On the Education of the People of India/Chapter 6
CHAP. VI.
The Establishment of a Seminary at each Zillah Station, a necessary Preliminary to further Operations.—The Preparation of Books in the Vernacular Languages.—A Law of Copyright required.—Native Education in the Madras and Bombay Presidencies.—The Establishment of a comprehensive System of public Instruction for the whole of British India urgently required.—The public Importance of a separate Provision being made for the Prosecution of Researches into ancient Asiatic Literature.
To proceed to practical details; all we have to do is, to follow out the plan which has been steadily pursued since March, 1835. Seminaries have been established at the head stations of about half the Zillahs in the Bengal and Agra presidencies; and the first thing to be done is, to establish similar institutions in the remaining forty Zillahs. At the average rate of 250 rupees per mensem for each seminary, this would require an annual addition to the fund of 120,000 rupees, or about ₤12,000 a-year.[1] Whatever system of popular instruction it may hereafter be resolved to organise in India, these Zillah seminaries must form the basis of it; and, as some time must be allowed for their operation before we can with advantage proceed a step further, their early establishment is a matter of importance. Every part of our dominions having the same claim upon us, there is exactly the same reason for establishing a central school in one Zillah as in another. Indeed, the motives for carrying out the plan to its full extent are much stronger than those for originally commencing it. The inhabitants of a Zillah in which a seminary has been for some time established, have a very unfair advantage given them over the inhabitants of the neighbouring Zillahs. Calcutta has lately been supplying native deputy-collectors to the whole of Bengal and Behar, because it was the only place at which educated natives were to be obtained in any number. This was justified by the emergency of the case; but, as a general rule, it is very desirable to employ the natives as much as possible in their own neighbourhood. Strangers, invested with power, are looked upon with jealousy; and they are generally in a hurry to make what they can, and return to their own homes. On the other hand, respectable natives are more easily induced to take service, and are more under the control of public opinion in their own district than elsewhere.
The next step will be, to extend the system from town to country; from the influential few to the mass of the people. This part of the subject is not of pressing importance, because the materials of a national system must be prepared in the Zillah seminaries before they can be employed in the organisation of the Purgunnah and village schools. The youth of the upper and middle classes, both in town and country, will receive such an education at the head station of the Zillah as will make them willing and intelligent auxiliaries to us hereafter in extending the same advantages to the rest of their countrymen. The Zillah seminaries will be the normal schools, in which a new set of village schoolmasters will be trained, and to which many of the existing schoolmasters will be induced to resort to obtain new lights in their profession. The books and plans of instruction, which have been tried and found to answer at the Zillah seminaries, will be introduced into the Purgunnah and village schools. In short, the means of every description for establishing a system of national instruction, will be accumulated at these central points; and our future operations are likely to be unembarrassed and efficacious in proportion as this foundation is well and securely laid. We have, at present, only to do with outlines, but they should be drawn with a strict reference to the details which will hereafter have to be filled in.
A great deal has been said about the importance of preparing books in the vernacular languages; and it has been even urged as a proof that there is something unsound in our plan of operations, that there is a greater demand for English books than for books in the vernacular languages.[2]This objection seems to me to arise from a disposition to anticipate the natural course of events. There is at present only a limited demand for books in the vernacular languages. But what is the remedy proposed? To print more books. To print more books than are wanted, because they are not wanted! This scheme, though in appearance more popular, would be, in reality, just as useless as that of the Arabic translations: the books would rot on the shelves; and, as they would not be read, nothing would be gained by their being in a known, instead of an unknown, tongue. The chance that anything worth reading will be produced by salaried translators, who are certain of being paid whether their books are good or bad, is also very small indeed. If such a plan were to answer in any degree, it would be likely to do so at the expense of pitching the national taste at the outset at a very low standard.
In order to create a vernacular literature, we must begin by creating a demand for one. The adoption of the vernacular language, as the language of public business, will contribute more towards the formation of a vernacular literature than if the Government were to spend a crore of rupees in translating and printing books. It will have the same effect as the substitution of English for Norman-French in legal proceedings, and for Latin in the exercises of religion had in England. We must also give a liberal English education to the middle and upper classes, in order that we may furnish them with both the materials and the models for the formation of a national literature. In this way, the demand, and the means of supplying the demand, will grow up together. The class of people who, without knowing English, require some mental aliment, will become more and more extensive: the class who do know English, will be more and more induced by pecuniary interest, by ambition, by the desire of doing good, to supply this aliment. Out of their fulness, from minds saturated with English knowledge and tastes formed by the study of English masterpieces, they will produce, not dull translations, but original works, suited to the intellectual habits of their countrymen. Mediocrity will meet with no encouragement. Out of many attempts, few will succeed; but those few will lay the foundation of the mental independence of India, and will oblige even those who know English to regard their own literature with respect, and to consider it as worthy of cultivation for its own sake.
