Class 8 History Chapter 7 Civilising the Native, Educating the Nation Extra Questions and Answers are provided here. These Extra Questions with solution are prepared by our team of expert teachers who are teaching in CBSE schools for years. Extra questions for Class 8 History Chapter 7 will help you to properly understand a particular concept of the chapter.

Civilising the Native, Educating the Nation Class 8 History Extra Questions and Answers

Very Short Answer Type Question

1. Who took the initiative to set up the Calcutta Madrasa?

Answer: Warren Hastings

2. Name the two Indian who reacted against Western education.

Answer: Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore

3. Who is a Linguist?

Answer: Linguist is someone who knows and studies several languages.

4. Name two individuals who sharply attacked the orientalists.

Answer: James Mill and Thomas Babington Macaulay attacked the Orientalists.

5. Who was of the opinion that Colonial education created sense of inferiority in the minds of Indians?

Answer: Mahatma Gandhi

6. By education I mean all round drawing out of the best in child and man- body, mind and spirit. Whose words are these?

Answer: Mahatma Gandhi

7. Name the places where universities were first established by the company in India?

Answer: Calcutta, Madras and Bombay

8. Who started the journal Asiatick Researches?

Answer: Jones set up the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and started a journal called Asiatick Researches.

9. What does madrasa mean?

Answer: Madrasa is an Arabic word for a place of learning; any type of school or college.

10. What does munshi mean?

Answer: The word munshi was used for a person who can read, write and teach Persian.

11. Name the Scottish missionary who toured the districts of Bengal and Bihar in the 1830s.

Answer: In the 1830s, William Adam, a Scottish missionary, toured the districts of Bengal and Bihar.

12. Which year did the East India Company decide to improve the system of vernacular education?

Answer: After 1854 the Company decided to improve the system of vernacular education.

13. Who established Serampore Mission?
Or
Who was William Carey?

Answer: William Carey was a Scottish missionary who helped establish the Serampore Mission.

14. Who were called Orientalists?

Answer: Those with a scholarly knowledge of the language and culture of Asia were called Orientalists.

15. Why was madrasa set up in Calcutta in 1781?

Answer: Madrasa was set up in Calcutta in 1781 to promote the study of Arabic, Persian and Islamic law.

Short Answer Type Questions

1. Where were classes held under the system of pathshalas?

Answer: In some places classes were held under a banyan tree, in other places in the corner of a village shop or temple, or at the guru’s home.

2. What type of education was given to the children in pathshalas?

Answer:  Teaching was oral, and the guru decided what to teach, in accordance with the needs of the students.

3. Why were classes not held during harvest time in pathshala system?

Answer: Classes were not held during harvest time in pathshala system because rural children had to work in the fields during harvest time.

4. What task was assigned to the pandit by the Company?

Answer: The Company assigned the pandit to visit the pathshalas and try to improve the standard of teaching.

5. How were Oriental institutions like the Calcutta Madrasa and Benaras Sanskrit College viewed by the British?

Answer: These institutions were seen as “temples of darkness that were falling of themselves into decay”.

6. What different languages did William Jones study?

Answer: Jones was a linguist. He had studied Greek and Latin at Oxford, knew French and English, had picked up Arabic from a friend, and had also learnt Persian.

7. Why was the Hindu College established in Benaras?

Answer: The Hindu College was established in Benaras in 1791 to encourage the study of ancient Sanskrit texts that would be useful for the administration of the country.

8. What did Thomas Macaulay urge the British government in India?

Answer: Thomas Macaulay urged that the British government in India stop wasting public money in promoting Oriental learning, for it was of no practical use.

9. How does Mahatma Gandhi view literacy?

Answer: According to Mahatma Gandhi literacy is not the end of education nor even the beginning. It is only one of the means whereby man and woman can be educated. Literacy in itself is not education.

10. Why was the East India Company opposed to missionary activities in India?

Answer: Until 1813, the East India Company was opposed to missionary activities in India. It feared that missionary activities would provoke reaction amongst the local population and make them suspicious of British presence in India.

11. What do you mean by wood’s despatch?

Answer: In 1854, the Court of Directors of the East India Company in London sent an educational despatch to the Governor-General in India. Issued by Charles Wood, the President of the Board of Control of the Company, it has come to be known as Wood’s Despatch.

12. Why did William Jones feel the need to study Indian history, philosophy and law?

Answer: William Jones felt the need to study Indian history, philosophy and law because only those texts could reveal the real ideas and laws of the Hindus and Muslims, and only a new study of these texts could form the basis of future development in India.

13. Why did Mahatma Gandhi want to teach children handicrafts?

Answer: He argued that education ought to develop a person’s mind and soul. Literacy – or simply learning to read and write – by itself did not count as education. People had to work with their hands, learn a craft, and know how different things operated. This would develop their mind and their capacity to understand.

14. What does vernacular mean? Why did the British use this term in colonial countries like India?

Answer: Vernacular is a term generally used to refer to a local language or dialect as distinct from what is seen as the standard language. In colonial countries like India, the British used the term to mark the difference between the local languages of everyday use and English – the language of the imperial masters.

15. What do you mean by Tagore’s abode of peace?
Or
How did Tagore view his school namely Santiniketan?

Answer: Tagore was of the view that creative learning could be encouraged only within a natural environment. So he chose to set up his school 100 kilometres away from Calcutta, in a rural setting. He saw it as an abode of peace (santiniketan), where living in harmony with nature, children could cultivate their natural creativity.

Long Answer Type Questions

1. Why many British officials criticized the Orientalists?

Answer: From the early nineteenth century many British officials began to criticise the Orientalist vision of learning. They said that knowledge of the East was full of errors and unscientific thought; Eastern literature was non-serious and light-hearted. So they argued that it was wrong on the part of the British to spend so much effort in encouraging the study of Arabic and Sanskrit language and literature.

