The proposition is too demanding as it turns a boy into a bookworm. It negates the greater world that extends beyond the book. On the other hand, it is equally unsafe to deny it outright. Yet one feels impelled to deny it as an absolute proposition.
The great bard of Avon, William Shakespeare, draws a faithful portrait of the whining schoolboy, ‘unwilling to school’. Study in the sense of career-making is, essentially, to be discouraged as it curbs (= avoids) the spirit of enquiry in men. The great sages of learning like Tagore, Shakespeare or Tolstoy have warned against such an approach to study in life.
The chief objective of study is not merely to obtain degrees or score points in examinations. It should aim at training the mind and sensibility of the boys; to develop in them a self confidence and a sense of responsibility. It naturally implies that one is not to remain confined to books alone, but also to look around and apply his learning in understanding life. It is sheer folly to define such extracurricular interests as waste of time.
Study and other activities should go hand-in-hand. But, in general, it seems to be a sad prospect, when we look at what goes on in schools. Schools sprout (= grow) like wild growths, and majority of them lack in scopes for games or healthy entertainments. The boys and girls virtually sink under the weight of books and bloc-tests. The classes are mostly one track affairs- the teachers blabbering to the taughts their own notions about the subject. The taught have little share in the ideas they receive. Naturally they have to pocket them with their minds shut.
The sequel (= resulting consequence) to the above method is not healthy. The boys run away with the notion that they have to reproduce as nearly as possible the things that are handed to them. They are excluded from participation in the knowledge that they are supposed to acquire and accept as their own. This is the kind of fallacy (= false logic) that works in our academies.
Our planners work from their ivory towers of theory. has ever been the graveyard of our learning. We are ‘copy-cats’, to use an ultra-modern expression, paying little regard to application of theories. The ‘study-zealots’ (= applying the study-theory with excessive zeal) like the CBSE have been steadily scaling down their standard in recent times.
We tinker with education as if it is a sick baby. On the contrary, it should be treated as a healthy sapling that can grow only in a free and natural atmosphere, not in a green-house culture. Study is indispensable, but more so is life.
