have been decidedly opposed to the plan to which Mr. Sutherland wishes us to return. We are now following in my opinion the slow but sure course on which alone we can depend for a supply of good books in the Yernacular languages of India. We are attempting to raise up a large class of enlightened natives. I hope that twenty years hence there will be hundreds, nay thousands, of natives familiar with the best models of composition, and well acquainted with western science. Among them some persons will be found who will have the inclination and the ability to exhibit European knowledge in the Vernacular dialects. This, I believe, to be the only way in which we can raise up a good Vernacular literature in this country. To hire four or five people to make a literature, is a course which never answered and never will answer in any part of the world. Such undertakings have every where a tendency to become jobs, and that tendency is peculiarly to be dreaded in the present instance. For one half of the Committee do not know a letter of the language in which the books are to be written; and the other half are too busy to pay any minute attention to the way in which the translators perform their task.—[Book M. page 140.] 30th August, 1837.
Pensions.—I really cannot agree to this proposal. I have a high opinion of Mr. Hare. But the practice of granting pensions for Englishmen residing in India and not engaged in the service of Government would be pregnant with all sorts of abuses. All that the Government could do would be to recommend Mr. Hare to the Court of Directors for a pension; and it is my firm belief that the Government will not so recommend him, and that, if they do, the Court of Directors will not attend to the recommendation.
I did not notice the passage in the Report which has led to this correspondence with Government, or I should have objected to it, as certain to place both ourselves and a very deserving man in a very awkward position. I shall be heartily glad if any gentleman can think of any proper mode in which we can mark our respect for Mr. Hare. At the present moment none occurs to me.—[Book J. page 121.] September, 1836.
Pension to the Family of Moulvie Soleyman of the Hooghly College.—I voted in the Sub-Committee and still vote, though with regret, against what the Secretary recommends. If we once begin to pension the families of our School-masters, I do not know where we shall stop. We shall give a distinct encouragement to every young Englishman and East Indian who takes service under us to marry without having the means of providing for a family, and to spend all his salary instead of laying by.
