Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography. The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later.Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921
On 8th Pauh, 1325 (23rd Dec, 1918), 19th Annual Meeting of Brahmacharyasram was held under the chairmanship of Rabindranath Tagore. He delivered a small lecture on " The Ideal Education Ststem in India". At the end of the meegting he laid down the foundation stone of Viswa Bharati on the back side of the Children's Dept. Many Vedic rituals were held. A hole was prepared for laying the foundation of Viswa Bharati. Sacred hymns were uttered by Rabindranath, unboiled rice, water, Kush flower, etc were thrown in that hole.The males and females arrived there from the different parts of the world had thrown earth in that hole A Danish lady Miss Fering was also present. Rathindranath wrote in his diary;
"At the Paus Utsab this year many people from the other provinces of India had come. On 8th Paus the foundation stone of the Viswa Bharati University was laid before his assembly after father had explained in a short lecture the aims and purposes of this institution. This lecture has been printed in a pamphlet form for distribution. About ten thousand rupees of of donation was promised on the spot. The lecture delivered by Rabindranath was;
" The fire works of Knowledge has been lit in human society.If every nation can kindle the light in its own way, then the sacrificial rite will be fulfilled. It was proved that India has thought of the different problems of the world in her own ways and tried to solve them.. That teaching in our country will be the best teaching which can express its own truth . It must be unique. Repetition of any one is not the true teaching , that is a mechanical one."
