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 1817 

 
 
 STATEMENTS 
 
 RESPECTING THE 
 
 EAST INDIA COLLEGE, 
 
 REFUTATION OF THE CHARGES 
 
 LATELY BROUGHT AGAINST IT, 
 
 CTourt of 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. T. R. MALTHUS, 
 
 PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE EAST-INDIA 
 
 COLLEGE, HERTFORDSHIRE, AND LATE FELLOW OF 
 
 JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 2LonDon : 
 PRINTED FOR JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET. 
 
 1817.
 
 Printed by W. Clowes, 
 Northumberland-court, Strand, London.
 
 STACK 
 ANNEX 
 
 Lf 
 
 (817 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE following statements, with the exception 
 of the last head, were written some time since, on 
 account of a rumour then prevailing of charges 
 being meditated in the Court of Proprietors, which 
 I thought were likely to be founded in an igno- 
 rance of the real state of the college ; of what it 
 had clone, and what it was doing, towards the ac- 
 complishment of the specific objects for which it 
 was founded. 
 
 The silence of the Court of Proprietors on this 
 subject, the quiet and good order of the college 
 during the last year, and a great reluctance on my
 
 VI 
 
 own part to appear before the public on such an 
 occasion, without a very strong necessity, withheld 
 me from publishing. But it is impossible to be 
 silent, under the uncontradicted imputations 
 brought forward in the Court of Proprietors, on 
 the 18th of December, when I know them to be 
 unfounded. I no longer hesitate, therefore, to send 
 what I had written to the press, with the addition 
 of a more specific refutation of the charges brought 
 against the college, in the Court of Proprietors 
 and elsewhere, at the present moment. 
 
 The reader will, I hope, excuse a few partial re- 
 petitions under the last head ; as I think it pro- 
 bable that this part will be read by persons who 
 may not have leisure or inclination to read the 
 whole. 
 
 I have put my name to the following statements, 
 to shew that I pledge my character to the truth of 
 what I have asserted, according to the best of my
 
 Vll 
 
 knowledge and belief. It would be but fair, there- 
 fore, that those writers who may attempt to con- 
 trovert them, and continue their attacks upon the 
 college in the public prints, should adopt the same 
 candid and manly mode of proceeding. If they do 
 not, the inference will be pretty strong, that they 
 cannot reveal their names without discovering to 
 the public some probable motives for the.ir attacks, 
 different from a desire to promote the welfare and 
 good government of India. 
 
 T. ROBERT MALTHUS. 
 
 January 4th, 1817.
 
 STATEMENTS, 
 
 L HE disturbances which have occasionally taken 
 place at the East India-college, together with the 
 virulent attacks lately made upon it in the Court of 
 Proprietors, have excited the attention of the public, and 
 given rise to some very unfavourable opinions respect- 
 ing its utility and efficiency. It has been even sur- 
 mised that a petition might be presented to Parlia- 
 ment to withdraw that legislative sanction which was 
 given to it at the time of the renewal of the East- 
 India Company's Charter. 
 
 The abolition of an extensive establishment, the 
 object of which is to give an improved education to 
 those who are to be sent from this country to govern 
 sixty millions of people in India, ought not, certainly, 
 to be determined on without much consideration. 
 Whatever measures may be dictated by the feelings of 
 temporary disappointment and irritation experienced 
 by some who are immediately connected with the 
 institution, either as its patrons, or as parents and 
 
 B
 
 friends of those who are educated there, the great 
 object that must be kept in view by the legislature and 
 the public is, the good government of India. Unless 
 it can be clearly made out, that the education neces- 
 sary for the furtherance of this object can be given in 
 some other and better way than in the college actually 
 established, they will certainly hesitate, and be very 
 sure of the ground on which they go, before they con- 
 sent to its abolition, or withdraw from it that support 
 and countenance which are necessary to preserve it 
 from ultimately perishing. Every part of the subject, 
 therefore, should be thoroughly well considered pre- 
 viously to the taking of any new step, either with a view 
 to the suppression of the existing institution, and a 
 return to the former system of casual education, or 
 with a view to the formation of any new establish- 
 ment, which may appear to promise a more successful 
 accomplishment of the object. The whole subject 
 may, perhaps, be advantageously resolved into the 
 following questions ; and the answers to them are in- 
 tended to furnish some materials for the determination 
 of the important points to which they refer. 
 
 I. What are the qualifications at present necessary 
 for the. civil service of the East-India Company, 
 in the administration of their Indian territories ? 
 page 4.
 
 II. Has any deficiency in those qualifications been 
 actually experienced in such a degree as to be in- 
 jurious to the service in India ? page 12. 
 
 III. In order to secure the qualifications required for 
 the service of the Company, is an appropriate esta- 
 blishment necessary? and should it be of the 
 nature of a school, or a college ? page 24. 
 
 IV. Should such an establishment be in England or 
 in India ? or should there be an establishment in 
 both countries f page 32. 
 
 V. Does it appear that the college actually established 
 in Hertfordshise is upon a plan calculated to sup- 
 ply that part of the appropriate education of the 
 civil servants of the Company which ought to be, 
 completed in Europe ? page 46. 
 
 VI. Are the disturbances which have taken place in 
 the East-India College to be attributed to any ra- 
 dical and necessary evils inherent in its constitution 
 and discipline ; or to adventitious and temporary 
 causes, which are likely to be removed ? page 65. 
 
 VII. Art the more general charges which have lately 
 been brought against the college in the Court of 
 Proprietors founded in truth ? or are they capable 
 of a distinct refutation, by an appeal to facts? 
 page 82.
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 I. What are the qualifications at present necessary 
 for the civil service of the East-India Company, in 
 the administration of their Indian territories ? 
 
 TO the first question, and parts of the others, it 
 will be impossible to give an answer at once so able 
 and so conclusive as by quoting largely from the 
 " Minute in Council of the Marquis Wellesley, 
 dated August 18,1 800, containing the reasons which 
 induced him to found a collegiate institution at Fort 
 William. 
 
 He begins with a masterly view of the gradual 
 change which has taken place in the number, import- 
 ance, and responsibility of the trusts confided to the 
 civil servants of the Company, and the high qualifica- 
 tions necessary to fill them : after which he proceeds as 
 follows : 
 
 " The British possessions in India now constitute one 
 " of the most extensive and populous empires in the 
 " world. The immediate administration of the govern- 
 " ment of the various provinces and nations composing 
 " this empire is principally confided to European civil
 
 5 
 
 " servantsofthe East-India Company. Those provinces, 
 
 " namely, Bengal, Behar, Orissa, and Benares; the 
 
 " Company's Jaghire in the Carnatic, the Northern 
 
 " Circars, the Baramhal, and other districts ceded by 
 
 " the peace of Seringapatam in 1792, which are under 
 
 " the more immediate and direct administration of 
 
 ' the civil servants of the Company, are acknowledged 
 
 " to form the most opulent and flourishing part of 
 
 " India; in which property, life, civil order, and re- 
 
 " ligious liberty, are more secure, and the people enjoy 
 
 " a larger portion of the benefits of good government, 
 
 " than in any other country in this quarter of the 
 
 " globe. The duty and policy of the British govern- 
 
 " ment in India require that the system of confiding 
 
 " the immediate exercise of every branch and depart- 
 
 " ment of the civil government to Europeans educated 
 
 " in its own service, and subject to its own direct con- 
 
 " troul, should be diffused as widely as possible ; as 
 
 " well with a view to the stability of our own interests, 
 
 " as to the happiness and welfare of our native sub- 
 
 " jects. This principle formed the basis of the wise 
 
 " and benevolent system introduced by Lord Corn- 
 
 " wallis, for the improvement of the internal govern- 
 
 " ment of the provinces immediately subject to the 
 
 " presidency of Bengal. 
 
 " In proportion to the extension of this beneficial 
 
 " system, the duties of the European civil servants of 
 " the East-India Company are become of greater
 
 6 
 
 " magnitude and importance. The denominations 
 
 " of writer, factor and merchant, by which the seve- 
 
 " ral classes of the civil service are still distinguished, 
 
 " are now utterly inapplicable to the nature and 
 
 " extent of the duties discharged and of the occu- 
 
 " pations pursued by the civil servants of the Com- 
 
 " To dispense justice to millions of people of various 
 
 " languages, manners, usages, and religions ; to ad- 
 
 " minister a vast and complicated system of revenue, 
 
 <l through districts equal in extent to some of the 
 
 " most considerable kingdoms in Europe ; to maintain 
 
 " civil order in one of the most populous and litigious 
 
 " regions in the world ; these are now the duties of the 
 
 " larger portion of the civil servants of the Company. 
 
 " The senior merchants, composing the Courts of 
 
 " Circuit and Appeal under the presidency of Bengal, 
 
 " exercise in each of these courts a jurisdiction OT 
 
 " greater local extent, applicable to a larger population, 
 
 " and occupied in the determination of causes infi- 
 
 " nitely more intricate and numerous, than that of any 
 
 " regularly constituted courts of justice in any part of 
 
 " Europe. The senior or junior merchants employed 
 
 " in the several magistracies and Zillah courts, the 
 
 " writers or factors filling the stations of registers 
 
 " and assistants to the several courts and magistrates, 
 
 " exercise, in different degrees, functions of a nature 
 
 " either purely judicial, or intimately connected with
 
 " the administration of the police, and with the main- 
 " tenance of the peace and good order of their re- 
 " spective districts. Commercial and mercantile 
 " knowledge is not only unnecessary throughout every 
 " branch of the judicial department ; but those civil 
 " servants, who are invested with the powers of ma- 
 " gistracy, or attached to the judicial department 
 " in any ministerial capacity, although bearing the 
 " denomination of merchants, factors, or writers, are 
 " bound by law, and by the solemn obligation of an 
 " oath, to abstain from every commercial and mercan- 
 " tile pursuit. The mercantile title which they bear 
 " not only affords no description of their duty, but is 
 " entirely at variance with it. 
 
 " The pleadings in the several courts, and all im- 
 " portant judicial transactions, are conducted in the 
 " native languages. The law which the Company's 
 " judges are bound to administer throughout the 
 " country is not the law of England, but that law to 
 " which the natives had been long accustomed under 
 " their former sovereigns, tempered and mitigated by 
 " the voluminous regulations of the Governor-Ge- 
 " neral in Council, as well as by the general spirit of 
 " the British constitution. 
 
 " These observations are sufficient to prove, that 
 " no more arduous or complicated duties of magi- 
 " stracy exist in the world, no qualifications more 
 " various or comprehensive can be imagined, than
 
 8 
 
 " those which are required from every British 
 
 ' subject who enters the seat of judgment within the 
 
 ' limits of the Company's empire irf India. 
 
 " To the administration of revenue many of the 
 
 " preceding observations will apply with equal force. 
 
 " The merchants, factors, and writers, employed in 
 
 " this department, also, are bound to abjure the mer- 
 
 " cantile denomination appropriated to their respective 
 
 " classes in the Company's service ; nor is it possible 
 
 " for a collector of the revenue, or for any civil ser- 
 
 " vant employed under him, to discharge his duty 
 
 " with common justice either to the state or to the 
 
 " people, unless he shall be conversant in the lan- 
 
 " guage, manners, and usages of the country, and 
 
 " in the general principles of the law, as administered 
 
 " in their courts of justice. In addition to the or- 
 
 " dinary judicial and executive functions of the judges, 
 
 " magistrates, and collectors, the judges and ma- 
 
 " gistrates occasionally act in the capacity of governors 
 
 " of their respective districts, employing military, 
 
 " and exercising other extensive powers. The judges, 
 
 " magistrates, and collectors, are also respectively re- 
 
 " quired by law to propose, from time to time, to 
 
 " the Governor-General in Council, such amend- 
 
 " ments of the existing laws, or such new laws, as 
 
 " may appear to them to be necessary to the welfare 
 
 " and good government of their respective districts. 
 
 " In this view the civil servants employed in the de-
 
 9 
 
 " partments of judicature and revenue constitute a 
 " species of subordinate legislative council to the 
 " Governor-General in Council, and also a channel 
 " of communication by which the government ought 
 " to be enabled, at all times, to ascertain the wants 
 " and wishes of the people. The remarks applied 
 " to these two main branches of the civil service, viz. 
 " those of Judicature and Revenue, are at least 
 " equally forcible in their application to those branches 
 " which may be described under the general terms of 
 " political and financial departments, comprehending 
 " the office of Chief Secretary, the various stations 
 " in the Secretary's office, in the Treasury, and in 
 " the office of Accountant-General ; together with all 
 " public officers employed in conducting the current 
 " business at the seat of government. To these must 
 " be added the diplomatic branch, including the se- 
 " veral residencies at the Courts of our dependent and 
 " tributary princes, or other native powers of India. 
 
 " It is certainly desirable that all these stations 
 " should be filled by the civil servants of the Com- 
 " pany ; it is equally evident that qualifications are 
 " required in each of these stations, either wholly 
 " foreign to commercial habits, or far exceeding the 
 " limits of a commercial education." 
 
 " Even that department of the empire, which is 
 " denominated exclusively commercial, requires know- 
 " ledge and habits different in a considerable degree
 
 10 
 
 " from those which form the mercantile character in 
 " Europe. Nor can the Company's investment 
 " ever be conducted with the greatest possible ad- 
 " vantage and honour to themselves, or with ade- 
 " quate justice to their subjects, unless their com- 
 " mercial agents shall possess many of the qualifica- 
 " tions of statesmen enumerated in the preceding 
 " observations. The manufacturers, and other in- 
 " dustrious classes, whose productive labour is the 
 " source of the investment, bear so great a propor- 
 " tion to the total population of the Company's do- 
 " minions, that the general happiness and prosperity 
 " of the country must essentially depend on the 
 " conduct of the commercial servants employed in 
 " providing the investment. Their conduct cannot 
 " be answerable to such a charge, unless they be 
 " conversant in the native languages, and in the cus- 
 " toms and usages of the people, as well as in the 
 " laws by which the country is governed. The peace, 
 " order, and welfare of whole provinces, may be ma- 
 " terially affected by the malversations, or even by 
 " the ignorance and errors of a commercial resident, 
 " whose management touches the dearest and most 
 " valuable interests, and enters into the domestic 
 " concerns of numerous bodies of people, active and 
 " acute from habitual industry, and jealous of any 
 " act of power injurious to their properties, or con- 
 " trary to their prejudices and customs.
 
 11 
 
 " The civil servants of the East-India Company, 
 " therefore, can no longer be considered as the agents 
 " of a commercial concern: they are, in fact, the 
 " ministers and officers of a powerful sovereign: they 
 " must now be viewed in that capacity with a re- 
 " ference not to their nominal, but to their real oc- 
 " cupations. They are required to discharge the 
 " functions of magistrates, judges, ambassadors, and 
 " governors of provinces, in all the complicated and 
 " extensive relations of those sacred trusts and ex- 
 " alted stations, and under peculiar circumstances, 
 " which greatly enhance the solemnity of every pub- 
 " lie obligation, and the difficulty of every public 
 " charge. Their duties are those of statesmen in 
 " every other part of the world ; with no other cha- 
 " racteristic differences than the obstacles opposed by 
 " an unfavourable climate, a foreign language, the 
 " peculiar usages and laws of India, and the man- 
 " ners of its inhabitants." 
 
 Nothing can be added to these statements which 
 can be expected to render them more clear, or to give 
 them greater weight. They are quite decisive with re- 
 gard to the qualifications required for the civil service 
 of the East-India Company in India.
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 Has any deficiency in these qualifications been 
 actually experienced in such a degree as to be in- 
 jurious to the service in India ? 
 
 ON the second question, also, it will be most ad- 
 vantageous to hear the opinion of the Marquis 
 Wellesley. He observes in the minute of August 1 8, 
 1800, " It may be useful in this place to review the 
 " course in which the junior civil servants of the East- 
 " India Company now enter upon the important duties 
 " of their respective stations; to consider to what 
 11 degree they now possess or can attain any means of 
 " qualifying themselves sufficiently for those stations ; 
 " and to examine whether the great body of the civil 
 ' ' servants at any of the Presidencies can now be deemed 
 " competent to discharge their arduous and compre- 
 " hensive trusts in a manner correspondent to the in- 
 " terests and honour of the British name in India, or to 
 " the prosperity and happiness of our native subjects. 
 
