परिशिष्ट-१९
भारतातील सार्वजनिक शिक्षण
जगातील अनेक देशात जे शिक्षणाचे प्रमाण होते त्याहीपेक्षा भारतात जास्त
असल्याचा पुरावा देताना डॉ. ए. स. अलतेकर आपल्या ‘Education in Ancient
India’ या ग्रंथात म्हणतात,
The results show that before the decay set in, these measures for the spread of education proved to be fairly successful. We have seen already how literacy was at least as high as 30 per cent at the advent of the Muslim rule and about twice as high a millennium earlier. गी contemporary times in no other country in the world was there so wide a spread of literacy. (P. 323)
“At the time when India was making rapid strides in the different domains of knowledge, her education was broad based. In ancient Athens one in ten and in ancient Sparta one in twenty five received education, and women’s education was altogether neglected. The case was much different in India down to the commencement of the Christian era. The Sudras were excluded only from the Vedic studies and we have seen already how literacy was probably as high as 60 per cent in the days of Asoka. Anxious tought and care was also bestowed on female education. Things, however, gradually changed for the worse in the first millennium of the Christian era. The education of women began to be neglected. Kshatriyas and Vaishyas began to become progressively illiterate. It is true that in Europe also the masses were little more than barbarous and took more naturally to warfare than to schooling down to the end of the Middle Ages. We can, however, hardly derive any consolation from this comparison, for the prevalent illiteracy in India was due to degeneration from a more creditable condition, obtaining in earlier centuries.
Hindu education system was unable to stop this deterioration probably because of its concentration on Sanskrit and neglect of the vernaculars. The revival of Sanskrit that took place early in the first millennium was undoubtedly productive of much good; it immensely enriched Sanskrit literature in its various branches. But when the best minds became engaged in expressing their thoughts in Sanskrit, Prakrits were naturally neglected. As long as Sanskrit was intelligible to the ordinary individual, this was not productive of much harm. But from about the 9th or the 1Gth century A. D. Prakrits and vernaculars became widely differentiated from Sanskrit and those who were using them began to find it diffcult to understand the tatter language. Hindu education thinkers did not realise the importance of developing Prakrit literatures in