398 EARLIER INDIAN SPEECHES
considerable hesitation and misgivings that I obeyed the summons of the Reception Committee. You will, there- fore, pardon me if you find in me a candid critic rather than an enthusiast carrying the conference to its goal with confidence and assurance.
It seems to me then that I cannot do better than draw attention to some branches of Social Service which we have hitherto more or less ignored.
The greatest service we can render society is to free ourselves and it from the superstitious regard we have learnt to pay to the learning of the English language. It is the medium of instruction in our schools and colleges. It is becoming the lingua franca of the country. Our best thoughts are expressed in it. Lord Chelmsford hopes that it will soon take the place of the mother tongue in high families. This belief in the necessity of English training has enslaved us. It has unfitted us for true national service. Were it not for force of habit, we could not fail to see that, by reason of English being
- he medium of instruction, our intellect has .been
segregated, we have been isolated from the masses, the best mind of the nation has become gagged and the masses have not received the benefit of the new ideas we have received. We have been engaged these past sixty years in memorising strange words and their pronunciation instead of assimilating facts. In the place of building upon the foundation, the training received from our parents, we have almost unlearnt it. There is no parallel to this in History. It is a national tragedy. The first and the greatest Social Service we can render is to revert to our vernaculars, to restore Hindi to its natural place as the National Language and begin carrying on all our provincial proceedings
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