MEMORY IN EDUCATION. 123»

education required by many Indians, who have their work
to do in the world, and have little need for philosophy..
But the genius of the old culture was seen in this very
thing, that all partook of it in their own measure; culture-
came to a man at his work, it was an exaltation of life, not
something won in moments stolen from life itself. And
one way in which this came about, perhaps the best and
most universal way was through the literature ; and that
literature was mainly orally transmitted, that is, it was
very much alive; it belonged both to the illiterate and to the-
literate ; it expressed the deepest truths in allegorical forms,
which, like the parables of Christ, have both their own
obvious and their deeper meaning, and the deeper-
meaning continually expressed itself in the more obvious
and both were beautiful and helpful. The literature was.
the intellectual food of all the people, because it was really
a part of them, a great idealisation of their life ; and what
is most important of all, it was such as to be of value to-
all men ; large and deep enough for the philosopher, and
simple enough to guide and delight the least intellectual..
So that all, however varied their individual attainments,,
were united in one culture, the existence of which de-
pended largely on the existence of a living literature* •
forming an inseparable background to daily life, known
that is by heart. Just as the Icelandic family histories
were the stories of lives lived in the light of the heroic-
stories of the North, so Indian life is lived in the light of"
the tales of India's saints aud heroes.

The two great Indian epics have been the great medium-
of Indian education, the most evident vehicle of the-
transmission of the national culture from each generation
to the next. The national heroic literature is always and
everywhere the true basis of a real education in the forma-