Latin was formerly upheld as the only proper medium for scientific and literary composition. Petrarch expected to be known to posterity by his Latin poems, which nobody now reads: and of all Bacon’s works, his Essays, which he wrote in English as an amusement for his leisure hours, are alone in everybody’s hands; but, notwithstanding this, the modern European literature will be found to have taken its great start at the time when the cultivation of the classical languages was at its height. To check the study of Latin at that period would have been to check the progress of knowledge, of taste, and of curiosity, which, descending lower and lower, at last gave rise to the admirable literature of the West. To check the study of English, in order to force that of the vernacular language, would have an equally bad effect upon the nascent literature of India. It would retard the process of national improvement by a fruitless endeavour to have that first, which ought, in the natural course of things, to come last: it would have the same effect on the increase of knowledge which the mistaken policy of some nations has on the increase of wealth, who, impatient to have manufactures before they come in their own time, divert a portion of their capital from the more profitable employment of agriculture to the less profitable one of manufactures.
There is, however, one mode in which the Government may, without running any risk of encouraging mediocrity, give direct aid to the growth of a national literature. The consumption of books in the native languages, in the Government schools, is already great, and is daily increasing as the schools become more numerous and better billed. The adoption of any book as a class-book in the Government seminaries also establishes its reputation, and creates a general demand for it. Here then is a certain and perfectly unobjectionable mode of encouraging the production of good books: only the best books of each kind are bought, and they are bought only as they are actually wanted; the pupils themselves pay for them, and a large number of useful books thus annually pass into the hands of the people. When particular books are required for the use of the Government schools, it would be advisable to make the want publicly known, in order that all native authors may have an opportunity of supplying it. The best among many competitors is likely to produce something better worth having than any single writer who could be selected.
A good law of copyright, embracing the whole of British India, would now be of great use. The want has only lately begun to be felt. Nothing was to be made by works in manuscript; and printed books were not in sufficient demand to make the copyright of any value. Now, however, large editions of many works, both in English and the vernacular languages, are called for; and anxiety is felt by publishers on account of their liability to be deprived of their profits by piratical editions.
Although my remarks have been particularly directed to the state of things in the Bengal and Agra presidencies, they are, for the most part, equally applicable to the rest of British India. The plan which has been found to be best adapted for enlightening the people in Bengal, is not likely to be less efficacious at Madras and Bombay. Those presidencies will suffer less by the start of a few years, which Bengal has had, than they will gain by being placed in possession of a well devised and well tested plan of proceeding, without having had any of the trouble or expense of making the experiment.
At Madras, where least has been done for native education, there are, perhaps, more abundant materials and fewer obstacles than in any of the other presidencies. Native learning is even more thinly spread than in Bengal, and no institutions have been established by us to confirm its hold upon the country. On the other hand, a colloquial knowledge of English is a much more common acquirement than it is in Bengal. There are several different languages spoken in the Madras presidency, and English has been to a great extent adopted as the common medium of intercourse, not only between Europeans and natives, but between the natives themselves. This circumstance must give a permanent impulse to the study of the language, and will probably lead to its being more commonly used in ordinary conversation, and more largely diffused through the native languages in the south of India than in any other part of our Eastern dominions. The rough materials of a system of national education are therefore ready to hand in the Madras presidency; and all we have to do is to organise them, and apply them to their proper purpose. English is no novelty; it is in great request; thousands already know it: but it has hitherto been taught loosely and unsystematically, and we must bring all the modern improvements in education to the aid of its easy and correct acquisition. It has hitherto been taught merely to the extent necessary for carrying on colloquial intercourse; but we must enable our subjects to cultivate it as the means of obtaining access to all the knowledge of Europe.
At Bombay more has been done for native education. At first, too exclusive attention was paid to the vernacular languages; books for which there was no demand, were translated at a heavy expense; and as the vernacular language only was taught in the schools, a fixed and narrow limit was placed to the acquisitions of the pupils. This plan has since been modified; and, while proper attention is still paid to the vernacular language, English is also extensively cultivated: the taste for it is said to be rapidly increasing; and as the youth of the Bombay Presidency have every thing at their disposal which the English language contains, they have now an open career before them.
It is a striking confirmation of the soundness of the prevailing plan of education, that the Bengal and Bombay Presidencies, although they set out from opposite quarters, and preserved no concert with each other, settled at last on exactly the same point. In Bengal we began by giving almost exclusive attention to the native classical languages, as they did in Bombay to the vernacular languages; and in both cases experience has led to a conviction of the value of English, and to its having had that prominent place accorded to it which its importance demands. It is time that these partial efforts should give place to a general plan, embracing the whole of British India. The constitution given to it by the late charter has established the identity of our Indian empire, and the Government has since been occupied in remodelling the different departments of administration on this principle. All the provinces of this empire are to have the same criminal and civil law, the same post-office and commercial regulations; and it is surely not of less importance that they should have the same system of public instruction. Our subjects have set out on a new career of improvement: they are about to have a new character imprinted on them. That this national movement should be taken under the guidance of the State, that the means at our disposal should be equally distributed, that each province should profit by the experience of all the rest, that there should be one power to regulate, to control, to urge the indolent, to restrain the over-zealous, to lead on the people by the same or corresponding means to the same point of improvement, will hardly be denied to be as conducive to the welfare of our subjects as it will be to the popularity and permanency of our dominion over them.
