MY AMBITION IN LIFE

June 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Ambition

Different persons have different ambitions in life because they differ not only in tastes and temperament but also in innate tendencies and physical capabilities. There are three factors which guide persons to choose their profession. They are power, pelf and popularity. After long sustained self-analysis, I have come to conclusion that teaching profession will suit me the most.

An Essay and Article On My Ambition Of Being Of Teacher

Being the son of a teacher, I have perhaps inherited certain qualities of a teacher. I have natural bent of mind towards this noble profession. I know that this calling is not going to make me rich, nor a popular or powerful person. I am also conversant with the curious trend of the society that, on one hand, he is called the nation builder and, on the other hand, they Ambitionignorantly remark that those who cannot do any other kind of job become teachers. Despite this fallacy, I prefer to be a teacher. In my eyes this is the most humble profession as the avenues of allurements are negligible in comparison to other professions. A good teacher serves not only himself,’ but the society and the nation also without the expectation of any reward for his job. He serves himself because he can enlighten himself as much as possible while being in this profession. He serves the society and the nation because the citizens of the country will be what he makes them today. He is a guide, a friend and a philosopher to the pupils under his charge. He kindles their souls by his ‘lamp of knowledge and spirituality. He himself lives a plain life so that they may live in gaudiness. His face beams with joy when any student of his attains a prestigious position in life because he feels that his labour, after all, has not gone waste. With this spirit does he work and serve the nation.

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MY FAVORITE AUTHOR

June 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Favorite Author

Various persons read books for various reasons. Some of them go through books hurriedly because their aim is to get familiar with the plot or to boast before others that they have read so many volumes written by so many different’ people. Others read to improve their command over the language. Very few read books to know the author. For a person like me who has a host of favorite writers and poets, it is extremely difficult to single out one from them. I like Thomas Hardy as a novelist. He occupies the foremost place among the ‘tragic’ novelists of England. Though Hardy is a realist, there is a delicacy and beauty in his realism; I do not find any coarse brutality and indelicacy which is the feature of French realists. His novels are not ‘the meat market of middle-aged sensuality’. His novels are not mere fictions of his imagination.

An Essay and Article On my Favorite Author

I find in them all the various Experiences of his earlier years, molded to artistic perfection. His novels are based to a large extent upon his personal observation and experience. Hardy has gone into the secrets of the human heart. His deep insight into the life of the men of Dorset stands him in good stead. His characters move and behave with such inbounding reality that we are forced to admire Hardy’s mastery in this art. As an interpreter of character, Hardy excels in his insight into the intricacies of the feminine Favorite Authorheart. His women are full of tenderness and full of caprice. Whatever their station in life, they never lack attraction. Hardy is primarily interested in the emotion of love as the mainspring of human life. He finds that women are more swayed by it than men. That is why there is hardly a single example of an intellectual woman in his novels. All his young women are in the grip of passion and are likely to be victims of their own affectionate heart. Next to the heroines are the rustics, the farmers and shepherds who draw my attention. His pictures of rural England and his portraits of its wise, honest country folk are charming to the last degree. They give us an inexhaustible fund of harmless and whole-some delight. The novels of Hardy are unparalleled for their artistic perfection both in plot and atmosphere. The sequence of event seems to follow with logical exactness. Even the duration of action is marked out with precision. The atmosphere of Greek tragedy pervades every one of his tragic novels. The greatness of Hardy consists not in the atmosphere 0f his novels or in the characterization or in refreshing humour but in his outlook on life. To him life is the struggle of individual human wills against the powers that rule the world. Those powers are indifferent to human beings who appear to be crushed by a superior force.

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Public Opinion And Newspapers

June 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

An Essay And Article on Newspapers

Newspapers are one of the vital organs of the modern world. Literally, a ‘newspaper’ .means a paper which furnishes us with news or makes a record of contemporary events from day to day; and this was what the first newspapers undertook or attempted to do. Now, however, they go much farther. Besides making a chronicle of daily events, they offer advice on public questions, criticize the administrative measures of Government or any other public body, accord praise or blame for acts which they approve or disapprove, and so on. They are thus organs of public opinion on all kinds of questions- social, administrative, moral, literary, legal, industrial, and commercial. There is hardly a question affecting society which does not fall within the province of a newspaper’s comments.

A newspaper is properly the organ of public opinion, but to serve this function well it is necessary that the press should be free, subject to no censorship and at liberty to express what opinions it likes without reserve. It is also necessary that the press should be strictly honest, not susceptible to bribery on the part of those who wish it to ventilate their prejudiced opinions. The press must also be absolutely impartial and unbiased, so as to keep itself above all individual interests, and so as to prevent its columns from becoming the battle-ground of private enemies fighting for some selfish purpose. Press morality does not, however, prevent a newspaper from becoming the champion or the mouthpiece of a particular party. Indeed, it is considered the right thing for a newspaper to attach itself to some one party and to advocate and uphold it interests in the general clashing of interest which is inevitable in a nation divided into numerous sects and parties.

Newspapers Are The Best Source Of Public Opinion

But there is nothing easier than for a newspaper to abuse its position. The editor may take a bribe and advocate a bad cause or lend his support to public proceedings of a question- able nature; or he may, through some other corrupt influence, try to extenuate or defend some flagrant private or public wrong. A ‘newspaper may further abuse its privileges by throwing open its columns to libelous attacks or private slanders published from motives of private malice or jealousy. A news- paper forfeits its good name when it publishes news that it knows to be false or not sufficiently authentic, or when it gives disgusting details of a shocking crime or a scandalous incident merely to pander to the low taste of the low classes; or even when it knowingly inserts fraudulent advertisements intended to rob the public.

There are, however, sufficient checks in existence to counteract these tendencies. Since newspapers serve as the organs of a party, and since the interests of newspapersdifferent parties conflict and clash, it follows that just as partisans are in the habit of picking holes in each other’s proceedings, so do newspapers keep a constant’ watch over one another policies. In this way one acts as a sort of spy upon the other, and loses no time in exposing anything wrong that it might happen to detect in the comments of the other. This it does, not only in the interests of the party whose cause it is supposed to advocate, not only for the sake of its own reputation, but also because of the, keen competition that exists in the journalistic world. For newspapers are after all run on commercial lines, and so far as they are commercial concerns they are subject to the commercial law of competition.

The true value of a newspaper consists not in the news that it publishes, but in the comments that it makes on questions of public interest. The same question, if it is sufficiently important, is commented upon by a number of newspapers, simultaneously or successively; and the reading public, after judging between conflicting views or contradictory statements, is enabled to draw their own conclusions from the controversy. In this way newspapers serve to form a healthy public opinion. It is as a popular educator that the press fulfils its most important function. This educative value of newspapers is felt in every department of human life. In the field of intellectual culture, the business of the press is to discuss problems of education, to criticize new works published from time to time, and thus to set a high standard both for education and for authorship.

