-ale,
A
r
. I a
I.
 388 HARIJAN [ DECEMBER 18. 12 37 I
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or complete education, which means the dis 1937 have not been able to break a n y of the
appearance of that perniciOus distinction. embankments built in this w a y and the whole
Incidentally "it m a y be mentioned that consi area has been protected. There has been onliir
dered in the light of_ Kropotkins remarks. the one unfortunate exception. and that is where the
education given to science graduates is almost B. C. R. C. did not take up the work because the
a waste being practically a l l theoretical. It Government had already taken it up.
would be interesting to have a census _of the The programme . of self-help has been v e r y
occupations ofgall the science graduates turned successful as will appear from the following
out from the Bombay Presidency colleges during figures. The total length of the bands repaired
the last decade. is 45"; miles. The number of sluice-gates cull
structed is five and the number of bunds repaired
SUCCESSFUL SELF-HELP is 15. The B. C. R. C. has contributed in a l l
( By Rajendra Prasad) Be. 5469-14-9 out of which Re. 3.97%119 were
In the district of Saran ( i n Bihar) which is spent on sluice-gates. leaving a balance of Rs.
exposed [to flood, a portion has suffered heavily 1.1973-0 for earth-work. The peeple contributed
from time to time. It seems that the severity of in cash Rs. _796-3-3. The total costs of earth
floods has been intensified and the duration pro work estimated. without making any allowance
longed since the great earthquake of 1934. The Bihar for a n y profit to contractors, is Rs. 29,536. The
Central Relief Committee decided to spend about number of men who worked voluntarily on a l l
ten thousand rupees for erecting a bund and a the bunds altogether is 113,800. It will thus
channel in 1935. The District Board had also appear that with a small contribution of about
resolved to contribute Rs. 15,000. and the people Rs. 1,200 made by the B. C. R. C. and about
had promised to contribute by subscription the Rs. 800 made by the people themselves, the amount.
balance of the cost. But the work could not be of work turned out with the help of voluntary.
undertaken and the money sanctioned by the labour of 113.800 men. is valued 'at nearly
B. C. R. C. and the District Board could not Rs. 30,000. It is difficult to estimate the actual
be spent as the Government's sanction could not savings of the people by reason of protection
be obtained. afiorded by the new or repaired bunds, but it
is easy to imagine that it could not be calcu
The floods of 1936 covered practically the lated in anything less than seven figures.
whole length of the district and lasted for more The B. C. R. C. is being pressed to take u p .
than three months, causing the greatest havoc that bund also which- it did not take up last
and devastation. In 1937 the peeple were natur year and which g a v e w a y, causing great d a m a g e
a l l y anxicus and approached the B. G. R. C. to to the peeple in that locality.
take up the repair of not only one embankment
and one channel but of several embankments and The Report on Education
channels. many of which had been badly damaged The issue of the Harijan (20 pages) containing
by the floods of 1936. The situation attracted the full text of the Dr. Zakir Husain Committee on
the attention of the Government also and Mr. Education is available at two annas per copy (includ
M. Yunus. the then Premier. visited one of the i n g postage) a t : ( l ) Harijau Office, Poona 4;
affected localities and started a campaign for ( 2 ) Sjt. Aryanayakam, Navabharnt Vidyalaya, Wardha.
9S
the repair of bunds. and at one particular spot
he helped in actually starting the Work of Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi
repair. The B. C. R. C. took up the work in 1072 pages. Price Rs. 4. Postage etc, 9 as, extra..
the rest of the District and Pandit Girish Hind Swarai or Indian Home Rule
Tewary, a prominent Congressman in the district By Mahatma Gandhi, Price As, 8. Postage 2 as.
with a band of workers. was put in charge. extra. Available at the Harijan OfiiceIoona 4.
The Bihar Central Relief Committee promised
to make a small contribution and appealed to CONTENTS Page
the people to contribute the rest of the expenses C w u . LIBERTIES M. D. 384
by either raising funds or by unpaid. voluntary FURTHER D a w s o n ' sE v m s x c s I I C .S . 385
labour. The work was started in M a y, and 'by POTENTIALITIES .or PALM J s c c x u r V I G. Naik 388
the middle of J u l y, when the floods usually CORRESPONDENCE 386
Kaorormx .xxn HrtNDlt'lL. r r s G. Mashruwala 387
appear, most of the bunds had been repaired. Rajendra Prasad 338
' SUCCESSFUL SELF-HELP
and sluice-gates erected at places where they Norse:
were considered necessary. Sit. R. S. Tewary G a s o m n s HEALTH - M. D. 331
B. C. E. volunteered his services and he was PROF. Sasn's Nora: M. D. 381
helped by some other qualified overseer-3. In A ConnscrIo-x M D. 381
A USEFUL ARTICLE M. D. 332
A u g u s t and September. the work was confined to
Tue. H a s n l c s n r o r Warm-n M. D. 382
strengthening the bunds wherever they happened Season S v s r s u N o r SLOYD M. D. 382
to be weakening, and wherever the flood water Nosflms M. D. 383
was apprehended to break them. The floods of GOOD " READING l M. D.. 383.

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