 " The age at which the writers usually arrive in
 
 13 
 
 " India is from sixteen to eighteen. Their parents 
 
 " and friends in England, from a variety of con- 
 
 " siderations, are naturally desirous not only to ac- 
 
 " celerate the appointment at home, but to despatch 
 
 " the young men to India at the earliest possible 
 
 " period. Some of these young men have been edu- 
 
 " cated with an express view to the civil service in 
 
 " India on principles utterly erroneous, and inappli- 
 
 " cable to its actual condition. Conformably to this 
 
 " error, they have received a limited education, con- 
 
 " fined principally to commercial knowledge, and 
 
 " in no degree extended to those liberal studies which 
 
 " constitute the basis of education at public schools 
 
 " in England. Even this limited course of study is 
 
 " interrupted at the early period of fifteen or seven- 
 
 " teen years. 
 
 " It would be superfluous to enter into any argu- 
 
 " ment to demonstrate the absolute insufficiency of 
 
 " this class of young men to execute the duties of 
 
 " any station whatever in the civil service of the 
 
 " Company, beyond the menial, laborious, unwhole- 
 
 " some duty of a mere copying-clerk. Those who 
 
 " have received the benefits of a better education 
 
 " have the misfortune to find the course of their studies 
 
 " prematurely interrupted at the critical period when 
 
 " its utility is first felt, and before they have been 
 
 " enabled to secure the fruits of early application. 
 
 ' On the arrival of the writers in India, they are
 
 14 
 
 " either stationed in the interior of the country, or 
 
 " employed in some office in the presidency. If 
 
 " stationed in the interior of the country, they are 
 
 " placed in situations which require a knowledge of 
 
 " the language and customs of the natives ; or of the 
 
 " regulations and laws ; or of the general principles 
 
 " of jurisprudence; or of the details of the established 
 
 " system of revenue; or of the nature of the Com- 
 
 " pany's investment ; or of many of these branches 
 
 " of information combined. In all these branches of 
 
 " knowledge the young writers are totally uninformed, 
 
 " and they are consequently totally unequal to their 
 
 " prescribed duties. In some cases their superior 
 
 " in office, experiencing no benefit from their ser- 
 
 " vices, leaves them unemployed. In this state 
 
 " many devote their time to those luxuries and enjoy- 
 
 " ments which their situation enables them to com- 
 
 " mand, without making any effort to qualify them- 
 
 " selves for the important stations to which they are 
 
 " destined. They remain sunk in indolence, until, 
 
 " from their station in the service, they succeed to 
 
 " offices of high public trust. 
 
 " Positive incapacity is the necessary result of 
 
 " these pernicious habits of inaction ; the principles 
 
 " of public integrity are endangered, and the suc- 
 
 " cessful administration of the whole government ex- 
 
 " posed to hazard. This has been the unhappy course 
 
 " of many, who have conceived an early disgust in
 
 15 
 
 " provincial stations against business to which they 
 " have found themselves unequal, and who have 
 " been abandoned to the effects of despondency and 
 " sloth." 
 
 The Marquis goes on to say, that " even the 
 " young men whose dispositions are the most pro- 
 " mising, if stationed in the interior of the country, 
 " at an early period after their arrival in India, labour 
 " under such disadvantages, that they can scarcely 
 " establish those foundations of useful knowledge in- 
 " dispensably necessary to enable them afterwards to 
 " execute the duties of important stations with ability 
 " and credit. And that, with regard to the young 
 " men attached to the offices of the presidency, the 
 " most assiduous of them, being occupied in the close 
 " and laborious application to the hourly business of 
 " transcribing papers, are seldom able to make ad- 
 " vances in any other branch of knowledge, and at 
 " the close of two or three years they have generally 
 " lost the fruits of their European studies, without 
 " having gained any useful knowledge of Asiatic 
 " literature or business ; while those, whose disposi- 
 " tions lead them to idleness and dissipation, finding 
 " greater temptations to indulgence and extravagance 
 " in the presidency than in the provinces, fall into 
 " courses which destroy their health and fortunes ; 
 " and some of them succeeding in the ordinary pro- 
 * gress of the service to employments, their incapacity
 
 16 
 
 ' or misconduct becomes conspicuous to the natives, 
 1 disgraceful to themselves, and injurious to the 
 " State. 
 
 " Under all these early disadvantages," the Marquis 
 
 says, "it is highly creditable to the individual cha- 
 
 " racters of the civil servants of the East-India Com- 
 
 { pany, that so many instances have occurred in va- 
 
 ' rious branches and departments of the civil service, 
 
 " at all the presidencies, of persons who have discharged 
 
 " their public duties with considerable respect and 
 
 " honour. 
 
 " It has been justly observed, that all the merits of 
 " the civil servants are to be ascribed to their own 
 " character, talents, and exertions ; while their defects 
 " must be imputed to the constitution and practice of 
 " the service, which have not been accommodated to 
 " the progressive changes of our situation in India, and 
 " have not kept pace with the growth of this empire, 
 " or with the increasing extent and importance of the 
 " functions and duties of civil servants. 
 
 " The study and acquisition of the languages have, 
 " however, been extended in Bengal, and the general 
 " knowledge and qualifications of the civil servants 
 " have been improved. The proportion of the civil 
 " servants in Bengal who have made a considerable 
 " progress towards the attainment of the qualifications 
 " requisite in their several stations appears great, and 
 " even astonishing, when viewed with regard to the
 
 17 
 
 " early disadvantages, embarrassments, and defects of 
 " the civil service. But this proportion will appear 
 " very different when compared with the exigencies of 
 " the state, with the magnitude of these provinces, 
 " and with the total number of the civil servants 
 " which must supply the succession to the great 
 " offices of the government. 
 
 " It must be admitted that the great body of the 
 " civil servants in Bengal is not at present sufficiently 
 " qualified to discharge the duties of the several ar- 
 " duous stations in the administration of this empire ; 
 " and that it is particularly deficient in the judicial, 
 " Jiscal, financial, and political branches of the go- 
 " vernment. 
 
 " The state of the civil services of Madras and 
 " Bombay is still more defective than that of Ben- 
 
 " g* 1 -" 
 
 Nothing can be more clear and convincing than 
 
 this statement of deficiency in the great body of the 
 civil servants of the Company, before any efforts were 
 made, either in India or in England, to give them a 
 superior education. It is sufficiently well known, 
 though no written documents may remain on the 
 subject, on account of no specific remedy having 
 been proposed, that Lord Cornwallis found the same 
 difficulty in filling the important offices of the state 
 with proper persons as the Marquis Wellesley. Many 
 of the older civil servants were passed over in the 
 
 c
 
 search for the qualifications required, and, even with 
 the greatest range that the rules of the service would 
 admit, the search was not always successful. 
 
 .Mr. Edmonstone, in his excellent speech at the 
 public disputation, held at the College of Port-William 
 on the 27th of July, 1815, strongly notices the former 
 defects in the education of the civil servants, and ad- 
 verts particularly to the argument adduced by some 
 persons in favour of the sufficiency of the old system, 
 founded on the progressive prosperity and power of 
 the British dominion in India, and on the success 
 which attended the administration of the concerns of 
 this great empire. 
 
 " When we contemplate," he says, " our situation 
 " in this country ; when we reflect that we are go- 
 " veming a population of many millions, to whom our 
 " language is unknown ; whose religion, habits, man- 
 " ners, usages and prejudices, wholly differ from our 
 " own ; no argument would seem requisite to prove 
 " that the diffusion of the benefits and blessings of a 
 " British administration among these our subjects 
 " must essentially depend on the degree in which the 
 " power of communication with the natives of India 
 " is possessed by the public officers employed in the 
 " various branches of this great and complicated go- 
 " vernment. Splendid as has been the career of our 
 " dominion, prosperous as has been the conduct of 
 " our internal concerns, who will allege that no ad-
 
 19 
 
 " vantages have been lost, no evils have been incurred, 
 " which a skilful use of the powers of language might 
 " -not have secured and prevented ? 
 
 " Who will say that improved means of direct in- 
 
 ' tercourse witli our subjects are not indispensably 
 
 " required to co-operate with the enactment and ad- 
 
 1 ministration of salutary laws for the purpose of 
 
 ; diffusing the knowledge and! the practice of those 
 
 1 principles of conduct which have a tendency to 
 
 " exalt the standard of national character, to diminish 
 
 " the prevalence of immorality and crime, and to 
 
 ' promote the general welfare and happiness of the 
 
 " inhabitants of these territories ? Who will maintain 
 
 " that far greater advances in the attainment of such 
 
 " important purposes might not long since have been 
 
 " made, if the existing facilities of Oriental study and 
 
 " acquirement had in early times enabled the Com- 
 
 " pany's servants to arrive at that proficiency which 
 
 " is now so generally attained?" 
 
 These observations are perfectly just, but something 
 further might be added on the subject. The pro- 
 gressive extension and prosperity of the British domi- 
 nions in India has been founded mainly on its military 
 and political power ; but, in the military line and the 
 highest departments of government, circumstances 
 rarely fail to generate the qualifications required. All 
 ages and countries have produced warriors and states- 
 men. A few great and illustrious individuals, such as 
 
 c 3
 
 20 
 
 we may suppose might be formed out of the number of 
 Englishmen sent to the east, might be sufficient so to 
 animate the whole body of their countrymen, and so 
 skilfully to manage the natives, as to acquire and 
 maintain enormous possessions against Mahometan 
 and Indian competitors. But it is a very different 
 thing when the question is no longer about the ac- 
 quisition and maintenance of empire, but the admi- 
 nistration of justice and of a good internal government 
 to sixty millions of subjects. Here the few men of 
 great talents, who will always be found among a cer- 
 tain number, are comparatively without power. They 
 cannot act without instruments. These instruments 
 must necessarily be a considerable body of civil ser- 
 vants, not only possessing the means of easy com- 
 munication with the natives, but of improved under- 
 standings, of acquired knowledge, and of habits of 
 steady application and industry. When it is recol- 
 lected that there is no judge on the bench in England 
 who is not of mature age, and has not shewn himself 
 for many years eminent among a number of eminent 
 competitors, it is difficult to conceive that the judicial 
 department in India should be in any degree ade- 
 quately filled. And though it might be allowed that 
 out of the number supplied from England in the civil 
 and military line, according to the former system, 
 India would never be deficient in persons fit to com- 
 mand in the field, or advise in the cabinet ; yet that
 
 21 
 
 such a body, so collected, should furnish a sufficient 
 number of persons competent to conduct ably and 
 efficiently the whole internal administration of so 
 great and populous a country, seems next to an im- 
 possibility. Nothing, then, can be more futile than 
 the argument in favour of the former system, derived 
 from the progressive extension of our power in the 
 east. In fact the past and present internal state of 
 India directly contradict the arguments. Before the 
 period of the establishment of the Board of Controul 
 and the commencement of the government of Lord 
 Cornwallis, however wonderful might have been the 
 progress of our power, the internal prosperity of the 
 provinces in our possession was generally considered 
 to be on the decline ; and, even since that period, the 
 commercial, financial, and territorial prosperity of 
 British India, has certainly not kept pace with the 
 brilliant career of its arms and councils. Considering 
 the long peace which Bengal has enjoyed under the 
 protection of these arms, its cultivation, wealth, and 
 population, have not increased so much as might 
 naturally have been expected; and not only would 
 it be rash to affirm, as Mr. Edmonstone intimates, 
 that no advantages have been lost in consequence of 
 the deficient knowledge of the Company's servants, 
 but it would probably be quite safe to assert, that the 
 interests of the Company and the happiness and pro- 
 sperity of their Indian subjects must have suffered
 
 22 
 
 materially from this cause; that they suffer in some 
 degree still ; but that they suffered much more, ante- 
 cedently to the commencement of the improved system 
 of education, when the number of those who attained 
 to any degree of proficiency in the languages was ex- 
 tremely confined ; when, according to Mr. Edmon- 
 stone, the Arabic and Sanscrit could boast only of a 
 few occasional votaries ; when the proportion of the 
 servants of the Company who acquired a knowledge 
 of the Persian language was comparatively incon- 
 siderable, and the general standard of proficiency in 
 that language was extremely low ; when, unassisted by 
 a Moonshee, few were capable of executing the ordi- 
 nary business of translating from Persian into English, 
 and still fewer were able to perform the converse of 
 that operation with any grammatical correctness, with- 
 out the same assistance ; when the number of those 
 who were adequately conversant in the Hindoostance 
 was extremely limited, and the language of Bengal 
 was almost generally neglected and unknown. Mr. 
 Edmonstone then adds, " how essential, how ex- 
 " tensive, has been the change in all these respects !" 
 It might naturally be expected that the defects of 
 the former system would be the least conspicuous in 
 the acquisition of the languages; and that an early re- 
 moval to India, and an early employment in some 
 subordinate official situation, would not have been very 
 disadvantageous in this respect, however disadvanta.
 
 23 
 
 geous it would be, as directly stated by Lord Wellesley, 
 with a view to the attainments necessary in the higher 
 departments of the service. 
 
 But it appears, that even in the languages, with the 
 exception of a few self-taught individuals, the deficiency 
 was very great. What then must it have been in the 
 other qualifications necessary for the internal admini- 
 stration of a great country ? 
 
 When to these statements of Mr. Edmonstone, and 
 the inferences which follow from them, we add the 
 distinct declaration of the Marquis W'ellesley, before 
 quoted, respecting the insufficient qualifications of the 
 great body of the civil servants, it is abundantly evi- 
 dent that an improved education for the civil service 
 of the Company was not an imaginary and theoretical, 
 but a real and practical want a want which, in some 
 way or other, required unquestionably to be supplied.
 
 24 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 In order to secure the attainment of the qualifica- 
 tions necessary for the civil servants of the Com- 
 pany, is an appropriate establishment necessary ? 
 and should it be of the nature of a school, or 
 a college ? 
 
 THE Marquis Wellesley, after dwelling upon the 
 qualifications necessary for the civil service of the 
 Company, observes that it is unnecessary to enter into 
 an examination of facts to prove that no system of 
 education, study, or discipline, now exists either in 
 Europe or India, founded on the principles or directed 
 to the objects which he had described; and his opi- 
 nion of the necessity of an appropriate institution was 
 fully evinced by the grand collegiate establishment 
 which he founded at Fort William. 
 
 It is well known that this establishment, in its full 
 extent, was not sanctioned by the Court of Directors. 
 The main ground of their rejection of it they stated 
 to be the enormous and indefinite expense in which it 
 must involve the Company, which they considered as
 
 25 
 
 too great for the actual state of their affairs. They 
 paid high compliments to the liberal and enlightened 
 spirit and great ability of the Marquis, though they 
 only expressed their approbation of parts of his plan. 
 They acknowledged, however, the necessity of an im- 
 proved education for their civil servants, but seemed 
 to think that this object might be effectually accom- 
 plished by an enlarged seminary for Oriental learning 
 at Calcutta, combined with an improved system of 
 education in Europe, suitable to the sphere of life in 
 which their civil servants were intended to move. 
 
 None of the old establishments in England offered 
 such a system of education. The great public schools, 
 which, upon the Marquis Wellesley's plan of an uni- 
 versity education in Calcutta, would have answered 
 perfectly well for the European part of the education 
 till fifteen or sixteen, were evidently insufficient when 
 the Indian part of the education was to be confined 
 exclusively to the Oriental languages, and conducted 
 without any system of discipline. 
 
 A regular course of study at Oxford and Cambridge 
 would evidently detain the young men too long in 
 England, and would defer the commencement of their 
 Indian career till the age of twenty-two or twenty- 
 three; a period, which is considered as decidedly 
 objectionable, both with respect to the greater diffi- 
 culty they would find in accommodating themselves 
 to Indian manners and habits, and to the necessarily
 
 26 
 
 later period of life at which they could expect to re- 
 turn to their native country with a competency. 
 