Supposing any subject of high educational value is omitted in the curricula of studies laid down for schools and colleges, it is the duty of the daily press to bring this to the notice of the authorities. Supposing any book written by an author does not come up to the standard required for works of that nature, the press will at once come down upon it and restore the standard to its normal level. It is from the fear of press criticism that inferior authors are deterred from bringing out their inferior works; for had it not been for this physical check, the moral check of modesty would scarcely have proved strong enough to prevent the world from’ being deluged by a flood of printed trash. In the sphere of society, the influence of newspapers is still greater. The strongest advocate of social reform in India is neither the platform speaker, nor the pamphleteer, but the public press.

The orator speaks only for an hour to a smal1 audience; the newspaper speaks to the whole country, in a more permanent manner, and gives them time to think and reflect and carry out their resolves. The orator’s charms of eloquence are comparatively short-lived; the newspaper’s pleadings, though not so eloquent, are more permanent and therefore more effective; and they also appeal to a much wider audience. Then again the orator is nothing without the press reporter and the daily paper. His commanding personality is, by these two agencies, made to be felt over a greater circle than the attentive group he actually addresses. It is in these ways that newspapers are a potent agency for working out social reforms.

Already the Indian press has rendered great service to the cause of social reform in the directions of widow marriage and female education, and there are hundreds of other questions on which newspapers are still crying them- selves hoarse almost every day and every week. In the domain of morals, the influence of newspaper is no less strong than in the spheres of intellect and society. For they inculcate some of the highest moral qualities that human nature can show, as for example, love of truth, freedom from prejudice, regard for the common good, patriotism, etc. Newspaper make us feel that we are not an insulated body, but an integral part of the state; that the petty affairs of our home or our village or our district are nothing compared with the larger concerns that affect our country as a whole or that affect the whole human race.

Feel Of Kinship With Newspapers

Newspapers thus foster a feeling of brotherhood within the nation. They bind together the different sections of a nation in sympathy with great causes and noble ideals. All great discoveries and inventions, as soon as they are made, are announced in the press and thus become known to millions. The purity of justice is maintained by the reports of cases decided in the courts of law. No act of high-handed tyranny, no miscarriage of justice, no neglect of public duty can long remain undetected by the press. All questions of public interest are one by one brought to the bar of public opinion. It is in these indirect ways that newspapers create and develop a feeling of kinship, a bond of common interest among the various sections of a nation. But newspapers really go further than that. They also bind together different nations by ties of common interest and common ideals. They thus serve to found international friendships.

If the press of one country is sympathetic towards the people of another, the result is that a political friendship is a once formed between the two; whereas if the press happen to be hostile, such friendships, however old they may be, are quickly dissolved: mutual ill-will springs up, and ultimately the two nations come into conflict with each other. It is true that as a form of literature, a newspaper lacks the quality of permanence; but the ideas stimulated in the minds of men by newspaper articles produce an effect that is sometimes quite as permanent’ as ‘the “thoughts that wander through eternity” contained in the pages of an immortal classic. If the idea of the universal brotherhood of man is at any time to be actually realized in human life, as poets and sages have hoped and said, this result can only be achieved by the influence of newspapers.

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Fastidiousness – Undue Niceness

June 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

An Essay And Article on Fastidiousness

Fastidiousness may be defined as undue niceness or exactness in selection. The essence of this quality is that it is exceedingly difficult to please the person possessed of it. Nothing appears to satisfy his taste or inclination. When going to buy an article of dress, for instance, the fastidious man examines one stuff after another, rejecting them all, and demanding fresh ones, and better ones, and still better ones, until in the end, perhaps, he is unable to buy at all. This is fastidiousness in the matters of dress. The same quality may manifest itself in other matter just as well. The fastidious man is dissatisfied with his meals, rejecting dish after dish as unsavory, tasting a bit out of one plate and putting it by, and another out of another, until in the end he rises up in utter disgust from the table. “This is not good”; “this quality is not the best”; “there is surely a better than this”; remarks such as these are always on the lips of the fastidious man.

Nothing can please his fancy; nothing can suit his taste, nothing can come up to his standard. At bottom it will be found that fastidiousness is only another form of egotism. For it really consists, not so much in the expression of dissatisfaction or disgust with what is, as in a strong assertion of one’s own tastes and inclinations. The fastidious man believes in no one except himself; what he likes is what the world should accept; what he dislikes should be ruled out of court absolutely. He is always talking of his own tastes, which he regards as superfine,-better, more refined than those of all others; and in this respect he is as vain as a peacock. For he is not content with gratifying his own tastes, but goes further, and makes a show of them both at home and in society.

What Is Fastidiousness ?

From the above description it would appear that fastidiousness is an unqualified vice, as reprehensible as vanity on egotism. Is this really so? Is there no saving grace about this quality that would clear it of moral stain? The answer to this question would appear from a consideration of the root or origin of this alleged vice. There can be no question that fast tediousness results from the over-cultivation of a particular taste. If a man’s liking for decent clothes is pushed to extremes, the result is fastidiousness in dress. Fastidiousness in meat and drink similarly springs from excessive regard for savories in our meals.Fastidiousness Fastidiousness may also be displayed by a writer in the matter of style and language. De Quincy knew an author as laudably fastidious in the art of style as to have recast one chapter of a series ‘no less than seventeen times.

It is clear, then, that fastidiousness is impossible except for people whose tastes are highly developed; and that just as it is an indication of over-cultivation of taste in the person possessing it, so it conduces to a better cultivation of taste in others. A vulgar or ignorant man has no chance of being accused of fastidiousness; what is to be feared in his case is an absolute lack of good taste, or rather too much evidence of bad taste. Hence if the choices were to lie between vulgarities on the one hand and fastidiousness on the other, there can be no doubt that the latter would be the more desirable alternative Better that there should be an increase of fastidiousness than that a premium should be set on clownishness. If it does no other good, at least it tends to raise the standard in taste.

Influence of Fastidiousness

The passing away of whatever is ugly or inelegant s due chiefly to the influence of fastidious people. It is they that set the standard for good taste. Reforms in fashion, invention of new styles of dress, improvements in the quality of articles of clothing as well as of food,-all these we owe to the turned-up nose of the fastidious gentleman or the fastidious lady. If no one had felt any dissatisfaction with the button less chapkan, with front and side fastenings, the modern sherwani would not have come into existence. If the nerves of fastidious people had not rebelled against the jolty vibration of iron-tyred vehicles, rubber tyres for carriages would never have been invented. If we look closely into modern improvements, we shall find that in most cases they have originated in a “discontent”, born first in the minds of fastidious people.

