NIMCET 2018 — ENGLISH PYQ
NIMCET | ENGLISH | 2018Read the following passage carefully
and answer the question that follow: It is said with truth that the function of a university is to prepare the young to take their place in human society. It must provide its members with the knowledge and skill necessary to make them efficient citizens. But is the whole duty of man exhausted by the acquisition of knowledge and professional training? Is a university only an institution for higher learning, a factory which churns out clerks and technicians able to run the machinery of the State? Mere knowledge which gratifies curiosity is different from culture which refines personality. Culture is not remembering a mass of serious details about the dates of birth of the great heroes of the world or the interesting names of the fastest ships which cross the Atlantic or entertaining odds and ends gathered from the latest who's who. A well known institution of this country has for its motto sa vidya yavimuchyate: that is, knowledge which is designed for salvation, for the development of the soul, is the best. Such an idea is not merely an Indian idiosyncrasy. Plato said long ago that the culture of soul is "the first and fairest thing that the best of men can ever have. According to Go the, the object of education is to form tastes and not simply to communicate knowledge. A man's culture is not judged by the amount of tabulated information which he has at his command, but by the quality of mind which he brings to bear on the facts of life. Education is not cramming the mind with a host of technical details, putting sight, as it were, into blind eyes.
The eye of the soul is never blind, only its gaze may be turned to the false and the fleeting. Too often the vision may be dragged downwards by the "leaden weights" of pride and prejudice, of passion and desire. The function of the teacher is not to add to the "leaden weights" but remove them and liberate the soul from the encumbrance so that it may follow its native impulse to soar upwards.
The student at a university does not merely learn something, but becomes something by being exposed, in the most elastic period of his life, to transforming influences, such as the constant clash of mind with mind, the interchange of ideas, the testing of opinions, and the growth of knowledge of human nature.
What is the function of education according to the ancient Indian philosophers?