On the Education of the People of India/Chapter 5

by Charles Edward Trevelyan

 

CHAP. V.

Proofs that the Time has arrived for taking up the Question of National Education.—The Disuse of the Persian Language.—The many important Bearings of this Change.—The Codification of the Mahommedan and Hindu Law.—The increased Employment of the Natives The concurrence of all Classes of the Community towards the Object.

Many circumstances indicate that the time has arrived for taking up the question of Indian national instruction in a way in which it has never yet been taken up. Obstacles, which formerly prevented the Government from taking decisive steps, have disappeared: unexpected facilities have come to light. The mind of India has taken a new spring. Substitutes are required to fill up the void created by the passing away of antiquated systems. The people want instruction: the Government wants well educated servants to fill the responsible situations which have been opened to the natives. Every thing concurs to prove that this important subject ought no longer to be regarded only as an amusement for the leisure hours of benevolent persons. It must now be taken up as a great public question, with that seriousness and resolution to make the necessary sacrifices which the interests at stake require.

Till lately the use of the Persian language in all official proceedings bound down the educated classes of the natives, in the Bengal and Agra presidencies, to the study of a thoroughly debasing and worthless literature, and the effect was the exclusion and degradation both of English and of the vernacular languages. This spell has been dissolved: the vernacular language has been substituted for the Persian throughout the revenue department; and the same measure is now in progress in the judicial department. The extraordinary ease and rapidity with which this change was effected in the revenue administration, proves that this event took place in the fullness of time, and furnishes a happy prognostic of future improvement. In Bengal, the Persian language had disappeared from the collectors’ offices at the end of a month almost as completely as if it had never been used. It melted away like snow. This measure has so many important bearings on the welfare of the people, and the character of our government, that I shall be excused for making a few remarks on it, although they will be only indirectly connected with my subject. A very general opinion has prevailed for some years past, that Persian ought to be discarded; but there was not the same concurrence of sentiment as to what language ought to be substituted for it. One party advocated the use of English, on the ground, that it was of more importance that the judges who had to decide a case should thoroughly understand it, than the persons themselves who were interested in it: that if the European officers used their own language in official proceedings, they would be much more independent of the pernicious influence of their administrative officers; and that the general encouragement which would be given to the study of English, by its adoption as the official language, would give a powerful impulse to the progress of native enlightenment. Some years ago this opinion was the prevailing one among those who were favourable to the plan of giving the natives a liberal European education; and it was even adopted by the Bengal government, as will be seen by the extract at the foot of the page^[1], from a letter from the secretary in the Persian department, to the Committee of Public Instruction, dated the 26th June, 1829. Another party advocated the use of the vernacular language; and argued, that the substitution of one foreign language for another was not what was wanted; that as fewer natives would know English than Persian for some time to come, the influence of the subordinate native officers would be rather increased than diminished by the change; that if the European officers were able to get through their business without using the vernacular language, they would naturally neglect the study of it; and that, although the plan proposed would give an artificial stimulus to the study of English, it would condemn the vernacular languages, the increased cultivation of which was of still more importance, to continued exclusion and contempt. To these another argument has been added by the course of events; which is, that as by the late changes in the judicial system every civil case may be decided in the first instance by a native judge, the general introduction of English as the official language would be nearly impracticable.

Every body is now agreed in giving the preference to the vernacular language. It is a great point gained for the efficiency and popularity, and consequently for the permanence of our rule, that the European officers have now been placed in such a position that they must make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the language which the people themselves speak.^[2] All other media have been discarded, and public officers cannot discharge any of their duties unless they are familiar with it. As candidates for civil employ in India will now have only the vernacular language to attend to, the preparatory course of instruction ought to be lengthened and the examinations increased in strictness; and as, after they enter upon active life, almost every thing they hear, and speak, and read in the performance of their public duties, will be in the popular language, they must soon acquire the same, or nearly the same, facility of transacting business in it as in English.

This great point having been gained, every thing else will come out right. Being now brought into direct communication with the people, the European officers will be more independent of their executive officers: they will see and know more of the people, will take a greater interest in their affairs, and will make their influence more felt among them. The people, on the other hand, will obtain a much better insight into what is going on in the courts than it was possible for them to do while the proceedings were conducted in a foreign language. They will exercise a greater check over the subordinate native officers. They will be less in the hands of their own agents. Justice will be better administered; and the people will have much more confidence in the administration of it. The field of selection for public employment, instead of being confined, as heretofore, to those who were familiarly acquainted with the Persian language, will be extended to every educated person: entirely new classes of people will be brought in to aid in the cheap and upright administration of public affairs: individuals who, without any higher literary attainment than a good knowledge of their own language, have acquired in private life a character for ability and integrity, and still more the young men who have received at the public seminaries the best education the country can afford, will infuse new life and new morality into the system. As learn has ceased to be monopolised by the Brahmins, so public employment has ceased to be monopolised by the class of people who are acquainted with Persian.