The Bengal Education Committee was bound to keep a single eye to the enlightenment of the people, that being the object for which they had been associated as a public body, and for which the administration of a portion of the revenue had been committed to their hands. The general interests of science formed no part of their public charge, but it must not be supposed that they were on that account personally indifferent to them. No men are more disposed than the members of the Education Committee to admire the exertions of James Prinsep, of Hodgson, of Turner, of Masson, or are more anxious to contribute to their success in any way that does not involve a sacrifice of public duty. The gentlemen whom I have named, and others who are associated with them, are turning the ancient Arabic and Sanskrit records to their proper account. Owing to the vastly superior means now at our disposal, they are worse than useless, considered as a basis of popular education; but as a medium for investigating the history of the country, and the progress of mind and manners during so many ages, they are highly deserving of being studied and preserved. These two objects have no more to do with each other than the Royal Society has with Mr. Wyse’s Committee on National Education, or the societies for Preserving Welch and Gaelic Literature, with the British and Foreign School Society. By joining them in a forced and unnatural union the progress of both has been retarded. Philological and antiquarian research was supported on the resources of education. Education was conducted in a way more adapted for the lecture-room of a German university, than for the enlightenment of benighted Asiatics. The friends of education, in performing the indispensable duty of recovering the sum which had been assigned by the state for their object, were very unwillingly placed in a state of apparent opposition to the interests of oriental research. The more immediate supporters of the Asiatic Society, in struggling to retain the interest they had enjoyed in this sum, were marshalled against the cause of popular education. Since the separation has been effected, both parties have pursued their respective objects with much greater success than before. The Education Committee, uninfluenced by any foreign bias, has employed all its disposable funds in founding new seminaries. The Asiatic Society, forced at last to lean on its natural supporters, has been liberally assisted by private contributions; and will, it may be hoped, soon receive that aid from the public resources to which the public importance of its labours so justly entitle it.
It is much to be desired that this division of labour between the departments of general science and popular education should receive the sanction of the highest authority, and be carried into full effect. The plan which appears to me best calculated to answer every purpose, is, for the Government to attach a Sanskrit professor, with several native assistants, to the establishment of the Asiatic Society. These persons, selected on account of their eminent attainments and known love of science, and undisturbed by any other pursuit, might devote themselves to the investigation of the history, antiquities, philosophy, and literature of the East, recording the result of their researches in the most lasting and available forms. India is undoubtedly at the threshold of a new era; and it seems to be no less incumbent on us at this period to gather up the recollections of the past, than to provide matter of national improvement for the future. The Hindu system of learning has formed the character of the people up to the present point; and it must still be studied, to account for daily occurring phenomena of habits and manners. Whatever mental cultivation, whatever taste for scientific and literary pursuits has survived among the Hindus, is owing to it: they were a literary people when we were barbarians; and, after centuries of revolution, and anarchy, and subjection to foreign rule, they are still a literary people, now that we have arrived at the highest existing point of civilisation. That the system which has produced these effects should be carefully analysed and recorded in all its different parts, is no less required by the interests of science in general than by our particular interest as rulers of India. The pundits and students of the Sanskrit College, whose whole time is taken up in teaching and learning that language, are quite unequal to the task. The Asiatic Society, whose proper business it is, are also at present unequal to it; they have no machinery for its performance: the members of the society are principally public officers, overburdened with other duties; and they have as yet been obliged to confine their attention to the replenishment of their museum, and the collection of such scattered notices of the antiquities of the country as have been sent to them by amateur correspondents. The examining and laying open of the different branches of Hindu and Mahommedan literature, has been of necessity, almost entirely neglected; and unless some plan be adopted such as I have suggested, it is not easy to see how this object (the one for which the society was principally founded), can ever be accomplished. Such Arabic and Sanskrit works as are worthy of being preserved, might be printed under the superintendence of the professor and his native assistants; and the expense might be borne, as hitherto, partly by subscription, and partly by the sale of the works themselves, without much assistance from Government. What the finances of the society are not equal to, is, the payment of salaries sufficient to secure the whole time of highly qualified persons to review and make researches into the ancient literature of the country.
Having made this provision for the preservation of Arabic and Sanskrit learning, and satisfied every reasonable wish which either national pride or scientific curiosity can suggest, we shall be able with more satisfaction to take the requisite steps for the introduction of new knowledge, and the creation of a new literature. Every object will have been secured, and all parties will pursue their respective ends without interfering, and will co-operate without misunderstanding.
- ↑ As the supply of educated persons increases, schoolmasters will be obtained at lower salaries; and the saving arising from this source, and from the falling in of stipends to students, may be applied to the improvement of the seminaries. This is independent of the contributions of the European and native community, and of the boys themselves, which will never be found deficient where the Government sets an example of liberality.
- ↑ It appears from the following contrasted statement, taken from the two last biennial reports of the School-book Society, that the demand for books in the vernacular languages is increasing, although not as yet in so great a degree as that for English books:
1832 and 1833. 1834 and 1835. Hindusthanee 1,077 3,384 Hinduee 1,514 4,171 Bengalee 4,896 5,754 Orissa 815 834 7,302 14,143