To this extent, therefore, fastidiousness is a blessing to society. But while it is a blessing to society it cannot help being a curse to the individual himself. The fastidious man or woman suffers endless agonies in life, over and above the thousands natural shocks that flesh is heir to. He finds little appetite for his food-it is not so tasteful as it could be; his dress is abhor- rent to him-is badly cut and badly made; his house is loath- some den, as bad as a pig-sty-there’s not a comfortable house that he has ever seen; his coach is worse than a bullock-cart,- indeed, he thinks, the bullock-cart would be a better vehicle than the carriages now in vogue; his tea is simply “horrid”: his wines musty or insipid; his cigars utterly devoid of flavor.

There is hardly a thing that pleases him. If he has to write a letter, he cannot reconcile himself to the sort of stationery he can command-flimsy paper, scratchy pen, clotted ink-and he finds the work of writing a sore task. And if perchance he submits to the use of inferior stationery, he finds his heart recoiling in disgust from the poverty of the style which he can command at the moment. He tears up one sheet, two sheets, three sheets, and then probably leaves off the task in despair. When he goes to a play, he is continually groaning within himself at the bad acting, the bad management, the bad dialogue, the bad plot. Nothing is to his taste. When dressing for a dinner party, he suffers a series of tortures as he tries shirt after shirt, collar after collar, hat after ‘hat, and finds each a misfit or a type of ugliness.

In this way the fastidious man finds himself dwelling in a hell of self-inflicted torments, deriving no consolation from the fact that his pangs are serving to lay the foundation of a better order of tastes in every department of cultured life. But whatever good it might do to the world, or whatever harm it might do to the individual himself, there can be no question that fastidiousness is a creature of that love of pleasure which is gradually becoming a characteristic of modern culture. The most pronounced tendency of modern civilization is undoubtedly to give birth to refined modes of pleasure- seeking. The ball, the banquet, the stage, and the race-course are but a few of that endless variety of pleasures which the modern epicure is accustomed to take delight in; and within each of these departments a continuous course of improvement is going on.

The result is that there are as many different styles of dancing as there are merry couples willing to dance. There is also no end to the variety in the manner of holding feasts, -no end also to the variety of dishes served at those feasts. And so for theaters and opera houses, no two of them will be found alike in quality or in the taste which they profess to gratify. Horse-racing has, for the same reasons, stepped be- yond its proper sphere to be a scene of merry social gatherings, in which the center of interest is not always the galloping horse, but some accessory amusement, such as betting. For love of pleasure can be pushed to any extreme. Like the man of ambition, the man of pleasure continually sighs for new worlds to conquer. Nothing loses its charm so quickly as a pleasure; the confirmed epicure cannot brook to taste the same pleasure twice; he is always longing for fresh pleasures; and since new pleasures cannot be produced so quickly as they are desired, the result often is that, in the words of the poet, the man of pleasure finds himself a man of pain. There is decidedly some good in fastidiousness.

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Learn The Art Of Writing A Letter

June 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

An Essay And Article on Letter Writing

Letter-writing is an art that has to be learned, cultivated and perfected with the same care and diligence as painting or music. It does not come of itself, except to the born genius; it has to be ‘acquired by a study of rules and models and pursued with regularity, in the same way as poetry. But unlike poetry, it needs no special faculty, no special mental framework, no particular habit and disposition such as poets Possess. Everyone can, if he desires, become a good letter-writer by a little care, a little practice, and a little study. It is a capacity as easy of acquisition as conversation, and like conversation it is open to much misuse. Like conversation again, it presupposes a good education, for just as an uneducated man cannot be a good conversations, so he cannot also be a good letter-writer.

For a good letter must be good not only in form, but also in matter. Letter-writing is an art in a double sense: it is a fine art, as well as a useful art. Letters serve to abridge the distance that separates friends from friend, relation from relation: the absent one seems to be still in our midst if we keep alive our correspondence with him. It is scarcely necessary in this age of fast transit and easy communication with the outside world, to dwell on the utility of letters, and the extent of the blessing that the Post Office and the Telegraph have conferred on civilized man. Letters now form one-fourth of the whole business of life in the case of educated people, and the Postal Union has been happily termed the happiest bond of union between man and man.

Format Of Letter Writing

There “are, however, letters and letters, and it is impossible to expect all letters, even of the same class, to conform to one and the same style merely because they belong to a particular type of communication between one man and another. The style of letters must obviously vary with the character and temperament of the writer, and this again varies largely according to his education and environment. Differences due to taste are considerable enough, and yet they are slight as compared with differences due to the nationality and domicile of the writer.

The style of the East, for instance, is clearly marked off from the style of the West in many essential points. It is, in the first place, more formal. The eastern mode of salutation, with its elaborate forms of what is called alqab and adab, is characteristically different from the simple, natural way of commencing and closing a letter adopted by people of the west, and those who have adopted their style after the west. It is not only in the style that letters of the regular oriental type are stiff and formal; their matter or contents are not the less so. Every letter, for example, lettermust begin with the statement that the writer is quite well, and this must immediately be followed by an expression of pious Wish for the health of the person written to. Such a beginning would, according to western taste, be condemned as too egotistical.

There is nothing in the style of ordinary talk; but the plain speech of informal talk is about the last thing one would expect to find in an oriental epistle, the language of which is far more ornate, inflated, and stilted than western taste has ever deemed permissible in any class of letters. Metaphors, similes, and other figures of speech are not at all thought out of place even in a private letter of the east. The true aim of letter writing is to fulfill the same purpose as God intended for human speech-viz., the communication of thoughts and feelings; and hence clearness is the first quality of a letter. If your thought or feeling is over laden by a weight of ornament, it is apt to lose not only in clearness but also in effect.

Between relation and relation, the object of letter-writing is to preserve the affection; between friend and friend it is to keep up the intimacy; and even between strangers, letters, if exchanged, are intended to serve as messengers of love. One would imagine that even where a letter is intended to carry a message of enmity, clearness and simplicity are just as effective weapons of animosity as they are ministers of peace and friendliness. It is of course this latter office that letters generally serve; they create love where there was none before; they deepen love which was once shallow; they renew love which had lapsed for want of renewal. They mitigate the effects of absence, with the result that friends who have kept up a mutual correspondence never feel so keenly that they are away from each other. In order to do all this letter must be truly a bit of the writer’s mind and heart; there must be no artificiality about any part of it; no reserve, no formality ought to mar its freedom and frankness of tone.

