Document page
Report On The Inspection Of Chiefs College 1932-33PDF 14
32 pagesrevision 5581
PDF 14
Page image rendered from the stored file at 110 dpi; it sharpens as you zoom. Outlines are placed from each region’s stored position on the page (389 × 719 pt).
no text layerread by OCR (tesseract5-eng@250dpi)The text layer was unusable, so the page image was read by OCR. OCR text can contain misread characters.
Source of this text: read by OCR. The better of the embedded text and OCR is kept.
11
Students is decreasing. In my opinion there are several reasons for this
decrease, the principal one being that there has been for some time a tendency
to relax the social standard for new entrants to the College as defined in the
College prospectus in the following terms:—‘‘ The College is for Ruling
Princes and Chiefs, their relatives, and gentlemen’s sons, according to a
definite birth qualification.” This has apparently been done in order to
maintain the numerical strength of the School and thus prevent a falling off
in the financial support obtained from school fees. I am given to understand
that the general financial stringency, due principally to agricultural depres-
sion, has prevented a number of sons of the Punjab landed gentry (from
whom the College students have in the past, and in view of the shortage of
Ruling Princes and Scions of Ruling Houses, been for the most part drawn)
from being sent to the College, with the result that a less aristocratic element
is becoming numerically stronger. The Chiefs are averse from their sons
and relatives mixing with the sons of people in a lower social sphere. This
may have been inevitable, but it is a pity, for it is very undesirable for a
future Ruler to be an object of flattery from boys whose parents have sent
them to school, in some cases, with the object of their obtaining an appoint-
Tent in State service on completion of their education.
2. Even if a reasonable proportion of the relatives of the Punjab Chiefs
were being educated at the Aitchison College, I do not think it would be
possible under the present circumstances for them to obtain an education
calculated to fit them for their future high position in life. For this purpose
it is essential that they should be given an education on the lines and in the
atmosphere and traditions obtainable at a Public School in England.
In the first place it is desirable for them to be-tanght by masters who
are not appreciably socially inferior to them, and it is doubtful if any College
could obtain a staff of Indian masters who would fulfil this condition. At
present it is therefore essential that the boys be taught by English masters
with a resultant increase in expenditure on salaries and, even if all State
pupils who were eligible attended a College such as the Aitchison College,
the increase in fees would not be anything like sufficient to meet the extra.
expenditure on salaries. In fact there are probably only sufficient students
from States in India to justify one or at the most two Chiefs Colleges with a
complete establishment of English masters and Indian religious teachers.
In the Aitchison College, and I believe in other similar institations,
the sons and relatives of Rulers are permitted either to live outside the College
with their own tutor in their own bungalow or, as in the case of His Highness
the Nawab of Bahawalpur, to occupy a private house inside the College
grounds. So long as this practice is permitted it is not possible for a boy
to obtain the full benefit of a Public School education. Under this system
he lives with a tutor who is responsible for him outside school hours with the
result that his tuition is conducted partly by the School authorities and part-
ly by his tutor who may have different ideas on the subject of correct methods
of instruction from those held by the College Principal. His education must
necessarily suffer and the School authorities are in an unenviable position.
The natural result of this individual treatment is that any good that may
have been derived from intercourse with his masters and from boys of his
own age is negatived as soon as he enters his private bungalow to be surround-
ed by State servants. The boy should be made to forget that he is a Maharaja
or a Nawab or the son of some high State official and be taught to take his
piace in the school on equal terms with the other boys.
So far as education is concerned, a higher standard can be attained by
individual tuition than can be obtained at a College of this nature. At the
game time a tutor cannot impart the kind of knowledge and understanding
which is normally imparted to one boy by the other boys at a school. With
the present system at the Aitchison College a boy does not receive so good an
education as he would from his whole-time tutor, and at the same time derives
but little benefit from mixing with boys of his own age because as soon as the
actual school hours and the hours allotted for games are over he drives away
to be surrounded hy the flattery and servility of his own servants.