 Whatever difficulties or objections, therefore, might 
 attend an institution exclusively applied to the edu- 
 cation of the young persons destined to go out to 
 India as writers, such an appropriate institution seemed 
 to be necessarily required by the specific wants of the 
 Company. 
 
 But if an appropriate establishment was necessary, 
 the nature of the object to be attained obviously dic- 
 tated the propriety of its assuming a collegiate form. 
 
 At the time that the establishment in Hertfordshire 
 was founded, the plan of general education projected 
 by the Marquis Wellesley at the college in Calcutta 
 had been given up, and the lectures were confined 
 exclusively to the Oriental languages. It was neces- 
 sary, therefore, with a view to the qualifications ac- 
 knowledged to be required in the service, to commence 
 a plan of more general study in England; and for 
 this purpose a school was unfit. 
 
 At a school which the boys would leave at an 
 early age, little more could be learnt with advantage 
 than at the usual seminaries of the country. If the 
 age of proceeding to India w r as in general not later 
 than sixteen, there would certainly be ample time for 
 the acquisition of the Oriental languages in that country 
 before a writer could be employed, or, at least, before 
 he ought to be employed, in any official situation
 
 27 
 
 beyond that of copying-clerk ; and the advantage which 
 he would gain by commencing the Oriental languages 
 at school would be so trifling as not nearly to coun- 
 terbalance the time employed on them. 
 
 It will hardly be contended, that boys under the 
 age of sixteen are fit to commence that course of ge- 
 neral reading which may be considered as appropriate 
 to their future destination ; and an attempt to intro- 
 duce such a system would inevitably occasion the 
 complete sacrifice of classical studies, with scarcely a 
 possibility of substituting any thing in their stead but 
 that mercantile education, so strongly reprobated by 
 Lord Wellesley. 
 
 With regard to conduct, the strict discipline and 
 constant superintendence of a school would be but a 
 bad preparation for the entire independence, and com- 
 plete freedom from all restraint, which would await 
 them on their arrival at Calcutta ; and as long as they 
 continue to proceed to India at the age of school-boys, 
 whether they are taken from an appropriate establish- 
 ment, or from the common schools of the country, 
 nothing is done to\vards removing or mitigating the 
 dangers arising from this cause. 
 
 If to these considerations be added the objections 
 which have been made to an appropriate establishment 
 for India, as tending to generate something like an 
 Indian caste (objections which might have some weight 
 if the exclusive education commenced as early as
 
 28 
 
 twelve or thirteen), it may safely be concluded that 
 any expenditure of the Company in an appropriate 
 school would not only be entirely wasted, but would 
 probably be the means of giving them servants of less 
 powerful minds, and inferior general abilities, than if 
 they had been taken promiscuously from the common 
 schools of the country. 
 
 To accomplish the particular object proposed some 
 institution was required, \vhich was adapted to form 
 the understandings of persons above the age of mere 
 boys, where a more liberal system of discipline might 
 be introduced; and where, instead of being kept to 
 their studies solely by the fear of immediate observa- 
 tion and punishment, they might learn to be influenced 
 by the higher motives of the love of distinction and 
 the fear of disgrace, and to depend for success upon 
 their own diligence and self-controul ; upon the power 
 of regulating their own time and attention ; and on 
 habits of systematic and persevering application, when 
 out of the presence of their teachers. Nothing but 
 an institution approaching in some degree to a college, 
 and possessing some degree of college liberty, could 
 either generate such habits, or properly develop the 
 different characters of the young persons educated in 
 it ; and mark with sufficient precision the industrious 
 and the indolent, the able and the deficient, the well- 
 disposed and the turbulent. Nothing, in short, but an 
 institution at which the students would remain till
 
 eighteen or nineteen, could be expected properly to 
 prepare them for the acquisition of those high quali- 
 fications, which had been stated from the best authority 
 to be necessary for a very large portion of the civil 
 servants of the Company, in order to enable them to 
 discharge their various and important duties with 
 credit to themselves and advantage to the service. 
 
 Yet, in spite of these obvious reasons, which seemed 
 to settle the question at once in favour of a college, 
 there were many who preferred a school, as there 
 were many who would have greatly preferred the 
 having neither the one nor the other. The motives for 
 this latter preference were sufficiently intelligible. 
 
 Besides the argument for leaving things as they are, 
 which so many persons are always ready to apply on 
 all occasions, it was certain that any system of educa- 
 tion at a particular establishment, which was made a 
 necessary qualification for an appointment to India, 
 must tend rather to diminish the value of the pa- 
 tronage of the Directors. In the first place, the ex- 
 pense of the education would generally be considered 
 by the parents and guardians of the young person 
 appointed as a drawback upon the advantage received. 
 And, secondly, the chance that, from inability or mis- 
 conduct, the appointment might not be confirmed, 
 would be a consideration of a nature to have great 
 weight with those who, it is to be feared, sometimes 
 wish to send out a son, or other connexion, to India,
 
 30 
 
 whose conduct and attainments do not promise a very 
 fortunate career at home. 
 
 It is evident that most of the reasons which would 
 determine many persons to prefer the old system to 
 any kind of establishment whatever, for the education 
 of the civil servants of the Company, would determine 
 them to prefer a school to a college, if it were neces- 
 sary to choose between the two evils. They would 
 be aware that a young person must be educated some- 
 where, before he reaches the earliest age at which he 
 can be sent to India, and it would not make much 
 difference in expense whether he was educated at a 
 common school or one established by the Company. 
 The early conclusion of his education, and the early 
 period of his proceeding to India, would remove, 
 either wholly, or in a great degree, the objections on the 
 score of expense. They would probably presume also, 
 that as, at a school, the boys would be kept in order 
 by the birch, there would be much less danger of the 
 loss of an appointment. In this, however, they would 
 probably find themselves mistaken. Birch supports 
 discipline, only because it is itself supported by the 
 fear of expulsion : remove this fear, and the effect of 
 the rod will soon cease. In almost all cases, the physical 
 force is on the side of the governed ; and few youths of 
 sixteen would submit to be flogged if they did not 
 know that immediate expulsion would be the conse- 
 quence of their refusal. If the East-India Company
 
 31 
 
 had an establishment for the education of boys from 
 thirteen to sixteen, there is great reason to believe that 
 without the usual gradation of ages from nine and ten 
 upwards, and with any hesitation in resorting to the 
 punishment of expulsion on all the usual occasions, it 
 would be scarcely possible to enforce proper obedience ; 
 and the rod itself would probably be one of the prin- 
 cipal causes of resistance and rebellion. 
 
 A school therefore, besides excluding at once the 
 great object in view an education fitted for the higher 
 offices of the government seemed to present no one 
 intelligible advantage over a college, but that of dimi- 
 nishing, in a smaller degree, the patronage of the 
 Directors. This advantage, to the honour of the Court, 
 was not regarded, in comparison of the advantages 
 which ,their Indian territories might derive from the 
 improved education of their civil servants; and a 
 college was determined upon. 
 
 One of the great objections urged by Adam Smith 
 against the government of an exclusive Company is, 
 that their interests, as a sovereign, are generally con- 
 sidered as subordinate to their interests as individuals, 
 or as a body of merchants. In the establishment of 
 the East-India college, the feelings of the sovereign 
 conspicuously predominated ; and the public did justice 
 to the disinterested motives and the enlarged and en- 
 lightened views which prompted the decision.
 
 32 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 Should the appropriate establishment formed by the 
 East-India Company be in England or India ? or 
 should there be establishments in both countries ? 
 
 .THE practical part of this question has been already 
 decided in the Court of Directors by their establish- 
 ment of an appropriate college in England for the 
 education of their civil servants, and by their resolution 
 to confine the object of their college in Calcutta ex- 
 clusively to the Oriental languages. But the question 
 may at any time be revived. Eeeling present incon- 
 veniencies and evils from the establishment in England, 
 the Court may again think of reverting to a system of 
 general education in Calcutta. And it may be useful 
 to state, preparatory to any such experiment, the evils 
 and inconveniencies which are likely to result from a 
 regular college in India. 
 
 In the first place, it is well known that the expense 
 would be beyond all comparison greater than in Eng- 
 land, probably, at the least, six or seven times as
 
 great; and though the object of an improved educa- 
 tion is of such paramount importance that it is the 
 last quarter in which expense should be considered, 
 yet, if this object can be effectually accomplished upon 
 a more economical plan, there can be no doubt of 
 the duty and propriety of adopting it. 
 
 In England the most able instructors may be ob- 
 tained in all the departments of knowledge and lite- 
 rature at salaries quite moderate, compared with those 
 which would be necessary to induce men of the same 
 attainments to afford their assistance in India ; and if 
 to these superior salaries be added the much heavier 
 Pension List that would inevitably accompany them, 
 the difference would be still farther increased. 
 
 In England every part of a collegiate establishment, 
 the buildings, the table, the attendance, &c. &c. may 
 be kept within very moderate bounds ; but in India, 
 where a certain style of living seems to be expected 
 from all the Company's servants, this would be ex- 
 tremely difficult, and the expenditure under all these 
 heads would be upon a much larger and more ex- 
 tended scale. 
 
 In England, at the college now established, not 
 only the personal expenses of the students are sup- 
 ported by their parents and friends, but a hundred 
 guineas a year are paid towards their education. If 
 the two years from sixteen to eighteen were spent at a 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 college in India, the students would of course be paid 
 the salaries of writers from the time of their arrival ; 
 and, reckoning the average of the yearly admissions at 
 forty, eighty persons more than at present would be 
 living upon the Indian revenue. The salaries of the 
 junior writers are 300 rupees a month, or about 450/. 
 a year ; and on this article alone, therefore, the pre- 
 sent system saves 36,000/. a year to the Company. 
 
 It may be said, perhaps, that it is not to be wished 
 that the expenses of the necessary education of the 
 Company's servants should fall so heavily upon their 
 parents and connexions, and that it would sometimes 
 be desirable to give appointments to persons whose 
 families could not easily support such an expense. 
 That such instances may occur there can be no doubt ; 
 but, as a general rule, there can be as little doubt that 
 the preparatory education for official situations not 
 only usually is, but ought to be, supported by the fa- 
 milies of the candidates themselves, and in the parti- 
 cular case in question it is highly beneficial to the 
 Company's service that the candidates for writerships 
 should be taken almost exclusively from that class of 
 society which may be supposed capable of paying the 
 expenses of a good common education. There is 
 reason to believe, from the information of residents in 
 India, and from the qualifications of some of the 
 students who even now present themselves for ad-
 
 35 
 
 mission to the college in Hertfordshire, that before its 
 establishment persons were occasionally sent out to 
 India so extremely ill-suited to the situations in which 
 they were likely to be placed, both from their previous 
 habits, and the kind of education they had received, 
 that it was scarcely possible to employ them without 
 injury to the service. 
 
 The college in India, established upon the Marquis 
 Wellesley's plan, cost in the first year about 76,000/. 
 For the two following years the estimates were about 
 48,000/., but the change of plan prevented the cor- 
 rectness of them from being ascertained. In neither 
 calculation, however, were the additional salaries of 
 eighty students included. These salaries, it was 
 considered, would be paid equally, whether the writers 
 resided in the college, or were less usefully employed 
 in some subordinate offices; and this was certainly 
 true ; but the whole of this expense would of course 
 be saved upon the supposition that the two years 
 from sixteen to eighteen were spent in England. 
 
 The expense of the college in England, beyond 
 what is paid by the students, and independently of 
 the building, may be estimated at between nine and 
 ten thousand a year, so that the expenses of the col- 
 lege in India would altogether at the least be six or 
 seven times as great as that in England. 
 
 Secondly, in point of regularity of conduct and 
 personal expenses, the advantage possessed by the 
 
 D 2
 
 36 
 
 college in England will scarcely appear less marked 
 than its advantage in point of economy *. 
 
 It is generally acknowledged that the young men 
 who go out as writers to India have the power of 
 borrowing money almost to any extent from natives, 
 whp speculate upon their future rise in the service ; 
 and during the early part of their residence in Cal- 
 cutta it is but too common to indulge in an ex- 
 penditure greatly beyond their incomes. They find 
 themselves besides the members of a privileged cast ; 
 and the almost arbitrary controul which they exercise 
 over the persons whom they chiefly see about them 
 must have a necessary tendency to foster their ca- 
 prices, and render them impatient of authority. If to 
 these causes of irregularity we add the seductions of 
 a luxurious climate, and consider at the same time 
 the critical age from sixteen to nineteen at which they 
 are at first exposed to these temptations, it is difficult 
 to conceive a more dangerous ordeal. The deficient 
 discipline of our schools and universities in England has 
 often been the subject of complaint ; but it may safely 
 be- pronounced, that if our youth from sixteen to nine- 
 teen were exposed to the same temptations as they 
 
 * I say this with confidence, notwithstanding the clamour that 
 has lately been made in the Court of Proprietors, and in the public 
 prints, about the irregularities prevailing in the East-India 
 college.
 
 37 
 
 would be during a three-years' residence at a college in 
 Calcutta, their discipline would not admit of a com- 
 parison with what it is at present. 
 
 But it is not only to be expected, according to all 
 general principles, that violations of any regular system 
 of academical discipline in India would be much more 
 frequent than in a similar institution in England,' but 
 the means of punishment, when such offences had 
 been committed, would be much more difficult and 
 embarrassing. 
 
 It is well known that in all places of education for 
 gentlemen the efficacy of minor punishments is only 
 supported by the final appeal to expulsion. Even in 
 military seminaries, where strict personal confinement 
 is frequently applied, expulsion and dismission from 
 the service are the punishments for continued acts of 
 contumacy and rebellion; and in civil institutions, 
 where the intermediate punishments can scarcely be 
 made so effective, this final appeal is still more abso- 
 lutely necessary. But in India the expelled students, 
 though not perhaps subsequently promoted to any lu- 
 crative situation, would still continue to receive the 
 salaries of writers according to their standing ; and if 
 the old plan of sending youths to India without any 
 kind of previous selection or examination were reverted 
 to, and they were never sent back, the number might 
 in time become so considerable as to be a serious 
 weight on the Company's finances.
 
 38 
 
 At a preparatory institution in England, if a young 
 man, either from absolute want of capacity, from de- 
 termined idleness, or any violent act of contumacy, 
 loses his promised appointment to a writership, and is 
 excluded from the service, there are various other 
 lines of exertion open to him. Some employments may 
 be found at home even for a very feeble capacity ; 
 the most determined academical idleness till nineteen 
 or twenty may yield to the pressure of strong necessity 
 and real business ; and a young man of talents, who 
 from temper, caprice, or any other cause, had been 
 guilty of some violent act of contumacy, might rise to 
 the top of his profession as a lawyer, a soldier, a sailor, 
 or a merchant. 
 
 In India there is only one line of employment, and 
 that is the Company's service. A youth, who is expelled 
 from a college in India for any of the causes above 
 enumerated, is expelled by the same authority which 
 disposes of all Indian appointments. If this same 
 authority, after a short interval, promotes him to office 
 even on the supposition that he is then fit for it, an 
 expulsion from the college would come to be con- 
 sidered as of little importance, and its discipline would 
 soon be destroyed. 
 
 In the last public examination at the college in 
 India, of which the account has arrived, five students 
 were expelled. Notwithstanding the opportunities 
 of instruction afforded to them, and the repeated
 
 39 
 
 warnings they had received during a protracted 
 stay at Calcutta, they had not acquired such a know- 
 ledge of two Oriental languages as would enable them 
 to pass the examination necessary to qualify them for 
 any official situation. 
 
