In the Jamia the mixture of freedom and discipline struck me as its strongest and happiest educational achievement.

In the lower classes freedom was tempered with discipline, and it was apportioned. In the post-graduate classes absolute freedom was deliberately allowed, but the voluntary inner discipline of the student was a necessity. I will introduce two higher classes as examples.

First, a professor: Professor Mujeeb, of whom I have already spoken as the co-worker of Dr. Zakir Hussein. He belongs to a prosperous and well-known family of Lucknow which includes two artists, a well-known politician, and a first-rate lawyer and business man among its members. Mujeeb is the product of an Indian school, as well as of Oxford and Berlin Universities. He is an able writer and critic. His Western education has enabled him to do away with the scholastic and obscure methods of the East in dealing with a subject. Though his subject-matter is taken from the very sources of his culture, yet he has been able to simplify and clarify it. I was told that his style in Urdu, as well as the unusual handling of his themes, has procured for him a wide, youthful public. With this ability, backed by his family, he could have easily obtained a lucrative position.

He preferred to work with Dr. Zakir, whose ideal and the manner by which he tries to realize it, attracted him. Therefore he chose the position of a poor professor at Jamia -- for those who work there must leave behind all desire for an easy life. Including the Principal, all receive seventy-five rupees per month, which is barely enough to provide them with a roof and the austerest sort of subsistence. This is a matter of principle at the Jamia, and though the choice of a voluntary collective privation has been achieved by a great many Hindu institutions, it is unique among Muslems. They explain this, first, because it means an inner discipline and sacrifice for an ideal which must stand the test of material privation; second, since the appallingly low standard of the majority cannot be raised, those who pretend to teach them must share their hardships, and reduce the external difference to a minimum. It is sound psychology, hence the popularity of the Jamia among the poor. It is sound educational practice for those who, above everything, want to emphasize moral values and inner discipline as the only means of achieving freedom for the individual and the community.

I visited a history class for men, many of whom were older than the teacher. But the authority of the little man was incontestable. All of them, including the teacher, were sitting on the floor with low desks before them. I could not follow the lecture in Urdu, but I could see from diagrams and figures on the blackboard the clear outlines of a certain period of Indian history. The teacher developed his theme, always keeping before the eye the principal trends of comparative periods. The teacher and the students collaborated in handling the data before them intelligently, objectively, and with the utmost freedom.

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