APPENDIX.

Extract from the Report of the Committee appointed by the Indian Government to inquire into the State of Medical Education.

AGREEABLY to your Lordship's direction to that effect, we called upon Mr. Tytler to prepare a synopsis ofwhat he conceives the pupils at the Institution should be taught in the different branches of medical science. This document, according to our view of it, does not contain by any means such a comprehensive and improved scheme of education as the circumstances of the case indicate the absolute necessity of. Leaving it entirely out of the question, then, at present, we would very respectfully submit to your Lordship in council our serious opinion, that the best mode of fulfilling the great ends under consideration, is for the state to found a Medical College for the education of natives; in which the various branches of medical science cultivated in Europe should be taught, and as near as possible on the most approved European system; the basis of which system should be a reading and writing knowledge on the part of candidate pupils of the English language, and the like knowledge of Hindustanee or Bengallee, and a knowledge of arithmetic; inclusive, of course, of proper qualifications as to health, age, and respectability of conduct. The Government might select from the various young men, who should pass the final examination, the most distinguished and deserving, for filling up va

cancies as sub-assistant surgeons. A knowledge of the English language, we consider as a sine qua non, because that language combines within itself the circle of all the sciences, and incalculable wealth of printed works and illustrations; circumstances that give it obvious advantages over the oriental languages, in which are only to be found the crudest elements of science, or the most irrational substitutes for it.

Of the perfect feasibility of such a proposal, we do not entertain a doubt: nevertheless, like any other, it will be found to divide the opinions of men of talent and experience. These will divide into an Oriental and an English party. Mr. Tytler's long replies have imposed upon us the necessity of entering at greater length into the argument respecting the feasibility of the contemplated plan, than we could have wished. We beg to apologise to your Lordship for this circumstance, but as Mr, Tytler, instead of giving brief and simple answers to our questions, preferred committing them to paper in the form of long minutes; it became incumbent upon us to offer something in the way of refutation. The determined Orientalist having himself acquired the Sanscrit and the Arabic, at the cost of much and severe application, as well as of pecuniary expense, will view with great repugnance a suggestion of teaching science in such a way as may cast his peculiar pursuits into the shade, and independent of a language which he reveres as classical. The advocate for the substitution of the English language, on the other hand, will doubt whether the whole stores of Eastern literature have enabled us to ascertain a single fact of the least consequence towards the history of the ancient world; whether they have tended to improve morality, or to extend science; or whether, with the exception of what the Arabian physicians derived from the Greeks, the Arabic contains a sufficient body of scientific information to reward the modern medical student for all the labour and attention that would be much more profitably bestowed on the study

of the English language; and lastly, whether the modicum of unscientific medical literature contained in the Sanscrit is worth undergoing the enormous trouble of acquiring that language

Unlike the languages of Europe, which are keys to vast intellectual treasures, bountifully to reward the literary inquirer, those of the East, save to a limited extent in poetry and romance, may be said, without exaggeration, to be next to barren. For history and science, then, and all that essentially refines and adorns, we must not look to Oriental writers.

Mr. Tytler has favoured us with his opinions, on the question under consideration, at great length. The Rev. Mr. Duff, whose experience in instructing native youth is extensive and valuable, has also obliged us with his sentiments on the subject; which are entirely at issue with those of Mr. Tytler, who takes up the Oriental side of the question with equal ardour and ingenuity.

Mr. Tytler denies that a system of educating the natives through the medium of English would be in the least more comprehensive, or by any means so much so, as one carried on in the native languages (Mr. Tytler, in that phrase including Sanscrit, Arabic, and Persian); and considers it wholly inexpedient as a general measure.

The Rev. Mr. Duff, on the other hand, although acknowledging that the native languages, by which we understand the Bengallee in the lower provinces, and the Oordoo in the higher, alone are available for imparting an elementary education to the mass of the people, affirms that the popular language does not afford an adequate medium for communicating a knowledge of the higher departments of literature and science, &c. "No original works of the description wanted," he observes, “have yet appeared in the native languages; and though much of a highly useful nature has been provided through European talent and perseverance

no translations have been made in any degree sufficient to supply materials for the prosecution of the higher object. contemplated; neither is it likely, in the nature of things, that either by original publications, or translations of standard works, the deficiency can be fully or adequately remedied, for such a number of years to come, as may leave the whole of the present generation sleeping with their fathers." (Answer to Question 20, p. 17.)

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Mr. Tytler's reasons for his unfavourable opinion, in regard to the proposed plan, arise, he informs us, partly from the nature of language in general, and partly from the intrinsic difficulty of English itself. The difficulty, it strikes us, is magnified in Mr. Tytler's imagination, and at any rate can scarcely be greater than that of acquiring Arabic and Sanscrit, which are about as foreign to the body of the people as English. "A bare knowledge of the English," observes Mr. Tytler, or of the words for objects, is plainly no increase of knowledge, unless it be accompanied with some additional information respecting the objects of which the words are the signs." This is so self-evident a truism, that we are rather surprised Mr. Tytler should deem the stating of it of any use to his argument. The mere capability of uttering the word opium, for instance, would be of little use, unless accompanied by a knowledge of the qualities of that drug. It is not with a view to recommend a knowledge of mere words that we troubled Mr. Tytler for his opinion, and have now the honour of addressing your Lordship; but to rescue, if possible, the course of native medical education from this its pervading and crying evil; for assuredly, nothing, that has yet been made manifest to us tends to show that the pupils of the Institution, under the present system, acquire much beyond mere words; or to demonstrate, that an acquaintance with Sanscrit and Arabic vocables will give better ideas of things important to be known than English. In fact, to teach English science, English words must be