Lastly; by this measure a great impulse will be given to the study, not of English only, or of the vernacular language only, but both of English and of the vernacular language. Those natives who can afford to give their children a liberal education, will not cease to do so because it is no longer necessary to be acquainted with Persian. They are fully aware that the best educated persons generally succeed best in every pursuit of life; and in particular that they are appointed, in preference to others, to situations under Government. The vernacular language does not furnish the means of obtaining a liberal education: English does so in a much higher degree than any other language to which the natives of India have access; so much so, that the knowledge necessary for the practice of some professions—those of a Physician, a Surgeon, an Engineer, an Architect, and a Surveyor, for instance,—can be acquired through no other medium. These motives will be more than sufficient to stimulate the middle and upper classes of natives to the cultivation of English. Their own languages, on the other hand, have been relieved from the state of proscription and contempt to which they had been for ages condemned. They have been erected into the medium for transacting nearly the whole of the public business of the country. It will be an object to all both to those who look forward to be employed in any situation under Government, and to those whose concerns bring them into connection with any public court or office to have a competent knowledge of these languages. Those who receive any education will learn to read them. To write them with precision and elegance will be an attainment coveted by the most highly educated persons.

The changes which are taking place in the legal system of the country is another cause of the movement in native society. Buried under the obscurity of Sanskrit and Arabic erudition, mixed up with the dogmas of religion, and belonging to two concurrent systems made up of the dicta of sages of different ages and schools, the laws are at present in the highest degree uncertain, redundant, and contradictory. To obtain a moderate acquaintance with either Mahommedan or Hindu law is the work of a whole life, and is therefore the business of a separate profession, with which the bar and bench have nothing in common. The expositors of the law are the muftis and pundits; men, who deeply imbued with the spirit of the ancient learning to which they are devoted, live only in past ages, and are engaged in a perpetual struggle to maintain the connection between the barbarism of antiquity and the manners and opinions of the present time. Their oracular responses are too often the result of ignorance, pedantry, or corruption; but as they are few in number, and have a monopoly of this kind of learning, it is almost impossible to convict them. The judges and barristers, being excluded by the anomalous state of the legal system from the mysteries of their own profession, can exercise no control over them. The people, who know no law except what happens from time to time to fall from the lips of the muftis and pundits, are still more helpless. The injurious influence of such a state of things as this, both on the administration of justice and on the general advancement of the people in knowledge and civilisation, can be better conceived than described.

This fabric has been overthrown by the decision of the British Parliament, that a Commission should be appointed to ascertain and digest the laws of India. The alliance between bad law and false religion has been dissolved; and as the natives will now be able to consider the civil and criminal codes only as they affect their temporal welfare, the way will be opened for the introduction of those fundamental changes in the frame-work of native society which are essential to its complete regeneration. The class of muftis and pundits, being no longer required, will cease to exist; and those who are learned in the law, and those who actually administer it, will for the future be the same persons. Legal knowledge will pass from pedants and antiquarians to persons who are engaged in the business and sympathise with the feelings of the present age. An improved bench and bar will both ensure a certain and prompt administration of the law, and give that aid to general improvement which may always be expected from a highly cultivated body of men, whose profession obliges them to be familiar with the interests, and attentive to the favour of society.

This happy change, however, will be slowly and imperfectly effected if it be not supported by corresponding arrangements in the department of public instruction. The Indian lawyers of the old school, who fortunately are not numerous, will be laid on the shelf on the promulgation of the new code. An entirely new set must be trained to take their place. It will be as easy now to give instruction in law as in any other branch of knowledge. Instead of an endless variety “of contradictory maxims, there will be one plain consistent body of law. Instead of legal knowledge being scattered through several languages—two of which are among the most difficult in the world—it will all be collected in our own language and in that of our native subjects.^[3] The colleges established for giving instruction in Mahommedan and Hindu law, may now, in perfect accordance with their original design, be employed in educating enlightened men; and the plan of education at all the other seminaries may be so arranged, that to whatever extent we succeed in improving the moral worth and cultivating the intellect of our subjects, to that same extent we shall provide materials for the pure and intelligent administration of the law.

