Page:India—what can it teach us?.djvu/63

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intelligence, cheerfulness, frankness, with others peculiar to their avocation. A very common characteristic of these men, and of the Hindus especially, was a simplicity truly childish, and a total unacquaintance with the business and manners of life. Where that feature was lost, it was chiefly by those who had been long familiar with Europeans. Amongst the Pandits, or the learned Hindus, there prevailed great ignorance and great dread of the European character. There is, indeed, very little intercourse between any class of Europeans and Hindu scholars, and it is not wonderful, therefore, that mutual misapprehension should prevail.'

Speaking, lastly, of the higher classes in Calcutta and elsewhere, Professor Wilson says that he witnessed among them 'polished manners, clearness and comprehensiveness of understanding, liberality of feeling and independence of principle that would have stamped them gentlemen in any country in the world.' 'With some of this class,' he adds, 'I formed friendships which I trust to enjoy through life.'

I have often heard Professor Wilson speak in the same, and in even stronger terms of his old friends in India, and his correspondence with Ram Comul Sen, the grandfather of Keshub Chunder Sen, a most orthodox, not to say bigoted, Hindu, which has lately been published, shows on what intimate terms Englishmen and Hindus may be, if only the advances are made on the English side.

There is another Professor of Sanskrit, of whom your University may well be proud, and who could speak on this subject with far greater authority than I can. He too will tell you, and I have no doubt has often told you, that if only you look out for