P 2000

Besant describing the middle class of the 9th century wrote " In the first place it was for more a class apart.
"In no sense did it belong to society. Men in professions of any kind (except in the Army and Navy) could
only belong to society by right of birth and family connections; men in trade—bankers were still accounted
tradesmen—could not possibly belong to society. That is to say, if they went to live in the country they were
not called upon by the county families and in the town they were not admitted by the men into their clubs, or
by ladies into their houses… The middle class knew its own place, respected itself, made its own society for
itself, and cheerfully accorded to rank the deference due."
Since then, however, the life of the middle classes had undergone great changes as their numbers had
swelled and their influence had increased.
Their already well –developed consciousness of their own importance had deepened. More critical than they
had been in the past of certain aspects of aristocratic life, they wee also more concerned with the plight of
the poor and the importance of their own values of society, thrift, hand work, piety and respectability thrift,
hand work, piety and respectability as examples of ideal behavior for the guidance of the lower orders.
Above all they were respectable. There were divergences of opinion as to what exactly was respectable and
what was not. There were, nevertheless, certain conventions, which were universally recognized: wild and
drunker behaviors were certainly not respectable, nor were godlessness or avert promiscuity, not an ill-
ordered home life, unconventional manners, self-indulgence or flamboyant clothes and personal adornments.

P 2002
'The official name of our species is homo sapiens; but there are many anthropologists who prefer to think of
man as homo Fabcr-thc smith, the maker of tools It would be possible. I think, to reconcile these two
definitions in a third. If man is a knower and an efficient doer, it is only because he is also a talker In order
to be Faber and Sapiens, Homo must first be loquax, the loquacious one. Without language we should
merely be hairless chimpanzees. Indeed \vc should be some thing much worse. Possessed of a high IQ but
no language, we should be like the Yahoos of Gulliver's Travels- Creatures too clever to be guided by
instinct, too Self-centered to live in a state of animal grace, and therefore condemned forever, frustrated and
malignant, between contented apehood and aspiring'humanity. It was language that made possible the
accumulation of knowledge and the broadcasting of information. It was language that permitted the
expression of religious insight, the formulation of ethical ideals, the codification to laws, It was language, in
a word, that turned us into human beings and gave birth to civilization.
P 2003
If then a practical end must be assigned to a University course, I say it is that of training good
members of a society. Its ah is the art of social life, and its end is fitness for the world. It neither
confines its views to particular professions on the one hand, not creates heroes or inspires genius on
the other. Works indeed of genius fall under no art; heroic minds come under no rule; a University
is not a birthplace of poets or of immortal authors, of founders of schools, leaders of colonies, or
conquerors of nations. It does not promise a generation of Aristotle or Newtons of Napoleons or
Washingtons of Raphaels or Shakespearcs though such miracles of nature it has before now
contained within its precincts. Nor is it content on the other hand with forming the critic or the
experimentalist, the economist or the engineer, through such too it includes within its scope. But a
University training is the great ordinary means to a great ordinary end; it aims at raising the
intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, at purifying the national taste, at
supplying true principles to popular aspirations. It is the education which gives a man a clear
conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in
expressing them, and a force in urging them, ft teaches him to sec things as they arc, to go right to
the point, to disentangle a skein of thought, to detect what is sophistical and to - discard what is
irrelevant. It prepares him to fill any post with credit, and to master any subject with facility. (John
H. Ncwman)
P 2010
Of all the characteristics of ordinary human nature envy is the most unfortunate; not only does the
envious person wish to inflict misfortune and do so whenever he can with impunity, but he is also
himself rendered unhappy by envy. Instead of deriving pleasure from what he has, he derives pain
from what others have. If he can, he deprives others of their advantages, which to him is as desirable
as it would be to secure the same advantages himself. If this passion is allowed to run riot it
becomes fatal to all excellence, and even to the most useful exercise of exceptional skill. Why
should a medical man go to see his patients in a car when the labourer has to walk to his work? Why
should the scientific investigator be allowed to spend his time in a warm room when others have to
face the inclemency of the elements? Why should a man who possesses some rare talent of great
importance to the world be saved from the drudgery of his own housework? To such questions envy
finds no answer. Fortunately, however, there is in human nature a compensating passion, namely
that of admiration. Whoever wishes to increase human happiness must wish to increase admiration
and to diminish envy. What cure is there for envy? For the saint there is the cure of selflessness,
though even in the case of saints envy of other saints is by no means impossible. But, leaving saints
out of account, the only cure for envy in the case of ordinary men and women is happiness, and the
difficulty is that envy is itself a terrible obstacle to happiness. But the envious man may say: ‘What
is the good of telling me that the cure for envy is happiness? I cannot find happiness while I
continue to feel envy, and you tell me that I cannot cease to be envious until I find happiness.’ But
real life is never so logical as this. Merely to realize the causes of one’s own envious feeling is to
take a long step towards curing them.
