Different classes of people

Boys and girls and even grown-ups are often taught history in a peculiar way. They learn the names of kings and others, and dates of battle and the like. But surely history does not consist of battle and a few persons who became kings and generals. History should tell us of the people of a country; how they lived, what they did, and what they thought. It should tell us of their joys and sorrows; of their difficulties and how they overcame them. And if we study history in this way we can learn a lot from it. If we have to face the same kind of difficulty or trouble, our reading of history may help us to get over it. Especially, our study of past times will help us in finding out if people have been getting better and better or worse; if there has been progressed or not.

Of course, one must try to learn something from the lives of great men and women of past times. But we must also try to learn what the condition of various kinds of people in olden days was.

I have written to you many letters. This is the twenty-fourth of the series. But so far we have only discussed very old times about which we do not know much. We can hardly call this history. We may if we like to call it the beginning of history, or the dawn of history. Soon we shall consider the later periods about which we know more and which may be called the historical times. But before we leave the early civilizations, let us have another peep into them and see what different kinds of people lived in those days.

We have already seen how in the early tribe's people started doing different kinds of work. There was a division of work or labor. We have also seen how the leader of the tribe, the patriarch, separated his family from the others, and only did the managing part of the work. He became a higher kind of person, or we may say that his family belonged to a different class from the other people. Thus we find two classes of people--one doing the managing and ordering, and the other doing the actual work. And of course the class doing the managing part had much more power and they used this to take as many things as possible. They became richer as they took more and more from the others who worked.

And so, a division of work went on, several classes arose. There were the king and his family and the people of his court. They did the work of managing the country and fighting for it. They usually did no other work.

Then there were the priests in temples and all other people attached to the temples. They were very important persons in those days and we will consider their work again.

Thirdly, there were merchants. These were the traders who carried the goods of one country to another, who bought and sold and opened shops.

Fourthly, there were the artisans, that is the people who made all kinds of things, who spun yarn and wove cloth, who made pottery and brass goods and articles of gold and ivory, and many other things. Most of these people lived in or near towns, but there were many in the villages also. Lastly, there were the peasants and laborers who worked in the fields and in the cities. This was, of course, the largest class. All the other classes tried to get something out of them.

Source: http://indiragandhi.in/en/philosophy/letters/3