In long past lives the author of this little book had much to do with educational work, and he seems to have brought over with him an intense interest in education. During his short visits to Benares, he paid an alert attention to many of the details of the work carried on in the Central Hindu College, observing and asking questions, noting the good feeling between teachers and students, so different from his own school experiences in Southern India. He appears to have been brooding over the question, and has, in this booklet, held up the educational ideals which appear to him to be necessary for the improvement of the present system.
The position of the teacher must be raised to that which it used to occupy in India, so that to sit in the teacher's chair will be a badge of social honour. His work must be seen as belonging to the great Teaching Department in the Government of our world, and his relation with his pupils must be a copy of the relation between a Master and His disciples. Love, protective and elevating on the one side, must be met with love, confiding and trustful on the other. This is, in truth, the old Hindu ideal, exaggerated as it may seem to be to-day and if it be possible, in any country to rebuild this ideal, it should be by an Indian for Indians. Hence there is, at the back of the author's mind, a dream of a future College and School, wherein this ideal may be materialised—a Theosophical College and School, because the ancient Indian ideals now draw their life from Theosophy which alone can shape the new vessels for the ancient elixir of life Punishment must disappear—not only the old brutality of the cane, but all the forms of coercion that make hypocrites instead of honourable and manly youths. The teacher must embody the ideal, and the boy be drawn, by admiration and love, to copy it. Those who know how swiftly the unspoiled child responds to a noble ideal will realise how potent may be the influence of a teacher, who stimulates by a high example and rules by the sceptre of love instead of by the rod of fear. Besides, the One Life is in teacher and taught, as Alcyone reminds us, and to that Life, which is Divine, all things are possible.
Education must be shaped to meet the individual needs of the child, and not by a Government Procrustes' bed, to fit which some are dragged well-nigh asunder and others are chopped down. The capacities of the child, the line they fit him to pursue, these must guide his education. In all, the child's interest must be paramount; the true teacher exists to serve.
The school must be a centre of good and joyous influences, radiating from it to the neighbourhood. Studies and games must all be turned to the building of character, to the making of the good citizen, the lover of his country.
Thus dreams the boy, who is to become a teacher, of the possibilities the future may unfold. May he realise, in the strength of a noble Manhood, the pure visions of his youth, and embody a Power which shall make earth's deserts rejoice and blossom as the rose.
ANNIE BESANT.
TO THE SUPREME TEACHER
AND TO THOSE WHO FOLLOW HIM