for money, but for books.[1] The chiefs of the Punjab, a country which has never been subdued by the British arms, made so many applications to the Political Agent on the frontier to procure an English education for their children, that the Government has found it necessary to attach a schoolmaster to his establishment. The tide of literature is even rolling back from India to Persia, and the Supreme Government lately sent a large supply of English books for the use of the King of Persia’s military seminary, the students of which were reported to be actuated by a strong zeal for European learning. The extent to which the Pasha of Egypt is engaged in enlightening his subjects, through the medium of English and the other European languages, is too well known to
- ↑ Some gentlemen coming to Calcutta were astonished at the eagerness with which they were pressed for books by a troop of boys, who boarded the steamer from an obscure place, called Comercolly. A Plato was lying on the table, and one of the party asked a boy whether that would serve his purpose. “Oh yes,” he exclaimed, “give me any book; all I want is a book.” The gentleman at last hit upon the expedient of cutting up an old Quarterly Review, and distributing the articles among them. In the evening, when some of the party went ashore, the boys of the town flocked round them, expressing their regret that there was no English school in the place, and saying that they hoped that the Governor-general, to whom they had made an application on the subject when he passed on his way up the country, would establish one.
