Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose, His Life and Speeches Part 8

As the ether note rose still higher in pitch, they would for a brief moment perceive a sensation of warmth. This would be the case when the ether vibration reached a frequency of several billions of times in a second. As the note rose still higher, their eyes would begin to be affected, a red glimmer of light being the first to make its appearance.

From this point the few visible colours would be comprised within a single octave of vibration--from 400 to 800 billions in one second. As the frequency of vibration rose still higher their organs of perception would fail them completely; a great gap in their consciousness would obliterate the rest. The brief flash of light would be succeeded by unbroken darkness. How circ.u.mscribed was their knowledge? In reality they stood in the midst of a luminous ocean almost blind! The little they could see was as nothing compared to the vastness of that which they could not. But it may be said that, out of the very imperfection of his senses, man has been able, in science, to build for himself a raft of thought by which to make daring adventure on the great seas of the unknown.

--_Amrita Bazar Patrika_, 24-2-1913.

DR. BOSE IN LAh.o.r.e

PLANT RESPONSE

In his third lecture delivered, on the 25th February 1913, at the Punjab University Hall, Dr. Bose of Calcutta dealt with "Plant Response." He said:--

In strong contrast to the energetic animal, with its various reflex movements and pulsating organs, stands the plant, in its apparent placidity and immobility. Yet that same environment which with its changing influences affects the animal is playing upon it also. Storm and suns.h.i.+ne, the warmth of summer and the frost of winter, drought and rain, all these come and go about it. What coercion do they exercise upon it? What subtle impress do they leave behind? These internal changes are entirely beyond our visual scrutiny. Is it possible in any way to have these revealed to us? Dr. Bose had shown the possibility of this by detecting and measuring the actual response of the organism to a questioning shock. In an excitable condition the feeblest stimulus should evoke in the plant an extraordinarily large reply in a depressed state even a strong stimulus would only call forth a feeble response; and lastly, when death overcome life, there would be an abrupt end of the power to answer to all. By the invention of different types of apparatus, the lecturer had succeeded in making the plant itself write an answering script to a testing stimulus. Scripts could also be obtained of the plant's spontaneous movements; and a recording arm demarcated the line of life from that of death.

In taking the self-made records made by the plant it was found that after the prolonged inactivity of a cold night the plant was apt to be lethargic, and its first answers indistinct. But as blow after blow was delivered, the lethargy pa.s.sed off, and the replies became stronger and stronger. After the fatigue of the day, the state of things was reversed. The plant became very lethargic after excessive absorption of food; but the normal activity might be restored by artificial removal of the excess. The effect of alcohol and of various narcotics were clearly followed in the modification of the automatic record made by the plant.

A prevailing scientific error had overcome in life, there would be an abrupt end regarding a certain cla.s.s of plants to be alone sensitive.

The lecturer showed by certain remarkable experiments that all plants and all organs of plants were sensitive.

In certain animal tissues, a very curious phenomenon was observed. In man and other animals there were tissues which beat spontaneously. As long as life lasted, so long did the heart continue to pulsate. There could be no effect without a cause. How then was it that these pulsations became spontaneous? To this query, no satisfactory answer had been forthcoming. Similar spontaneous movements were also observable in plant tissues, and by their investigation the secret of automatism in the animal world became unravelled. The existence of these spontaneous movements could easily be demonstrated by means of the Indian "Bon Charal", the telegraph plant, whose small leaflets danced continuously up and down. The popular belief that they danced in response to the clappings of the hand was quite erroneous. From the readings of the scripts made by this plant, the lecturer was in a position to state that the automatic movements of both plants and animals were guided by laws which were identical. Thus in the rhythmic tissues of the plant and the animal the pulsation frequency was increased under the action of warmth and lessened under cold, increased frequency being attended by diminution of amplitude, and "_vice versa_". Under ether, there was a temporary arrest, revival being possible when the vapour was blown off.

More fatal was the effect of chloroform. The most extraordinary parallelism, however, lay in the fact that those poisons which arrested the beat of the heart in a particular way arrested the plant pulsation in a corresponding manner. The lecturer had succeeded in reviving a leaflet poisoned by the application of one with a dose of counteracting poison.

A time came when after one answer to a supreme shock there was a sudden end of the plant's power to give any response. This supreme shock was the shock of death. Even in this crisis, there was no immediate change in the placid appearance of the plant. In man at the critical moment, a spasm pa.s.sed through the whole body, and similarly in the plant the lecturer had discovered that a great contractile spasm took place. This was accompanied by an electrical spasm also. In the script of the death recorder the line that up to this point was being drawn became suddenly reversed, and then ended. This was the last answer of the plants.