There have been some famous letter-writers, whose epistles are so elegant in every way that they are regarded as models. One such writer was the poet Cowper, whose private letters have been published and are read with the same pleasure with which one reads good literature. Their natural simplicity of style is admirable; the subjects they deal with are those commonplace topics which we talk upon with friends and their delicate humour is most charming. Another famous writer of this class is Horace Walpole, but his letters are perhaps some- what more “learned” than those of Cowper. In Persian, the best letters are those of Emperor Aurangzeb, which have been collected and published under the title Ruqqiyut-i-Alamgiri, a book which is regarded as a classic of Persian literature.

Need To learn Writing A Letter

We thus see that letters are not always the instruments of vexation which busy people are sometimes apt to think. They are angels ministering to our peace and happiness. They reveal the mind and heart of the writer, and by making an appeal to the mind and heart of the other party, they serve ends far greater than their outward garb may suggest. They can influence us for the better or for the worse; they can modify our opinions; they can alter our tastes and habits; in a word, they can affect our character insensibly, but forcibly. And they certainly do so. If a man’s character is influenced by the company he keeps, it is equally, though perhaps not so manifestly nor so speedily, influenced by the letters he receives and the letters he writes.

One should, therefore, be as scrupulous in the choice of one’s correspondents as in the selection of one’s companions. Letters may also be regarded from another point of view, -as documents of historical interest. The private letters of a private individual may reveal glimpses of facts and events of which no record can be found elsewhere. Every letter is in this sense a page of contemporary history, and it is therefore essential that they should contain nothing but what is true. Every letter must not only be a faithful copy of the writer’s mind and heart, but, where it deals with outward events, it should also be a faithful record of what has happened; otherwise, we prove false not only to ourselves, not only to our correspondent, but also to our own generation, and even to posterity.

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The Old Order Change- Yielding place to New

June 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

An Essay And Article On Change Of Law

Change is the law of nature. The crust of the earth, the surface of the sea, the face of the heavens are each under-going daily ‘and hourly changes. The rotation of the earth on its axis, the revolution of the seasons, the ebb and flow of the tides are all indications of the perpetual change going on in the universe. Indeed, it seems that change is one of the conditions of mere existence. Our bodies too are undergoing continual changes. The work that we do causes waste in the tissues of our body, and this waste is repaired by the nourishment which the body derives from the food we eat. Our blood, our flesh, our bones, are all being transformed into newer material every year,-nay, every day of our’ lives.

Such being the law of nature, it is easy to understand why human life too should be subject to the same law. Not only do our bodies change, not only does our hair turn grey and our faces wrinkle with the approach of age, but our thoughts and feelings likewise change with the passage of time. Our habits also change with changes in our surroundings. Social institutions undergo similar changes. This constant change is not only inevitable but is highly beneficial also. Every new feature in the conditions of our existence gives a new stimulus to human endeavor ‘; man has to devise new ways of living to suit the altered conditions of life. It is in this way that necessity becomes the mother of invention. ,-When the European races first came to India, they had their first experience of the Indian climate; they had to fight against the heat of the Indian summer; and the result was the invention of the familiar Punkah, which-if the story is true-was invented by the genius of a Dutch settler at Chinsurah in West Bengal, sometime far back in the early part of the seventeenth century.

Change Is Fixed

A change in the old order of things is productive of good in various other ways. It adds vastly to the convenience and comforts of life. There was a time when slavery was one of the recognized human institutions. The rich owned slaves in hundreds and in thousands, and treated them no better than changecats and dogs, and sometimes as absolutely lifeless things. The amount of suffering borne by these poor creatures is inconceivable at the present day. The abolition of slavery-the passing away of the old order-has reduced human/suffering, at east to that extent. No country can furnish more illustrations of old orders changing, yielding place to new, than India. The abolition of the cruel custom of Suttee, and the still more cruel practice of infanticide that was once common among the Rajputs, as perhaps extreme types. Milder instances of change are to be found in the whole rife of educated Indians of the present day. Their food, their clothes, their houses, their speech,-every outward feature of them-is new; and each one of these is the result of new environments amid which .they live now.

Those Indians who have been able to adapt their lives to modern conditions, are in the forefront of progress; those who have failed to feel at home in their new surroundings, are either lagging behind or languishing in slothful inactivity, and are bound in course of time to perish altogether. Human society does not tolerate anachronisms; one must either march with the times or fall back and die; no one can stand still for a long time. The beneficial effects of-change can best be perceived by imagining what would have been the state of things in India supposing there had been no change since the advent of the English into the country. If the water of a river suddenly ceases to flow, what is the result? Stagnation: and stagnation means foul stench, the dissemination of disease, increase in the public death-rate, and so on. Stagnation in the social and moral world has the same woeful consequences that the stoppage of flowing water has on the health of a town or village.

Suppose for one moment that we had stuck to the “old order” of things that prevailed in India in the old Hindu or Moham-medan days: we would have been unable to derive any benefit from the culture of the west, but should also have been obliged to remain altogether aloof from the cultured British race. changeWe should have had no English education, no knowledge of our rights and obligations, no sympathy for one another, none of those material comforts of life,-in a word, we should have been little better than, say, the modern Chinese. The advantages of healthy change in the “old order” are thus unquestionable. But there are certain disadvantages associated with change, which, though perhaps not directly springing from it, are nevertheless indirect consequences. These disadvantages are really of the nature of difficulties; and the first of these difficulties is the difficulty of suiting the change to the time and the time to the change.

This difficulty has always been the hardest problem both of legislature and of social reform. The question as to what is the proper time for the introduction of some much-needed change, has ever been the chief question of administration-not only public administration, but also domestic management. A change does not look like a change, if it comes just at the right moment; by coming in opportunely it disarms all- opposition, silences all criticism, and is welcomed by all parties. It is only when a proposed change is felt to be unseasonable that it is denounced as an innovation; and innovation is a. form of change that the most radical apostle of reform is unwilling to accept. Tennyson has well expressed the happy mean between blind resistance to change in any shape and that far-Sighted adaptability which welcomes change whenever it brings good: “So let change which comes be free To in groove itself with that, which flies, and work, a joint of state, which plies its office, moved with sympathy.

‘ A saying hard to shape in fact, For all the past of time reveals A bridal dawn of thunder-peals, whenever thought hath wedded Fact.” The second disadvantage of change is that the desire of it, which originates from a sort of divine discontent with our present lot, has the tendency to run to excess, so as to breed in the mind a passion for change for the sake of change. There is nothing more harmful than this morbid desire. There must first be an evil to remedy, and abuse to reform, a real demand for a new or modified state of affairs, before any change can have beneficial consequences or be productive of lasting well. No evils are more tormenting than imaginary ones, and no state of mind is more pitiable than grieving over fancied wrongs. Unfortunately in India at the present day there is good deal of this tendency in evidence.