Another great change has of late years been made in our Indian administration, which ought alone to excite us to corresponding exertions for the education of the natives. The system established by Lord Cornwallis was based upon the principle of doing every thing by European agency. Europeans are, no doubt, superior to the natives in some of the most important qualities of administrators; but the public revenue did not admit of the employment of a sufficient number of them. The wheels of Government therefore soon became clogged: more than half of the business of the country remained unperformed; and at last it became necessary to abandon a plan, which, after a fair trial, had completely broken down. The plan which Lord William Bentinck substituted for it was, to transact the public business by native agency, under European superintendence; and this change is now in progress in all the different branches of the administration. We have already native judges, collectors, and opium and salt agents; and it is now proposed to have native magistrates. The native collectors are often vested with the same powers as the European collectors; and it has been lately enacted, that all civil suits, of whatever amount, may be tried in the first instance by the native judges.

The success of this great measure depends entirely on the fitness of the natives for the exercise of the new functions to which they have been called. It is easier to dub a person collector or magistrate, than to secure in him the possession of the qualities which those offices require; and the lowest imbecility as well as the highest efficiency may be found under the same official title. Measures have been adopted for educating native physicians; and is it of less importance that native judges should be professionally trained? Care is taken that the young Englishmen destined to hold office in India are properly instructed; and is no exertion necessary to secure integrity and mental cultivation in the native service, which now forms at least as important a part of the general administration as the European officers themselves? When the comparative state of morals and education in the classes from which the European and native servants are respectively taken, is considered, it will appear that we could much better do without the interference of the state with the previous training of the former than of the latter. The native functionaries have acquitted themselves extremely well, considering the corrupt school to which most of them belonged and the suddenness with which they were called to the performance of new and important duties; but enough instances of delinquency have occurred to prove, that the country will not reap the fall benefit of the change that has been made, until we not only open preferment to the natives, but also furnish them with the means by which they may merit that preferment, and learn how to use it; until we not only give them power, but also secure, by a previous training, the existence of those qualities with the aid of which alone power can be beneficially exercised.

The necessity of the case obliged us to begin at the wrong end, and we cannot too soon supply the deficiency. The business of the country is now done; but we must strive that it should be well done. There is now a sufficient number of judges and collectors; but we must endeavour to provide a succession of honest and well instructed judges and collectors. We want native functionaries of a new stamp, trained in a new school; and adding to the acuteness, patience, and intimate acquaintance with the language and manners of the people which may always be expected in natives, some degree of the enlightened views and integrity of character which distinguish the European officers. Our national interest and honour, our duty to our subjects, and even justice to our native servants themselves, require this at our hands. These, however, are no new sentiments: they have been repeatedly urged by the Court of Directors on the Indian government; and considering how deeply the success of our administration, not in one only, but in all its different branches, is concerned in the establishment of a system of public instruction adequate to the existing wants of the country, it may be hoped that the necessary funds will soon be placed at the disposal of the Governor-general in Council.

But this part of the subject has another, and perhaps a still more important aspect. The same means which will secure for the Government a body of intelligent and upright native servants, will stimulate the mental activity, and improve the morals of the people at large. The Government cannot make public employment the reward of distinguished merit, without encouraging merit in all who look forward to public employ: it cannot open schools for educating its servants, without diffusing knowledge among all classes of its subjects. Those who take their notions from England, or even from most of the Continental nations, can have no conception what an immensely powerful engine, either for good or evil, an Asiatic government is. In India, the Government is everything. Nearly the whole rental of the country passes into its coffers. Its civil and military establishments are on the largest scale. The mercantile, medical, sacerdotal, and other professions, which absorb the greater part of our English youth of the middle class, are either held in low esteem, or are confined, at present, to particular castes; and almost the only idea which a liberally educated native has of rising in life, is by attaching himself to the public service. The Government, therefore, by the power which it possesses of stimulating and directing the minds of those who look forward to public employ, is able to stimulate and direct the mind of the whole nation. The candidates for situations in the public service comprise the largest and best portion of the educated class; and the educated class always draws after it the rest of the people.

