^ 
 
 IXDIAN MUSALMANS: 
 
 UEIXG 
 
 THREE LETTERS 
 
 REPRINXEU FKOJM O'lIE "TIME S," 
 
 WITH AN" 
 
 Article on (he lafc ^\ma (L'onfioi;t 
 
 AXD 
 
 FOUR ARTICLES ON EDUCATION, 
 
 AVITII AN APPEXDIX 
 
 CONTAININO 
 
 LORD MACAULAY'S MINUTE 
 
 BY 
 
 W. NASSAU LEES, 
 
 KKI.LOW OF THE CALCUTTA LMVERSITY; DOCTOR OF LAWS OF PL'BLIN' 
 
 LXIVERSITV; DOCTOR OF I'lMLOSOrHV OF THE BERLIN INIVERSITV; LATK 
 
 PRINCIPAL OF THE MOIIAMMADAN COLLEGE OF CALCUTTA, ETC. 
 
 WILLIAMS AND NOR GATE, 
 
 14. HENRIETTA STKEET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON; 
 
 AND 
 
 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH. 
 
 1871.
 
 ^f^- I 3 f^ 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 There has long been a misconception regarding 
 my views on Education in India, and as that mis- 
 concej)tion seems to have extended to this country, 
 I publish in connection with the three letters on 
 Indian Musalmans, I have lately addressed to the 
 Times some extracts from a series of articles I Avrote 
 in 1866 m the Calcutta Englishman. Because I 
 deplore the neglect of the Oriental classical lan- 
 guages in the Government system of Education 
 in India, many come to the conclusion that I 
 wish to revive the early policy of the East India 
 Company of subsidizing exclusively the study of 
 these languages to the exclusion of English, and 
 some go so far as to assert that my object is to 
 revert to the policy of Warren Hastings, and keep 
 the Civil Administration of British India in the 
 hands of the Musalmans. I have so repeatedly 
 denied these assertions, that it seems useless for 
 mo to do so any more. I will, therefore, only add 
 that my conviction is so firm that any attempts 
 to denationalize the people of India by denying 
 the higher classes access to their own classics, and 
 teachmg them only English, will so utterly fail.
 
 IV 
 
 that sooner or later the attempt will be given up. 
 Then possibly a system of Public Instruction for the 
 people, having better claims to be called National 
 than the present, may be devised, in which Eng- 
 lish, Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and the Vernaculars 
 will all be found in their proper places, no undue 
 favour being shewn to the study of any. 
 
 Judging from Lord Mayo's recent excellent 
 Resolution on this subject, his Lordship seems to 
 have become alive to the fact that the existing 
 system is not quite what it ought to be — the first 
 step towards a reform ; and as His Excellency's 
 Resolution goes some way to establish my own 
 position, I reprint it in extenso : — 
 
 " Extract from the Proceedings of the Government of India 
 in the Home Department [Education] ." — Simla, 
 August, 1871. 
 
 Eesolution. 
 The condition of the Mohammadan population of India 
 as regards education, has of late been frequently pressed 
 upon the attention of the Government of India from 
 statistics recently submitted to the Governor- General in 
 Council. It is evident that in no part of the country 
 except, perhaps, the North-Western Provinces and the 
 Punjab, do the Mohammadans adequately or in proportion 
 to the rest of the community avail themselves of the educa- 
 tional advantages that the Government offers. It is much 
 to be regretted that so large and important a class, having 
 a classical literature replete with works of profound learn- 
 ing and great value, and counting among them a section 
 specially devoted to the acquisition and diffusion of know-
 
 ledge^ should stand aloof from active co-operation witli 
 our educational system, and should lose the advantages, 
 both material and social, which others enjoy. His Excel- 
 lency in Council believes that secondary and higher 
 education conveyed in the vernaculars and rendered more 
 accessible than now, coupled with a more systematic 
 encourtigement and recognition of Arabic and Persian 
 literature, would be not only acceptable to the Moham- 
 madan community but would enlist the sympathies of the 
 more earnest and enlightened of its members on the side 
 of education. 
 
 2. The Governor-General in Council is desirous that 
 further encouragement should be given to the classical 
 and vernacular languages of the Mohammadans in all 
 Government schools and colleges. This need not involve 
 any alterations in the subjects, but only in the media of 
 instruction. In avowedly English schools established in 
 Mohammadan districts, the appointment of qualified 
 Mohammadan English teachers might, with advantage, 
 be encouraged. As in vernacular schools, so in this class 
 also, assistance might justly be given to Mohammadans 
 by grants-in-aid to create schools of their own. Greater 
 encouragement should also be given to the creation of a 
 vernacular literature for the Mohammadans, a measure 
 the importance of which was specially urged upon the 
 Government of India by Her Majesty's Secretary of State 
 on more than one occasion. 
 