 If a test be established any where, either in 
 India or England, and the examination be conducted 
 conscientiously, it may be laid down as a certain con- 
 sequence that some, out of a considerable number of 
 young men, taken without any selection, will fail. If, 
 besides the passing of such a test, obedience be 
 required to a code of academical regulations, however 
 mildly administered, a greater number will undoubt- 
 edly fail. And the question is, whether it is not very 
 much better that these failures should take place in 
 England, where various other lines of life besides the 
 Company's service are open, than in India, where they 
 must remain unemployed, a burden to themselves 
 and the Company, or be sent back to Europe at a 
 very heavy expense, and at a more advanced age ; 
 or, what is much the worst of the three, be employed 
 when not properly qualified, to the manifest injury 
 of the Company's service and the interest of their 
 Indian dominions ; or even, if qualified, to the utter 
 subversion of that code of academical laws which had 
 been established as necessary to the proper training 
 and education of their civil servants ? 
 
 It is certainly conceivable that parents in narrow
 
 40 
 
 circumstances may wish to get their children off their 
 hands as early as possible, with little regard of the 
 consequences to the Company. But even such views 
 would, probably, be defeated on the establishment of 
 a college for a three-years' course of academical edu- 
 cation in Calcutta. As it has appeared that, accord- 
 ing to all general principles, more failures might be 
 expected in India than in England, it would soon be 
 found necessary to send back those who failed to 
 their friends in England. It is understood that this 
 measure was once proposed by Lord Minto, in the 
 case of some students who had resided nearly three 
 years in the college without making a progress in 
 any language. The proposition, it is said, was re- 
 jected by the Court at home. But if the number of 
 writers so situated were to accumulate in a consider- 
 able degree, the proposition for returning them could 
 not be rejected without obviously and grossly sacri- 
 ficing the Company's interests, and they would then 
 be sent back at a later age, and under much less 
 favourable circumstances for the commencement of a 
 new career of life, than if they had failed at a college 
 in England. But whether this measure would be 
 adopted or not, it must be allowed that those who look 
 solely to a provision for their children cannot be con- 
 sidered as disinterested judges in a question of this 
 kind. And it is scarcely conceivable that any really 
 disinterested friend to the good government of India.
 
 41 
 
 and the prosperity and credit of the Company, should 
 not say that, if failures must be calculated upon, it is 
 far better, under all the circumstances of the case, that 
 they should take place in England than in India. 
 
 Thirdly, in point of efficiency, it can hardly be 
 doubted, that the foundation of a general education 
 would be better laid in England than in India. The 
 most important period in the education of a young 
 man is the period in which he commences a more 
 general course of reading than that which is pursued 
 at schools ; and it is of the utmost consequence that 
 this period should be passed under circumstances- 
 favourable to habits of study and industrious exertion. 
 But it is not easy to conceive a more unfavourable 
 time for the formation of these habits, and the com- 
 mencement of new and difficult studies, than the two 
 or three years immediately succeeding the transition 
 from a common school in England to an university in 
 India, at the age of sixteen. Suddenly possessed of 
 an unusual command of money, surrounded by 
 natives devoted to his will, tempted to indulgences of 
 all kinds by the novel forms in which they present 
 themselves, and discouraged from severe application by 
 the enfeebling effects of the climate, he must possess a 
 very steady and unusual degree of resolution to begin 
 a course of law, history, political economy, and 
 natural philosophy, and to continue his classical studies, 
 at the very same time that he is required as his
 
 42 
 
 paramount duty, and the immediate passport to an 
 official situation, to make himself master of two or 
 three Oriental languages. Such a course of general 
 reading may, undoubtedly, be pursued in India at a 
 future time by individuals, during the intervals of 
 official occupation ; but it may be considered as certain 
 that, except, perhaps, in a few rare instances, little or no 
 attemion would be paid to these studies in a three- 
 years' residence at Calcutta from sixteen to nineteen, 
 and that, if such a general education be necessary, the 
 foundation of it must be laid in England. 
 
 The Marquis Wellesley's college in India had not, 
 it must be allowed, a fair trial. It is hardly just, 
 therefore, to quote it as an example : but, as far 
 as a judgment might be formed of the effects of 
 such an establishment from the manner in which it 
 commenced, it tends strongly to confirm what has 
 been said of the great difficulty of establishing a regular 
 system of discipline, and beginning with success a plan 
 of more general study in an university at Calcutta. The 
 state of the college with regard to discipline is well 
 known, and need not to be entered upon ; and, though 
 other lectures besides those in the Oriental languages 
 were given, they were scarcely ever attended. It has 
 been stated, indeed, by those who have acted as pro- 
 fessors at the college in Calcutta, as well as by those 
 who have gone through it as students, that, however 
 great are the advantages it affords in the study of the
 
 43 
 
 Oriental languages, they see no prospect of its ever 
 becoming a place of regular collegiate discipline, and 
 of efficient general education. 
 
 But a general course of study, however necessary 
 to the education of those who are to fill the judicial, 
 the financial, and the diplomatic departments in 
 India, or assist in the administration of the Govern-* 
 ment as Members in Council, is not alone sufficient : 
 and the highest intellectual endowments would be 
 of little avail without a knowledge of the Oriental 
 languages. A certain knowledge, therefore, of these 
 languages, must always be considered as a sine qua 
 non in the appointment to official situations. This 
 knowledge will, indeed, do little without any other 
 combined with it ; but no knowledge can do any thing 
 without the means of communication with the natives. 
 
 Two objects therefore are to be kept in view ; one of 
 the highest utility, and the other of paramount ne- 
 cessity. As a foundation of general knowledge is best 
 laid in the West, and the necessary languages are best 
 acquired in the East, it seems highly probable that 
 two establishments, one in England, and the other in 
 India, may be required to accomplish most effectively 
 the objects in view : the English establishment to 
 give as good a general education as can be commu- 
 nicated within the age of 18 or 19, with some instruc- 
 tion in the rudiments of the Oriental languages ; and 
 the Indian establishment to be confined exclusively
 
 to these languages, and particularly to act as a final test, 
 as far as languages go, of qualification for office. 
 
 It has been found, by experience, that those young 
 men, who go out to India tolerably well grounded in 
 the rudiments of the Oriental languages, can, without 
 difficulty, pass the necessary test within the year, and 
 many of them pass it in six months. Upon this plan, 
 therefore, the time taken up in the preparatory educa- 
 tion for the civil service would scarcely be greater 
 than upon the Marquis Wellesley's plan. But, even 
 if it were somewhat greater, it is probable that the 
 interests, both of the service and of individuals, would 
 be promoted by this change. It is certainly the opinion 
 of some of the writers themselves, that, even since the 
 establishment of both the colleges, they are advanced 
 to important situations in the judicial line at too early, 
 rather than too late an age. And it by no means 
 
 / 
 
 follows that the going out to India a year or two later 
 implies a proportionally later return. 
 
 The period in which a fortune is made, ought not to 
 be dated from the time of arrival in India, but from 
 the time at which accumulation commences. And, if 
 a year or two more spent in Europe be employed in 
 such a manner as to send the young writer out, not 
 only with superior qualifications for office, but with a 
 greater degree of general prudence, he is likely to 
 begin saving sooner, and will, perhaps, return with a 
 fortune at an earlier age than if he had been exposed
 
 45 
 
 from the age of fifteen or sixteen to a three-years 1 re- 
 sidence at Calcutta, and the heavy debt which too 
 frequently accompanies it. 
 
 No time therefore is really lost either to the service 
 or to individuals by the period devoted to education in 
 England. And, as the expenses of the Indian college, 
 in its present state, without buildings, without a table, 
 without a Principal and Professors of European lite- 
 rature, and general management, and with the limited 
 number arising from only a year, or a year and a half s 
 residence, may be kept within very moderate bounds, 
 there can be no doubt, on the whole, that the present 
 system of education in the two colleges, compared 
 with a regular university course in India, is much 
 more economical, most efficient with regard to general 
 knowledge, and exposed to fewer difficulties in point 
 of discipline and personal dissipation and extra- 
 
 vagance.
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 Does it appear that the College actually established 
 in Hertfordshire is upon a plan calculated to 
 supply that part of the appropriate education of 
 the civil servants of the Company which ought to 
 be completed in England ? 
 
 WHEN the Court of Directors declined sanctioning 
 the collegiate establishment proposed by the Marquis 
 Wellesley, they did not hesitate to acknowledge the 
 necessity of an improved education for their civil ser- 
 vants ; and it was for the specific purpose of securing 
 to them such an improved education before they left 
 England, without detaining them till the usual age 
 at which an university course finishes (to which de- 
 tention the Marquis had objected), that the Court of 
 Directors founded the institution in Hertfordshire. 
 
 At this institution the students commence a course 
 of more general instruction than is to be found at 
 schools, nearly at the same period that they were to 
 commence it in India according to Lord Wellesley's
 
 47 
 
 plan, and yet proceed to their destination at eighteen 
 Oi nineteen, an age at which the constitution is bet- 
 ter fortified against the Indian climate than two or 
 three years earlier, but not sufficiently advanced to 
 be open to those objections urged by Lord Wellesley 
 against a detention till twenty-one or twenty-two. 
 
 In the East-India college, so constituted, the plan 
 upon which the system of discipline and instruction 
 is conducted seems to be well calculated to answer the 
 purpose in view. Every candidate for admission into 
 the college is required to produce a testimonial from 
 his schoolmaster, and to pass an examination in 
 Greek, Latin, and arithmetic, before the Principal 
 and Professors. This previous examination at once 
 prevents persons from offering themselves who have 
 not received the usual school-education of the higher 
 classes of society; and those who offer themselves, 
 and are found deficient, are remanded till another 
 period of admission. 
 
 The lectures of the different Professors in the col- 
 lege are given in a manner to make previous prepara- 
 tion necessary, and to encourage most effectually 
 habits of industry and application. In their substance 
 they embrace the important subjects of classical li- 
 terature, the Oriental languages, the elements af 
 mathematics and natural philosophy, the laws of 
 England, general history, and political economy. 
 
 At the commencement of the institution it wae
 
 48 
 
 feared by some persons that this variety would too 
 much distract the attention of the students at the age 
 of sixteen or seventeen, and prevent them from 
 making a satisfactory progress in any department. 
 But instances of distinguished success in many de- 
 partments at the same time have proved that these 
 fears were without foundation ; and that this variety 
 has not only been useful to them in rendering a me- 
 thodical arrangement of their hours of study more 
 necessary, but has decidedly contributed to enlarge, 
 invigorate, and mature their understandings. 
 
 On all the important subjects above enumerated, 
 examinations take place twice in the year, at the end 
 of each term. These examinations last above a fort- 
 night. They are conducted upon the plan of the 
 great public and collegiate examinations in the uni- 
 versities, particularly at Cambridge, with such further 
 improvements as experience has suggested. The 
 questions given are framed with a view to ascertain 
 the degree of progress and actual proficiency in each 
 particular department on the subjects studied during 
 the preceding term ; and the answers, in all cases 
 which will admit of it, are given in writing, in the pre- 
 sence of the professors, and without the possibility of 
 a reference to books. After the examination in any 
 particular department is over, the Professor in that 
 department reviews at his leisure all the papers that 
 he has received, and places, as nearly as he can,
 
 49 
 
 each individual in the numerical order of his relative 
 merit, and in certain divisions implying his degree of 
 positive merit. These arrangements are all subject to 
 the controul of the whole collegiate body. They re- 
 quire considerable time and attention, and are exe- 
 cuted with scrupulous care and strict impartiality. 
 
 Besides the classifications above mentioned, medals, 
 prizes of books, and honorary distinctions, are awarded 
 to those who are the heads of classes, or as high as 
 second, third, fourth, or fifth, in two, three, four, or 
 five departments. 
 
 These means of exciting emulation and industry 
 have been attended with great success. Though there 
 are some, unquestionably, on whom motives of this 
 kind will not, or cannot, operate, and with whom, 
 therefore, little can be done; yet, a more than usual 
 proportion seem to be animated by a strong desire, 
 accompanied by corresponding efforts, to make a 
 progress in the various studies proposed to them. 
 
 Those who have come to college tolerably good 
 scholars, have often, during their stay of two years, 
 made such advances in the classical department as 
 would have done them great credit, if they had de- 
 voted to it the main part of their time ; while the 
 contemporary honours which they have obtained in 
 other departments have sufficiently proved that their 
 attention was not confined to one study : and many, 
 who had come from public and private schools at 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 sixteen, with such low classical attainments as ap- 
 peared to indicate a want either of capacity or ap- 
 plication, have shewn by their subsequent progress, 
 even in the classical department, and still more by 
 their distinguished exertions in others, that a new field 
 and new stimulants had wrought a most beneficial 
 change in their feelings and habits, and had awakened 
 energies of which they were before scarcely con- 
 scious. 
 
 There are four or five of the Professors thoroughly 
 conversant with University examinations, who can 
 take upon themselves to affirm that they have never 
 witnessed a greater proportion of various and success- 
 ful exertion in the course of their academical expe- 
 rience than has appeared at some of the examina- 
 tions at the East-India college. 
 
 With regard to the discipline of the establishment, 
 it will be readily allowed that it has not been, in all its 
 parts, so successful. It is well known that disturbances 
 have occasionally taken place, which, at the moment, 
 have shewn, in a considerable body of the students, 
 a total disregard of the rules and regulations of the 
 college. The principal causes of these disturbances 
 will be the subject of inquiry in the next section ; but it 
 is proper to observe here, that the public would form 
 a most incorrect notion of the general state and cha- 
 racter of the discipline, and the general conduct of 
 the students, if they were to draw hasty inferences
 
 51 
 
 from these temporary ebullitions. When they have 
 subsided, few traces of their past existence are to be 
 found ; and in common times the whole business of 
 the college proceeds with a degree of decency, order, 
 and decorum, which has often been the admiration of 
 strangers, and would be perfectly satisfactory to every 
 competent judge. 
 
 In their moral conduct, the students of the East- 
 India college may be advantageously compared with 
 those of either University, or the senior part of any 
 of our great public schools ; and they are rather sin- 
 gularly free, than otherwise, from the prevailing 
 vices which beset young men of seventeen, eighteen, 
 and nineteen, particularly when collected together in a 
 large body. 
 
 It is from such comparisons, and the general results 
 which appear in after-life, and not from individuals, 
 or individual offences, that any rational judgment 
 can be formed of a place of education. 
 
 On the whole, perhaps it is not too much to 
 assert, that, taking literary and moral character to- 
 gether, a considerable proportion of the students of 
 the East-India college, who have proceeded to India, 
 have left it with more improved understandings, a 
 greater quantity of useful knowledge, fitted for the 
 early discharge of public business, and more steady 
 habits of application and good conduct, than could 
 be found among any set of young men taken in the 
 
 E 2
 
 52 
 
 same way, and at the same age, from any place of 
 public education in Europe : and some of them with 
 such distinguished attainments already acquired, such 
 means of acquiring more, and such fixed habits of 
 honour and integrity, that no situation, however 
 high, would be above their powers or beyond their 
 deserts. 
 
 It will be asked, however, as the main question, 
 whether the good effects which may be presumed to 
 result from the establishment in England have prac- 
 tically been perceived and acknowledged by com- 
 petent judges in India ? To this question an answer 
 may be decidedly given in the affirmative. The young 
 men who arrive at the Calcutta college from the 
 college in England are not examined respecting their 
 progress in general knowledge. On this point, there- 
 fore, there can be no specific testimony. But with 
 regard to general conduct and character, and such a 
 knowledge of the Oriental languages as greatly to 
 abridge the period of study at Calcutta, the testi- 
 mony is most explicit, and from the highest au- 
 thority. 
 
 In 1810, Lord Minto, after having noticed parti- 
 cularly a certain number of students who had greatly 
 distinguished themselves, adds, "It is with peculiar 
 " pleasure that I do a further justice to the Hertford 
 " college, by remarking, that the official reports 
 " and returns of our college will shew the students
 
 53 
 
 " who have been translated from Hertford to Fort 
 " William to stand honourably distinguished for re- 
 " gular attendance, for obedience to the statutes 
 " and discipline of the college, for orderly and 
 " decorous demeanour, for moderation in expense, 
 ' and consequently in the amount of their debt; 
 " and, in a word, for those decencies of conduct 
 " which denote men well born, and characters well 
 " trained. I make this observation with the more 
 " satisfaction, as I entertain an earnest wish to find 
 " it proved that the preliminary tuition and general 
 " instruction afforded to the succeeding generations 
 " of the .Company's servants at Hertford will be 
 " found of more extensive (I should be disposed to 
 " say, more valuable} influence even for India, than a 
 " greater or smaller degree of proficiency in a lan- 
 " guage or two of the East can prove at that early 
 " period." 
 
