The Survey October 1916-March 1917 . laywere learning to for-get caste. Only hewas low caste whocheated in might be aBrahmin as well asa Sudra. Singh waslearning the democ-racy which is mod-eling the New In-dia. Thus he grewmuch like boys onan American play-ground. He wonhigh honors at this American school. He went to Luck-now College and won athletic honors there, and a fellow-ship. Then came an examination in which he competed withsons of the priests, the intellectual aristocrats. He, a lowcaste, a Sudra, whose very shadow was pollution, won themedal and a fellowship in a European
The Survey October 1916-March 1917 . laywere learning to for-get caste. Only hewas low caste whocheated in might be aBrahmin as well asa Sudra. Singh waslearning the democ-racy which is mod-eling the New In-dia. Thus he grewmuch like boys onan American play-ground. He wonhigh honors at this American school. He went to Luck-now College and won athletic honors there, and a fellow-ship. Then came an examination in which he competed withsons of the priests, the intellectual aristocrats. He, a lowcaste, a Sudra, whose very shadow was pollution, won themedal and a fellowship in a European University! Hereagain came more honors. Thus it came about that one day Nirman Singh, ,was sailing homeward toward Bombay, a serious, thoughtfulman. He returned to the school, to the home that had re-ceived him as a famine outcast. Today he is the head masterover a large group of boys in the same school to which hefirst came, and from which there goes out each year a grad-uating class upon whose impressionable minds are stamped. high purposes—a class of the lads who are making a NewIndia. He says the old days, the days when he ate snakes andlizards, when he dared not drink from the village well, be-long to one life; another life began for him when he awokein the bungalow of the blue-eyed Sahib—a life that he couldnot but give to his own people and to the ideal of a NewIndia. To this great future, the playground movement is contribu-ting its share, and the story of how it all came about must nowbe told. The Ballighata playground story begins at a Californiaorphanage. Here was story-telling after office-hours on Wed-nesdays; playing games on Saturday afternoons and nature-study field excursions on Sundays. Conducting these classes was like taking acourse in laboratorywork — they testedout the possibilitiesof education throughplay, but also playas one natural wayof imparting knowl-e d g e, particularlyuseful in inculcatingmoral ideas. Meantime, thework grew. It be-came
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