Life Change For Betterment

A class of “politicians seem to have made it the business of their lives to indulge in maudlin sorrow over the unhappy state of things existing in the present, and crying for reforms in every department of life,’ from religious doctrine and ritual down to the fashion of wearing one’s hair. In everything that they behold they see nothing but the need of reform; they are dissatisfied with the mode of worship, with the social organization, with the family system, with the industrial position, with the commercial prospects, with everything; and they desire to transform the whole fabric of Indian life and build it anew on an improved model. Evidently this is an extreme wish. The other extreme is that of total resistance to change in any form;-to insist that everything that is shall remain as it is without the least disturbance. The correct attitude is to preserve a middle course,-to keep to the old order wherever possible, and to recognize the need of change wherever there is an abuse or the likelihood of an abuse.

This seems very simple on paper; but in practice it is a most difficult task, at least in India. The commonest fallacy of social reform is, that because a custom or an institution as served well for so many ages, therefore it is bound to fulfill the needs of the present age also. ; Although, in nine cases out of ten, the very fact of its being so old is the strongest argument for its inutility. The opposite fallacy is to take no note of the origin of- a social custom or the extent to which it is suited to the circumstances of the present age, but to condemn it merely because it is old, or “because it has received no coloring from- the west. And between these fallacies, which represent blind conservatism on the one hand and hot-headed radicalism on the other, there is the attitude of the sober reformer, the farsighted statesman, who, without discarding anything that is of value in the old, is eager to adopt everything that is good in the new. Change is the law of nature.

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Who cares for what others Say? | The Public Opinion

June 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

An Essay And Article On Public Opinion

Public opinion is as powerful a force in modern life as the priesthood was in the ancient. In the old days of Brahmanical ascendancy, the priests ruled the affairs of every community more despotically than the mightiest prince, controlling every conceivable concern of the household, from the marriage of a son or daughter to the petty details of a meal. In those days, the unit of a community was the family, and “public” affairs were mostly of a domestic, or at best a tribal nature. In these days, the unit is of a much higher value; the interests of the family have been merged in the wider interests of the community, or in some cases, with the interests of the whole nation. Public affairs have consequently a much deeper and broader basis; and the influence of the priesthood in the determination of these has declined in proportion to the wider sphere over which the interests of the people now extend.

The Influence Of Public Opinion

The influence of public opinion is by no means a feature of modern life alone. One of the primitive instincts of man is to court the approbation of his fellow-men; and the modern regard for what is called public opinion is only a developed form of this early instinct. In the early times the force of public opinionpublic opinion was felt, not as public opinion, but as custom, Custom still dominates over society and rules its affairs with a rod of In, There may be a departure from law, but there can be no deviation from the track of custom, Among races who are not yet civilized, such as some of the aboriginal tribes of India, custom takes the place of law, and’ guides every affair of life; and every violation of custom is punished more severely than breach of law’ is among civilized people, The village Panchayats of India are a relic of the age when custom took the place of law, and the heads of the rural’ community sat together in council to deliberate over matters affecting the common weal, to punish offenders against their unwritten code.

The jurisdiction of these Panchayats has now been cut down to matters of social interest only, such as cases of excommunication, cases relating to rules of caste, cases of private misconduct not covered by the law of the land. In the life of modem nations, public opinion has come to play a more important part than either the tribal community did in the old pre-historic days, or than the priesthood did in the ‘later Brahmanical days. There is such a body of people in India now as may fitly be called “the public” Western education has given to the heterogeneous population of India a cohesion and a unity which, inspite of divergence in caste and creed, has made them one in a truer sense than was ever possible in former times,

Western education has also given them a common language whereby they can communicate their thoughts and feelings to one another, so as to arrive at a mutual understanding of what their common interest is, and to feel a sympathy for one another that may bind the conflicting races in one chain of love, Another reason is that there is-now greater facility of intercourse between one part of the country and another, owing to the introduction of improved means of communication, in the shape of railways, the post office, the telegraph, The people of one state can travel -to another safely and quickly, and by mixing with them and conversing with them in the common medium of the English or Hindi language, can as certain their views on questions affecting one another.

For those who cannot travel or have not travelled, there are now newspapers, both English and Vernacular, in every province,-in fact, in every big town and city; and these newspapers give expression to the views of the people of that state on administrative and ‘other measures : and these views are caught up or sympathized with or shared in by the people of other states, so that the whole of the Indian people-at least the educated portion of it-has come to be welded into one public body, and the embodied judgment of this mass of men constitutes what is called ‘public opinion’.

The true worth of public opinion is very difficult to determine. An opinion, in the true sense of the word, springs directly from one’s heart, and represents a man’s real thoughts and feelings. In this sense, an opinion is more genuine than even faith. What usually passes as one’s opinion is perhaps only a faint hearsay or a thin make-believe. A true opinion is as rare as a genuine, an unadulterated feeling. In many cases, probably, that which gains currency as “public opinion” is only a multiple of repeated echoes of perhaps a single voice speaking far away in the dim distance of time or space. Some shrewd popular leader gives vent to an opinion, which is at once taken up by the whole body of his followers, who disseminate it through the entire state, by direct and indirect means, till after some time the same view passes for public opinion.

In other cases, the opinions expressed by the editor of an influential newspaper become the opinions of the public who read or subscribe to that paper. They have no. opinion of their own- in fact, many of them are incapable of forming any opinion- and they are glad to adopt the opinions they find expressed in clear print in the editorial columns of their favorite newspaper. But such opinions are clearly not opinions in the strict sense, nor can such views held by the people be termed ‘public opinion’ in any rational sense. Seeing that public opinion, such as it exists in India at the present day, is still so shadowy, it is not to be wondered at it is at times a little unreasonable, a little headstrong, a little too insistent. The healthiest public opinion has sometimes a tendency to sweep away reason, and to run counter to the views of statesmen and councilors. The reason of this occasional opposition is not what is commonly supposed to be the case, -that the interests of the rulers and the ruled must naturally conflict with each other; the real reason is that public opinion in India melts down to private opinion in the very first analysis; and between two individuals difference of opinion is as likely as difference in features.

Growth With Public Opinion

Public opinion, whenever or wherever it is a spontaneous and healthy growth, acts as a great moral force. If every man asks himself why he abstains from doing wrong, he will find that in most cases it is due, not to the fear of the Police, nor to the anticipated pangs of conscience, but to the dread of public shame. Nowhere does this force act more powerfully than in schools and colleges. The fear of failure is such a trembling terror in the minds of boys, simply because of the public disgrace that it entails; the joy of success is such a bounding joy, simply because of the public triumph that it means. The fear of falling low in the estimation of one’s fellows is a healthy fear, and ought to be carefully fostered by all those who have charge of training young minds. In all communities the force of public opinion varies in proportion to education or civilization. It is education that is the parent of all opinions, and the soundness or unsoundness of those views depends on the nature of the education on which they are based.

