But discussions of this nature, Avoid extremes. if conducted to an extreme point and in an unreasonable spirit, may convey an impression, which was not intended, but which is detrimental to the cause of education as well as to other national interests, namely this, that some of our educated youths are not properly grateful for the privileges to which their education has admitted them, are not duly loyal to the ideas, nor just to the motives, of the administration that has made them what they are.
Now, it is not for us to read the hearts of men; and if any of our alumni be really disloyal or ungrateful, let his own heart condemn him. Education and Loyalty. But it is our firm hope and trust that the vast majority of our educated youth are true and loyal to us in mind, in spirit, in sentiment, in disposition. We feel assured that those Natives who have learnt to think through the medium of our language, have been imbued with our literature and philosophy, have imbibed our ideas,—are faithful to us, and bear towards our nation that heartfelt allegiance which men may feel without at all relinquishing their own nationality. We believe that the education imparted by us to the Natives, so far from leading them towards disaffection, has, happily, the very opposite effect. We do not disguise from ourselves that in a community like that of Western India, composed of so many diverse elements, there may be, indeed must be, some whose thoughts are misguided, and that although the masses in all ranks, high and humble, are thoroughly well-affected, there are some who feel wrongly and think amiss. But those few, who are thus ill-disposed, do not become so by reason of their English education; their ill-disposition springs from causes with which such education has neither concern nor connexion; and the education must mitigate, if it cannot remove, their discontent. With the great majority, however, education has the result of confirming in them that loyalty which the general tenour of British administration is calculated to inspire. And the higher the education, the more certain is this result. At all events, we have solemnly undertaken to educate the Natives in all the Western learning and philosophy which have helped to raise England to her height among the nations of the earth. We anticipate nothing but the most favourable consequences politically from such education. But be the consequences what they may, we shall, I trust, persevere in that educational policy which, being liberal and enlightened, is prescribed to us by the dictates of our duty as trustees for the people of India.