A plan has lately been suggested^[4] to the Supreme Government, by the Education Committee, by which this immensely important influence may be applied to the development of the mind and morals of our subjects, in the most extensive, effectual, and unobjectionable manner. It is proposed that public examinations should be annually held at each of the great towns in the Bengal and Agra presidencies, by officers appointed to make the circuit of the country for that purpose; that these examinations should be open to all comers, wherever they may have been educated; that those who acquit themselves well should be ranked according to their merit; and that the list so arranged, together with the necessary particulars regarding the branches of knowledge in which each person distinguished himself, should be sent to the neighbouring functionaries, to enable them to fill up from it the situations in their gift which fall vacant. The European officers generally take so little interest in the disposal of their patronage, and are often so much at a loss for qualified candidates, that they would gladly avail themselves of this mode of replenishing the lower grades of the native service. After the young men had once been appointed, their further progress would, of course, depend upon their merits and length of service.

This plan, it will be observed, rests on a much wider basis than the Government seminaries. It is intended to encourage and reward mental cultivation wherever it exists; and to engage in the service of the country the best talent the country can afford, without any reference to particular places of education. The impulse, therefore, will be communicated to all alike. The boy from a public school will be brought into competition with the boy who has been educated in his father’s house. The students from the Government colleges will contend with the young men brought up in the missionary seminaries. The Hindus and Mahommedans will vie with Christians of every denomination. There will be no distinction made, except that of superior merit. The emulation among the young men will extend to the conductors of the seminaries at which they are trained; the merits and defects of different plans of education will become apparent from the result of the annual examinations, and those which are found to be most successful will be generally adopted. The striking effects produced by literary competition, when much less free than this, and excited by much inferior rewards, will give some idea of what may be expected from a competition which will be open to all classes of our Indian subjects, and will be stimulated by all the influence and patronage of the Indian government.

But the most decisive proof that the time has arrived for taking up the subject of national education is, that all classes of the community are now ready to co-operate with the Government. A few years ago, the education of the natives was regarded by the Europeans either with aversion or contempt, as they happened to consider it as a dangerous interference with native prejudice, or as a chimerical undertaking unworthy of a man of sense. Now there are few stations at which there are not one or more European officers, who would be glad of an opportunity of aiding the Committee in the prosecution of its plans. The discussions which took place between the advocates of the rival systems, by strongly drawing attention to the question, and, in a manner, forcing people to an examination of it, greatly contributed to this result. All are now more or less interested and well informed on the subject; and what is of still more importance, all are of one mind about it, and have a settled and well understood plan to pursue. Whatever differences of opinion may linger among retired Indians in England, there are none now in India; or, at least, the adherents of the old system form such an exceedingly small minority, that it is unnecessary to mention them when speaking of the general sense of the European community.

The Missionaries, taking advantage of the prevailing feeling, have established numerous excellent seminaries, at which many thousand native youth are receiving a sound, and in some cases a liberal English education. English, Scotch, Americans, and Germans, concur in availing themselves of the English language as a powerful instrument of native improvement. English priests, lately sent from Rome to take charge of the Roman Catholic Christians of Portuguese and native descent, have had recourse to the same means for enlightening their numerous and degraded flocks. The Portuguese language (another instance of the confusion of tongues which has so long distracted and dissipated the mind of India) has been discarded from the churches and schools: an English Liturgy has been introduced, and large English seminaries have been established. There are also institutions at which the youth of English and of mixed English and native descent receive as good a scientific and literary education as is consistent with the early period at which they enter into active life. Most of our schoolmasters have been drawn from this class; and, as they possess the trustworthiness and a great degree of the energy of the European character, combined with an intimate acquaintance with the native habits and language, they are no mean auxiliaries in the cause of native education.^[5]

This harmony of effort, however, would be of little avail if it were not founded on a real desire on the part of the natives themselves to obtain the benefit of European instruction. The curiosity of the people is thoroughly roused, and the passion for English knowledge has penetrated the most obscure, and extended to the most remote parts of India. The steam boats, passing up and down the Ganges, are boarded by native boys, begging, not for money, but for books.^[6] 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 need any detail. The time has certainly arrived when the ancient debt of civilisation which Europe owes to Asia^[7] is about to be repaid; and the sciences, cradled in the East and brought to maturity in the West, are now by a final effort about to overspread the world.^[8]

 

