NIMCET 2021 — ENGLISH PYQ
NIMCET | ENGLISH | 2021Read the following passage carefully
and answer the questions 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
savidyayavimuchyate: that is, knowledge which is designed for
salvation, for the development of the soul, is he best. Such an idea is
not merely an Indian Hiosyncrasy. 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 Goethe, 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 man’s culture judged by?