In plain words
Some children: eating, and, just as all these children come along in line, bolting the door and sleeping. They have taken more leave than the attendance they must keep allows. Here every teacher must see whether those children came to his class or not. My idea is that we can do one more thing that is new. First of all we must take attendance at prayer time. Some children go off the moment we take this attendance. No. No, we must watch every child. We must check all the rooms there in the Hostel. The children may not know it. But what more work have the elders than this? We must see whether the children are coming to the college with right behaviour, right conduct, in the right way, going over their lessons and learning, in this way, or not.
Students! There are some things that you too must note. You must not think that getting a grade, getting marks, is the main thing for us. Whatever 'O' grade you have won, there must be an 'O' grade in your behaviour too. So studies, for us, are not simply getting some grade, taking a certificate, going round the bazaars and begging. When a man's behaviour has gone wrong, when he cannot recognise his own duty well, even if he has studied for an M.A and goes begging, they will not even give him alms, because they will ask, “You are like a buffalo; can't you work? What do you need alms for?” So we do not live by these degrees. We must live by our conduct. We must grow good conduct. So we must work well. We can achieve this by sādhana. Practice makes man perfect, they said. So we must practise in that way. This age is very precious. If we spoil this value, it will not come again in our life. You are in this state only because you have had no one to tell you with such Prema, in so many ways, taking care even in the smallest matters. So in this way we too, setting up a committee in our Hostel: are they giving the children the food they need in the right way or not? There must be someone to see what kind of thing it is. In Food, cleanness and taste are needed. We must not go on in that way: “They have cooked something, haven't they; they have put it on the plate, haven't they; let us put it in our bellies.” We must give it the taste fit for it too. Children have a craving of the tongue, haven't they; so we must give them the right food. Because they are paying money. When they pay money, we must give them good food. So what this committee must do is this: “This is a thing to put into the belly, not one to put into the basket. It must be served well”: they must grow this feeling. Besides this, this Hostel silence. We must develop this first of all.