Therefore, since education is still in its infancy in India, public opinion must necessarily be in a very nebulous state. A well-known couplet expresses the above idea in aphoristic form:- “It’s education forms the common mind Just as the twig is bent the tree’s inclined.” From this we can well understand the necessity of inculcating sound views in young minds. No prejudices do more harm those formed in our defective system of education. It s from the united strength of strong private opinions that public opinion derives its force; and this force is really greater than the force of Law itself, for it is public opinion that makes and annuls laws.

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Opportunity: Its value & Use

June 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

An Essay And Article On The Value & Use of Opportunity

The value of opportunity is well expressed by the familiar English proverb, ‘Make hay while the sun shines’. The proverb seems to be a very old one, since it points to a time when the gathering of the hay-harvest was one of-the important agricultural operations of the country. The wisdom of the saying lies in the fact that hay is greatly injured by exposure to rain and fog, and therefore a wary husbandman will avail himself of the earliest opportunity to gather in his hay crops, lest the fine weather should not continue. The spirit of this proverb is, however, applicable to all people who are in the habit of putting off things, of winking at opportunities and allowing them to slip away” It reminds us of the fact that favorable chances of doing or gaining a thing are as uncertain as an English sky, and should be embraced as soon as they offer themselves.

Quotes For Opportunity

There are many other proverbs inculcating the same truth. “Strike while the iron is hot” is taken from the blacksmith’s craft. Poets have preached the same truth in the beautiful garb of poetry. Every reader of English literature is familiar with the following lines from Shakespeare’s Julius Ceaser- “There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken” at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the current of their lives Is bound in shallows and in misery.” The same lesson is also conveyed in that famous line of Young’s Night Thoughts, which has passed into a proverb: – Opportunity‘Procrastination is the thief of time.’ A well-known couplet of Congreve teaches the same truth in more homely language:- “Defer not till tomorrow to be wise, Tomorrow’s sun may never rise.” Dr. Franklin used to say, ‘One today is worth two tomorrows’ Now, why are delays dangerous? Why have sages so strongly insisted on the value of opportunity?

The first and most obvious reason is that human life is uncertain, and no man has a guarantee that he will survive the morrow. Hence if a thing can be done today, it is wise not to postpone it. A second reason that forbids us to neglect an opportunity is that health is as uncertain as life. A man may be in the “enjoyment of full health and strength today, and tomorrow he may become a helpless cripple. Then again, opportunities themselves are in their very nature fleeting and evanescent in the same degree in which all worldly things are liable to change. There is yet another reason why we should not miss an opportunity namely, that, even supposing a second opportunity does present itself, the time lost during the interval is lost forever; or it may happen that on the second occasion certain untoward circumstances might intervene to frustrate our purpose and defeat the opportunity. More reason still can be adduced in support of this great lesson.

Opportunity Brings In Success

In the old days before the Flood, when human life used to extend over thousands of years, it did not matter perhaps if opportunities were allowed to go unveiled; but in’ the modern world, competition is so keen that a man who adopted a waiting policy is in danger of being out- stripped by more vigilant and active rivals; and the chance that s thus lost may -prove to have been the chance of a lifetime. Nevertheless, it is possible to imagine cases in which, even in the modern world of keen competition, delays, instead of being dangerous, may turn out to be profitable. Suppose a new, invention is put on the market; it will be some time before a regular demand for it will arise; and the manufacturer of that class ‘of commodity, who cannot afford to wait, will have to accept what price his customers’ are prepared to pay for the article, and not what price he may ask for it.

But such cases are very rare : they are really exceptions that prove the rule, and the rule is that in delay there is nothing but risk. History, both sacred and profane, is full of illustrations of the truth of the maxim ‘Delays are dangerous.’ When the Athenians declared war against Syracuse, and were reduced to the last extremity, they deferred their departure from Syracuse or nine days on account of an eclipse of the sun. The delay was fatal: for during that interval of waiting, the Athenian armies were forced to an engagement and suffered a most disastrous defeat. The Roman historians say that if Hannibal had marched to Rome immediately after winning the battle of Cannae, he would have been master of the city. When the Scotch had incurred the anger of William III, a proclamation was made requiring all the chieftains to take the oath of allegiance to the new sovereign before the first day of the New Year, 1962. MacIan of Glence delayed to comply with the demand till the end of December, when the roads were rendered impassable by mow. The unfortunate chief could not by any possibility reach the palace where the oath was to be taken in time.

Never Neglect And Opportunity

The period of grace expired, and poor Mac Ian and his clansmen were massacred without mercy. Just over a hundred years ago a big battle was lost and the destinies of an empire upset by the neglect of an opportunity. On the eve of Waterloo, Napoleon had instructed one of his marshals to occupy Quatre-Bras, a town quite close to Brussels. The French marshal, on coming to the place, found it clear of the enemy, and instead of stationing his troops there immediately, marched on Brussels; thinking could occupy the town any moment. He waited at Brussels, where there was it brilliant ball that night. The same night the Allies marched upon Quatre Bras and occupied it before the French troops could arrive; and the successful seizure of this town was only a preliminary step to the victory at Waterloo, which followed two days later. A story is told of a traveler riding on horseback.

His horse had lost a nail to one of his shoes. The traveler deferred to supply the nail, and lost his horse’s shoe. He then delayed to supply the shoe, and his horse became lame. He still deferred to regard this lameness, and ultimately the poor animal stumbled and fell, and both horse and rider were killed. Instances could he multiplied to any extent, from history, from fable, from personal experience; to show that the neglect of an opportunity might be followed by serious consequences. The history of all wars is at bottom the history, of chances gained and lost. The story of the hare and the tortoise is well-known to every boy, and furnishes an illustration of the same truth from the world of fable. Everyone can experience cases in which the seizure of an opportunity has been productive of gain and the neglect of it a source of loss.

The loss may be of a trifling nature, but it is still a loss that may be followed by worse loss later on, if once the habit of letting opportunities slip by, takes firm hold of our character. Human nature is so constituted that every single action performed by a man leaves a permanent mark on his nervous system, which facilitates the performance of similar actions in the future. This is the psychological explanation of what is called a habit, and the stern fact about all habits is that they have an irresistible tendency to repeat themselves. It is of the utmost’ importance therefore to take care what habits we are unconsciously forming; and of all habits the most dangerous are those that make an insidious entrance into our nature; and of such insidious habits the most fatal is the habit of procrastination. When Opportunity knocks , open the door.