P 2011
The Psychological causes of unhappiness, it is clear, are many and various. But all have something
in common. The typical unhappy man is one who having been deprived in youth of some normal
satisfaction, has come to value this one kind of satisfaction more than any other, and has, therefore,
given to his life a one-sided direction, together with a quite undue emphasis upon the achievement
as opposed to the activities connected with it. There is, however, a further development which is
very common in the present day. A man may feel so completely thwarted that he seeks no form of
satisfaction, but only distraction and oblivion. He then becomes a devotee of “Pleasure”. That is to
say, he seeks to make life bearable by becoming less alive. Drunkenness, for example, is temporary
suicide; the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness. The
narcissist and the megalomaniac believe that happiness is possible, though they may adopt mistaken
means of achieving it; but the man who seeks intoxication, in whatever form, has given up hope
except in oblivion. In his case the first thing to be done is to persuade him that happiness is
desirable. Men, who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact. Perhaps
their pride is like that of the fox who had lost his tail; if so, the way to cure it is to point out to them
how they can grow a new tail. Very few men, I believe, will deliberately choose unhappiness if they
see a way of being happy. I do not deny that such men exist, but they are not sufficiently numerous
to be important. It is common in our day, as it has been in many other periods of the world’s history,
to suppose that those among us who are wise have seen through all the enthusiasms of earlier times
and have become aware that there is nothing left to live for. The man who hold this view are
genuinely unhappy, but they are proud of their unhappiness, which they attribute to the nature of the
universe and consider to be the only rational attitude for an enlightened man. Their pride in their
unhappiness makes less sophisticated people suspicious of its genuineness; they think that the man
who enjoys being miserable is not miserable.
P 2014
Probably the only protection for contemporary man is to discover how to use his intelligence in the
service of love and kindness. The training of human intelligence must include the simultaneous
development of the empathic capacity. Only in this way can intelligence be made an instrument of
social morality and responsibility – and thereby increase the chances of survival. The need to
produce human beings with trained morally sensitive intelligence is essentially a challenge to
educators and educational institutions. Traditionally, the realm of social morality was left to religion
and the churches as guardians or custodians. But their failure to fulfil this responsibility and their
yielding to the seductive lures of the men of wealth and pomp and power are documented by history
of the last two thousand years and have now resulted in the irrelevant “God Is Dead” theological
rhetoric. The more pragmatic men of power have had no time or inclination to deal with the
fundamental problems of social morality. For them simplistic Machiavellianism must remain the
guiding principle of their decisions – power is morality, morality is power. This over-simplification
increases the chances of nuclear devastation. We must therefore hope that educators and educational
institutions have the capacity, the commitment and the time to in-still moral sensitivity as an integral
part of the complex pattern of functional human intelligence. Some way must be found in the
training of human beings to give them the assurance to love, the security to be kind, and the
integrity required for a functional empathy.
P 2012
One of the most ominous and discreditable symptoms of the want of candour in present-day
sociology is the deliberate neglect of the population question. It is, or should be, transparently clear
that, if the state is resolved, on humanitarian grounds, to inhibit the operation of natural selection,
some rational regulation of population, both as regards quality and quantity, is imperatively
necessary. There is no self-acting adjustment, apart from starvation, of numbers to the means of
subsistence. If all natural checks are removed, a population in advance of the optimum number will
be produced and maintained at the cost of a reduction in the standard of living. When this pressure
begins to be felt, that section of the population which is capable of reflection and which has a
standard of living which may be lost will voluntarily restrict its numbers, even to the point of failing
to replace death by an equivalent number of new births; while the underworld, which always exists
in every civilized society The failure and misfits and derelicts, moral and physical will exercise no
restraint and will be a constantly increasing drain upon the national resources. The population will
thus be recruited in a very undue proportion by those strata of society which do not possess the
qualities of useful citizens. The importance of the problem would seem to be sufficiently obvious.
