ecomes blind, blundering and bitter. Therefore it is vital that education should give not merely learning and skill but endow one with a definite purpose in life.

The philosopher had clear idea of what a teacher’s role ought to be. To quote him, “No true commitment of knowledge can be achieved if the teachers do not play a progressive role. What the teachers do, students follow. So they set the example…The teachers are in charge of the pupils at an impressionable period of their lives. Young pupils, in primary schools and secondary schools, come to them to be moulded. Love of pupils is the first essential quality of a successful teacher. More than intellectual efficiency, it is that attitude, that emotional attitude of true love for pupils.”

 He stressed the point that the teacher’s work is not limited to the classroom or the syllabus. A student’s personal problems also must receive the teacher’s fullest consideration. Radhakrishnan emphasised the role of character in a nation’s progress. For him destiny is character. Only a teacher can help build a student’s character and lead him to a fruitful tryst with destiny.

Elsewhere he avers, “If education is to help us to meet the moral challenge of the age and play its part in the life of the community, it should be liberating and life-giving. It must give a basic meaning to personality and existence and equip us with the power to overcome spiritual inertia and foster spiritual sensitivity.” In fact, Radhakrishnan considered education as “a second birth”. The teacher gives the spark that enables students to develop a new outlook on life and become an entirely different, albeit improved, person from what he was earlier.

Whether it was the Presidency College at Madras, the college at Rajahmundry where he had a stint as teacher, the Maharaja’s College in Mysore, or the Calcutta University, Radhakrishnan was extremely popular among his students. They listened to his lectures with rapt attention. When he left Mysore for Calcutta the students converted the occasion of his departure into a farewell function. To quote from his son S. Gopal’s biography of the great man, “That scene has become a part of the history of Mysore city. The horses were detached from his carriage and students in harness pulled it to the station. There the platform was wreathed with flowers and the compartment packed with roses. Almost the whole university, faculty and students, turned up to see Radhakrishnan off. The traffic on all roads leading to the station was held up for hours and the crowd was such that other passengers found it extremely difficult to get through. As the train pulled out, hours late, to resounding cheers, Radhakrishnan, like many others present, was moved to tears.”

Can there be a better example of teacher-student relationship? How many of today’s teachers can boast of similar command over their pupils’ esteem?

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