2. What measures were taken by the English Education Act of 1835?
Or
Enumerate three features of the English Education Act of 1835.
Or
What were the provisions of English Education Act of 1835?

Answer: Measures taken by the English Education Act of 1835 were:

• English was made the medium of instruction for higher education.
• Promotion of Oriental institutions like the Calcutta Madrasa and Benaras Sanskrit College was stopped. These institutions were seen as “temples of darkness that were falling of themselves into decay”.
• English textbooks began to be produced for schools.

3. Why did Mahatma Gandhi think that English education had enslaved Indians?

Answer: Mahatma Gandhi thought that English education had enslaved Indians because:

• Colonial education created a sense of inferiority in the minds of Indians.
• It made them see Western civilisation as superior, and destroyed the pride they had in their own culture.
• Indians educated in these institutions began admiring British rule.

4. What measures were taken by the British after issuing of Wood’s Despatch?
Or
Explain the measures introduced by the British following the 1854 Despatch.

Answer: Following the 1854 Despatch, several measures were introduced by the British.

• Education departments of the government were set up to extend control over all matters regarding education.
• Steps were taken to establish a system of university education. Universities were established in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay.
• Attempts were also made to bring about changes within the system of school education.

5. How were the views of Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi on the west different?
Or
What were the differences between the educational views of Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore?
Or
What were the differences between Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore’s views on English education?
Or
How Tagore’s views were different from Mahatma Gandhi regarding national education?

Answer: In many senses Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi thought about education in similar ways. There were, however, differences too. Gandhiji was highly critical of Western civilisation and its worship of machines and technology. Tagore wanted to combine elements of modern Western civilisation with what he saw as the best within Indian tradition. He emphasized the need to teach science and technology at Santiniketan, along with art, music and dance.

6. Why did James Mill and think that European education was essential in India?

Answer: James Mill and Thomas Macaulay criticized the Orientalists.

According to James mill, the aim of education ought to be to teach what was useful and practical. So Indians should be made familiar with the scientific and technical advances that the West had made, rather than with the poetry and sacred literature of the Orient.

Thomas Macaulay felt that knowledge of English would allow Indians to read some of the finest literature the world had produced; it would make them aware of the developments in Western science and philosophy. Teaching of English could thus be a way of civilising people, changing their tastes, values and culture.

7. Why did many company officials in India want to promote Indian rather than western learning?

Answer: Many Company officials argued that the British ought to promote Indian rather than Western learning. This so because:

• They felt that institutions should be set up to encourage the study of ancient Indian texts and teach Sanskrit and Persian literature and poetry.
• The officials also thought that Hindus and Muslims ought to be taught what they were already familiar with, and what they valued and treasured, not subjects that were alien to them.
• Only then, they believed, could the British hope to win a place in the hearts of the “natives”; only then could the alien rulers expect to be respected by their subjects.

8. What measures did the Company undertake to improve the system of vernacular education?
Or
How were the irregularities of pathshalas checked by the Company?

Answer: Measures taken by the Company to improve the system of vernacular education were:

• It appointed a number of government pandits, each in charge of looking after four to five schools. The task of the pandit was to visit the pathshalas and try and improve te standard of teaching.
• Each guru was asked to submit periodic reports and take classes according to a regular timetable.
• Teaching was now to be based on textbooks and learning was to be tested through a system of annual examination.
• Students were asked to pay a regular fee, attend regular classes, sit on fixed seats, and obey the new rules of discipline.

9. What type of education did Mahatma Gandhi want in India?

Answer: Mahatma Gandhi’s views on education were:

• Mahatma Gandhi wanted an education that could help Indians recover their sense of dignity and self-respect.
• Mahatma Gandhi strongly felt that Indian languages ought to be the medium of teaching. Education in English crippled Indians, distanced them from their own social surroundings, and made them “strangers in their own lands”. Speaking a foreign tongue, despising local culture, the English educated did not know how to relate to the masses.
• He argued that education ought to develop a person’s mind and soul. Literacy – or simply learning to read and write – by itself did not count as education. People had to work with their hands, learn a craft, and know how different things operated. This would develop their mind and their capacity to understand.

10. What was the importance of Wood’s despatch?

Answer: Importance of Wood’s despatch

• One of the practical uses the Despatch pointed to was economic. European learning, it said, would enable Indians to recognise the advantages that flow from the expansion of trade and commerce, and make them see the importance of developing the resources of the country. Introducing them to European ways of life, would change their tastes and desires, and create a demand for British goods, for Indians would begin to appreciate and buy things that were produced in Europe.
• Wood’s Despatch also argued that European learning would improve the moral character of Indians. It would make them truthful and honest, and thus supply the Company with civil servants who could be trusted and depended upon.

11. What was the report of William Adam about education in vernacular schools?
Or
Write a short note on the report of William Adam regarding education system prevalent in India.

Answer: The report Adam produced is interesting.

• Adam found that there were over 1 lakh pathshalas in Bengal and Bihar. These were small institutions with no more than 20 students each. These institutions were set up by wealthy people, or the local community. At times they were started by a teacher (guru).
• The system of education was flexible. There were no fixed fee, no printed books, no separate school building, no benches or chairs, no blackboards, no system of separate classes, no rollcall registers, no annual examinations, and no regular time-table. In some places classes were held under a banyan tree, in other places in the corner of a village shop or temple, or at the guru’s home.
• Teaching was oral, and the guru decided what to teach, in accordance with the needs of the students. Students were not separated out into different classes: all of them sat together in one place. The guru interacted separately with groups of children with different levels of learning.
• Adam discovered that this flexible system was suited to local needs. For instance, classes were not held during harvest time when rural children often worked in the fields.