(...Contd)

It is my unshakable conviction that if Emperor Ashoka or Emperor Akbar were to stand for the office of President, he would have no chance of being elected.
Adult franchise in a country without great leadership is virtually an unfailing prescription for backwardness. The only hope for Indian democracy having rebirth is to produce a strong man of exceptional calibre who can give the right leadership to the people instead of being led by them. We must bury fifty fathoms deep the notion that decisions must be taken by seeking a consensus.
I am a great champion of universal education. Every child should be given a chance of developing himself and doing the best he can for his country and himself. But I do believe that the cleverest and brainiest stratum of the children, who are diligent and endowed with exceptional talents, should be taken special care of and given the environment in which their outstanding ability and character can come to full fruition.
The State should give the best possible education to boys and girls who have the capacity to become “movers of people, mobilizers of opinion.” I believe that this should be the priority.
I now come to the other topic of my talk - The Art of Reading.
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, a distinguished professor at Cambridge, wrote “On The Art Of Reading”. I bought from the Popular Book Depot the edition reprinted in 1939, and still have the copy. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch summed up the art of reading for examinations in the following three propositions:
First, due to the shortness of human life and the mass of printed matter already loaded and still being shot upon this planet, the student must make a selection. There is no other way.
Second, you must select the books that are best for you and read them absolutely, not around the best. The best books come first, and you may have no time left for the secondary second.
Third, if your subject is imaginative literature, you have to absorb and assimilate into your own personality what you read.
For general reading, the most perceptive comment was that of G.M. Trevelyan, the great grandnephew of Lord Macaulay, who said, “Education has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading”. There is and there can be - no such thing as the hundred best books.There is no hierarchy among the classics.
For a nation nothing is more rewarding than education in human values; and, likewise, for an individual nothing is more satisfying than general reading in human values.