 In 1812, the following passage occurs in a letter 
 from the College Council of Fort William to the 
 Governor-General in Council, dated December 29, 
 and recorded in the Bengal Public Consultations of 
 the 1st of April, 1814: 
 
 " We take the liberty of repeating in this place 
 " the observations made by the Right Honourable 
 {C the Visitor, in his speech, pronounced at the Dis- 
 " putation, holden 22d September, 1810, that the 
 " improvement (a very great and general one) which
 
 54 
 
 ' we have thought ourselves warranted in asserting, 
 " has been very conspicuous in the conduct of the 
 
 ' students who have passed through the college 
 " at Hertford. We trust and believe that this is no 
 " accidental circumstance; but at all events the fact 
 " is,' in our opinion, certain, that, due regard being 
 " paid to numbers, no similar institution can afford 
 " a greater proportion of young men more distin- 
 " guished by the manners of gentlemen, and general 
 " correctness and propriety of deportment, than the 
 " present students of the college at Fort William." 
 
 At nearly the same period this improvement in the 
 general conduct of the students is spoken of as an 
 acknowledged fact, in a letter from Captain Roebuck 
 to the College Council, at Fort William, dated Nov. 
 10, 1812, and recorded on the Consultations before 
 mentioned : " As I believe (he says) it is generally 
 " admitted as a fact that the students now in college, 
 " compared with former years, are much steadier in 
 " every respect (which is, perhaps, owing to their 
 " previous education at Hertford college), I can ac- 
 " count," &c. c. 
 
 At the Public Disputation in 1 8 1 5, Mr. Edmonstone, 
 who acted as Visitor in the absence of Lord Moira, 
 after adverting to the objections that had sometimes 
 been made to the college, on the ground of the 
 conduct of the students, observes " To whatever 
 " extent the change might have been justly appli-
 
 55 
 
 " cable at some period of the institution, I have the 
 " satisfaction to know that, at the present time, in- 
 " stances of deviation from the maxims and rules of 
 " prudence and propriety (for such must always 
 " exist in every large association) are exceptions to 
 " the general system of conduct observable among 
 " the students of the college." He then goes on to 
 say- " This gratifying improvement may, perhaps, 
 " be traced to sources beyond this establishment" 
 evidently alluding to the acknowledged effects of the 
 institution in England. 
 
 These public testimonies from the college at Cal- 
 cutta are confirmed by the accounts of individuals 
 who have returned from India within the last six or 
 seven years, who agree in stating that what has been 
 sometimes called the New School of Writers at Cal- 
 cutta is very superior indeed, both in conduct and 
 attainments, to those who were sent out upon the old 
 system. 
 
 The period when the conduct of the junior servants 
 of the Company appears to have been most marked 
 with dissipation and irregularity was in the interval be- 
 tween 1801 and 1808 or 1809, when great numbers 
 were collected together in Calcutta at the early ages of 
 sixteen and seventeen, without being subjected to a 
 regular system of discipline, as intended by Lord 
 Wellesley ; and the marked improvement so generally 
 acknowledged may fairly be attributed to the esta-
 
 56 
 
 blishment of an intermediate place of education in 
 England, which prevents the sudden removal of a 
 boy of fifteen or sixteen from the strict restraints of a 
 school to the dangerous liberty of a residence at 
 Calcutta. 
 
 At the college in England each student has a se- 
 parate room, in which he breakfasts, drinks tea, and 
 prepares his lectures. This mode of living gives him 
 the opportunity of choosing his own society, and 
 teaches him the habit of regulating his own time ; 
 while the discipline is still suited to an age two or 
 three years younger than the average age at the 
 universities ; and industry and application are en- 
 couraged by every moral incitement which can stimu- 
 late the youthful mind. A habit of study so acquired 
 must be the best possible preparation for a residence 
 at Calcutta., and the best preservative against its al- 
 lurements. And, though it cannot be expected that 
 all should acquire these invaluable habits, yet much is 
 done if they are acquired by a considerable body. 
 Besides, all will be detained in England till eighteen 
 or nineteen an age when they may be fairly supposed 
 to know better how to conduct themselves in a situa- 
 tion in which they are subjected to no discipline. And, 
 owing to this same detention, all will reside a much 
 shorter time at the college in Calcutta, and find them- 
 selves surrounded by a much smaller number of asso- 
 ciates. These are causes calculated to operate
 
 57 
 
 favourably on the whole mass, and not only to lessen 
 the shock of the first transition, but to diminish both 
 the duration and amount of the dangers to which they 
 are exposed. 
 
 Under these circumstances it cannot be a matter 
 of surprise that the general conduct of the students 
 at Calcutta should have greatly improved since the 
 establishment of the college in England. 
 
 On the effect of the college in England in abridging 
 the period of stay at the college in Calcutta, the 
 testimonies are equally satisfactory. 
 
 At the public disputation of 1810, before adverted 
 to, Lord Minto says, " That the studies of Hertford 
 " will abridge those of Fort William cannot be 
 " doubted. This has already been proved." He had 
 before indeed observed, that the college of Fort 
 William had already derived some of its most distin- 
 guished ornaments from Hertford. " I do not speak," 
 he says, " of the merit to which I now allude in 
 " comparison only with that of contemporaries of the 
 " present year, but I would place it confidently in 
 " parallel with the best and brightest period of our 
 " college." To warrant this homage, justly and im- 
 partially paid to the early fruit of the new (not rival, 
 but associate) institution, he names eight students from 
 Hertford, who had eminently distinguished themselves. 
 Of these the average period of stay at the college of 
 Fort William was about a year, although some of 
 them had delayed their going longer than was neces-
 
 58 
 
 sary ; and three had acquired a proficiency in no less 
 than four Oriental languages. 
 
 In 1811, the documents furnish the means of a 
 more accurate comparison. In that year the num- 
 ber of students which left the Calcutta college quali- 
 fied for official situations was twenty, of whom the 
 number from the college in Hertfordshire was 
 twelve, viz. 
 
 Six who left the college after six months' residence. 
 
 Two after eight months. 
 
 One after nine months. 
 
 One after two years. 
 
 Two after three years. 
 
 The number of students who left the Calcutta col- 
 lege at the same time, but never were at the college 
 in Hertfordshire, was eight, viz. 
 
 Three after a residence of two years and a quarter. 
 
 One of three years. 
 
 One of three years and a quarter. 
 
 Two of four years. 
 
 One of four years and a half. 
 
 In the one case, the average stay is about ten 
 months ; in the other, three years and two months. 
 
 It will be unnecessary to go through all the dif- 
 ferent years ; indeed, the means for so doing are not 
 at hand. They will, of course, be subject to consider- 
 able variations, arising from the natural variations to
 
 59 
 
 be expected at different times in the mass of talent 
 and industry in the college, and probably in some 
 years the average period of stay may be as much as 
 a year and a half. The summary of the last year of 
 which the account has arrived is as follows : Of 
 eighteen students who left the college, six had resided 
 only six months ; two, ten months ; eight, about a 
 year and a half; and the other two, three and a half 
 and four and a half years. 
 
 In most years one or two are to be found, who, 
 either from inability or idleness, make no progress in 
 the languages. They are detained in consequence a 
 considerable time, and are generally involved deeply 
 in debt. It would unquestionably, be much better for 
 the service, and probably for the individuals them- 
 selves, if they had never gone out; and, as their cha- 
 racters are generally pretty well known previous to 
 the natural time of their departure, the authorities of 
 the college in England ought to be allowed, quietly, 
 and without clamour and opposition, as a regular 
 and very important part of their duty to the Com- 
 pany, to refuse their certificates. 
 
 Such cases, however, appear to be quite as rare as 
 could possibly be expected; and the very short period in 
 which the great body of the students from Hertford 
 college acquire the requisite proficiency in two lan- 
 guages, and many, of them high distinctions in three or 
 four, sufficiently proves that a foundation in these
 
 languages laid in England, and a power thus given of 
 pursuing the study of them during the passage, has 
 a most marked effect in abridging the period of 
 stay at Calcutta. 
 
 Lord Moira, at the public disputation of 1814, 
 alludes to the considerable progress made by Mr. Stir- 
 ling in the Oriental languages prior to his entry at 
 the college by studying at Hertford, and during his 
 voyage to India : and to this, in part, he says, is to 
 be attributed the extraordinary short, period in which 
 such extensive knowledge and attainments seemed to 
 have been gained. Mr. Stirling had only resided in 
 India six months ; and in fact it appears, that in 
 almost every year a considerable proportion of the 
 students of Fort William, who have passed through 
 the East-India college at home, attain the required 
 qualifications in that short time; and among these are 
 generally to be found some of the most distinguished 
 proficients in the Oriental languages. Lord Moira 
 afterwards observes, " This is not a seminary, at 
 " which the students in general are to be taught the 
 " first rudiments of the Eastern languages. It has 
 " become, like our Universities at home, a public in- 
 " stitution, affording those advantages necessary 
 " to perfect the knowledge of the different branches 
 " of Oriental literature." These expressions cer- 
 tainly imply a tolerable foundation in the Ori- 
 ental languages brought from England. An ideas
 
 61 
 
 seems to have prevailed at Calcutta that the col- 
 lege of Fort William might be superseded by the 
 establishment in England ; but it may fairly be allowed 
 that the attention paid to the Oriental languages in 
 England neither can, nor ought, to be such as, gene- 
 rally speaking, to prevent the necessity of a mtfch 
 farther progress after the arrival in India, as a quali- 
 fication for office. When it is considered that the 
 period of residence at the college in England is only 
 two years, it is quite obvious that the whole of that 
 time exclusively devoted to Oriental study would be 
 insufficient for the purpose in question, while, in the 
 attempt to attain it, the main object of the English 
 institution (which unquestionably is, or ought to be, 
 to lay the foundation of a sound and enlarged Eu- 
 ropean education) would be entirely sacrificed. 
 
 Lord Minto, at the public disputation of 1813, 
 speaking of the insufficient knowledge of the Oriental 
 languages acquired at the Hertford college, observes, 
 " It is not to be concluded from thence that the 
 " time allotted to attendance on that institution has 
 " been unprofitably spent; because most wisely, in 
 " my opinion, the preliminary education of the Com- 
 " pany's young servants is not confined to studies 
 " merely Oriental ; but, together with the classical 
 " instruction of the West (without which no English 
 " gentleman is on a level with his fellows), I under- 
 " stand that a foundation of polite literature is laid,
 
 62 
 
 " and that the door is opened at least, and the pu- 
 " pil's mind attracted, to the elements of useful 
 " science; the seeds of which being sown, a taste 
 " for intellectual exercise and enjoyment is implanted, 
 " which seldom fails to develop and mature these 
 " first germs of knowledge at the appointed season." 
 If, instead of being employed in this way, so 
 justly approved of by Lord Minto, the students at 
 the college in England were to devote their whole at- 
 tention to the acquisition of an imperfect knowledge 
 of two or three Oriental languages, and, as soon as 
 they arrived in India, were immediately employed up 
 the country in subordinate official situations, it is not 
 easy to conceive a species of education less cal- 
 culated to improve and enlarge the understanding, and 
 to produce men able and willing to infuse the prin- 
 ciples of British justice into a government over sixty 
 millions of Asiatics. 
 
 There is nothing, then, which the enlightened friends 
 of good government in India should less wish to see, 
 than the attempt so much deprecated by Lord Minto, 
 in his last speech, of substituting an English educa- 
 tion in the Oriental languages for the genuine and 
 practical instruction which is obtained in India ; and 
 the English college itself will be perfectly ready to 
 acquiesce in the final opinion given of it by Lord 
 Minto, that the elementary knowledge acquired there 
 operates sensibly in accelerating the progress of
 
 63 
 
 Oriental studies, and abridging the period necessary 
 for a full qualification at the college of Fort William; 
 but that the institution of Hertford college cannot 
 be expected ever to supersede the necessity of ma- 
 turing and perfecting Oriental knowledge at the col- 
 lege of Fort William. 
 
 o 
 
 The true friends of the college in England will be 
 perfectly satisfied that it fully answers its purpose, 
 and supplies that part of the appropriate education of 
 the civil servants of the Company which ought to be 
 completed at home, if it effects an essential im- 
 provement in the conduct and character of the young 
 men sent out to India ; if it considerably shortens 
 the period of their residence in the college at Calcutta, 
 devoted to the acquisition of the Oriental languages; 
 and if it lays such a foundation of general knowledge 
 as will greatly facilitate the subsequent pursuit of it, 
 and qualifies a much greater proportion of the civil 
 servants of the Company to discharge with adequate 
 ability the increased and increasing number of high 
 and important trusts which must necessarily be con- 
 fided to them. 
 
 That the college has actually accomplished, in a 
 very considerable degree, the two first of these ob- 
 jects, is clearly proved, it is conceived, by the direct 
 testimonies contained in the foregoing pages. The 
 last object can hardly be the subject of direct testi- 
 mony; but it may fairly be presumed that this purpose
 
 64 
 
 is accomplished, if an enlarged and improved under- 
 standing be considered as useful in conducting the 
 administration of a great empire, and if it is known 
 that the studies in the East-India college are of a 
 nature calculated to attain this qualification, and that 
 a progress has been made in these studies fairly 
 proportioned to the time employed upon them.
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 Are the disturbances which have taken place in the 
 East-India college to be attributed to any radical 
 and necessary evils inherent in its constitution and 
 discipline, or to incidental and temporary causes, 
 which are likely to be removed? 
 
 SOME of the difficulties which have been expe- 
 rienced in the government of the college are, perhaps, 
 to a certain extent, inherent in its constitution. 
 
 In the first place, an attempt to give a collegiate 
 education, and to place under collegiate discipline 
 persons of an age from two to three years younger 
 than the average age of admission at our universities, 
 may not be in its nature easy. It is generally allowed 
 that the age from fifteen or sixteen to eighteen is the 
 most difficult to govern. It is precisely that period 
 when the character makes the most rapid change in 
 the shortest time. Two or three years at this critical 
 era convert a boy into a man ; and any system of dis- 
 
 F
 
 66 
 
 cipline intended to apply to the time when this change 
 is taking place, which happens to be the very time 
 of the residence at the East-India college, is likely to 
 be exposed to various and very opposite objections, 
 according as the earlier or the later age is chiefly 
 considered. 
 
 At great schools, where boys sometimes stay till 
 they are eighteen, the seniors in age, who are gene- 
 rally at the same time in the highest classes, form a 
 kind of natural aristocracy, which not only may safely 
 and justly be allowed greater liberties and privileges 
 than others, but may be made, and, in fact, are 
 made, of the greatest use as an intermediate authority 
 to assist in the government of the rest. 
 
 In the East-India college, on the contrary, on ac- 
 count of the period of residence being only two years, 
 and some being admitted at eighteen or nineteen as 
 well as at fifteen and sixteen, there is no such natural 
 aristocracy of age, standing, and acquirements ; and 
 it is hardly possible either justly to separate the 
 seniors from the juniors, and allow them distinct pri- 
 vileges, or to make effective use of them, as at great 
 schools, in the administration of the discipline. 
 
 The second permanent difficulty which the college 
 has to contend with is the chance that some of the 
 young men, whose parents have obtained appoint- 
 ments for them, may be indisposed to the service, 
 and not really wish to go out to India. Such a
 
 67 
 
 temper of mind will, of course, naturally indispose 
 them to submit to the discipline of the college, or to 
 profit by the education which it offers to them, and 
 will, at the same time, make them most pernicious 
 and dangerous examples to others. 
 
