GANDHIAN PHILOSOPHY

Gandhi's Views On Education

Gandhi's Views On Education

Character cannot be built with mortar and stone. It cannot be built by hands other than your own.

-Gandhiji in Ceylon by Mahadev Desai. P.89

An education which does not teach us to discriminate between good and bad, to assimilate the one and eschew the other, is a misnomer.

-Harijan, 18-2-1939 and 4-3-1939

Education should be so revolutionized as to answer the wants of the poorest villager, instead of answering those of an imperial exploiter.

-Harijan, 21-8-1937

Education in the understanding of citizenship is a short-term affair if we are honest and earnest.

-Harijan,2-3-1947

Basic education links the children, whether of cities or the villages, to all that is best and lasting in India.

-Constructive Programme: Its Meaning and Place

Is not education the art of drawing out full manhood of the children under training?

-Young India, 12-3-1925

Literacy in itself is no education.

-Harijan, 31-7-1937

Literacy is not the end of education nor even the beginning.

-Harijan, 31-7-1937

Literacy education should follow the education of the hand-the one gift that visibly distinguishes man from beast.

-Harijan, 8-3-1935

Real education has to draw out the best from the boys and girls to be educated.

-Harijan, 1-12-1933

True education must correspond to the surrounding circumstances or it is not a healthy growth.

-Young India, 12-3-1925

What is really needed to make democracy function is not knowledge of facts, but right education.

Harijan, 29-9-1946

National education to be truly national must reflect the national condition for the time being.

-Young India, 12-3-1925

The function of Nayee-Talim is not to teach an occupation, but through it to develop the whole man.

-Harijan Sevak, 9-11-1947

I believe that religious education must be the sole concern of religious associations.

-Harijan, 23-3-1947

By education I mean an all-round drawing out of the best in the child and man-body, mind and spirit.

-Harijan,31-7-1937

By spiritual training I mean education of the heart.

-Harijan, 8-5-1937

Experience gained in two schools under my control has taught me that punishment does not purify, if anything, it hardens children.

-Young India, 3-12-1925

I consider writing as a fine art. We kill it by imposing the alphabet on little children and making it the beginning of learning.

-Harijan, 5-4-1937

I do regard spinning and weaving as the necessary part of any national system of education.

-Young India, 12-3-1925

The aim of university education should be to turn out true servants of the people who will live and die for the country's freedom.

-Harijan, 25-8-1946

A balanced intellect presupposes a harmonious growth of body, mind and soul.

-Harijan, 8-9-1946

Love requires that true education should be easily accessible to all and should be of use to every villager in this daily life.

-Harijan,21-12-1947

The notion of education through handicrafts rises from the contemplation of truth and love permeating life's activities.

-Harijan,21-12-1947

The fees that you pay do not cover even a fraction of the amount that is spent on your education from the public exchequer.

-Speech at D.J.S. College hall, Karachi. 5-2-1929

Persistent questioning and healthy inquisitiveness are the first requisite for acquiring learning of any kind.

-Harijan,8-9-1946

If we want to impart education best suited to the needs of the villagers, we should take the Vidyapith to the villages.

-Harijan, 5-4-1937

In a democratic scheme, money invested in the promotion of learning gives a tenfold return to the people even as a seed sown in good soil returns a luxuriant crop.

-Harijan, 2-11-1947

All education in a country has got to be demonstrably in promotion of the progress of the country in which it is given.

-Harijan,7-9-1947

The schools and colleges are really a factory for turning out clerks for Government.

-Young India, 15-9-1920

The canker has so eaten into the society that in many cases the only meaning of education is a knowledge of English.

-Young India, 1-6-1921

The emphasis laid on the principle of spending every minute of one's life usefully is the best education for citizenship.

-Harijan, 6-4-1940