Thread by @Aabhas24

Will Durant on Education in Ancient India (Our Oriental Heritage):

"Every Hindu village had its schoolmaster, supported out of the public funds;in Bengal alone,before the coming of the British, there were some eighty thousand native schools one to every four hundred population."

"The percentage of literacy under Ashoka was apparently higher than in India today. Children went to the village school from September to February, entering at the age of five and leaving at the age of eight."

"Instruction was chiefly of a religious character, no matter what the subject; rote memorizing was the usual method, and the Vedas were the inevitable text."

"The three R's were included, but were not the main business of education; character was rated above intellect, and discipline was the essence of schooling."

"We do not hear of flogging, or of other severe measures; but we find that stress was laid above all upon the formation of wholesome and proper habits of life."

"At the age of eight the pupil passed to the more formal care of a Guru, or personal teacher and guide, with whom the student was to live, preferably till he was twenty."

"Services, sometimes menial, were required of him, and he was pledged to continence, modesty, cleanliness, and a meatless diet. Instruction was now given him in the 'Five Sbastras' or sciences: grammar, arts and crafts, medicine, logic, and philosophy."

"Finally he was sent out into the world with the wise admonition that education came only one-fourth from the teacher, one-fourth from private study, one-fourth from one's fellows, and one-fourth from life."

"From his Guru the student might pass, about the age of sixteen, to one of the great universities that were the glory of ancient and medieval India: Benares, Taxila, Vidarbha, Ajanta, Ujjain, or Nalanda."

According to the Gandhian Shri Dharampal the Indian system was better than the English in terms of:

A)the number of schools and colleges proportionately to the population
B)the number of students attending these institutions

C)the duration of time spent in school by the students, D)the quality of teachers
E)the diligence as well as intelligence of the students F)the financial support needed to see the students through school and college

G)The high percentage of lower class (Sudra and other castes) students attending these schools as compared to the upper class (Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaisya) students, and
H) in terms of subjects taught.