 The Directors have endeavoured to get rid of this 
 evil by exhorting all those who feel indisposed to the 
 service quietly to withdraw from the college. But it 
 is to be feared that this exhortation, though obviously 
 just and proper, will not often have the desired effect. 
 Instances have not been uncommon of a persevering 
 opposition to the regulations of the college, which 
 could only be rationally accounted for by supposing a 
 positive disinclination to the service ; and yet, if the 
 student has, in consequence of his irregularities, been 
 sent home for a time to his friends, their influence 
 has generally produced letters containing expressions 
 of the greatest contrition for past offences, the most 
 solemn assurances with respect to future conduct, and 
 the most anxious desire to proceed to India profes- 
 sions with which the conduct of the student after his 
 return to college has seemed in no respect to cor- 
 respond. It is to be feared that there are young 
 men who would prefer expulsion, on occasion of some 
 general disturbance, \vhen many are involved, to an 
 open and manly rejection of an appointment which 
 is considered by their parents as so valuable; and 
 these feelings, where they exist, are obviously of a
 
 68 
 
 nature to produce a most unfavourable effect upon the 
 discipline. 
 
 The third inherent difficulty, which the college has 
 to contend with, is one which at first sight might be 
 thought an advantage, namely, the great interest that 
 each student has at stake, and the consequent severity 
 of the punishment of expulsion. This great severity 
 most naturally produces, both in the governing body 
 in the college, and in the Court of Directors, an ex- 
 treme unwillingness to resort to it. But the more this 
 unwillingness is perceived, the more advantage will be 
 taken of it, and the more instances will occur of acts 
 of insubordination. It is quite certain that neither 
 of our Universities, nor any of our great schools, could 
 support their discipline for a single year, if they were 
 to shew any hesitation in appealing to the punishment 
 of expulsion if this punishment, in short, were not 
 always ready as an alternative on a refusal to do im- 
 positions in the one case, or to submit to corporal 
 correction in the other. But besides regular expul- 
 sions, which are resorted to occasionally in all places 
 of education, to support the discipline, it is still 
 more common to desire the parents of boys, whose 
 habits are bad, and who are doing mischief to 
 others, quietly to remove them. In the Universities, 
 and at great schools, such hints are always taken as 
 commands, and it is no doubt a most effectual mode 
 of breaking combinations, and preventing the spread
 
 69 
 
 of mischief, without exciting public sensation. But 
 in the East-India college no parent can be per- 
 suaded to take a step which involves the loss of an 
 appointment. As valuable property is concerned, it 
 is considered that nothing but some great and overt 
 act of immorality or rebellion can justify such a 
 punishment ; and unless some such act can be brought 
 forward, which, of course, in many cases, must be 
 extremely difficult, neither a quiet removal nor re- 
 gular expulsion takes place ; and the unavoidable se- 
 verities of the penal code thus paralyze the arm of 
 authority. On this ground it may justly be doubted 
 whether the regulation not long since passed by the 
 Court, to exclude from the military, or any other 
 branch of the Company's service, those young men 
 who had been expelled from the college, can be con- 
 sidered as a wise one. The punishment of expulsion 
 at the college was too great before, and this regula- 
 tion has made it still greater ; and if the natural un- 
 willingness of all parties to resort to this punishment 
 should increase from this or any other cause, rather 
 than diminish from a sense of duty to India and to 
 the public ; the great power of the Directors over the 
 young men at their college, which, if properly ma- 
 naged, might secure the most beneficial results, will 
 be converted into a source of perpetual weakness and 
 inefficiency. 
 These are, no doubt, difficulties, to a certain extent
 
 70 
 
 inherent in the institution ; and, in order to overcome 
 them, it is obvious that the discipline should have 
 every help that can be given to it ; that the powers 
 granted to those who are to administer it should be fully 
 as large and as little subject to cavil and controul as 
 those which are found necessary in other places of 
 education ; that the system pursued should be marked 
 by steadiness, uniformity, decision, promptness, and 
 impartiality ; and, particularly in reference to the two 
 last difficulties, that there should be no doubt or delay 
 in visiting with expulsion either such single acts as 
 would be so punished at great schools and the Uni- 
 versities, or such a persevering violation of the rules 
 of the college as either indicates an indisposition to the 
 service, or a presumption that patronage or mistaken 
 lenity \vould, under any circumstances, prevent the 
 entire loss of an appointment. 
 
 If it be asked, whether such have been the powers 
 possessed, and such the system pursued, the answer 
 must certainly be in the negative; and when it is 
 known that very great adventitious difficulties in the 
 government of the college have been added to the 
 natural difficulties already noticed, it may not be a 
 subject of surprise that those parts of the discipline 
 most likely to be affected by such causes should have 
 failed. 
 
 In the original constitution of the college, it was 
 
 not thought expedient by its Founders to intrust the
 
 71 
 
 power of expulsion to the collegiate authorities. As 
 expulsion involved the loss of a very valuable appoint- 
 ment, the Directors wished to reserve it in their own 
 hands ; and, in all cases of great importance, the 
 Principal and Professors were directed to report to 
 the Committee of College, and to wait their decision. 
 It was in consequence believed by many students, 
 that, unless the offence was peculiarly flagrant, they 
 would run little risk of losing their appointments, and 
 that their powerful friends in the India-house would 
 make common cause with them in defeating the 
 decisions of the College Council. This opinion 
 seems to have commenced early, and to have 
 diffused itself pretty generally; and there is little 
 doubt that it contributed to facilitate the rise of that 
 spirit of insubordination which began to manifest itself 
 in the third year after the college was established. It 
 must be obvious that no steady system of discipline 
 could be maintained while the Principal and Pro- 
 fessors were, on every important occasion, to appeal 
 with uncertain effect to another body, where the 
 student hoped that his personal interest would prevent 
 any serious inconvenience. Yet this continued to be 
 the constitution of the college for a period of six 
 years, during which there were three considerable 
 disturbances. On these occasions, of course, the 
 Directors were called in ; and although the more en- 
 lightened and disinterested portion of them, who saw
 
 72 
 
 the necessity of an improved education for their ser- 
 vants in India, were, unquestionably, disposed to do 
 every thing that was proper to support the discipline ; 
 yet, the proceedings respecting the college were marked 
 by an extraordinary want of energy, promptness, and 
 decision, and indicated in the most striking manner 
 the disturbing effects of private and contending in- 
 terests. On occasion of the last of these disturbances 
 in particular (that of 1812), the management of which 
 the Court took entirely into their own hands, they 
 detained a large body of students in town for above 
 a month; and after entering into the most minute 
 details, and subjecting all the parties to repeated ex- 
 aminations at the India-house, came to no final deci- 
 sion. The case was then referred back again to the 
 College Council, who were desired to select for ex- 
 pulsion a certain number of those concerned, who 
 should appear to them to have been the most deeply 
 engaged as ringleaders, and the least entitled to a 
 mitigation of sentence on the score of character. 
 When this was done, and a sentence of expulsion 
 passed in consequence on five students, a subsequent 
 Vote of the Court restored them all to the service, 
 and they were sent out to India without even com- 
 pleting the usual period of residence at the col- 
 lege!!! 
 
 If we consider the real difficulties belonging to such 
 an institution, in conjunction with the uncertain and in-
 
 efficient system of government above described, and 
 recollect, at the same time, that, from the very com- 
 mencement of the college, there has been a large 
 party connected with India entirely hostile to it, the 
 gradual rise and prevalence of a spirit of insubordina- 
 tion in the college will appear Jo be vastly more na- 
 tural and probable than a contrary spirit. 
 
 But when a spirit of insubordination and resistance 
 to discipline has once deeply infected any collected 
 body of persons, it is well known how strong a tend- 
 ency it has to keep itself up ; how easy, and almost 
 certainly, the contagion spreads to fresh comers ; and 
 how extremely difficult it is effectually to eradicate it. 
 
 It is but a short time since the Principal and Pro- 
 fessors of the East-India college have been legally 
 invested with those powers in the management of the 
 discipline which are found necessary at great schools and 
 the Universities, and which ought therefore unquestion- 
 ably to have been given to them at the commence- 
 ment of the institution. They are called upon to 
 correct and rectify a system of government which it is 
 at length acknowledged has been essentially defective 
 for many years ; and, strange to say ! an inference 
 seems to be drawn against the whole establishment 
 because it is not already completed ! Yet what is the 
 task they have to accomplish, and under what cir- 
 cumstances have they undertaken it ? They have not 
 only to overcome by a steady and uniform system of
 
 74 
 
 discipline the natural difficulties inherent in the insti- 
 tution, but, by an union of conciliation, firmness, and 
 the strictest impartiality, to mitigate and gradually ex- 
 tirpate the spirit of insubordination, which, by long 
 unskilful treatment, has infected the institution ; and 
 this is to be done, not only without the cordial co- 
 operation of all the natural patrons and protectors of 
 the college, but with a spirit of direct hostility in a 
 considerable body of the Directors and Proprietors, 
 and a disposition in the public to take part with those 
 from whom they hear most of the college, with little 
 or no inquiry into the real merits of the case. The 
 practical effect of this hostility is nearly the same as if 
 the authorities in the college did not yet possess full 
 powers in the management of the discipline ; and as no 
 sentence of importance has yet been passed without 
 occasioning a minute inquiry and investigation, which 
 puts the college, as it were, regularly upon its de- 
 fence, and very few, without giving rise to a most de- 
 termined and persevering opposition, it is quite im- 
 possible that the students should be fully impressed 
 with the idea that the power of punishing really rests 
 in that quarter, where all parties would agree that it 
 must be the most effectual in repressing acts of in- 
 subordination. 
 
 A further evil consequence of this hostility is, that 
 language is publicly used and reports generally cir- 
 culated, calculated to fill the minds of the students with
 
 76 
 
 the most unfavourable prejudices. In general, when a 
 parent sends his son to a school or to the University, he 
 endeavours to impress him with a respect for the place 
 to which he is going, and the authorities to which he 
 will be subject. It is to be feared that some young men 
 come to the East-India college with very different 
 impressions ; with the impression of having heard 
 the college abused, and its downfal prognosticated, 
 by those whom they must of course look up to as the 
 persons that ought to influence their feelings and direct 
 their conduct. It is scarcely possible that the students 
 who come to the college thus prejudiced should ever 
 feel that attachment to the place of their education, 
 the effects of which are on every account so desirable; 
 and it is difficult to conceive that an uniform spirit of 
 order and obedience should prevail among those who 
 have frequently heard that another row would destroy 
 the college, and effect that object which they had 
 been taught to consider as desirable. It is not meant 
 to be asserted that any of the patrons or friends of the 
 students have directly incited them to rebellion ; but 
 that the opinions which they have held, and the in- 
 cautious language which they have used, must upon 
 young minds necessarily have produced the same 
 effects. 
 
 Whether it is possible for any set of men contending 
 against such disadvantages, to make the college what it 
 ought to be, is a point on which it is difficult to pro-
 
 76 
 
 nounce a decided' opinion. At all events, it will be 
 allowed that time is necessary as well as attention and 
 ability. 
 
 Independently of other difficulties, time alone can 
 overcome those that essentially and unavoidably belong 
 to every new institution. If the proper executive 
 powers had been given to the college at first, and it 
 had been at all times fully supported by its founders 
 and patrons, it would certainly have been rash to have 
 pronounced finally on its competence or incompetence 
 to fulfil its intended purpose, in a less time than 
 that which has now elapsed since its foundation 
 about ten years. But these powers, though now 
 formally granted, cannot yet appear to the students 
 to be undisputed, and can scarcely have begun to 
 have their natural operation. Surely, therefore, it 
 would be still more rash to pronounce finally on what 
 may be done, in a less time than another ten years ; 
 as it will be allowed that a considerable portion of 
 that period must unavoidably be spent in correcting 
 the effects of past errors. 
 
 The main and almost single object to be accom- 
 plished, is to eradicate the tendency to occasional acts 
 of insubordination. 
 
 Notwithstanding the late virulent attacks, it may 
 be confidently asserted that this tendency, and the 
 unpleasant consequences which necessarily result from 
 it, form the only just ground for stating that *the col-
 
 77 
 
 lege has not fairly answered the purpose for which it 
 was instituted. 
 
 When the general good order of the college is 
 considered, notwithstanding the natural difficulties ad- 
 verted to in the beginning of this section, it is scarcely 
 possible to conceive that this evil should not be suscep- 
 tible of cure. But, to produce this effect, it is necessary 
 that a full and perfect conviction of the stability of 
 the institution, and the steadiness with which the 
 collegiate authorities are able to maintain their de- 
 cisions, should by repeated experience be fully im- 
 pressed on the students. 
 
 That this has not yet been done, the persevering 
 efforts that have been made to shake some late de- 
 cisions, and the idea that has prevailed that an appli- 
 cation would be made to Parliament to withdraw its 
 legislative sanction from the establishment, afford suf- 
 ficient proofs. And till this has been done, it may 
 confidently be asserted, that nothing approaching to 
 a fair experiment, has been made of the practicability 
 of removing the only essential evil of which the col- 
 lege justly stands chargeable. 
 
 The supply of competent and well-disposed servants 
 to fill the high official situations of India is the object 
 to be accomplished; and that plan which, consist- 
 ently with the present legal and constitutional rela- 
 tions of the Company with the Government, most
 
 78 
 
 effectually attains this object, is the plan which ought 
 to receive the sanction and support of the Legislature. 
 If the Legislature thinks that the institution of the 
 college was an error, and that the acknowledged and 
 glaring deficiency in the education of the Company's 
 civil servants upon the old system, may be supplied in 
 some other way more effective, and less subject to diffi- 
 culties, let it at once be abolished. But if no plan 
 presents itself which holds out a fair prospect of doing 
 what is specifically wanted better than the one actually 
 established, let the existing institution be supported in 
 such a manner as to put an end to all that doubt and 
 uncertainty which is so fruitful a source of offences. 
 If the statutes and regulations of the college are faulty, 
 there are legal means of altering them ; if the Principal 
 or Professors are from any cause whatever incompetent 
 to their situations, all or any of them may be removed : 
 but if the establishment itself be a proper one, and 
 destined to answer a very important purpose, it should 
 be so fully and cordially supported as not to be liable 
 to be shaken by the caprices of a few young men. 
 Such caprices it is impossible to answer for in an 
 establishment not as yet sufficiently sanctioned by 
 time, and to which the parents and friends of many of 
 the students are known to be hostile. But by steadiness 
 within, and strong support without, they may undoubt- 
 edly be rendered at first ineffectual, and by degrees
 
 79 
 
 be prevented from shewing themselves in acts of in- 
 subordination. 
 
 It has been sometimes stated as extremely hard that 
 a young man and his parents should suffer so severe a 
 loss as that of an appointment to India on account of 
 a few irregularities in early youth ; but this argument, 
 if it were allowed, would be conclusive against all laws. 
 It is surely still harder that a man should sometimes 
 suffer capitally for irregularly supplying some of the 
 most pressing wants of nature. 
 
 But even, with reference solely to places of education, 
 the East-India college is by no means the only one 
 where valuable property may be lost by misconduct in 
 early youth. At Winchester, for instance, the boys 
 on the foundation succeed in a regular course to fellow- 
 ships at New College, Oxford, which may be con- 
 sidered almost in the light of a provision for life, and 
 are valued by parents accordingly ; yet on one occa- 
 sion, not many years since, a greater number was ex- 
 pelled, and lost this valuable provision, than has been 
 expelled during the course of the ten years that the 
 East-India college has been established, although in 
 the one case the institution was old, and in the other 
 new. Many other instances might be mentioned of 
 considerable loss of property incurred by misconduct 
 in an early age at our great public seminaries. 
 
 It will however very rarely happen that a young 
 man, whose habits and attainments would qualify him
 
 80 
 
 to become an useful servant of the Company, should 
 be so unfortunate as to subject himself to the punish- 
 ment of expulsion. Such a case, however, may pos- 
 sibly happen, and, when it does, it must be considered 
 as a painful, but necessary, 'sacrifice to those general 
 rules, the gross violation of which cannot be passed 
 over without a sacrifice of much greater and more 
 general interests than those of an individual and his 
 connexions. 
 
