Page:Tales of Bengal (S. B. Banerjea).djvu/26

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xxii
INTRODUCTION

is passing through a period of transition. Old pre-possessions and unscientific methods must be cast aside, and the value of the confession must be held at a discount." Bengal policemen fail as egregiously as their British colleagues in coping with professional crime. Burglary is a positive scourge, and the habit of organising gang-robberies has spread to youths of the middle class.

Education.—Though Mr. Banerjea has no experience of the inner working of our Government offices, he speaks on education with an expert's authority. Lord Macaulay, who went to India in 1834 as legal member of Council, was responsible for the introduction of English as the vehicle of instruction. He had gained admission to the caste of Whigs, whose battle-cry was "Knowledge for the People," and his brilliant rhetoric overpowered the arguments of champions of oriental learning. Every one with a smattering of Sanskrit, Arabic or Persian, regrets the fact that those glorious languages have not been adequately cultivated in modern India. Bengali is a true daughter of the Sanskrit; it has Italian sweetness and German capacity for expressing abstract ideas. No degree of proficiency in an alien tongue can compensate for the neglect of the vernacular. Moreover, the curriculum introduced in the "thirties"