Should some of the opinions of Macaulay concerning expenditure appear unnecessarily harsh and niggardly, it must be remembered that the sum available for English education was but the pittance that could be saved by reductions in the Oriental assignments, and that it was right for him to spend with strict frugality, what was gained at the cost of many painful struggles.
It is often said that if a person cannot write five lines of English without blots and corrections, he must be a very poor scholar indeed. Now, there is no doubt that neatness and accuracy are highly desirable, and that the clear and beautiful writing and the finished style of Lord Dalhousie and of Lord Canning indicate a wonderful power in the use of language. Yet it is a great mistake to imagine that the absence of a habit of writing without corrections is a sure mark of inferiority. Scarcely five consecutive lines, in any of Macaulay’s minutes will be found unmarked by blots or corrections. He himself in a minute, dated 3rd November, 1835, says, “After blotting a good deal of paper I can recommend nothing but a reference to the Governor-General in Council.” No member of the Committee of Public Instruction in 1835, wrote so large and uneven a hand as he, and my copyist was always able instantly to single out his writing by the multiplicity of corrections and blots which mark the page. These corrections are now exceedingly valuable, more valuable than the minutes to which they belong. They are themselves a study, and well deserve a diligent examination. When the first master of the English language corrects his own composition, which appeared faultless before, the correction must be based on the highest rules of criticism.
The great minute of the 2nd February, combines in a small compass the opinions which are expressed in nearly the same words through a score or two of detached remarks in the records. This minute was published in England in 1838, but is difficult to obtain in India. I could not find it in any one of the four great Libraries of Calcutta, in the Public Library, nor in the Libraries of St. Paul’s Cathedral, of the Asiatic Society, and of the Presidency College. Mr. Arbuthnot, the Director of Public Instruction in Madras, has conferred an obligation on all interested in the preservation of valuable papers by including it in one of his Reports. To rescue it from the oblivion into which it has fallen in Bengal, I add it to these unpublished minutes.
Macaulay's unpublished educational minutes are scattered among some twenty volumes of the records of the General Committee. Four of these volumes are now lost. Some of the
