ON

THE EDUCATION

OF

THE PEOPLE OF INDIA.

CHAPTER I.

The Measures first adopted for educating the Natives.— The Establishment of the Committee of Public Instruction. Their first Plan of Operations. The Difference of Opinion which arose.-The Resolution of Government of the 7th March 1835.- The Measures adopted by the Committee in consequence. No Distinction of Caste allowed in the new Seminaries. Cultivation of the vernacular Languages. Education of the Wards of Government. The Medical College. - Mr. Adam's Deputation.

THE history of the first efforts made by us for the education of our Indian fellow-subjects may be told in a few words. The Mohammedan college at Calcutta was established A.D. 1781, and the Sanskrit college at Benares A. D. 1792. The

on a great scale, besides liberally encouraging such undertakings by others; and to employ an accomplished oriental scholar in translating European scientific works into Arabic, upon which undertaking large sums were subsequently expended. English classes were afterwards estabIlished in connection with the Mohammedan and Sanskrit college at Calcutta, the Sanskrit college at Benares, and the Agra college; and a separate institution was founded at Delhi in 1829 for the cultivation of western learning, in compliance with the urgent solicitation of the authorities at that place.

The principles which guided the proceedings of the committee throughout this period are explained in the following extract from their printed report, dated in December 1831:

"The introduction of useful knowledge is the great object which they have proposed as the end of the measures adopted or recommended by them, keeping in view the necessity of consulting the feelings and conciliating the confidence of those for whose advantage their measures are designed.

"The committee has therefore continued to encourage the acquirement of the native literature of both Mohammedans and Hindus, in the institutions which they found established for these

purposes, as the Madressa of Calcutta and Sanskrit college of Benares. They have also endeavoured to promote the activity of similar establishments, of which local considerations dictated the formation, as the Sanskrit college of Calcutta and the colleges of Agra and Delhi, as it is to such alone, even in the present day, that the influential and learned classes, those who are by birthright or profession teachers and expounders of literature, law, and religion, maulavis and pundits, willingly

resort.

"In the absence of their natural patrons, the rich and powerful of their own creeds, the committee have felt it incumbent upon them to contribute to the support of the learned classes of India by literary endowments, which provide not only directly for a certain number, but indirectly for many more, who derive from collegiate acquirements consideration and subsistence amongst their countrymen. As far also as Mohammedan and Hindu law are concerned, an avenue is thus opened for them to public employment, and the state is provided with a supply of able servants and valuable subjects; for there is no doubt that, imperfect as oriental learning may be in many respects, yet the higher the degree of the attainments even in it possessed by any native, the more

intelligent and liberal he will prove, and the better qualified to appreciate the acts and designs of the government.

In

"But whilst every reasonable encouragement is given to indigenous native education, no opportunity has been omitted by the committee of improving its quality and adding to its value. all the colleges the superintendence is European, and this circumstance is of itself an evidence and a cause of very important amelioration. In the Madressa of Calcutta and Hindu college of Benares, institutions of earlier days, European superintendence was for many years strenuously and successfully resisted. This opposition has long ceased. The consequences are a systematic course of study, diligent and regular habits, and an impartial appreciation of merits, which no institution left to native superintendence alone has ever been known to maintain.

"The plan of study adopted in the colleges is in general an improvement upon the native mode, and is intended to convey a well-founded knowledge of the languages studied, with a wider range of acquirement than is common, and to effect this in the least possible time. Agreeably to the native mode of instruction, for instance, a Hindu or Mohammedan lawyer devotes the best years of his

life to the acquirement of law alone, and is very imperfectly acquainted with the language which treats of the subject of his studies. In the Madressa and Sanskrit college the first part of the course is now calculated to form a really good Arabic and Sanskrit scholar, and a competent knowledge of law is then acquired with comparative facility and contemporaneously with other branches of Hindu or Mohammedan learning.

"Again, the improvements effected have not been limited to a reformation in the course and scope of native study, but, whenever opportunity has favoured, new and better instruction has been grafted upon the original plan. Thus in the Madressa, Euclid has been long studied and with considerable advantage: European anatomy has also been introduced. In the Sanskrit college of Calcutta, European anatomy and medicine have nearly supplanted the native systems. At Agra and at Delhi the elements of geography and astronomy and mathematics are also part of the college course. To the Madressa, the Sanskrit college of Calcutta, and the Agra college, also, English classes are attached, whilst at Delhi and Benares distinct schools have been formed for the dissemination of the English language. Without offering therefore any violence to native prejudices,