Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
CWSA 35
Children in the Ashram [8]
I do not think we can accept your friend’s proposal; the conditions would have to be very different before his object could be fulfilled by sending his son here. We are not satisfied with the effect of the Asram life on children. They do not get the society of other children which they need, they associate with their elders and contract the habits of older people which is not to their benefit. Also they are exposed to ideas and influences which are beyond their age and grow old in mind too quickly, while at the same time they do not get the discipline, education, preliminary formation of the lower nature which is necessary in the early period of life. The life of the Asram has not been formed with a view to these things. If there had been a number of children with regular arrangements for their education it might have been different, but, as it is, we do not wish to admit children except in some exceptional case.
4 March 1936