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1. “One of the most important questions connected with the present discussion is, that of the nature and degree of encourage- ment to the study of the English language, which it is necessary and desirable for the Government to hold out independently of providing books, teachers, and the ordinary means of tuition. Your Committee has observed, that unless English be made the language of business, political negotiation, and jurisprudence, it will not be universally or extensively studied by our native subjects. Mr. Mackenzie, in the note annexed to your Report, dated the 3rd instant, urges strongly the expediency of a declaration by Government, that the English will be eventually used as the language of business; otherwise, with the majority of our scholars, he thinks, that all we ‘do to encourage the acquisition must be nugatory;’ and recommends, that it be immediately notified, that, after the expiration of three years, a decided preference will be given to candidates for office, who may add a knowledge of English to other qualifications. The Delhi Committee have also advocated, with great force and earnestness, the expediency of rendering the English the language of our Public Tribunals and Correspondence, and the necessity of making known that such is our eventual purpose, if we wish the study to be successfully and extensively prosecuted. “Impressed with a deep conviction of the importance of the subject, and cordially disposed to promote the great object of improving India, by spreading abroad the lights of European knowledge, morals, and civilisation, his Lordship in Council, has no hesitation in stating to your Committee, and in authorising you to announce to all concerned in the superintendence of your native seminaries, that it is the wish and admitted policy of the British Government to render its own language gradually and eventually the language of public business throughout the country; and that it will omit no opportunity of giving every reasonable and practicable degree of encouragement to the execution of this project. At the same time, his Lordship in Council, is not predared to come forward with any distinct and specific pledge as to the period and manner of effecting so great a change in the system of our internal economy; nor is such a pledge considered to be at all indispensable to the gradual and cautious fulfilment of our views. It is conceived that, assuming the existence of that disposition to acquire a knowledge of English, which is declared in the correspondence now before Government, and forms the ground-work of our present proceedings, a general assurance to the above effect, combined with the arrangements in train for providing the means of instruction, will ensure our obtaining at no distant period a certain, though limited, number of respectable native English scholars; and more effectual and decisive measures may be adopted hereafter, when a body of competent teachers shall have been provided in the Upper Provinces, and the superiority of an English education is more generally recognised and appreciated. “As intimated, however, by the Delhi Committee, the use of the English in our public correspondence with natives of distinction, more especially in that which is of a complimentary nature, would in itself be an important demonstration in favour of the new course of study, as serving to indicate pretty clearly the future intentions of Government; and there appears to be no objection to the immediate application of this incentive to a certain extent, and under the requisite limitations. The expediency, indeed, of revising the Governor General’s correspondence with the higher classes of natives on the above principles, has before, more than once, undergone discussion and consideration; and the Governor-general in Council, deems the present a suitable occasion for resolving to address the native chiefs and nobility of India in the English language, (especially those residing in our own provinces,) whenever there is reason to believe, either that they have themselves acquired a knowledge of it, or have about them persons possessing that knowledge, and generally in all instances where the adoption of the new medium of correspondence would be acceptable and agreeable.”
2. The degree to which the European officers in Bengal are ignorant of the popular language would hardly be credited. When I left Calcutta only one judge of the Sudder was believed to know it; and perhaps now there is not one. Every kind of judicial business was transacted in Persian, which is a language very unlike Bengalee; and the evidence of parties in criminal proceedings, which, by positive orders from the Court of Directors, is taken down in the language in which it is delivered, was, and perhaps still is, translated from the vernacular language into Persian, on the papers being submitted to the superior court. Public officers in the Upper Provinces were always acquainted with the vernacular language; and now that they have to transact business in it, they will become more familiar with it than ever.
3. The difficulties in the way of giving legal instruction at the Government seminaries, which are now on the point of being removed, were thus noticed by the Education Committee, in their report for 1835:—“Law would occupy the third place; but at present this branch of instruction is attended with many difficulties, arising from the number of conflicting systems of law which prevail in this country, and the various languages in which they are embodied. The labours of the Law Commissioners, will, we hope, soon supply a condensed body of Anglo-Indian law, in the English and vernacular languages; and it will then be proper to adopt measures to procure qualified legal instructors for each of our more important seminaries. We conceive that great advantages must result to the judicial administration from encouraging the best educated, who are also, we hope, the most moral and upright of the native youth, to seek employment in it.”