But politicians know that the subject is unpopular. The urban have no votes. Employers are like a
surplus of labour, which can be drawn upon when trade is good. Militarists want as much food for
powder as they can get. Revolutionists instinctively oppose any real remedy for social evils; they
know that every unwanted child is a potential insurgent. All three can appeal to a Quasi-Religious
prejudice, resting apparently on the ancient theory of natural rights which were supposed to include
the right of unlimited procreation. This objection is now chiefly urged by celibate or childless
priests; but it is held with such fanatical vehemence that the fear of losing the votes which they
control is a welcome excuse for the baser sort of politicians to shelve the subject as inopportune.
The socialist calculation is probably erroneous; for experience has shown that it is aspiration, not
desperation, that makes revolutions.
P 2019
I think modern educational theorists are inclined to attach too much importance to the negative
virtue of not interfering with children, and too little to the positive merit of enjoying their company.
If you have the sort of liking for children that many people have for horses or dogs, they will be apt
to respond to your suggestions, and to accept prohibitions, perhaps with some good-humoured
grumbling, but without resentment. It is no use to have the sort of liking that consists in regarding
them as a field for valuable social endeavour, or what amounts to the same thing as an outlet for
power-impulses. No child will be grateful for an interest in him that springs from the thought that he
will have a vote to be secured for your party or a body to be sacrificed to king and country. The
desirable sort of interest is that which consists in spontaneous pleasure in the presence of children,
without any ulterior purpose. Teachers who have this quality will seldom need to interfere with
children's freedom, but will be able to do so, when necessary, without causing psychological
damage. Unfortunately, it is utterly impossible for over-worked teachers to preserve an instinctive
liking for children; they are bound to come to feel towards them as the proverbial confectioner's
apprentice does towards macaroons. I do not think that education ought to be anyone's whole
profession: it should be undertaken for at most two hours a day by people whose remaining hours
are spent away from children. The society of the young is fatiguing, especially when strict discipline
is avoided. Fatigue, in the end, produces irritation, which is likely to express itself somehow,
whatever theories the harassed teacher may have taught himself or herself to believe. The necessary
friendliness cannot be preserved by self-control alone. But where it exists, it should be unnecessary
to have rules in advance as to how "naughty" children are to be treated, since impulse is likely to
lead to the right decision, and almost any decision will be right if the child feels that you like him.
No rules, however wise, are a substitute for affection and tact.
Trees give shade for the benefit of others, and while they themselves stand in the sun and endure the
scorching heat, they produce the fruit of which others profit. The character of good men is like that
of trees. What is the use of this perishable body if no use is made of it for the benefit of mankind?
Sandalwood, the more it is rubbed, the more scent does it yield. Sugarcane, the more it is peeled and
cut up into pieces, the more juice does it produce. The men who are noble at heart do not lose their
qualities even in losing their lives. What matters whether men praise them or not? What difference
does it make whether they die at this moment or whether lives are prolonged? Happen what may,
those who tread in the right path will not set foot in any other. Life itself is unprofitable to a man
who does not live for others. To live for the mere sake of living one’s life is to live the life of dog
and crows. Those who lay down their lives for the sake of others will assuredly dwell forever in a
world of bliss.

It is physically impossible for a well-educated, intellectual, or brave man to make money the chief
object of his thoughts just as it is for him to make his dinner the principal object of them. All
healthy people like their dinners, but their dinner is not the main object of their lives. So all healthy
minded people like making money ought to like it and enjoy the sensation of winning it; it is
something better than money.
A good soldier, for instance, mainly wishes to do his fighting well. He is glad of his pay—very
properly so and justly grumbles when you keep him ten years without it—till, his main mission of
life is to win battles, not to be paid for winning them. So of clergymen. The clergyman's object is
essentially baptize and preach not to be paid for preaching. So of doctors. They like fees no doubt—
ought to like them; yet if they are brave and well-educated the entire object to their lives is not fees.
They on the whole, desire to cure the sick; and if they are good doctors and the choice were fairly to
them, would rather cure their patient and lose their fee than kill him and get it. And so with all the
other brave and rightly trained men: their work is first, their fee second—very important always; but
still second.
