finance. But, on a closer view, it is plain that, if health is the root of prosperity, we have failed in the vital matter of all.
Might it not be possible that, since the health of the Empire is one of the most important, most urgent, and most neglected of imperial duties, an Imperial Medical Staff should be organised, wherein the various energies and experience of the doctor, the parasitologist, the entomologist, the hygienist, the engineer, the civil servant, and the statesman, should be mobilised and concentrated for the good of one quarter of the human race? Sanitation, now on a peace, should be put on a war, footing. We have recently been provided with an Imperial Military Staff for more efficient defence against our enemies. Why not an Imperial Medical Staff for the more efficient preservation of our peoples?
But if prosperity is founded primarily on the health of the body, it is founded next on the health of the mind. Unfortunately, the culture of the latter has for ages been slackening in southern Asia. So we have tried to educate India. But, to be brief, our policy in that respect has been largely a farrago of failures, a system seemingly elaborated to be nearly as bad as possible.
For instance, 90 per cent, or more, of the Indian peoples depend on agriculture. That is the pursuit which eclipses all others in their eyes. They matriculate in mother earth. Our educational system has avoided that subject.
