Madhusudan_Das

His Life and Achievements: 75
VIII: DEADLY MARCH OF CIVILIZATION ( ? )
But for the hypnotic spell under which the intoxicating education
of our times drives us to live, we would consider it a sacrilege to
deprive people of their own existing honourable occupation in the
distant, vague and often vain hope of bettering their fleeting material
condition. If civilization means change of form merely without regard
to substance it is an article of doubtful value. And yet that is what
the foregoing paragraph sent by Sjt. Balaji Rao means. Under the guise
of the civilizing influence of commerce the innocent people of Burma
are being impoverished and reduced to the condition of cattle. As Sjt.
Madhusudan Das has pointed out, people who merely work with cattle
and forget the cunning of the hand by giving up handicrafts are
impoverished not only in body but also in mind.
IX: NATIONAL SCHOOL AT BOMBAY
. . . This country needs an industrial climate. In the education
of this country, the vocational aspect should constitute its dominant
part. When this takes place, the students who will go on learning
a craft will support their schools through it. Shri Madhusudan Das
had conceived such a plan with regard to his tannery in Cuttack. The
plan was a fine one. But it did not materialize as the prevailing
atmosphere in the country provided no encouragement to vocational
training or a tannery. Why should not carpentry be an indispensable
part of our higher education ? Education without a knowledge of
weaving would be comparable to the solar system without the sun.
Where such trades are being properly learnt, the students should be
able to meet the expenses of their own schools. For this scheme to
succeed, the students should have physical strength, will-power and
a favourable atmoshere created by the teachers.
X: STATEMENT OF UNTOUCHAB1LITY — V
Clean tanning is a far more difficult proposition. Our tanners
do not know the modern method of skinning carcases nor of tanning.
Tanning I have here used in a comprehensive sense. The so-called
higher classes having criminally neglected this useful body of their
co-religionists and fellow-countrymen, the whole of the process from
the carrying of the carcase to the dressing of the hide is done in a