Home is the young, who known "nothing of the world and who would be forlorn and sad, if thrown
upon it. It is providential, shelter of the weak and inexperienced, who have to learn as yet to cope
with the temptations which lies outside of it. It is the place of training of those who are not only
ignorant, but have no yet learnt how to learn, and who have to be taught by careful individual trail,
how to set about profiting by the lessons of teacher. And it is the school of elementary studies—not
of advances, for such studies alone can make master minds. Moreover, it is the shrine of our best
affections, the bosom of our fondest recollections, at spell upon our after life, a stay for world weary
mind and soul; wherever we are, till the end comes. Such are attributes or offices of home, and like
to these, in one or other sense or measure, are the attributes and offices of a college in a university.

English education and English language have done immense goods to India, inspite of their glaring
drawbacks. The notions of democracy and self-government are the born of English education. Those
who fought and died for mother India's freedom were nursed in the cradle of English thought and
culture. The West has made contribution to the East. The history of Europe has fired the hearts of
our leaders. Our struggle for freedom has been inspired by the struggles for freedom in England,
America and France. If our leaders were ignorant of English and if they had not studied this
language, how could they have been inspired by these heroic struggles for freedom in other lands?
English, therefore, did us great good in the past and if properly studied will do immense good in
future.
English is spoken throughout the world. For international contact our comrherce and trade, for the
development of our practical ideas, for the scientific studies, English-is indispensable "English is
very rich in literature," our own literature has been made richer by this foreign language. It will
really be a fatal day if we altogether forget Shakespeare, Milton, Keats and Shaw.
When we survey our lives and efforts we soon observe that almost the whole of our actions and
desires are bound up with the existence of other human beings. We notice that whole nature
resembles that of the social animals. We eat food that others have produced, wear clothes that others
have made, live in houses that others have built. The greater part of our knowledge and beliefs has
been passed on to us by other people though the medium of a language which others have created.
Without language and mental capacities, we would have been poor indeed comparable to higher
animals.
We have, therefore, to admit that we owe our principal knowledge over the least to the fact of living
in human society. The individual if left alone from birth would remain primitive and beast like in
his thoughts and feelings to a degree that we can hardly imagine. The individual is what he is and
has the significance that he has, not much in virtue of the individuality, but rather as a member of a
great human community, which directs his material and spiritual existence from the cradle to grave.

One great defect of our civilization is that it does not know what to do with its knowledge. Science,
as we have seen, .has given us powers fit for the gods, yet we use them like small children.
For example :- we do not know how to manage our machines. Machines were made to be man's
servants; yet he has grown so dependent on them that they are in a fair way to
become his masters. Already most men spend most of their lives looking after and waiting upon
machines. And the machines are very stern masters. They must be fed with coal, and given petrol to
drink, and oil to wash with, and must be kept at the right temperature. And if they do not get their
meals when they expect them, they grow sulky and refuse to work, or burst with rage, and blow up,
and spread ruin and destruction all round them, So we have to wait upon them very attentively and
do all that we can to keep them In a good temper. Already we find it difficult either to work or play
without the machines, and a time may come when they will rule us altogether, just as we rule the
animals.
A stamp is, to many people, just a slip of paper that takes a letter from one town or country to
another. They are unable to understand why we stamp collectors find so much pleasure in collecting
them and how we find the time in which to indulge in our hobby. To them it seems a waste of time,
a waste of effort and a waste of money. But they do not realise that there are many who do buy
stamps, many who find the effort worth-while and many who, if they did not spend their time
collecting stamps, would spend it less profitably. We all seek something to do in our leisure hours
and what better occupation is there to keep us out of mischief than that of collecting stamps? An
album, a packet of hinges, a new supply of stamps, and the time passes swiftly and pleasantly.
Stamp-collecting has no limits and a collection never has an end; countries are always printing and
issuing new stamps to celebrate coronations, great events, anniversaries and deaths. And the
fascination of collecting is trying to obtain these stamps before one's rivals. Every sphere of stamp-
collecting has its fascination - receiving letters from distant countries and discovering old stamps in
the leaves of dusty old books. A stamp itself has a fascination all its own. Gazing at its little picture
we are transported to the wilds of Congo, the homes of the Arabs, and the endless tracks of the
Sahara desert. There is a history in every stamp. The ancient Roman Empire and the Constitution of
America, India's Independence and the Allied victory, are all conveyed to our mind's eye h> means
of stamps. We see famous men, pictures, writers, scientists, soldiers, politicians and famous
incidents. Stamps, so small and minute, contain knowledge that is vast and important.