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What Is Career and How it is to be Made?

June 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

An Essay And Article On Career making

The ancient Hindus believed that a man’s career depended solely on the influence of particular stars and planets on his life. If the conjunction of stars at the moment of a man’s birth happened to be propitious, he was destined to achieve greatness and fortune, which were otherwise impossible for him. No ability, no merit, no industry could thwart or counteract the evil influence of an unfavorable planet on the life of a man born under its ascendancy. Hence the old Hindus believed in the supremacy of an invisible agency which they named “Fate,” and which they believed to be more powerful than anything else in the world. If a man was destined by Fate to greatness and fortune, no circumstances, however adverse, could obstruct his path; likewise, if a man was doomed to misfortune and misery, no power on earth, however well-disposed, could lift him one inch above the low depth to which he was condemned by the decrees of Fate.

This somewhat extravagant belief is still entertained by a large section of the Hindus, chiefly those who are uneducated. The educated Indians, how- ever, have modified this belief to a large extent. They are neither staunch believer in Fate, nor do they accord unqualified support to the opposite belief, as expressed in the proverb, “Every man is. the architect of his own fortune’; they steer a middle course between these extremes, and hold that a man can by his own exertions raise himself to a Position of power and influence, provided his circumstances in life are not altogether adverse. Now in what way can a man rise in the world by his own exertions? On what quality or qualities does a man’s career in life really depend? It is evident that a man must possess some share of natural intelligence before he can derive any benefit from education.

Indeed, the influence of education is so great that it seems that our inborn faculties play only a subordinate part in shaping our career; it seems as if education were everything and genius nothing, for the effects of the former are visible, while the latter performs its parts unobserved. It is not until the forces of education have been defined by the superior force of genius, that the very existence of genius in a person is credited in anyone. Every clever school boy is by his admirers believed to be a young genius, and there have been so many cases of such genius, turning out to be illusory, that mankind have grown rather skeptic on that point. They refuse to give the name of genius even to men who have done great things in literature, or in industry, or in amassing fortunes.

Opportunities For Career

There are at the present day so many opportunities of distinction, such wonderful facilities for acquiring knowledge, such numerous openings for honorable employment, that if a man rises to power and position, no credit is given to his inborn mental faculties, but everything is attributed to his education, his industry and his surroundings. Genius is believed to be a very rare bird in the modern world, because at the present day the opportunities for education and training are so many and so various. The term genius is, in current usage, restricted to those who rise to greatness and achieve wonders without any education or training; it does not mean, what it should mean, a person who possesses by natural gift extraordinary ability of any kind. Whatever people might say to the contrary the unquestionable fact is that every person has inherited from nature a share, great or small, of natural ability, and that it is on this mental faculty that the effects of education and training chiefly depend.

No amount of education can avail in the case of a born idiot. But even a born genius could affect little, if it were not for a variety of other things that help him onward. This is what the poet means in the following well-known lines:- “Some village Hampden that with dauntless breast The littlecareer tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.” The truth seems therefore to be that neither genius alone nor education alone is the chief determining factor in a man’s career. Each is as necessary as the other; but in what proportion each is needed before a man’s career is in any degree successful, is more than anyone can say. The most perplexing cases are those of men who with a plentiful share of inborn intellectual ability and with all the’ benefits that could be conferred by the best kind of education, have still failed miserably to achieve anything useful or conspicuous. It seems from these cases that something else is also needed, besides natural intelligence and education.

Success in life is a most complex affair, comprising a variety of circumstances, each of which is the effect of a plurality of causes that act and react upon one another in a most complicated and bewildering manner. What we designate by the single term success in life comprises a multiplicity of gifts, capacities, and possessions, such as wealth, fame, social esteem, social influence, authority, power, etc. and each of these cannot evidently be acquired by this or that well- ascertained method, or in a prescribed amount of time, or by the expenditure of a stated amount of industry. There is a subtle power on which a great deal of what is unattainable otherwise depends, and this subtle power is opportunity. Genius is unavailing, education, industry vain, if opportunity is wanting; at the same time, strangely enough, opportunity may be as favorable as is possible in the case of any mortal, and yet a man’s life may be a failure.

A man may have been born in a good family; he may have received a good education he may have inherited a decent share of intelligence; and yet with all these opportunities his career may be a wreck, his life a hopeless ruin. For he may be wanting in that which a one makes birth, education, intelligence and industry of value not only for purposes of success in life, but also intrinsically. The most important essential of success in life is, therefore not opportunity, but character. The value of character in human life cannot be overestimated character alone is that which makes human life human. Without it, man is no better than a brute; without it, Power and position, honour and fame, wealth and grandeur are/alike but dust; without it, genius is as powerless as opportunity. Character is not only the product of education, but is also dependent greatly on inherited disposition, and perhaps more so on the sort of companions one chooses for oneself.

Many a promising youth has become an abandoned wretch through the evil influence of evil companions, on the-other hand, many a young man has been rescued from the abyss of destruction by the wholesome influence of good companions. A common proverb says that a man is known by the company he keeps; it is possible to stretch this saying and assert that “a man is made by the company he keeps.” We have now arrived at a solution of the question, ‘On what does the career of a man depend?’ We have see that it does not depend exclusively on education or acquire merit, nor does it depend on opportunity or favorable chances, nor yet does it .depend upon excellence of character, however important this, last factor might be in the making or the marring of a man’s fortune.

Career is The Road To Success

The man of the saintliest character, if he is nothing else, will be as miserable a failure so far as worldly success goes, as the thoroughgoing scoundrel: Character will give a polish to genius; it will lend weight to education; it will make the most of a good opportunity; but if there is nothing else in a man than character he is likely to remain as ill-fated as the born idiot, or the illiterate dunce, Or the careless fool. What, then, is the solution at of this knotty problem? Well,-it is a solution that leaves the answer as vague as before, and the inquirer perhaps more mystified. For the truth is that a man’s career does not depend upon anyone quality or circumstance, but upon the inter mixture of the effects of a variety of causes acting and reacting on one another,-first, genius or men all faculties, which are implanted by nature; secondly, education, which is imparted by man to man; thirdly, favorable chances, which are partly the result of accident, over which man has no control, and partly dependent upon a man’s will, and lastly, character, which again is partly inherited and there- fore to that extent non-voluntary, and partly acquired.

