Study the following extract (Sources 2 and 3) taken from NCERT textbook (pages 99 and 104) respectively and answer the questions that follow:

A.

An argument for European knowledge

Wood’s Despatch of 1854 marked the final triumph of those who opposed Oriental learning. It stated:

We must emphatically declare that the education which we desire to see extended in India is that which has for its object the diffusion of the improved arts, services, philosophy, and literature of Europe, in short, European knowledge.

Questions:

(i) When did Wood’s Despatch come in light?

(ii) What type of education did the Despatch want to extend in India?

B.

“Literacy in itself is not education”

Mahatma Gandhi wrote:

By education I mean an all-round drawing out of the best in child and man—body, mind and spirit. Literacy is not the end of education nor even the beginning. It is only one of the means whereby man and woman can be educated. Literacy in itself is not education. I would therefore begin the child's education by teaching it a useful handicraft and enabling it to produce from the moment it begins its training ... I hold that the highest development of the mind and the soul is possible under such a system of education. Only every handicraft has to be taught not merely mechanically as is done today but scientifically, i.e. the child should know the why and the wherefore of every process.

The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 72, p. 79

Questions:

(i) How does Mahatma Gandhi view literacy?

(ii) Why does he give so much emphasis on learning a useful handicraft?