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CHAP. V.

Proofs that the Time has arrived for taking up the Question of National Education.—The Disuse of the Persian Language.-The many important Bearings of this Change. The Codification of the Mahommedan and Hindu Law.—The increased Employment of the Natives-The concurrence of all Classes of the Community towards the Object.

MANY circumstances indicate that the time has arrived for taking up the question of Indian national instruction in a way in which it has never yet been taken up. Obstacles, which formerly prevented the Government from taking decisive steps, have disappeared: unexpected facilities have come to light. The mind of India has taken a new spring. Substitutes are required to fill up the void created by the passing away of antiquated systems. The people want instruction: the Government wants well educated servants to fill the responsible situations which have been opened to the natives. Every thing concurs to prove that this important subject ought no longer to be re

garded only as an amusement for the leisure hours of benevolent persons. It must now be taken up as a great public question, with that seriousness and resolution to make the necessary sacrifices which the interests at stake require.

Till lately the use of the Persian language in all official proceedings bound down the educated classes of the natives, in the Bengal and Agra presidencies, to the study of a thoroughly debasing and worthless literature, and the effect was the exclusion and degradation both of English and of the vernacular languages. This spell has been dissolved: the vernacular language has been substituted for the Persian throughout the revenue department; and the same measure is now in progress in the judicial department. The extraordinary ease and rapidity with which this change was effected in the revenue administration, proves that this event took place in the fullness of time, and furnishes a happy prognostic of future improvement. In Bengal, the Persian language had disappeared from the collectors' offices at the end of a month almost as completely as if it had never been used. It melted away like snow.

This measure has so many important bearings on the welfare of the people, and the character of our government, that I shall be excused for making a few remarks on it, although they will be

only indirectly connected with my subject. A very general opinion has prevailed for some years past, that Persian ought to be discarded; but there was not the same concurrence of sentiment as to what language ought to be substituted for it. One party advocated the use of English, on the ground, that it was of more importance that the judges who had to decide a case should thoroughly understand it, than the persons themselves who were interested in it: that if the European officers used their own language in official proceedings, they would be much more independent of the pernicious influence of their administrative officers; and that the general encouragement which would be given to the study of English, by its adoption as the official language, would give a powerful impulse to the progress of native enlightenment. Some years ago this opinion was the prevailing one among those who were favourable to the plan of giving the natives a liberal European education; and it was even adopted by the Bengal government, as will be seen by the extract at the foot of the page*, from a letter from the secretary in the Persian department, to the Committee of Public Instruction, dated the 26th June, 1829.

* "One of the most important questions connected with the present discussion is, that of the nature and degree of encourage

Another party advocated the use of the vernacular language; and argued, that the substitution

ment to the study of the English language, which it is necessary and desirable for the Government to hold out independently of providing books, teachers, and the ordinary means of tuition. Your Committee has observed, that unless English be made the language of business, political negotiation, and jurisprudence, it will not be universally or extensively studied by our native subjects.-Mr. Mackenzie, in the note annexed to your Report, dated the 3rd instant, urges strongly the expediency of a declaration by Government, that the English will be eventually used as the language of business; otherwise, with the majority of our scholars, he thinks, that all we do to encourage the acquisition must be nugatory;' and recommends, that it be immediately notified, that, after the expiration of three years, a decided preference will be given to candidates for office, who may add a knowledge of English to other qualifications. The Delhi Committee have also advocated, with great force and earnestness, the expediency of rendering the English the language of our Public Tribunals and Correspondence, and the necessity of making known that such is our eventual purpose, if we wish the study to be successfully and extensively prosecuted.

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"Impressed with a deep conviction of the importance of the subject, and cordially disposed to promote the great object of improving India, by spreading abroad the lights of European knowledge, morals, and civilisation, his Lordship in Council, has no hesitation in stating to your Committee, and in authorising you to announce to all concerned in the superintendence of your native seminaries, that it is the wish and admitted policy of the British Government to render its own language gradually and eventually the language of public business throughout the country; and that it will omit no opportunity of giving every reasonable and practicable degree of encouragement to the execution of this project. At the same time, his Lordship in Council, is not predared to come forward with any distinct and specific pledge as to

of one foreign language for another was not what was wanted; that as fewer natives would know English than Persian for some time to come, the

the period and manner of effecting so great a change in the system of our internal economy; nor is such a pledge considered to be at all indispensable to the gradual and cautious fulfilment of our views. It is conceived that, assuming the existence of that disposition to acquire a knowledge of English, which is declared in the correspondence now before Government, and forms the groundwork of our present proceedings, a general assurance to the above effect, combined with the arrangements in train for providing the means of instruction, will ensure our obtaining at no distant period a certain, though limited, number of respectable native English scholars; and more effectual and decisive measures may be adopted hereafter, when a body of competent teachers shall have been provided in the Upper Provinces, and the superiority of an English education is more generally recognised and appreciated.

"As intimated, however, by the Delhi Committee, the use of the English in our public correspondence with natives of distinction, more especially in that which is of a complimentary nature, would in itself be an important demonstration in favour of the new course of study, as serving to indicate pretty clearly the future intentions of Government; and there appears to be no objection to the immediate application of this incentive to a certain extent, and under the requisite limitations. The expediency, indeed, of revising the Governor General's correspondence with the higher classes of natives on the above principles, has before, more than once, undergone discussion and consideration; and the Governor-general in Council, deems the present a suitable occasion for resolving to address the native chiefs and nobility of India in the English language, (especially those residing in our own provinces,) whenever there is reason to believe, either that they have themselves acquired a knowledge of it, or have about them persons possessing that knowledge, and generally in all instances where the adoption of the new medium of correspondence would be acceptable and agreeable."

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