Advice to the Indian Aristocracy/Chapter 17
CHILDREN,
THEIR TREATMENT AND TRAINING.
This is also a most important subject for us all. If you have a child or children, you should see them and enquire about them personally as a rule both morning and evening before you go out. In the Zenanas our ladies much neglect their children, and spend most of their time in their own pleasures. Nurses are still worse, and maid-servants are by far the worst. They, too, don't know how to treat children, to clothe them, to feed them whether with milk or food, to look after them at play, to arrange beds for them in suitable places according to the seasons so as to protect them from draughts and to do other necessary things. Generally mothers entrust several, if not all, of the above things to wet-nurses or maid-servants. If there are any elderly ladies in the house to supervise the children, so much the better.
When a child is quite young it is a good thing for the child to be allowed to cry for a while. But generally the mother will not allow the child to cry a bit; for our ladies think that their children should not cry like other ordinary children. As soon as the child cries the mother calls the wet-nurse and has it suckled as many times as the baby cries. This makes the poor child subject to indigestion. There-fore we must see for ourselves and enquire often about the treatment. Never leave them entirely in the hands of your ladies. It is the best thing to get a qualified European or Eurasian nurse; but our ladies object much to their being entertained on account of caste scruples. You may, therefore, get a qualified Hindu nurse for a year or two. When the baby is about three, or at most before six, months old, have it vaccinated, and repeat the operation every seven years. It is also said by doctors that it is a good thing for a grown-up person to be vaccinated once in every six or seven years.
When a child grows big enough to play about, let it play as much as it likes, supply it with necessary toys and play-things suitable to the age of the child, and allow the child to have fresh air both morning and evening.
In the fifth year, according to Hindu custom, get a native teacher and let the child be taught alphabet in the shape of play. Be careful to see that the child is not in the least pressed to learn in that year nor in the year following.
It is the usual practice, in our Zenanas especially, to tell certain tales to children, when they go to sleep. These tales, almost all of them, are not only myths, but unfortunately are stories of devils, demons and cruel beasts. Children get terrified on hearing them. The women think that a child, on hearing such stories, will go to bed willingly. But they, nay even men, are ignorant of the fact that it makes a child faint-hearted and cowardly. When the children grow older, the women-servants, generally old maids, tell tales of love. This second practice makes the children think of the passion of love sooner than they should. Therefore the telling of silly idle tales to children should be strictly prohibited; nor is it a wise thing to allow grown-up girls opportunities of listening to such stories.
From the seventh year or so the child should begin to learn regularly. See that both your mother-tongue and English are taught to the child. You must also see that he learns a little of Sanskrit. Though the knowledge of Sanskrit may be smal], it will help the learner much in after years.
Many of our people strongly object to girls learning English. I don't care to discuss the subject in this lecture ; but will leave it to your own judgment. Hindus allow their girls to go to school (private or public) only up to twelve years of age. Therefore, within those few years, a girl must be taught to read and write well. Then later on she may improve herself by study in the Zenana« If you want to teach girls in the Zenana, a Hindu female teacher is the best. Or you may get an European lady; but never employ an Eurasian, or a native Christian woman to teach and train your girls.
Now I turn my attention to the boys. From the seventh to the twelfth year, a native teacher will serve for a boy*s instruction. Then, or a little later on, if you can afford it, engage an European tutor for the tuition and the training of your boys. European tuition and training are essential, because we are now under the British Government, and so we must be trained and taught in certain matters in their own way. No Hindu, however well-read he may be, can teach you the correct pronunciation and accent of words in the English language, and the etiquette and manners of the West, a knowledge of which is absolutely necessary for those who have to move amongst Europeans. If you can't afford a private tutor, send your son to the nearest Rajkumar College. At present there is an institution at Madras called the Newington Establishment, at which more or less all the Minors under the Court of Wards are trained and taught. But up to the present the tuition and training given to the boys in that institution are not at all satisfactory to our class of people. It has been somewhat improved of late by the very kind interest taken in it by our present Governor, Lord Ampthill. Yet I should like to see it turned into a regular Rajkumar College. I hope ere long I may be successful in my endeavours to have the institution reformed and established on a sound basis. If I fail, I sincerely wish you, when you become masters of your estates, to strive your best, one and all, for the same object.