Thus the responsiveness of the plant world was one. There was no difference of any kind between suns.h.i.+ne plants, and those which had hitherto been regarded as insensitive or ordinary. It had also been shown that all the varied and complex responses of the animal were foreshadowed in the plant. An impressive spectacle was thus revealed of that vast unity in which all living organisms, from the simplest plant to the highest animal, were linked together and made one.

--_Amrita Bazar Patrika_, 5-3-1913.

EVIDENCE BEFORE THE PUBLIC SERVICES COMMISSION

The following is the evidence given by Dr. J. C. Bose, C. S. I., C. I.

E., Professor of Physics, Presidency College, Calcutta, on the 18th December, 1913, before the Royal Commission on the Public Services in India, presided over by Lord Islington, and published, in the Minutes of Evidence relating to the Education Department, at pages 135 to 137, in volume XX, Appendix to the Report of the Commissioners:

WRITTEN STATEMENT RELATING TO THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

83, 627 (I) _Method of recruitment._--The first question on which I have been asked to give my opinion is as regards the method of recruitment. I think that a high standard of scholars.h.i.+p should be the only qualification insisted on. Graduates of well-known Universities, distinguished for a particular line of study, should be given the preference. I think the prospects of the Indian Educational Service are sufficiently high to attract the very best material. In colonial Universities they manage to get very distinguished men without any extravagantly high pay. Possibly the present departmental method of election does not admit of sufficiently wide publicity of notice to attract the best candidates.

83, 628 (II) _System of training and probation._--As regards probation and training, Educational officers should first win a reputation as good teachers before the appointment is confirmed as they are transferred to important colleges.

83, 629 (IV) _Conditions of Salary._--As regards conditions of Salary, the pay should be moderately high, but not extravagant, and settled once for all under some simple and well-defined rules. It is not only very humiliating but degrading to a true scholar to be scrambling for money.

The difference between the pay of the higher and lower services should be minimised.

83, 630 (VI) _Conditions of pension._--With reference to pension, I think it is very unfair that more favourable terms are offered, when the pensioner elects to retire in England.

83, 631 (VII) _Such limitations as exist in the employment of non-Europeans._--Pa.s.sing on to the question of limitations that exist in the employment of Indians in the higher service, I should like to give expression to an injustice which is very keenly felt. It is unfortunate that Indian graduates of European Universities who have distinguished themselves in a remarkable manner do not for one reason or other find facilities for entering the higher Educational Service.

As teachers and workers it is an incontestable fact that Indian officers have distinguished themselves very highly, and anything which discriminates between Europeans and Indians in the way of pay and prospects is most undesirable. A sense of injustice is ill-calculated to bring about that harmony which is so necessary among all the members of an educational inst.i.tution, professors and students alike.

83, 632 (VIII) _Relations of the service with the Indian Civil Service and with other services._--As regards the relations with the Indian Civil Service, I am under the impression that they are somewhat strained, but of this I have no personal experience.

83, 633 (IX) _Other points._--I have endeavoured to give my opinion on the definite questions which have been asked. There is another aspect of educational work in India which I think of the highest importance, though I am not exactly sure whether it falls within the terms of reference to the Royal Commission. I think that all the machinery to improve the higher education in India would be altogether ineffectual unless India enters the world movement for the advancement of knowledge.

And for this it is absolutely necessary to touch the imagination of the people so as to rouse them to give their best energies to the work of research and discovery, in which all the nations of the world are now engaged. To aim at anything less will only end in a lifeless and mechanical system from which the soul of reality has pa.s.sed away. On this subject I could have said much, but I will confine myself to one point which I think at the present juncture to be of importance. The Government of Bengal has been foremost in a tentative way in encouraging research. What is necessary is the extension and continuity of this enlightened policy.

83, 634. _Supplementary Note._--I would like to add a few remarks to make the meaning of paragraphs 83, 627 and 83, 631 in my note more explicit.

At the present recruitment in the Indian Educational Service is made in England and is practically confined to Englishmen. Such racial preference is in my opinion, prejudicial to the interest of education.

The best man available, English or Indian should be selected impartially, and high scholars.h.i.+p should be the only test.

It has been said that the present standard of Indian Universities is not as high as that of British Universities, and that the work done by the former is more like that of a sixth form of public schools in England. It is therefore urged that what is required for an Educational officer is the capacity to manage cla.s.ses rather than high scholars.h.i.+p.

