ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the various aspects of the pedagogy as analogous to Rabindranath Tagore's overall pedagogic dimension. While Tagore's (1861 - 1941) other literary achievements have been analysed in detail, his experiments with primers in Sanskrit, Bengali and English have hardly received critical attention. Tagore started his experimental school in 1901 titling it as Brahmacharyashram and posited it as an alternative to the prevalent European model of education. Interestingly while Tagore took copious help for writing the Sanskrit primer from the Sanskritist, Haricharan Bandopadhyay, he himself took on the responsibility of composing the English primers in their entirety. Interestingly Ingraji Sopan was written in 1904 at the peak of Tagore's participation in the nationalist movement against the Partition of Bengal. Tagore thus argues for primers specially designed for Indian conditions instead of a wholesale imitation of the British primers: These primers are meant for Europeans to learn the English language because they are similar in structural patterns.