 3. His Excellency in Council desires to call the attention 
 of local Governments and Administrations to this subject, 
 and directs that this Resolution bo communicated to 
 them, and to the Universities in India, with a view of 
 eliciting their opinions whether, without infringing the 
 fundamental principles of our educational system, some 
 general measure in regard to Mohammadan education 
 
 A
 
 VI 
 
 miglit not be adopted, and whether moi-e encouragement 
 might not be given in the University course to Arabic 
 and Persian literature. The authorities of the Lahore 
 University College, who are believed to have paid much 
 attention to the subject, should also be invited to offer 
 their views on the important question above referred to. 
 This may be done through the Punjab Government. 
 
 The only objection I have to make to this Reso- 
 lution is that it proposes to legislate for the better 
 education of the Musalman population of India 
 only, whereas it is time, in my humble judgment, 
 to consider the question of the Education of the 
 Musalmans as a part of the greater question — the 
 Education of the people of India as that congeries 
 of Nationalities called Her Majesty's Indian 
 Empire. 
 
 Atheufeum, Nov. 10, 1S71.
 
 INDIAN MUSALMANS. 
 
 To the Editor of the Times. 
 
 Oct. 14, 1S71. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Absence in the Highlands has prevented 
 
 me from sooner noticino- the letters which have 
 appeared in your columns regarding the assassina- 
 tion of the late lamented Mr. Justice Norman. I 
 knew him well, and I can add my testimony to 
 that of the many who have given public expression 
 to the feelings of deep regret which they entertain 
 for his loss, to the kind and benevolent character 
 of his nature, and to the sincere interest he took 
 in the welfare of the natives of India, and espe- 
 cially that of the Mohammadan community of 
 Calcutta. I feel the most confident conviction, 
 then, that it is next to a moral impossibility the 
 foul deed which has just been perpetrated could 
 have had its origin in any feelings of animosity or 
 even personal dislike to one Avho was all that 
 " Amicus Moerens" and the " Head Master of 
 Wicksworth Grammar School" stated him to 
 have been, and that, consequently, Mr. Justice 
 Norman owes his death to the unflinching mtegrity 
 with which he discharged the public duties of his 
 office. 
 
 A 2
 
 I wish I could close my letter with this brief 
 testimonial to the worth of the excellent and hu- 
 mane Judge who has just fallen by the dagger of 
 the assassin ; but there is a political question of such 
 very grave importance raised in the correspondence 
 under notice, regarding which, looking to the rela- 
 tionship in which I have stood to the educated 
 Mohammadans of Bengal for the past twelve or four- 
 teen years, I feel it my duty to them, as well as to 
 the Government which I have the honour to serve, 
 to do my best to aid the public in coming to a right 
 conclusion. 
 
 I allude to the charges of disloyalty to the 
 Queen which this melancholy event has called 
 forth from correspondents m your columns against 
 Her Majesty's Indian Mohammadan subjects — 
 charges made general rather by implication than 
 by direct statements. These charges have been 
 indignantly repelled, I am glad to observe, by 
 " A Mahomedan" in his letter of the 27th ult., 
 published in your issue of the day following. 
 I not only firmly believe in the sincerity of 
 the professions of loj^alty and fidelity to which 
 this writer has given utterance, but I desire to 
 add my concurrence in his sentiments so far as 
 they affect the great body of his co-religionists in 
 India, who, I am quite certain, will repudiate with 
 indignation and horror the crime which has been 
 committed by one of their body. 
 
 At the same time, while I cordially endorse the
 
 opinion expressed by "A Maliomedan," that the 
 crimes and follies of a few misguided men or a 
 small section of the Indian JMohammadans " should 
 not bring into odium or cast discredit on the Mu- 
 salman population at large," I think that if he is 
 well informed as to the feelings and political opi- 
 nions of his co-reli2:ionists in India— and thoui>li 
 a Musalman, it is quite possible that he may not 
 be — it is inconsistent Avith that loyalty which he 
 professes, and Avhich, as I said, I have not the 
 slightest doubt that he sincerely feels, to deny that 
 the discontent, dissatisfaction, hostility, or whatever 
 you please to call it, which a certain proportion of 
 Her Majesty's Musalman subjects not only feel 
 but show to British rule in India is, as " A Civi- 
 lian" says, " a constant source of anxiety" and a 
 "difficulty" to the Government of India. Whe- 
 ther, moreover, this proportion be large or small, it 
 is idle to assert that it is " composed of the veriest 
 dregs of society, with no position whatever except 
 among their own set," as long as indisputable evi- 
 dence is forthcoming to show that it was instru- 
 mental in intensifying the hostile and bitter feelings 
 of fourteen years ago, and fomenting and fostering, 
 if it did not originate the Mutiny or Rebellion of 
 1857-58 ; that it had sufficient strength to aid 
 materially in keeping our North-western frontier 
 in a state of chronic warfare for years, involving 
 the despatch of eighteen or twenty military expedi- 
 tions, aggregating some 30,000 or 40,000 men across
 
