Much has been written on Sri Aurobindo the revolutionary nationalist and on Sri Aurobindo the revolutionary philosopher. The present volume has taken a different line of exploration. The approach may be termed as an intellectual history approach to Sri Aurobindo, who during the period covered here (1893-1910) was still the controversial Aurobindo Ghose – the firebrand political ideologue who had not yet metamorphosed into the unconventional philosopher-seer. The work attempts to explore Sri Aurobindo or Professor Aurobindo Ghose the educationist, the educationist politician and the revolutionary educational seer. Much has also been written on and commented upon Sri Aurobindo's theory, vision and philosophy of education; the present work tries to revisit and meditate upon his educational activism as it began immediately after his return from the West (1893), continuing throughout his nationalist phase and ending only with his retirement from active politics. Keeping Sri Aurobindo as the central figure, the book also examines the educational thought and vision of a number of his nationalist and intellectual contemporaries. It revisits the educational ideas that these thought-leaders presented before the people – then in their first visible stirring for self-determination – in their quest of trying to formulate a philosophy and a system of national education. The work achieves this through a narrative of their ideas and of the age in which they evolved. This is where one sees this approach as an intellectual history approach. It attempts to draw, through an exploration of ideas, a canvas of the age when Sri Aurobindo actively championed the cause of national education and emerged as one of its advanced thought-leaders and articulators. By putting forward the thoughts of these savants on education in general and Indian education in particular, the book has laid open the vast canvas in which the thoughts of Sri Aurobindo assume their rightful place. Contents: Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction Part One 1. Early Realisations: Understanding the Indian System I.1 An Educationist in a Princely State: Baroda I.2 Early Public Expressions of the Educational Malaise: Through an Analysis of Bankim’s Life and His Education I.3 Early Suggestions for Reforms: As an Education Administrator 2. Survey of the Indian Educational Scene: A Prelude to the National Education Movement II.1 New Experiments and Lights: The Yearning for a New System II.2 Annie Besant: A Foundation of Education for India II.3 Early Calls for Change: Guru Das Banerjee and Rabindranath Tagore II.4 Sister Nivedita: Hints towards an Education for the Nation II.5 Swami Vivekananda: Vedantic Seeds for a Future System of National Education II.6 A New Approach across the Seas: John Dewey’s Concern for the Child’s Nature II.7 Early Argumentations for an Indigenous Education II.8 Western Perceptions of Indian Education 137 3. Towards a National Education: First Stirrings 148 III.1 Distortion in Application: Analysing the Colonial System of Education III.2 Satish Chandra Mukherjee – The Early Pioneer: A Revisit III.3 Living with the Guru - The Catholic Vedantin and the Poet: In Search of an Indigenous Educational Root 4. Education and National Education: The Political and Intellectual Debate IV.1 Rise of the Demand: A Survey of the Educational Scene IV.2 Technicalities of a Colonial Education System: An Overview IV.3 The Agenda of National Education: The Political Fillip to an Intellectual Demand IV.4 Debate of Ideas – Analysing Indian Education: Bipin Chandra Pal and Satish Chandra Mukherjee IV.5 Bipin Chandra Pal: An Education for a ‘New India’ IV.6 National Education: Its Continuity in Sri Aurobindo’s Thought and in the National Movement Part Two 5. Sri Aurobindo and the Demand and Need for a National Education System: Political and Ideational V.1 Introduction V.2 Sri Aurobindo’s Political Demand for a National Education V.3 Educational Issues in Political Forums 303 V.4 In the National Council and the National College 6. Political Delineation of a National Education for India through Writings, Speeches, Recollections 7. Deeper Fundamentals of National Education: A Quest Beyond Politics VII.1 ‘The Brain of India’: Psychological Principles of Ancient Indian Education VII.2 On Restoring the Artistic Emotion: The Value of Art in a Scheme of National Education VII.3 The Need for an Art Movement and Education: Art as an Agent of National Unity and as a Restorer of Racial Artistic Emotion VII.4 Call for a ‘Universal Proficiency’ in Art Training: The Democratisation of Aesthetics 8. Some Observations and Philosophical Hints on the Effort towards National Education: An Assessment 9. A Postscript: Some Aspects of a Philosophy of ‘National Education’ (1920-21) and an Education for the Indian Century Bibliography Index About the Author: Dr. Anirban Ganguly is Hony. Director, Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation (SPMRF), the New Delhi-based think tank of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (www.spmrf.org). He is a Member of BJP's National Executive Committee (NEC) and has extensively worked in the areas of public policy and political research. Dr. Ganguly is also a scholar of civilization, and history – especially the history of India's freedom movement and in it the early nationalist phase, of politics and culture and has written and continues to write on these subjects. He was a Member of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), Ministry of Education, Government of India (GoI); Member of the Indian National Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO (INCCU), Ministry of Education, GoI; Member of the Governing Board of Auroville Foundation (Ministry of Education); Member of the Visva-Bharati Samsad (Court), Santiniketan. He is also a Member of the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library Society, Ministry of Culture, GoI. Dr. Ganguly had his early education at Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Puducherry, founded by The Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He holds a Master’s in International Relations, post graduate diploma in Journalism and Mass Communication and a PhD on Sri Aurobindo from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Dr. Ganguly has authored/edited/co-edited several books including: Modi 2.0: A Resolve To Secure India (2021), DattopantThengadi: The Activist Parliamentarian (2020), Amit Shah and the March of BJP (2019),and Making of New India: Transformation under Modi Government (2018).