![]() I do not remember having read any book from cover to cover with my boys. Children take in much more and with less labour through their ears than through their eyes. I remember very little that my teachers taught me from books, but I have even now a clear recollection of the things they taught me independently of books. I have always felt that the true text-book for the pupil is his teacher. I did not find it at all necessary to load the boys with quantities of books. I do not even remember having made much use of the books that were available. Of text-books, about which we hear so much, I never felt the want. But my love for the languages of my country, my confidence in my capacity as a teacher, as also the ignorance of my pupils, and more than that, their generosity, stood me in good stead. In poverty of literary equipment my colleagues went one better than I. Such was the capital with which I had to carry on. Even my Gujarati was no better than that which one acquires at the school. My knowledge of the Urdu script was all that I had acquired on a single voyage, and my knowledge of the language was confined to the familiar Persian and Arabic words. I had not got beyond Pope's excellent Tamil handbook. The little Tamil I knew was acquired during voyages and in jail. I had undertaken to teach Tamil and Urdu. Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati and Urdu were all taught, and tuition was given through the vernaculars of the boys. We gave three periods at the most to literary training. ![]() I had neither the resources nor the literary equipment necessary, and I had not the time I would have wished to devote to the subject. Literary training was a difficult matter.
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