I do not agree with these views: (1) there are Universities in Great Britain whose standards are not higher than ours; I do not think that the Pa.s.s Degree even of Oxford or Cambridge is higher than the corresponding degree here; (2) the standard of the Indian Universities is being steadily raised; (3) the standard will depend upon what the men entrusted with Educational work will make it. For these reasons it is necessary that the level of scholars.h.i.+p represented by the Indian Educational Service should be maintained very high.

In paragraph 83,631 I have stated that even these Indians who have distinguished themselves in European Universities have little chance of entering the higher Educational Service. I should like to add that these highly qualified Indians need only opportunities to render service which would greatly advance the cause of higher education. As regards graduates of Indian Universities, I have known men among them whose works have been highly appreciated. If promising Indian graduates are given the opportunity of visiting foreign Universities, I have no doubt that they would stand comparison with the best recruits that can be obtained from the West.

DR. J. C. BOSE CALLED AND EXAMINED

83,635. (Chairman). The witness favoured an arrangement by which Indians would enter the higher ranks of the service, either through the Provincial Service or by direct recruitment in India. The latter cla.s.s of officers, after completing their education in India, should ordinarily go to Europe with a view to widening their experience. By this he did not wish to decry the training given in the Indian Universities, which produced some of the very best men, and he would not make the rule absolute. It was not necessary for men of exceptional ability to go to England in order to occupy a high chair. Unfortunately, on account of there being no openings for men of genius in the Educational Service, distinguished men were driven to the profession of Law. In the present condition of India a larger number of distinguished men were needed to give their lives to the education of the people.

83,636. The witness himself had spent part of his career in Europe, and looking back he could say that this had been of great profit to him, not so much on account of the training he got, as by being brought into personal contact with eminent men whose influence extorted his admiration, and create in him a feeling of emulation. In this way he owed a great deal to Lord Rayleigh under whom he worked, but he did not see why that advantage should not eventually be secured by Indians in India under an Indian Lord Rayleigh.

83,637. There should be only one Educational Service, but men who were distinguished in any subject should not start from its very lowest rung but should be placed somewhere in the middle of it.

83,638. There were men in the Provincial Service who were very distinguished; it was all a question of genius. The Educational Service ought to be regarded not as a profession, but as a calling. Some men were born to be teachers. It was not a question of race, of course; in order to have an efficient educational system, there must be an efficient organisation, but this should not be allowed to become fossilised, and thus stand in the way of healthy growth.

83,639. In the Presidency College a young man fresh from an English university was at once appointed a Professor regardless of his lack of experience, whereas an Indian who pa.s.sed in highest examination with honours in India was appointed as an a.s.sistant Professor. This grounding often made him more efficient as a teacher than the Professor recruited from England. There were now several Professors in the college, in the Provincial Service, who were highly qualified, and who lectured to the highest cla.s.ses with very great success.

83,640. In the Physics Department he had under his direction several a.s.sistants who were so well qualified that they were allowed to give lectures to several cla.s.ses. These a.s.sistants, after their experience at the Presidency College, would be best fitted to become Professors in the mofussil at Colleges. He would like to see them promoted to the higher service after they had had experience. But before he gave them the highest positions, he would make it compulsory for them to go to Europe.

83,641. A proportion of Europeans in the service was needed, but only as experts and not as ordinary teachers. Only the very best men should be obtained from Europe, and for exceptional cases. The general educational work should be done entirely by Indians, who understood the difficulties of the country much better than any outsider.

83,642. He advocated the direct recruitment of Indians in India by the local government in consultation with the Secretary of State, rather than by the Secretary of State alone. Indians were under a great difficulty, in that they could not remain indefinitely in England after taking their degrees and being away from the place of recruitment their claims were overlooked.

83,643. There was no reason why a European should be paid a higher rate of salary than an Indian on account of the distance he came. An Indian felt a sense of inferiority if a difference was made as regards pay. The very slight saving which government made by differentiating between the two did not compensate for the feeling of wrong done. This feeling would remain even if the pay was the same, but an additional grant in the shape of a foreign service allowance was made to Europeans. All workers in the field of education should feel a sense of solidarity, because they were all serving one great cause, namely, education.

83,644. The term "professor", as at present used in India, was undoubtedly a comprehensive one, but it was equally comprehensive in the West.

83,645. (Sir Murray Hammick). The witness did not wish to recruit definite proportions of the service in England and in India respectively. He would for various reasons prefer a large number of Indians engaged in education.

83,646. Even in Calcutta he would not make any difference between the pay of the Indian and the pay of the European.

83,647. (Sir Valentine Chirol). The witness attached great value to the influence of the teacher upon the student in the earlier stages of his education, and it was in these stages that that influence could best be exercised. At the same time he desired to limit the appointment of non-Indians to men of very great distinction.