 With regard to young men of a very different de- 
 scription, it cannot surely be a matter of regret, in 
 any public view at least, that those who have shewn 
 headstrong, refractory, and capricious tempers, united 
 with habits of idleness and dissipation, should not be 
 allowed. to go out to India, and be furnished with an 
 opportunity of tyrannising over its suffering inhabitants, 
 and of bringing the English name into hatred and 
 disgrace. All the offices in India may not require 
 talents ; but all must require a certain degree of in- 
 dustry, good conduct, and inclination to the service. 
 And, beyond all question, one of the most important 
 uses that the college can answer, one of the means 
 by which it may confer the most extensive benefits 
 upon India, is, by separating from the service those 
 whose habits appear to be of a nature only to en- 
 cumber, impede, and injure it. 
 
 The collegiate authorities now legally possess the 
 power both of expelling, and of refusing certificates; but,
 
 81 
 
 unfortunately, from the disposition shewn by the 
 founders and patrons of the college, and that part of 
 the public connected with India, in every case where 
 the loss of an appointment is in question, a full sup- 
 port in the exercise of this power cannot be de- 
 pended upon ; although there can be no doubt 
 that every act of collegiate punishment that is unop- 
 posed and unquestioned tends to render such acts in 
 future less necessary ; and every act that is so opposed 
 and questioned tends to increase the probability of 
 the recurrence of that conduct which had called it 
 forth. 
 
 If this difficulty could be removed, the best hopes 
 might be entertained of the result. And if the col- 
 lege were so supported, as to enable it gradually to 
 subdue the spirit of insubordination, by removing re- 
 fractory and vicious characters without clamour or 
 cavil, and to exercise its discretionary powers in re- 
 fusing certificates, according to the letter*and spirit of 
 its statutes, and with a view to the real interests of 
 the service and the good of India, there is the strongest 
 reason to presume, from the testimonies of what the 
 college has already done, and the further good effects ^ 
 which might be confidently expected from the results 
 just adverted to, that it would answer, in no common 
 degree, the important purpose for which it was in- 
 tended. 
 
 o
 
 SECTION VII. 
 
 Are the more general charges which have lately been 
 brought against the college in the Court of Pro- 
 prietors founded in truth ? or are they capable of 
 distinct refutation by an appeal to facts ? 
 
 IT has been stated already in Section VI. that the 
 only plausible grounds for saying that the college has 
 not fully answered its purpose are the occasional 
 disturbances which have taken place in it ; and these 
 disturbances have been traced to the difficulties which 
 have' been constantly thrown in the way of a firm and 
 uniform exercise of collegiate authority. But in the 
 Court of Proprietors, on the 1 8th of December, the 
 most unmeasured accusations of every kind were 
 heaped on the college. Mr. Hume is said to have 
 affirmed, that, instead of its being a place where young
 
 83 
 
 men are formed in their morals, prepared in their cha- 
 racter, and qualified in their education, it was the dis- 
 grace of England, and of every person connected 
 with it ; that it was incessantly the scene of riot, dis- 
 order, and irregularity ; and that the inhabitants, who 
 lived in the neighbourhood, were in a state of perpetual 
 dread and alarm from the wanton excesses committed 
 by the students. 
 
 These are indeed most serious charges ; and if they 
 were true, or even approaching to the truth, such a 
 state of things must have produced a very marked de- 
 terioration of character in the young men who have 
 gone out to India from the college. But, instead of 
 this deterioration, what are the accounts from Calcutta? 
 They are, that Lord Minto, Governor-General, the 
 College Council of Fort William, Captain Roebuck, 
 the Secretary of the College and Examiner, and 
 Mr. Edmonstone, the first in Council, have all left 
 written testimonies that a very great and general im- 
 provement had been conspicuous in the conduct of 
 the students who had passed through the college at 
 Hertford, and that they stood honourably distinguished, 
 in the language of Lord Minto, " for regular attend- 
 " ance, for obedience to the statutes and discipline 
 tl of the college, for orderly and decorous demeanour, 
 " for moderation in expense, and consequently in the 
 " amount of their debts, and, in a word, for those 
 " decencies of conduct which denote men well born, 
 
 G 2
 
 84 
 
 " and characters well trained." Now, it is well 
 known, that some little jealousy and fear of the col- 
 lege in England have occasionally prevailed among 
 the friends of the college in Calcutta, owing to the 
 idea, that the use of the latter might be superseded 
 by the establishment of the former. Such testi- 
 monies are therefore the more honourable to those who 
 gave them, and the more to be trusted by those who 
 really wish to know the practical effects of the college 
 in England on the conduct of the Company's junior 
 servants in India. And under these circumstance? 
 they must be considered as facts which furnish a di- 
 rect contradiction to the affirmation of Mr. Hume. 
 They shew that, in the judgment of the most compe- 
 tent and disinterested authorities, the students at the 
 East-India college are formed in their morals, pre- 
 pared in their character, and qualified in their edu- 
 cation^ for the important stations they are likely to 
 fill, and that the Hertford college, instead of being 
 the disgrace of England, has been rendering, and is 
 rendering, most essential service to India. 
 
 I certainly would have no connexion with an insti- 
 tution which could justly be considered as the disgrace 
 of England; but I should think it a pusillanimous 
 desertion of a good cause if I were to allow myself 
 to be driven away by a clamour which I know 7 to be 
 founded either in interest and prejudice, or in an utter 
 ignorance of what the college really is.
 
 86 
 
 The testimonies above alluded to*, and more 
 fully detailed in Section V., are really of the kind 
 to determine whether the college answers its pur- 
 pose or not ; but, instead of referring to any such 
 facts, or endeavouring to get information from 
 competent and disinterested judges, who have spent 
 some time in the college, and have been asto- 
 nished at the scene of order and regularity which 
 they witnessed, after the absurd rumours they had 
 heard on the subject, Mr. Hume seems to have 
 sought for the character of the college from fathers 
 irritated at the merited punishment of their sons, 
 and from some Hertfordshire country gentlemen, 
 tremblingly alive about their game, two of the 
 most suspicious quarters from which information could 
 possibly be obtained. 
 
 Every man acquainted with our Universities and 
 public schools must know, that young persons may 
 come to them from a domestic education, apparently 
 innocent, and yet in less than two years richly de- 
 serve to be expelled. Instances of the kind have 
 fallen within my own observation at Cambridge, and 
 yet I mean to send my only son there, if I can afford 
 
 * These testimonies are further confirmed by the letters of all 
 the most distinguished students in India who have passed through 
 the college in England, and by all the civil servants I have met 
 with who have returned from India within the last five or six 
 years, without a single exception.
 
 86 
 
 it, as the best place of education that I know. But, 
 in the instance about which Mr. Hume seems to 
 have made so silly a parade, I believe there 
 was never any question of innocence. Let Mr. 
 Hume candidly and manfully produce the name of 
 the person who is now become an outcast of society 
 from the contagion of the East- India college. Let 
 his previous character be traced ; and let it be seen, 
 by an appeal to facts, whether he was not much 
 more likely to corrupt others than to be corrupted 
 himself. His example indeed could hardly have 
 failed to produce a most pernicious effect, if the good 
 sense and moral feelings of the great majority of the 
 students had not induced them, from the very first 
 term of his residence, to shun his society. 
 
 It is utterly astonishing to me that a man of sense, 
 a man of the world, and a friend to the good go- 
 vernment of India, as I before thought Mr. Hume 
 was, should lend himself to retail the ebullitions of 
 disappointed fathers, who, however justly they may 
 be pitied, are the very last persons that should be 
 heard as authorities, particularly as it is known that 
 there have been persons of this description, who, after 
 having vainly attempted by misrepresentations and 
 menaces to intimidate the college authorities, have 
 most imprudently and rashly, as well as wickedly, 
 vowed to pursue them with the most determined 
 hatred and hostility.
 
 87 
 
 With regard to the country gentlemen of Hertford- 
 shire, the other suspicious source from which Mr. 
 Hume appears to have derived his information, they 
 are of very high respectability, and I feel much in- 
 debted to them for the uniform personal kindness and 
 attention they have shewn me ; but I cannot conceal 
 from myself, nor can they conceal from me, that, 
 with one or two splendid exceptions *, they have been 
 from the very first inveterate enemies of the college. 
 They prophesied early that the building would be- 
 come a barrack, and their conduct has not been un- 
 favourable to the accomplishment of their prediction. 
 It would seem to be from this quarter, or some of 
 their friends, that the materials were furnished for the 
 querulous paragraph in the Times, about the Princi- 
 pal being made a justice of the peace without a 
 foot of land in the county "\. Now I would will- 
 ingly appeal to the most competent judges of the 
 persons who ought or ought not to be made justices 
 of the peace, with a view to the maintenance of the 
 
 * The most distinguished one is Lord John Townshend, the 
 nearest neighbour of the college, whose property almost sur- 
 rounds it. 
 
 f Dr. Batten, as a clergyman having a considerable benefice 
 in Lincolnshire, is as legally qualified to become a justice of the 
 peace as any magistrate on the bench, nor was his appointment 
 in any respect different from any other justice of the peace in the 
 county, as falsely asserted by the Times.
 
 88 
 
 police of the country, whether the head of so large 
 an establishment as that of the East-India college, 
 situated two miles distant from any town, should not 
 be one. The appointment was recommended by the 
 President of the Board of Controul, Lord Bucking- 
 hamshire ; and though it has never been used, and 
 probably never will, in the maintenance of discipline, 
 as it relates to students, it was unquestionably a 
 highly proper one. Such observations, therefore, on 
 this subject, as those in the Times, only throw ridicule 
 on the persons who make them. 
 
 Having mentioned the Times, I cannot help no- 
 ticing the novel and strange doctrines promulgated in 
 a scurrilous paragraph about the college, on the 27th 
 of December, in answer to Maro, who has no con- 
 nexion with the college. I could not have conceived 
 it possible that any English writer, with the slightest 
 pretension to character, would have dared to avow 
 that a lad of seventeen or eighteen, who offends against 
 the criminal laws of his country, is not amenable to 
 those laws, because he happens to be a gentleman's 
 son, and to be resident at some school or college. 
 The editor of the Times has made this sentiment his 
 own by the manner in which he has inserted it ; other- 
 wise I should have thought that it could only have 
 come from the father of some worthless sons, who, 
 being conscious that they were likely to commit of- 
 fences deserving of imprisonment, pillory, and public
 
 89 
 
 whipping, was very desirous, as he might well be, of 
 finding some plea for getting them off with a private 
 flogsing. With regard to the scandalous and libellous 
 
 OO D O 
 
 insinuation at the end of the paragraph in question, 
 let every inquiry be made on the subject, and the 
 more minute and accurate it is, the more agreeable it 
 will be to the college. 
 
 But to return to the country gentlemen of Hert- 
 fordshire ; I can most readily enter into their feelings, 
 in not liking an establishment of eighty young men, 
 from sixteen to twenty, in their immediate neighbour- 
 hood. Had I the choice of settling in a country 
 residence, I should certainly avoid the vicinity of 
 Oxford or Cambridge, Eton or Harrow. They may 
 be fairly allowed, therefore, to wish for the removal 
 of the college ; but on that very account they may 
 be legitimately challenged as witnesses against it, at 
 least till they come forward with their names, and 
 produce specific charges. Let some three or four of 
 them, and the same number of the respectable in- 
 habitants of Hertford, declare conscientiously, and on 
 their honour, " that the inhabitants in the neighbour- 
 " hood of the college live in a state of perpetual 
 " dread and alarm, from the wanton excesses com- 
 " mitted by the students," and I will then believe 
 what I have not the slighest ground for believing at 
 present ; but, till some such proof as this is offered, 
 I maintain that an appeal to facts would shew that
 
 90 
 
 the asseveration of Mr. Hume is absolutely untrue, 
 and founded on some grossly false, and probably 
 anonymous, information. 
 
 Of the general conduct of the students, I can affirm, 
 from my own knowledge, that they are beyond all 
 comparison more free from the general vices that 
 relate to wine, women, gaming, extravagance, riding, 
 shooting, driving, than the under graduates at our 
 universities ; and, I really believe, more free than the 
 head classes of our great schools. If I were to send 
 my son to the East-India college, I should feel he was 
 in a safer situation in all these respects than either at 
 Eton or Cambridge. To those who will not judge on 
 these subjects by comparison, but, without any know- 
 ledge or experience of what can be done with young 
 people, have formed Utopian views of youthful inno- 
 cence and perfection, which they expect to see 
 realised, I have nothing to say. 
 
 Mr. Randle Jackson has been pleased to state, that 
 he does not mean to propose the abolition of the esta- 
 blishment, but merely its reformation, and conversion 
 into a school. He thinks that the education given at 
 the college is not of the right kind, and that it is not 
 necessary to make young men mount to the higher 
 rank in literature, in order to teach them " to weigh 
 " tea, count bales, and measure muslins." 
 
 If the main business of the great majority of the 
 civil servants of the Company really were to weigh
 
 91 
 
 tea, count bales, and measure muslins,, something 
 might, perhaps, be said for Mr. Jackson's opinion ; 
 but what is the statement of the ablest Governor- 
 General that India ever saw? It is, " that com- 
 " mercial and mercantile knowledge is not only un- 
 " necessary throughout every branch of the judicial 
 " department (which includes much more than half of 
 " the service), but those civil servants who are in- 
 " vested with the powers of magistracy, or attached 
 " to the judicial department in any ministerial ca- 
 " pacity, although bearing the denomination of mer- 
 " chants, factors, or writers, are bound by law, and by 
 " the solemn obligation of an oath, to abstain from 
 " every commercial and mercantile pursuit." * * * *. 
 " No more arduous or complicated duties ofmagi- 
 tl stracy exist in the world, no qualifications more 
 " various and comprehensive can be imagined, than 
 " those which are required from every British subject 
 " who enters the seat of judgment within the limits 
 lf of the Company's empire in India" These are the 
 offices for which Mr. Randle Jackson, in a fine vein 
 of irony and eloquence, laughs at the absurdity of 
 sending out well-educated men, under the happy image 
 of a little army of Grotiuses and Puffendorfs. 
 
 But the judicial, though the largest, is far from 
 being the sole department quite unconnected with 
 trade. The financial and political departments employ 
 a considerable body of the civil servants,- and the
 
 92 
 
 fact really is, that, out of four hundred and forty-two 
 persons in the civil service in India, only seventy-two, 
 including the collectors of the customs, have any 
 connexion with trade ; and even these, Lord Wel- 
 lesley says, should have many of the qualifications of 
 statesmen *. Such being the facts, according to the 
 testimonies of the Marquis Wellesley, and the India 
 Register, which, I presume, are better authorities 
 than that of Mr. Jackson, is it not perfectly obvious 
 that the education of the civil servants should be fitted 
 for the high and important stations held by the great 
 body of them, and that those who are comparatively 
 unsuccessful in the career of improvement should 
 supply the departments where less abilities are re- 
 quired ? To talk then, in the present state of India, 
 of an education fitted for weighing tea, counting bales, 
 and measuring muslins, betrays a degree of ignorance 
 and folly, of which I did not think Mr. Randle Jack- 
 son capable. 
 
 But Mr. Jackson is not satisfied with saying 
 that the education at the East-India college 
 does not accord with his own narrow views on the 
 subject. He joins lustily in the clamour about vio- 
 lence and licentiousness, and then, with a view to 
 give greater force to his next argument, he observes, 
 that it would be a great palliative of this general mis- 
 
 * See Sect, I. p. 10.
 
