They have long complained that the spirit of reverence and the respect for parental authority are being killed by an educational system which may train the intellect and impart useful worldly knowledge, but withdraws their youths from the actual supervision and control of the parents or of the _guru_, who for spiritual guidance stood _in loco parentis_ under the old Hindu system of education, and estranges them from all the ideas of their own Hindu world[20].

That parents often genuinely resent the banishment of all religious influence from our schools and colleges appears from the fact that many of them prefer to Government institutions those conducted by missionaries in which, though no attempt is made to proselytize, a religious, albeit a Christian, atmosphere is to some extent maintained.
It is on similar grounds also that the promoters of the new movement in favour of "National Schools" advocate the maintenance of schools which purchase complete immunity from Government control by renouncing all the advantages of grants-in-aid and of University affiliation.

They have been started mainly under the patronage of "advanced" politicians, and have too often turned out to be mere hot-beds of sedition, but their _raison d'etre_ is alleged to be the right of Hindu parents to bring up Hindu children in a Hindu atmosphere.
From the opposite pole in politics, most of the ruling chiefs in their replies to Lord Minto's request for their opinions on the growth of disaffection call attention to this aspect of education, and the Hindu princes especially lay great stress on the neglect of religious and moral instruction.

I will quote only the Maharajah of Jaipur, a Hindu ruler universally revered, for his high character and great experience:-- My next point has reference to the neglect there seems to be of religious education, a point to which I drew your Excellency's attention at the State banquet at Jaipur on the 29th October, 1909.

I must say I have great faith in a system of education, in which secular and religious instruction are harmoniously combined, as the formation of character entirely depends upon a basework of religion, and the noble ideals which our sacred books put before the younger generation will, I fervently hope, make them loyal and dutiful citizens of the Empire.