Outline:
- Introduction: relation of the hostel to college in the west and the cast
- Hostel life furnishes a memorable experience
- The perpetual flow of life in the hostel
- Blessings of hostel life: extensive education both theoretical and practical opportunities for expressing creative energies
- Evils of hostel life
- Conclusion: role of the hostel in higher education: the condition of hostel life in our country
The hostel is an inseparable part of the college. Every educational institution worth the name has one or more of them, where a large number of students are accommodated. In the advanced countries, most of the colleges are residential, hostel life forming an integral part of college life. In the East, however, the economic condition of the students does not permit compulsory residence in hostels were, therefore, only a small percentage of the students can afford to live. Nevertheless, in these countries also the hostel occupies an important position in higher education.
Students who never had a chance of being innated? in a hostel have indeed missed a valuable and memorable piece of experience. Neither parents nor their wards usually feel much inclination towards life in a boarding house. But once the boys and girls have lived in a hostel for some time, they feel as much reluctant to leave it, as they felt before entering the hostel.
Life in a boarding house is seldom, if ever, monotonous? With a large number of young. energetic, sportive members, a hostel perpetually vibrates.lt with life. The paradise may wear outs and lose its charm but the hostel will not. The old exit and the new entry, with the spring of life flowing in unbroken continuity. When an outsider chance to enter a hostel, his cars arc invariably greeted with hollow laughter, loud singing, and noisy gossips, his cycs meet everywhere lively, cheerful faces moving about, and he instantaneously gets the impression that cares and sorrows of life have no access into the four walls of the hostel.[the_ad id=”17141″]
A well-organized hostel has a robust spirit which pervades the whole atmosphere and has a salubrious effect on its inmates. When a boy enters a hostel for the first time, his feclings are none too happy. To be placed among a crowd of strangers, after being severed from one’s home and dear oncs, is really an ordcal. In course of time when this sore heals up and the new boarder accommodates himself to the new mode of life, he begins to appreciate its joys to the extent of thinking that the hostel is better than the home. That is because in the hostel a student enjoys an ample measure of independence, which was beyond his reach at home under the watchful eyes of the parents and guardians. Of course, there is always a superintendent to check the movements and activitics of the students, but his control is more noniinailthan real. If the boarders do not violatc hostel rules or create any internal trouble, his cxistence is almost never felt. Hence a boarder can freely go about places and associate with people of his own choice. In a hostel where the borders are mainly of the same age, distracting gossips flow freely. Here and their boys may be seen in twos, threes, and fours, having a lively charge.
A good hostel offers many opportunities through which the inherent energies of a student can find expression. Every hostel has á common room. furnished with indoor games, radios and magazines, a small gymnasium and also arrangement for outdoor games like tennis, badminton, football, and cricket. Apart from these borders can organic dramatic performances and musical source” and variety shows. They can also publish magazines and wallpapers. Picnics, parties, and excursions can be undertaken as frequently as time and funds allow. Besides, the borders constitute a ready and organized force which can be fruitfully utilized in social services.
Hostel life can impart valuable social training to the borders. In a hostel, one learns to adjust one’s own likes and dislikes to those of others. Here, a boy or a girl cannot be selfish or slovenly without inviting general criticism and condemnation. Hostel life also teaches cooperation and mutual’ help. This education received in one’s tender age proves extremely useful in after-life. Moreover, those students who participate in the hostel administration derive a lot of organizing skill too.[the_ad id=”17142″]
Like many other beneficial institutes, a hostel also is not free from blemishes. A hostel being a mixture of all types of boarders, students otherwise dutiful and honest are at times led astray by evil associates. Misuse of liberty often blighiso many promising careers. Sons and daughters of the rich sometimes set bad examples of luxury which influence the character of the rest who thercupon squeeze their parents unreasonahli. Further, a prolonged stay in hostels for many years slackens? family tics in young persons. They gradually become callous and indifforeni to the needs and claims of their respective homes.
In fine, real education does not consist of delivering classroom sermons. To achieve perfect education, students have to Icarn a good deal outside the class, perhaps more than what the class can give. And the most effective agency of extra-class education is the hostel where students keep Learning throughout this day and the night without even knowing that they are doing so. Even when they gossip, they learn from each other. It is in recognition of this important role of the hostel in higher education that Mr. Eliot. President of Harvard University, once said, “If I wish to found a college. the first thing I would build is a dormitory.” ‘Those of us who are willing to remember” says Prof. Roger W. Holmes of the USA, “find it easy to recollect that the most valuable things that happened to us in college usually happened in our dormitories.” But in our country, all hostels do not fulfill the conditions required by a standard boarding house. A hostel must have a capacious building, an extensive compound and a small but permanent administrative unit to ensure a decent, healthy living to its borders. Sometimes a hostel in our country is no better than a habitation where students flock merely to put their heads. Except having common mess they have hardly anything in common. Life in such a hostel is ugh, uncomfortable and unfavorable to the pursuit? of education. Each student needs a minimum of space for his cot and table.
