[Points: Strikes common everywhere—strikes not desirable in schools—bad effects causes conclusion.]
Strikes, it appears, are the order of the day. The postal workers go on strike. So do the bus and tram workers. So do the factory workers and office babus. The newspaper headlines draw our notice everyday to such troubles breaking at all over the country. It is a great pity that there is hardly any way out. Times are such that they cannot but lead to this country-wide unrest. High price, unemployment, overcrowded cities and a host of other factors have brought about this unhappy state of affairs.
Schools, however, should have been fully sheltered from these troubles. They, unhappily, are not. The teenagers are all too ready to catch the strike fever. Often, small boys are found picketting at the school gate. Today they strike for the freedom fighters of all over the world; yesterday it was against the police action in breaking up a maidan meeting. The other day it was in sympathy with the cause of Beneras Hindu University students fighting for their rights against the University authorities.
These endless strike have the most harmful effects on the growing generation. First, there is loss of working days at schools. The students do not read enough to learn enough. Their minds are under developed.
Besides, living in a state of constant excitement, they lose their sense of balance. They learn to defy authority. They feel it is something heroic to smash windows or to burn trams and buses or to break the law in some way or other. There cannot be much hope for a country whose future generation have no better ideas of life and conduct than this.
In fact, there is too much politics in our education. The leaders of parties have built up their student fronts in schools and colleges and are pulling the wires from behind and set off strike in their own line. The boys.picket at the gates or lead processions or get into one mischief or other. They are very glad to get a holiday from their studies.
The wiser heads in the country feel that the young boys should learn to think for themselves first and follow intelligently the trends of affairs. In a word, they must prepare themselves for the serious business of politics. At present their roles are rather destructive. They act against the interest of country, being misled by unprin cipal leaders. As a result of these frequent strikes a thoughtless, ill-infromed and ill-educated generation is growing up. It is time that the public opinion was roused in the matter and forced the political parties to let the young learners alone.
