Class 9 English Tolstoy farm

Tolstoy Farm

                                       Mahatma Gandhi

Tolstoy Farm was the first ashram established by Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa.  The ashram served as the headquarters of the campaign of satyagraha against discrimination against Indians

As the Farm grew, it was found necessary to provide education for the boys and girls who inhabited there.  There were not many qualified Indian teachers , and even when available, none were ready to work there which was twenty-one miles distant from the town. So Gandhi thought that it was not necessary, to engage special teachers for the students.

For Gandhi, Tolstoy Farm was a family, in which he (Gandhi) acquired the position of the Father. It was quite difficult for him to do justice with all the young people present over there as they had been brought up in different conditions and environments. But Gandhi had always given the priority to the culture of the heart or the building of character, and for him moral training could be given to all alike, no matter how different their ages and their upbringing were.  

Gandhi always tried to teach every youngsters some useful manual vocation. For this purpose Mr. Kallenbach went to a Trappist monastery and returned having learnt shoe-making. Mr. Kallenbach had some experience of carpentry so the candidates had a small class in carpentry too.Tolstoy Farm was a perfect laboratory where Gandhiji experimented his ideas on education. Here the inmates were given a strong foundation in character building as well as in vocational training.  We must remember his words: “Education which does not mould character is absolutely worthless”. Physical activities like digging pits, felling timber, lifting loads  that were practiced in the Tolstoy Farm helped students to develop a sturdy body while vocational training given in carpentry, shoe making and gardening helped them to become self-sufficient at a very young age itself.

On Tolstoy Farm it was a rule that the youngsters should not be asked to do what the teachers did not do, and therefore, when they were asked to do any work, there was always a teacher co-operating and actually working with them. The youngsters had never even dreamt that they would have to learn these things some day. For generally the only training that Indian child received in South Africa was in the three R’s.Gandhiji believed that a balanced education of body, mind and spirit is what everyone needed. He questioned the Three R’s tradition of reading, writing and arithmetic and gave ample importance to the building up of one’s character