 the Indus; that, m spite of the severest chastise- 
 ment, it had the daring six or seven years after 
 the wholesale massacres of 1857-58, to hatch a con- 
 spiracy in the very heart of Bengal proper, which 
 composed a hostile demonstration against us of 
 such magnitude that it cost the loss of nearly 1000 
 British soldiers and 50 officers; that it has had for 
 the last forty years, and still has mfluence within 
 India, to place under contribution or black mail a 
 very large proportion indeed of that loyal and highly 
 respectable section of the community to which " A 
 Mahomedan" probably belongs, for purposes 
 which are in no way conducive to the interests of 
 British rule in India, or British interests in the 
 East ; and that in all probability it is to the influ- 
 ence of this section of the community we owe the 
 assassination of the officiating Chief Justice Nor- 
 man, of Her Majesty's High Court of Justice. 
 
 If I may be allowed to mediate between the 
 two classes of your correspondents — the Christian 
 and the Moslim — I would say that the Indian Go- 
 vernment has not only very good and sound cause 
 for any anxiety it may feel on this important sub- 
 ject, but it w^ould, in my humble judgment, be far 
 better both for India and for the Mohammadan 
 community at large, if that anxiety had very long 
 ago shewn itself in a more practical form, and were 
 now very much greater than it is. 
 
 There are two issues, moreover, involved in this 
 momentous question — viz., dislo}'alt}^ to the Sove-
 
 reign; and dissatisfaction with British rule, which, 
 although they cannot be entirely dissociated, ought 
 not to l)c indiscriminately mixed up together. It has 
 often before been argued, and is often now discussed, 
 whether loyalty to a Christian Sovereign is compa- 
 tible with a strict observance of the Canonical Law. 
 On this point, however, I do not think much ^^Titing 
 is needed. ]\Iohammadan Law, similarly with the 
 laws of the Medes and Persians, is not changed by 
 Act of Parliament. It is the same to-day, in the 
 letter, as when Khdlid ibn al-Walid (the Sword of 
 God) conquered Syria, and ' Amr ibn al-Aas Egypt. 
 Acceptance of the Faith, the payment of Tribute, 
 or the Sword, are the terms it offers to unbelievers 
 — when Islam is in the ascendant. When it is not, 
 the Faithful are majhur or helpless, and incur no 
 moral responsibility by submitting to the yoke of 
 the conqueror ; nor, having done so, are they under 
 any obligation of conscience to rise in rebellion and 
 throw it off, nor, under certain conditions, to 
 migrate. The waning influence, moreover, of the 
 temporal power of Mohammadanism has caused 
 Mohammadan Doctors of Theology to interpret 
 the law in a light very favourable to the peace of 
 mind of Indian Moslims. I discussed this point 
 at leno-th at Cairo in 1858 with Al-Bainiri, the then 
 venerable Shaikh al-Islam of Egypt, I arguing for 
 the affirmative, and he for the negative of the pro- 
 position ; but neither of us got very far beyond the 
 texts, " Kill them wheresoever ye find them," and
 
 8 
 
 " Ye are in no Avise bound to rush upon your own 
 destruction." (I have no Koran at hand to give 
 chapter and verse.) The inference to be drawn 
 from the Shaikh's arguments, whether based on the 
 Koran or the Canons, and which I beheve to be 
 the accepted rule, is that under a strong, just, and 
 hberal Christian Government — ?'.e., a Government 
 under which perfect civil and religious freedom is 
 allowed — a Mohammadan may be as true and loyal 
 to his Sovereign, though a Christian, as any of his 
 Christian subjects, and not infringe the Law ; 
 although should the Government be weak, he would 
 be bound to aid any Mohammadan movement 
 which he had sound reason to believe was sufficiently 
 powerful to overthrow the existing Government, 
 and set up a Mohammadan Government in its stead. 
 Should it be strong and oppressive, it would then 
 be his duty to leave the country. And that this 
 doctrine, I may add, although not having the force 
 of LaAv, would be the rule and practice with Chris- 
 tians or the followers of any religion under the 
 sun, who should find themselves under the Govern- 
 ment of an alien race, we have had abundant proof 
 in Europe. 
 