 93 
 
 conduct if the friends of the college could come for- 
 ward, and refer to their progress in literature, as a 
 counterpoise to their boyish levities ; but that unfor- 
 tunately this could not be done, as would appear by 
 an extract he would read from a Report furnished by 
 the college itself. Now, notwithstanding this extract 
 and others, the false inferences from which I will pre- 
 sently advert to, I, as a friend of the college, and 
 with much better opportunities of information on the 
 subject than Mr. Jackson, do come forward and assert 
 that its literature has been on the whole eminently 
 successful ; that the papers produced at every public 
 examination shew no common degree of industry and 
 talent in the various branches of learning to which they 
 are applied ; and that the progress made in the Oriental 
 languages is clearly and irrefragably preyed by the 
 rapidity with which the students from the East-India 
 college are able to qualify themselves for the final exa- 
 mination at the college of Fort William ; and, conse- 
 quently, that an appeal to facts directly contradicts 
 Mr. Jackson's assertion. Let the Oriental Visitor, 
 Dr. Wilkins, be asked his opinion on the subject ; and, 
 though I well know he diffei Aom me on some points 
 relating to the form of the institution. I know he is 
 too honourable a man not to avow in public what he has 
 distinctly said to me in private ; namely, that the very 
 short time in which a large portion of the students 
 passed through the college at Calcutta was a clear
 
 proof that they must have come from a good place of 
 education for the Oriental languages at home. 
 
 With regard to the extract first read by Mr. Jack- 
 son, it seems to have been taken from the Report of 
 the Oriental Visitor in December, 1815, in which it 
 appeared that a certain number of students (five, I be- 
 lieve, out of twenty-nine) had been unable to pass the 
 Oriental test. To draw from this circumstance an 
 inference that the Oriental languages had not been well 
 taught at the East-India college would be the same as 
 to infer that education at Cambridge was extremely ill 
 conducted, because some men almost every year are 
 refused their degrees; or that the classics were not 
 well taught at Eton or Westminster, because they 
 send forth every year into the world some incorrigible 
 blockheads. The proper inference, in general, ought 
 only to have been, that the students in question were 
 not proper persons to send out to India. But, in the 
 individual instance referred to, there really was some- 
 thing to be said for them. It was the very first time 
 that the Oriental test had been applied ; it was in some 
 respects an ex post facto law, not having been an- 
 nounced till the third term of the residence of those 
 students who were first subjected to it ; and they were, 
 further, not sufficiently aware of the nature and extent 
 of it. Whether this was a sufficient excuse for the 
 petition made to the Court, and the indulgence granted, 
 I will not venture to give an opinion, thinking it quite
 
 95 
 
 immaterial to the question. In the next examination of 
 May, 1816, only one failed, and was detained another 
 term; and, in the one just passed, none failed. This last 
 examination indeed has been particularly distinguished 
 by extraordinary eminence in some departments of 
 Oriental literature, combined with the most successful 
 exertions in European studies. 
 
 The next document adverted to by Mr. Jackson, from 
 which he seems absurdly to have drawn very large infer- 
 ences, is a confidential Report, of May, 1816, made by 
 the College Council to the Committee of College in the 
 India-house, candidly describing those fluctuations in 
 the amount and direction of the mass of talent and in- 
 dustry in the college, which must necessarily take place 
 in every institution in which the studies are various. It 
 is a homely, but a true, saying, that you may bring a 
 horse to the water, but cannot make him drink ; and, 
 though all the students at the East-India college are 
 required to attend the stated lectures appointed for 
 them, on pain of impositions, yet no rational person 
 can suppose that their attention can be directed, at all 
 times, in the same measure and quantity, to each. 
 Could any thing on earth be more natural than that, 
 when a test was appointed in the Oriental languages 
 exclusively, the students should think that Oriental 
 literature was more highly appreciated by the Honour- 
 able Court of Directors than the other branches of 
 learning taught at the college, and that they ought,
 
 96 
 
 therefore, to direct towards it a greater portion of 
 their time? And yet the relation of this simple fact 
 has been twisted into an inference that the students 
 at the East-India college are allowed to do just as 
 they like with regard to the choice of their studies. 
 What a prodigious ardour for misrepresentation does 
 this shew ! I will just add, in reference to the last 
 paragraph of the extract on which so much stress has 
 been laid, that if such a report was unhappily re- 
 quired from the great schools of the country, and 
 was given with the same frankness, it would appear 
 that no very inconsiderable proportion of the boys 
 might fairly be said, in spite of the rod, to have aban- 
 doned the only studies of the place. 
 
 The extraordinary part of this business is, not the 
 Report itself, but the place w r here it is now to be found, 
 the public newspapers ! ! ! It may shortly be ex- 
 pected that the monthly Reports of conduct, which 
 have lately been required, will be published in the 
 same way, and that the gentlemen of the college will 
 be subjected to prosecutions for libellous aspersions 
 on the characters of some of the students, by calling 
 them irregular. In point of fact, the formal threat 
 of a prosecution for a libel, through the channel of a 
 lawyer's letter, was really sent to the Registrar of the 
 College not long since, in conseqence of a detailed Re- 
 port being required of the character of a young man,
 
 97 
 
 whose certificate it was impossible for the College 
 Council, consistently with'ftieii duty, to grant. 
 
 But to return to Mr. Randle Jackson. The great 
 weight and force of his eloquence seem to have been 
 directed to shew the use and advantage of flogging, 
 and the disadvantage of caps and gowns. He is re- 
 ported to have pronounced, with very great energy, 
 the following pithy maxim : " That those who did 
 " riot understand should be made to fed ;" and the 
 sentiment seems to have been received by repeated 
 and long-continued cheers. 
 
 Now flogging may be a very good thing in itself, 
 but I am totally at a loss to conceive what Mr. Randle 
 Jackson, and his friends in the Times, can mean by 
 considering it as a substitute for expulsion. Let any 
 master of a great school in the kingdom be asked 
 whether he could maintain discipline by mere flogging, 
 unsupported by the power of sending his boys away ; 
 and, unless his opinion is given in direct contradiction 
 to his practice, he will say, that it is perfectly impossi- 
 ble. Only the other day, four or five boys were expelled 
 from Harrow. Last year, five, I believe, or more, 
 were expelled from Eton. And experience shews that 
 even the black-hole and military discipline will not do *, 
 
 * No Englishman will, I trust, venture to propose a military 
 system for the education of the future administrators of justice 
 in India. This would be taking hints from the late Emperor of 
 France with a vengeance. But, after all, it appears, that it will 
 not supersede banishment and dismission. 
 
 H
 
 98 
 
 At this present moment Jive are banished from the 
 military seminary of the Honourable the East-India 
 Company, at Addiscombe, of the merits and efficacy 
 of which so much has been said. 
 
 One would really think that the people who talk 
 about the wonderful effects of corporeal correction 
 had not only never been at a great school themselves, 
 but had never seen a man who had been at one. A 
 more chimerical project scarcely ever entered into 
 the brain of a visionary than that of superseding the 
 use of expulsion among youths of sixteen by mere 
 school-flogging. * 
 
 With regard to caps and gowns, they are evidently 
 useful in discipline, by rendering concealment more 
 difficult; and pointing out the individuals, who may 
 be occasionally seen without them, as bound upon 
 some expedition contrary to the regulations of the 
 college. And if, in addition to this obvious use, they 
 have, in the present case, contributed to inspire some 
 manly feelings rather earlier than usual, they have, in 
 
 * Not long after Dr. Keat became head master of Eton, he is 
 said to have flogged eighty boys in one day, most of them above 
 
 O * , * 
 
 sixteen. But what gave him the power of exercising this act of 
 discipline? Solely and exclusively the power of saying, " If you 
 " do not submit, you no longer belong to Eton school." Nor 
 would the threat have been sufficient, if it had not been known 
 that he could have put it in execution without the slightt-st oppo- 
 sition, and would unquestionably have done it if the boys had 
 not complied.
 
 99 
 
 my view of the subject, been of service. The ob- 
 jections, which have been made by Mr. Jackson and 
 others to this innocent badge, are perfectly ridiculous. 
 As to the Universities, they must be much above feeling 
 the slightest jealousy on the subject ; and every ra- 
 tional man belonging to them must heartily laugh at 
 the laudable zeal of the London citizens, to inspire 
 them with a becoming dread of such a horrible 
 usurpation. 
 
 If the Honourable Court of Directors, sanctioned 
 by the Legislature, should determine to abolish the 
 establishment in Hertfordshire as a college, I do 
 
 O 7 
 
 most earnestly and most conscientiously recom- 
 mend to them not to have any appropriate institution 
 for the education of their civil servants. They 
 may entirely rely upon it that the main difficulty 
 attending the present establishment, instead of being 
 removed, will, in some respects, be aggravated by its 
 conversion into a school, and they will entirely fail in 
 accomplishing what ought to be the great objects of 
 an education for the Indian civil service. If I were 
 to describe a narrow education, one the least cal- 
 culated to infuse a " spirit of British justice into the 
 " government of sixty millions of Asiatics," it would 
 be the taking boys at thirteen from the common schools 
 of the country, placing them in a seminary where the 
 Oriental languages were considered as the only pass- 
 port to India till sixteen, and then sending them into 
 
 H 2
 
 100 
 
 offices up the country to act as copying-clerks, with 
 only one or two, perhaps narrow-minded Europeans 
 to converse with, a system expressly and specifically 
 reprobated by Lord Wellesley. When a youth is 
 reading Demosthenes and Cicero, or even Homer and 
 Virgil, he is unquestionably gaining something besides 
 mere words, something that will tend to invigorate, 
 enlarge, and improve his mind ; but, when he is ap- 
 plying to the Oriental languages, he is really getting 
 little more than the possession of an instrument. Of 
 the great importance, and indeed absolute necessity, 
 of this instrument for the service in India, it is im- 
 possible for any man to be more convinced than myself. 
 I believe even that I was the first that proposed 
 the present test in the Oriental languages, as the 
 absolute condition of a final appointment to India. 
 It is unquestionably true that no important station 
 in the East can or ought to be held by persons not 
 acquainted with these languages. It is equally true 
 that no important situation under the French govern- 
 ment ought to be held by a person who does not un- 
 derstand French. But it really appears to me that 
 it is taking as narrow a view of the subject to consider 
 the Oriental languages as all, or nearly all, that is 
 necessary in the education for the civil service, as to 
 say that any man who understands French is qualified 
 to be a French judge or a French minister of state. 
 Far better than such a narrow education, still em-
 
 101 
 
 barrassed with all the difficulties about expulsion, 
 would be the taking boys from the common schools of 
 the country at about seventeen, and subjecting them to 
 a strict examination in classical literature, and in the 
 rudiments of the Oriental languages : the first to shew 
 that they had received the education of gentlemen, 
 and that their minds were improved and capable of 
 improvement ; and the second to ascertain that they 
 had made some progress in the languages absolutely 
 necessary to their future destination. These are spe- 
 cific qualifications which might be distinctly described, 
 and it might be left to the parents of those who were 
 likely to be appointed, to put their sons in a way to 
 acquire them wherever they might choose. 
 
 This system would, without doubt, be better calcu- 
 lated to give able servants to the Company, than the 
 narrow education just described. But still it would 
 be subject to great disadvantages ; and, independently 
 of the loss of the more general education which is 
 given in the present college, and seems to have had 
 the best effect in invigorating and improving the mind, 
 there would be nothing to break the sudden transition 
 from school discipline to the perfect liberty of a re- 
 sidence in India. 
 
 If I had no connexion with the college, or with 
 India, further than the interest which every Englishman 
 ought to feel in the good government of the Indian 
 territories, and yet could speak with the same know-
 
 102 
 
 ledge of the subject as I can now, after an attention 
 to it for ten years, I am confident that I should say 
 that the specific object which ought to be aimed at by 
 the Honourable Company, in the education for the 
 civil service, is precisely that which is so much re- 
 probated by Mr. Jackson, and others in various 
 quarters, namely, that of endeavouring to inculcate, 
 gradually, manly feelings, manly studies, and manly 
 self-controul, rather earlier than usual. Those who 
 go out to India must and will be men the moment 
 they reach the country, at whatever age that may be ; 
 and there they will be immediately exposed to temp- 
 tations of no common magnitude and danger. To 
 prepare them for this ordeal, Mr. Jackson and the silly 
 writers in the Times recommend their being whipped 
 till the last hour of their getting into their ships. I own 
 it appears to me that the object is more likely to be 
 attained by a gradual initiation into a greater degree 
 of liberty, and a greater habit of depending upon them- 
 selves, than is usual at schools, carried on for two or 
 three years previously, in some safer place than 
 Calcutta. 
 
 The attempt is not without its difficulties, and may 
 be subject to partial failure ; but I am quite convinced 
 that it is mainly to the success of this attempt, notwith- 
 standing the tremendous obstacles which have been 
 opposed to it, that the great and general improvement 
 in the conduct of the students at Calcutta must be at-
 
 103 
 
 tributed ; and if the college is destroyed, and boys 
 are sent out to India fresh from the rod, it will soon be 
 seen that this improved conduct will no longer be re- 
 markable. 
 
 The system of the college is, I really believe, not 
 far from what it ought to be*. That there are faults 
 in the administration of it will be readily allowed, 
 some perhaps within, (for what administration is fault- 
 less?) but many more and much greater without. Among 
 these are the multiplicity of its governors, consisting not 
 only of the Court of Directors, but of the Court of Pro- 
 prietors ; the variety of opinions among them, some 
 being for a college in England, some for a college in Cal- 
 cutta, some for a school, and some for nothing at all ; i 
 the constant discussion arising from this variety of 
 opinion, which keeps up a constant expectation of 
 change ; the interest of individuals to send out their 
 
 * Little other change is wanting than that an appointment 
 should be considered, in spirit and in truth, not in gnere words, 
 as a prize to be contended for, not a property already possessed, 
 which may be lost. If the Directors were to appoint one-fifth 
 every year, beyond the number finally to go out, and the four-fifths 
 were to be the best of the whole body, the appointments would then 
 really be to be contended for, and the effects would be admirable. 
 Each appointment to the college would then be of less value, but 
 they would be more in number, and the patronage would hardly 
 suffer. A Director could not then indeed be able to send out an 
 unqualified son. But, is it fitting that he should? This is a fair ques- 
 tion for the consideration of the Legislature and the British Public.
 
 104 
 
 sons as early, and with as-4ittle expense of educa- 
 tion, as possible, an interest too strong for public 
 spirit; the very minute and circumstantial details, 
 in all the proceedings of the college which are re- 
 quired, to be seen by all the ladies and gentlemen 
 who are proprietors of India stock ; the impossi- 
 bility of sending a student away without creating a 
 clamour from one end of London to the other, 
 greatly aggravated and lengthened by the power thus 
 furnished, of debating every step of the proceedings ; 
 the chances that the details above adverted to will 
 enable some ingenious lawyer to find a flaw in the 
 proceedings, with a view to their reversal ; the never- 
 ending applications made to the college, when a 
 student is sent away, for re-admission, assuming 
 every conceivable form of flattery and menace ; the 
 opinion necessarily formed, and kept up in this way 
 among the students, that sentences, though passed, 
 will not be final ; and, above all, the knowledge they 
 must have, from the avowed wish of many of the 
 proprietors of East-India stock to destroy the col- 
 lege, that a rebellion would be agreeable to them. 
 
 How is it possible to answer for the conduct of 
 young men, under such powerful excitements from 
 without ? For my own part, I am only astonished 
 that the college has been able to get on at all, under 
 these overwhelming obstacles ; and that it has got 
 on, and done great good too, (which I boldly assert it
 
 105 
 
 has,) is no common prooffif its internal vigour, and its 
 capacity to answer its object. 
 
 The present virulent attack upon the college has 
 been meditated some time; and it could hardly fail 
 to be known to the students that a disturbance this 
 autumn would have been hailed by many of the 
 Court of Proprietors as the happiest omen of success. 
 Under these circumstances, the orderly conduct of the 
 students for the last year does them the highest honour. 
 And it is not a little discreditable to the character 
 of the present attack, and the motives which have 
 dictated it, that it was brought forward, not at 
 a time when an unhappy act of violence might 
 have given some plausible ground for it, but after a 
 period of great quiet and order, and at the conclusion 
 of a term eminently distinguished for great industry, 
 and successful literary exertion. 
 
 THE END.
 
 Printed by W. CLOWES, 
 Northumberland-court, Strand, London.