Reverting to the subject of my lecture, let me tell you that you should not allow a son of yours to sleep in the Zenana after twelve or thirteen years of age. From that age he should also be regularly taught lessons, and exercised in manly sports. The period from the beginning of the thirteenth to the end of the eighteenth year is the most trying period for boys—the time when character, as it were, hangs in the balance, and slight events may turn the scale to honesty or the reverse. Therefore you should watch your young son very carefully in all his doings. Though you get an European tutor for him, don't leave him entirely in his hands, and also take care that he is not taught Christianity. See that he receives instruction in our own religion from pandits. Allow him at regular times to have conversation with some selected pandits, relatives and gentlemen. Then he will be in touch with his people, and he will never become a stranger to them. Now-a-days the Minors at Newington are entirely cut off from their own people, so that when they leave the institution, some strangers get hold of them and lead them into such habits as are not only unsuitable for a Hindu but ruinous also.
After a boy passes his eighteenth year get him married. Of course, Europeans strongly object to marriage at so young an age; but I consulted several doctors on the point before I got my elder son married, and they one and all agreed with me and said that after eighteen is the proper age for a boy born and bred under a tropical sun to enter on married life.
For girls I should think that marriage after the completion of 14 years at least cannot be considered to be too late. Of course, among Brahmins and others who foolishly adopt the Brahminic custom, girls have to be betrothed before they are grown up. I use the word marriage here in the European sense of the word, which thus includes the nuptial ceremony as well as the betrothal.
Even amongst Brahmins and such peo- ple, no girl should be betrothed before the eighth year; and the nuptials should take place after the completion of the fourteenth year. Amongst the other castes, who are more fortunate than Brahmins in this respect, after the completion of the fourteenth year at least is the proper age for girls to be married. But amongst ourselves if we put off the marriage till the sixteenth year, so much the better.
For the sake of the mental and bodily health of the offspring of marriages, and in the interests of purity in family life, marriages are prohibited between the children of a brother and a sister. In the Hindu Shastras it is laid down as a general rule that no man should marry the daughter of his father's sister or of his mother's brother. It is only for secondary considerations that a man is allowed to marry the daughter of his mother's brother. But a man is never allowed to marry the daughter of his father's sister. Anyhow it is a very good thing to avoid consanguineous marriages, i.e., marriages between close relations.
Now let me turn again to the subject of the training of the young. After the eighteenth year, you should train your boy gradually in estate work. First entrust to him some routine work, so that he may become acquainted with the different branches of the work of an estate. Later on give him a somewhat responsible work of management, subject to your own supervision. Gradually make him look after the greater part of your work, taking care that even then his decisions are liable to be appealed against to you on all important matters. I should like to say that this is the proper and suitable way of training a young Zamindar.
I must also tell you now how you should train your boys in money matters. From the tenth or the eleventh year begin to give a boy a few rupees every Sunday, and holiday, as pocket-money. If the tutor recommends him saying that he has learnt his lessons well in that week, give him a little more. Give him something more, if he passes well in the monthly examination. Gradually increase the weekly pocket-money and make it a monthly allowance starting from ten rupees. Then gradually increase the allowance according to the age of the boy and the status of the Zamindary. Between the years, say, the fourteenth and the eighteenth, make him keep a regular account of what he spends and let it be open to his tutor's inspection. After he is married, you had better not ask him for an account of his pocket-money, but watch him to a certain extent, so that he may not get into the habit of spending more than his income. We should train our boys in somewhat like the above said manner, till the end of the twenty-first year. The most important period in the life of a boy, when we should take much care of him, is from the beginning of the thirteenth to the end of the eighteenth year of his age. If there is no proper paternal care over him, he is certain to be spoilt.
Your responsibility over the boy ends after the completion of twenty-one years. With the above said treatment and training, the boy will certainly turn out a promising ruler. But there may be an exceptional case. Then the bad result is not the fault of father, mother or elder brother; but it is the bad fate of the boy and the misfortune of the people who happen to come under his care. In conclusion, you see, it is the duty of the parents to treat and train their boys in the above said manner.