The Village Schoolmaster, 1911
Nalla Pillai’s school is located in the pial of his house. The attendance is between twenty and thirty, and even boys from the neighbouring villages come here to be instructed.…
From: Unknown To: 1909 C.E.
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Life in an Indian Village by T. Ramakrishna, 1911.
Nalla Pillai is the schoolmaster of Kélambakam, and he is next in importance to the Purohita. He is a great-great-grandson of Nalla Pillai, the reputed author of the Mahahbaratha in Tamil verse. Our village schoolmaster was named after him, and he knows by heart all the fourteen thousand stanzas of the book. He preserves with pride and pleasure the style with which his illustrious ancestor wrote his great work, and the style is worshipped in his house every year on the Ayuthapuja day.
Nalla Pillai’s school is located in the pial of his house. The attendance is between twenty and thirty, and even boys from the neighbouring villages come here to be instructed. The boys are seated in two rows on a raised basement in the outer part of the house, and the master is seated at one end of the pial.
There is a radical difference between the system of instruction imparted in English schools and that in vogue in these village seats of learning. In the former a great deal of time and labour is saved by having a number of boys conveniently arranged into classes so that they may be all taught at the same time.
In the latter the teacher goes through the lessons with each boy separately. In the school of the village before us, three or four youngsters, between five and seven years of age, are seated in a row learning the letters of the alphabet by uttering them aloud and wilting them on sand strewn on the floor. One or two are writing the letters on cadjan leaves. One boy is reading in a loud voice words from a cadjan book, while another reads short sentences. A third is working sums in arithmetic. A fourth is reciting poetical stanzas in a drawling tone, and a fifth is reading verses from Nalla Pillai’s Mahahbaratha before the master, who, after the reading is over, explains their meaning to the boy.
A boy is said to have completed his education if he is able to read and write accurately anything on a cadjan leaf and know the simple and compound rules of arithmetic and simple interest, and such proficiency may be attained after four or five years’ study in the village school.
The boys go to school before six in the morning, return home for breakfast at nine, go back to school at ten, and remain there till two, when they are allowed to go for' their midday meal. They then return to school at three, and remain there till it gets dark. Thus it will be seen that the schoolmaster is at work from early morn till eve, going through the lessons of each individual boy. The school is closed for four days in the month, namely on the day of new moon and the day after, and on the day of full moon and the day after. The boys are also allowed leave on festival days.
The teacher, besides the remuneration paid to him by the parents, not infrequently gets extra income in the shape of money, new clothes, vegetables, &c., when boys are newly sent to school and when marriages and festivals take place. The schoolmaster is expected to look after the children of the villagers and to take an interest in their welfare not only in the school but in their homes. If it is reported that a boy is ill and that he refuses to take medicine, the master is expected to go to his house and see that the medicine is administered. If a boy has an aversion to taking meals, or if he becomes mischievous and troublesome out of school hours, his parents at once invoke the assistance of the teacher, who must go to, the house of the erring youth and
see that such things do not recur. The village master is thus constantly sought after by the villagers, and he is their most useful friend.
I must not fail to notice that the village teacher makes it a special part of his duty to give religious instruction. The work of the school commences and closes every day with a prayer to Saraswati, the goddess of learning, or Vigneswara, a Hindu deity supposed to preside over the destinies of men. All the boys are expected to get these prayers by heart and repeat them aloud. The youths are also made to get by heart during holidays some poetical stanzas containing moral maxims on cadjan leaves, at the top of which there always appears some religious symbol or saying such as the following;—Victory be to Rama; Siva is everywhere.
The boys are always taught to fear God, to be honest and truthful, to venerate their parents and superiors, and so on. It will thus be seen that religious teaching forms a part and a very important part in the work of a village schoolmaster.
Regarding the punishment inflicted on the boys, I must say that Nalla Pillai is an honourable exception to those teachers who often have recourse to the most barbarous modes of chastising youths. I shall therefore not detain my readers with an explanation of those modes of punishment.
Besides the work that Nalla Pillai has in the school, he is often engaged in the evening reciting verses from the Mahahbaratha and explaining their meaning to the villagers.
“And oft at night when enfed was their toil,
The villagers with souls enraptured heard him
In fiery accents speak of Krishna’s deeds
And Rama’s warlike skill, and’ wondered that
He knew so well the deities they adored.”
From the above short description of the village schoolmaster we see that he is a very important element in the village constitution. He is honoured and respected by the people, and regarded by them as a friend and counsellor. Recourse is constantly had to his assistance in reading and writing letters and in the settling of disputes. He is freely admitted to their homes and invited on festival days. Nalla Pillai does his work, day after day, month after month, year after year, in an unostentatious and quiet way, enjoying the esteem and good will of all the villagers and the love of his pupils.
Ramakrishna, T. Life in an Indian Village. T. Fisher Unwin, 1911.
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