Rabindranath Tagore’s Thoughts on Education and Library in the Modern Context

In an age of anxiety and uncertainty, a universal philosophy needs to be spread among the nations to set up universal laws of peace and harmony. Disintegration is a common threat to the peace and prosperity of nation and thereby integration is now at stake in the age old civilization like India. Disintegration has to be demolished and established ‘unity in diversity' afresh to usher a new dimension of hope and aspirations. While lust and hunger for wealth has been in general the key demands of man in the name of modernisation, development, progress and advancement, the ultimate eace is at threat by the rat race of the society. Under this juncture, intolerance with nature and human civilization is weeping out in the heart of man. In the post-modern era, internal or indigenous aggression on nature has been an added problem with western imperialism on civilization, art, literature and society. To restore the peace of mind and to save nature and man, our society feels the need of a universal law of education that will be able to keep harmony intact and open a dynamic world of peace, prosperity, sanctity, solitude, harmony among the nations of the earth. Rabindranath Tagore's thoughts on education and library can suffice this, if his philosophy of life, society and education can be imparted among the learners from primary level to higher education. The basic duality of man's nature, the essential unity of all religions, the Advaita doctrine, Nationalism and the distinct hope of the arrival of the Supreme Man are the basic philosophical aspects of Tagore to be highlighted and spread among all classes of people of India to maintain the age old slogan ‘Unity in Diversity'. Library, the store house of knowledge, has to be easily accessible to those who live in the close corner of nature as preached by Tagore.