4. The Sudder Dewanee Adawlut, in their report for 1836, strongly represented the necessity of securing a regular supply of properly educated young men for employment in the judicial department; and the Education Committee, to whom the subject was referred, suggested the plan above described. The remarks of the Sudder Dewanee Adawlut, are as follows:— “The reports of the local authorities generally, however, speak favourably of these two grades of native judges. Regarding the moonsiffs, there appears to be a greater difference of opinion, but, under experienced and efficient Judges, the Court entertain hopes that the moonsiffs will be ultimately found to perform their duty in a correct and satisfactory manner. “With a view, however, of introducing a better educated class of individuals into this office, the Court have directed me to state, that they are of opinion, that some well-considered system should be immediately adopted by Government, for the purpose of securing a regular succession of duly qualified native judicial officers. No peculiar acquirements are at present looked for in a native Judge, beyond general good character, respectability of family, and a competent knowledge of the Persian and Bengalese languages. No liberal or polite education, no legal acquirements, no knowledge even of the general forms and rules of practice, prescribed by the regulations of Government, is generally possessed by any candidate for office, save perhaps in the latter instance by some few individuals, who have been attached to the courts in subordinate situations, as mohurrers, or moonshees, or vakeels, and who are, therefore, well acquainted with the general routine of our proceedings. “As the readiest mode of improving the present system of nomination, the Court would suggest the appointment of a regular professor, at all the Government Colleges, for the purpose of instructing the native youth in the laws and regulations of government, and for enabling the young men brought up at these institutions to qualify themselves for the judicial and revenue branches of the public service. To each college possessing such a professor, whether, indeed, supported by Government or otherwise, and whether in Calcutta or at any city in the interior, one or two moonsiffships and uncovenanted deputy collectorships might be presented as prizes every year, and these prizes should be bestowed on any native youth, above the age of twenty-five years, who might be found duly qualified, on public examination, for the situation; the name of the successful candidate should then be placed on the records of this court, in order that he might be employed in Bengal or Behar, according to his parentage, directly a vacancy occurred; and in the mean time he should be obliged to continue his legal studies at the college, a monthly personal allowance of sixteen or twenty rupees being granted to him by Government for his support. The Court would further recommend that the monthly salaries of the moonsiffs be fixed at 150 rupees. The very important duties now confided to the native Judges undoubtedly renders the adoption of some systematic plan of education for these officers indispensably necessary; and the Court therefore beg to urge that these suggestions may receive the early consideration of Government.” After this, the abolition of the use of Persian was resolved on; and the only real obstacle to the accomplishment of the wishes of the Judges of the Sudder Dewanee was thus removed.
5. The institutions which have rendered most service in this way are, the Verulam Academy, the Parental Academic Institution, the High School, and the Military Orphan Asylum. Similar assistance may now be expected from the noble foundation of General Martin, and a large Proprietory School which has lately been established in the Himalaya Mountains.
6. 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.
7. The early civilisation of Greece by settlers from Phoenicia and Egypt; the philosophical systems of Pythagoras and Plato; the knowledge of chemistry, medicine, and mathematics, which emanated in a later age from the Arabian schools of Cordova and Salerno, attest the obligations we are under to the Eastern world. The greatest boon of all, our admirable system of arithmetical notation, which has facilitated in an incalculable degree the improvement of the sciences and the transaction of every kind of business for which the use of numbers is requisite, is distinctly traceable through the Arabs to the Hindus: we call it the Arabian, the Arabs call it the Hindu system, and the Hindus attribute the invention of it to their gods. It has been practised in India from a period which precedes all written and traditionary memorials.
8. It may be as well to mention some of the probable causes of the existing state of native feeling on this subject. The first is the same which gave rise to the revival of learning, and the cultivation of the vernacular languages in Europe, or the increase in the number and importance of the middle class of society. External peace, internal security of property, arising from a regular administration of justice, increased facilities to trade, the permanent settlement of the land revenue of the Lower, and a long settlement of that of the Upper Provinces, have all contributed to raise up a class between the nabob and the ryot, which derives its consequence from the exercise of industry and enterprise, which is possessed of the leisure necessary for literary pursuits, and which, being a creation of our won, is naturally inclined to imitate us, and to adopt our views. Secondly, The people feeling themselves safe in their persons and property, and being relieved from the harassing anxieties which daily attend those who live under a barbarous arbitrary government, enjoy that peace of mind, without which it is impossible that letters can be successfully cultivated. Thirdly, The natives cannot fail to be struck by our moral and intellectual superiority; and they are led, by the combined influence of curiosity and emulation, to search for the causes of it in our literature. This motive has led the Russians and Turks, and other entirely independent nations, to cultivate foreign literature; and it cannot, therefore, excite wonder that the Hindus, who stand in such a close relation to us, should have been influenced by it. Fourthly, A liberal English education is the surest road to promotion. It is by far the best education the natives can get; and the Govern- ment must always select the best instructed persons that are to be had, for the public service. Lastly, The Hindus have always been a literary people; but as the body of the nation were shut out by the Brahmins from all participation in their own learning, they eagerly avail themselves of what is now offered by us to their acceptance, recommended as it is by so many attractions.