The introduction of the study of English in our
country has been a useful thing. in as much as it has brought us into contact
with the science and philosophy of the West, which has widened our mental
outlook, has made us enlightened and given us a critical sense where by we can
truly evaluate our customs, traditions and institutions and abolish or return
them as we may choose. It is on account of that, that so many social reforms
and so much new production in our literature has been brought about. The sense
of democracy and the idea of struggling for freedom from the foreign yoke. from
the tyranny of caste and native despotism came to us from studying English
history, the English constitution and the English law.
To make a forcing language the means through which
all knowledge should he imparted to the people of a country, however. Is a
different thing from teaching that language? This is an artificial and a every harmful
thing. It overtaxes the mental capacity of the child and puts a strain and labor
on him that waste much of his energy and time. It is altogether a foolish
thing. It lowers the prestige of the native language and makes the foreign
language appear superior. Thus contempt is created for one’s mother-tongue and
a feeling of snobbery is bred among those who know the foreign language. This
can be seen in our graduates who look down upon those who do not know English.
Much time
is wasted in mastering the foreign medium of instruction. A normal child begins
learning English at the age of ten or eleven and not till he is seventeen or
eighteen does he acquire enough grasp Of the language to understand even the
simplest things that are spoken in that language. Had the education been trough
the mother-tongues by the time the student begins learning the different arts
and sciences through English, he would have sufficiently progressed in their
study and some year would have been saved. Thus, at eleven we are thought in our
schools fairy-tales and school stories that are meant for the child-class in
England and our. F.A. text-books in poetry and prose are generally
matriculation selections of English universities. Similarly with the studies
like history, geography and the physical sciences.
Sometimes very absurd things happen in our
educational scheme. Some things that the student has mastered in the mother-
tongue are taught over again in the high classes at school in English. Thus,
Matriculation geography, history, mathematics are nothing but repetition in
English of facts already mastered in one’s town tongue. Thus is a sheer waste
of two years. Sometimes we find absurd things happening like the study of
Arabic, Persian or Philosophy through English -- the study of an unknown
language through another unknown language.
The student’s power of thinking of self-expression
suffers. He does not fully understand what he is taught through English and
cannot express. Himself fully if he does understand it. The same mail who would
do remarkably well in a subject if he had to write in his own language, cuts a
poor figure when speaking or writing in English.
The peculiar difficulties of the English language.
the delicate shades of its synonyms are difficult to distinguish, as
force,’‘power,’‘strength’; ‘hate, indignation,’ spite’ and ‘scorn,’ and its
spelling, its very irregular verbs are lawless and pronunciation so often is
out of keeping with spelling.
Some reform has now been made. In the
Matriculation students can write answer in Urdu except in the case of English
language papers and in the Intermediate answers to Persian, Arabic and
Philosophy can be in Urdu. Now there is a proposal before the Punjab University
to extend this option to all subjects except English. This is a much-needed
reform.