An Ideal Students' Hostel

WE would do well to take a wider sense of the term "hostel". Every person who is learning anything is a student ; and the place where more than one such student live, I consider a students'' hostel. The first and the most important condition for the success of such hostels is that the superintendents must be men of good character. A hostel should never be allowed to degenerate into a mere boarding house, that is, a place where students live together for the sake of obtaining their meals. Students should cultivate a family feeling towards one another, and the superintendent should take the place of a father. He should take an interest in them, take part in their social life, and also have his meals with them.

An ideal hostel would be almost more important to the student than school. In fact, the hostel is the real school. In schools or colleges, the students get only verbal knowledge, while in the hostels they get all kinds of knowledge. An ideal hostel should not be a separate institution from the school ; hence, both should be under the same management, and teachers and students should live together. Thus, we should make the hostels like homes, and create in them ideal conditions for growth and development such as do not obtain even in real homes. Therefore, the thing to do would be to turn the hostels into Gurukulas.

There are many defects in our hostels. The reason lies in the fact that students lack a sense of belonging to a family group, and those who run them do not enter fully into the life of the students.

Outside the City Limits

Then, these hostels should be outside the city limits, and all the reforms, which are considered necessary for the villages or cities, should be carried out in them, that is, there must be the necessary arrangements for hygienic and sanitary living, and the rules of such living should be strictly followed. An ideal hostel cannot be set up in a rented building. There should be good bath-rooms and latrines. The building should be well-ventilated and have a garden attached to it.

An ideal hostel should be Swadeshi in all respects—in the way the building is constructed, furnished and decorated. There should be, too, a reflection of village arts and crafts and way of life. The building itself should be in keeping with our need and our means, considering the poverty of India. Thus, hostels—as built in prosperous and affluent Western countries—cannot serve as models for ours. Climatic conditions abroad and here differ. Hence, the type of building put up must be in accordance with prevailing conditions.

There must be nothing in the ideal hostel which might encourage indolence and delicacy, or lead to waywardness. Therefore, the food served there should be simple—as becomes the life of seekers of knowledge. There should be regular prayers, and rules governing work, rest and sleep.

Brahmacharya Ashram

An ideal hostel will be a Brahamacharya Ashram, i.e., a colony of students living the life of Brahmacharis. The word 'student' is of recent origin—a modern word. The old word for a student—Brahmachari—is richer in meaning and connotes the ideal of student life more truly. Brahmacharya or spiritual discipline—control of the senses, purity of body and mind, and devotion to studies with a view to attaining the Ultimate Reality—is absolutely necessary during the period of study. In the rather topsyturvy conditions obtaining to-day, I would like married students also, if admitted into the hostel, to observe Brahmacharya until the completion of their studies. This means, among other things, that during this period they should live away from their wives.

The readers should remember that I have described what would be an ideal hostel. It is understandable that all hostels may not be able to realize this goal. But, if the ideal described above is accepted as the standard, then every hostel should strive to reach it, and assess their achievement by comparison with it.

— Navajivan : March 3, 1929