Vacations in Village

Students should devote the whole of their vacation to village service. To this end, instead of taking their walks along beaten paths they should walk to the villages within easy reach of their institutions, and study the conditions of the village folk and befriend them. This habit will bring them in contact with the villagers who when the students actually go to stay in their midst, will, by reason of the previous occasional contact, receive them as friends rather than as strangers to be looked upon with suspicion. During the long vacation, they will stay in the villages, and offer to conduct classes for adults and to teach the rules of sanitation to the villagers, and attend to the ordinary cases of illness. They will also introduce the spinning wheel among them and teach them the use of every spare minute. In order that this may be done, students and teachers will have to revise their ideas of the use of vacation. Often do thoughtless teachers prescribe lessons to be done during the vacation. This, in my opinion, is in any case a vicious habit. Vacation is just the period when a student’s mind should be free from routine work and be left free for self-help and original development. The village work, I have mentioned, is easily the best form of preparation for dedication to exclusive village service after finishing studies.