But in what order those essentials are needed in the making of a man’s career is more than anyone can say; the order will be different in different cases, and each one must find out for himself what things are needed for him, and which of them first, and which next. It must be observed that in the above list, there is so large a proportion of things beyond the man’s control-such as mental faculties, which are a gift of nature; favorable opportunity, which is mostly the result of chance; character, which is largely dependent upon inherited disposition-that the making of his career seems to be a task really lying outside his power. It seems that we are thrown back on that old-world fatalism with which we started our discussion, and that we must conclude by saying that a man’s career does not depend upon himself so much, as on God.

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An Educated Citizen – What is Expected of him?

June 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

An Essay And Article On Duties Of Educated Citizen

The question, what are the duties and privileges of educated Indians, is one as vast as it is important-vast, because both the duties and the privileges would, if carefully enumerated, make up a long list, and important, because both have been very imperfectly understood by many educated Indians themselves. The question is also one of extreme complexity, because, in the first place, it is very difficult to say what exactly is meant by an “educated” Indian-there being as many types of him as there are castes and creeds in Hindustan; and because, in the second place, rights and duties are constantly clashing with one another,-there being in India as wide a range of interests as there is diversity in the population. Nevertheless, assuming that we have a clear notion of what is meant by an “educated” Indian, and leaving out of account the fact that the Indian people are divided into a number of divergent sects and creeds, we can in a general sort of way lay down the most obvious and the most important of his rights and obligations.

Duties Of Educated Citizen

The first and the most obvious duty of an educated Indian is to the community to which he belongs, and the first of these duties is undoubtedly to encourage education among them. Having himself reaped the benefits of English education, he will naturally strive to share these with as many of his caste- fellows as he can; and in no department of human activity can his endeavors bear richer fruit than in the field of education, where large tracts are still lying barren and uncultivated. If he is truly an educated man he will know that there is no better cure for the many evils that India is suffering from, than education. The next duty of the educated Indian to his community is that of working out social reforms within its sphere. There is no community in India but suffers from a number of social evils, such as early marriage, the seclusion of widows, the absence of female education, etc.; and there is no greater service that anyone can render to his community than that of reforming abuses in the structure of its society.

The most effective method of carrying out social reform is to begin the work at home,-to hold out an example for others to follow. This, however, is not so easy a task as it looks the path of social reform is beset with the greatest difficulties, and an educated man has the best capacity to know how to overcome these difficulties, and to let the new “in groove itself” quietly but firmly with the old.educated The educated Indian owes also a third duty to his community, to make them feel, what he himself does so strongly that they are not an isolated section of the people, cut off from the rest of the population by impassable barriers, but that they form an integral part of the nation, sharing common hopes and fears, linked by common interests, and by a common ancient home and glorious ancient civilization.

This last duty is one in the discharge of which his duty to his community and his duty to his country at large meet together on common ground. For there is no higher duty, that any educated man can render to his country, than to make his countrymen feel that they are countrymen, bound together by common ties of home and friendship, and by the indissoluble bonds of love. The educated Indian owes a still higher duty to his country, -a duty which is unhappily very much misunderstood. In the eagerness with which he undertakes and advocates the duty of carrying out social reforms, he feels a tendency to condemn Indian manners and customs wholesale, to stigmatize the old religion as idolatry and superstition, to ridicule the ancient festivals as barbaric mummery.

There is nothing more unworthy of an educated man than to despise the ancient institutions of his country; for the highest good that education confers on a man is to teach him to respect everything belonging to his country-to honour her past history, to revere her ancient civilization, to uphold her glorious traditions, and even to respect her old superstitions. No one can expect these from an illiterate peasant of India, though, as a matter of fact, the. ignorant Indian is more loyal to his country’s old beliefs and practices than his so-called enlightened countryman, whose cultured mind perceives nothing good in what he regards as unmeaning folly and superstition. What generally passes under the name of ‘superstition’ is in many cases some scientific fact, the truth of which was experimented upon by countless generations before it passed into an article of faith.

It is the duty of educated Indians to examine these so-called superstitions with an unprejudiced mind, instead of condemning them as relics of barbarism, before knowing anything about them. ‘Right’ and ‘Duty’ are correlative terms, every right implying a duty, and every duty a corresponding right. The educated Indian owes many duties to his community and to his country but he also enjoys many privileges bestowed on him by society and by the State. The first and foremost of these privileges is that he knows his privileges and his obligations. He knows the history of his country; he knows the structure of the present administration; he knows the state of Indian society; and he knows where to lay his finger in his attempt to cure existing evils. He knows that he is a free citizen of the State, and as such has the right of freely expressing his views on public questions.

He knows also that the best way of discussing public questions is to approach them cool mindedly, without either giving way to “blind hysterics” on the one hand, or preserving an air of impenetrable stolidity on the other. He knows that it is his privilege to be the citizen of a world-wide empire, a privilege that even the old Romans never enjoyed; and he knows therefore that the best way to prove worth of this high privilege is to do his utmost to preserve peace in the country and maintain the solidarity of the empire. He there- fore bases his patriotism on his loyalty and his loyalty on his patriotism. An educated Indian is a center of diffusing well. He can give valuable assistance in every scheme likely to be of benefit to his town or district or his country. He can help onward the/ cause of education; he can push forward plan of social reform; he can aid the starting of new industries and the adoption of improved methods of carrying on old industries he can lend his co-operation, however indirectly to the introduction of more efficient methods of agriculture he can suggest ways and means of minimizing the evil effects of poverty or indebtedness.

Need for educated men

Indeed, there is hardly any war of public utility in which the co-operation of the educate Indian would not be valuable. More than this, the educated Indian enjoys the confidence not only of his fellow-subjects but also of his rulers. He is looked upon with respect by educated and uneducated Indians alike, and he is also trusted and freely consulted by officers of Government, who value his advice because it represents the views of the Indian public, because it is free from prejudice or partiality, and because it is loyally and faithfully given. This last is a most essential condition; for if a man’s opinions are colored by racial prejudice, or are base on narrow selfishness, or are prompted by feelings of hostility to the Government, it does not take long to detect these flaws, and to brand the author of them as a traitor to the Government and an outcast from society.

To conclude, the educated Indians, though their number is increasing every year, are still in a minority-the bulk of the population being still enveloped in the darkness of ignorance; and though their views are certainly more reasonable, more reliable, and more enlightened, they cannot be said to be fully representative of the views of the Indian people, the majority of whom have not the capacity to entertain any views at all of their own, or even to understand the views of others if propounded to them. The educated Indian understands this but imperfectly sometimes. He is sometimes carried away by the intoxication of education into believing that everybody in India is like himself, and that what he thinks right is the absolute right. He should also bear in mind that no duty is duty in the proper sense unless it is properly discharged; and that no privilege, however high, is worthy of the name, if it is abused or neglected in the exercise of it. educated men must know his duties and responsibilities.

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