Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/111

sum is set apart ‘for the revival and promotion of literature, and the encouragement of the learned natives of India, and for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of the British territories.’ It is argued, or rather taken for granted, that by literature the parliament can have meant only Arabic and Sanskrit literature; that they never would have given the honourable appellation of a ‘learned native’ to a native who was familiar with the poetry of Milton, the metaphysics of Locke, and the physics of Newton; but that they meant to designate by that name only such persons as might have studied in the sacred books of the Hindus all the uses of Cusa-grass, and all the mysteries of absorption into the deity. This does not appear to be a very satisfactory interpretation. To take a parallel case: suppose that the pacha of Egypt, a country once superior in knowledge to the nations of Europe, but now sunk far below them, were to appropriate a sum for the purpose of ‘reviving and promoting literature, and encouraging learned natives of Egypt,’ would anybody infer that he meant the youth of his pachalic to give years to the study of hieroglyphics, to search into all the doctrines disguised under the fable of Osiris, and to ascertain with all possible accuracy

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