 This is the Law. But there are sects in India, 
 as there are in other parts of the East, who do 
 not recognize the doctrmes or the law of the or- 
 thodox Moslim ; and who, even under Mohamma- 
 dan Governments, w^ould give endless trouble if 
 not kept in order. Abd-al-Wahhiib, who rose in
 
 9 
 
 rebellion against the Sultan, overran Arabia, 
 sacked Mecca, deluged the country with blood, 
 and gave so much trouble to the Porte about 140 
 years ago, was the founder of one of them. He 
 was a reformer, and the peculiar tenets of his 
 belief were brought to India and propagated by 
 the well-known Saiyid Ahmad and his disciples 
 some forty years ago or more ; and since then, Avhat 
 with Moplahs, Firazis, Titu Miyans, and those now 
 known under the general name of Wahhabis (most 
 of whom, be it remarked, flourish in Bengal 
 Proper), there has been a good deal of trouble and 
 loss of life, and an enormous expenditure of public 
 money. Few people know much, if anything, of 
 these things in England, nor, for that matter, in 
 India either. I know of no one here who is well 
 acquainted with the history of Mohammadan risings 
 and disturbances in Bengal, unless it be Sir Frede- 
 rick Halliday, formerly Lieutenant-Governor of 
 that Pro\dnce, and now a member of the Council 
 of Her Majesty's Secretary of State for India. It 
 is for that reason I have thought it well to address 
 you, for it ought not to be concealed, but, on the 
 contrary, it ought to be clearly and publicly made 
 known that if, as there is too much reason to 
 believe, the murderer of Mr. Justice Norman was 
 a hired assassin, he was certainly not hii*ed to do 
 this deed by any association composed of the 
 " dregs of society," but by a body of considerable 
 political power, and of so much daring that, had it
 
 10 
 
 suited their purpose, Her Majesty's Viceroy, instead 
 of her Chief Justice, would have been the victim 
 singled out for destruction. If we have in the 
 heart of our Indian Empire, or scattered through- 
 out our territories, those who are an anxiety to 
 Government and a danger to our rule, it is much 
 better that the source of that anxiety and the 
 cause of it should be acknowledged ; and that 
 people who do not understand the subject, or who 
 have no means of ascertaining the truth, should 
 not confound the whole of Her Majesty's Indian 
 Mohammadan subjects with a small minority of mal- 
 contents. 
 
 We cannot suppress freedom of thought or con- 
 science in India any more than we can in Ireland. 
 Still less can we propose to exterminate large 
 bodies of people, even though their religious or 
 political opinions are dangerous to the peace of our 
 Empire. They will exist in the East as they do 
 in the West. It is gratifying, however, to feel as- 
 sured that in India they form but a small propor- 
 tion of the 20,000,000 of Her Majesty's Moham- 
 madan subjects, and that as long as the great body 
 of jMohammadans are satisfied, and Hve contentedly 
 under British rule, it is within the power of the 
 Indian Government to reduce the danger alluded 
 to to a minimum. 
 
 This brings me to the second point in the in- 
 quiry ; but already I have trespassed too much on 
 your space, and must defer it to another occasion,
 
 11 
 
 if you think the subject of sufficient public import- 
 ance to admit this long letter to a place in your 
 columns. 
 
 October 20, 1871. 
 
 Sir, — In concluding my letter upon Indian Mu- 
 salmans which you did me the honour to publish in 
 The Times of the 14th inst., I said it was within 
 the power of the British Government to reduce the 
 danger from Musalman malcontents to a a mini- 
 mum. Many people are of opinion that the Mu- 
 salmans are quite prepared to accept the supremacy 
 of the English as an evil which must be endured 
 because it cannot be cured. I go further. I be- 
 lieve that they are quite prepared to live as peace- 
 ably and contentedly under British rule as they 
 would under any Mohammadan Government they 
 are likely to see established on its rums, provided 
 they are considerately treated and wisely and well 
 governed. And I am justified in saymg so much, 
 for, were it otherwise, large numbers of the no- 
 madic Musalman population of British India 
 would be found continually streaming into the 
 territories of the Nazim of Hyderabad, and other 
 Musalman native States, as avcII as crossing the 
 frontiers into Afghanistan, which we do not find to 
 be the case. 
 
 The question, then, from this point of view, is, 
 are Indian Musalmiins considerately treated and
 
 12 
 
 well and wisely governed. Nor mil it be a suffi- 
 cient answer to this question on the part of the 
 British Government to say that it is enough that 
 the Musalmans prefer it to the rule of the native 
 Mohammadan princes mthin and beyond our fron- 
 tiers. It is one of the misfortunes of our position 
 in India that, affecting a moral superiority over the 
 races we govern, we at once institute a comparison, 
 and in^dte our subjects to try us by a very much 
 higher standard than could fairly be applied to a 
 native Government. To deny this, moreover, 
 would be to abandon the proud position we make 
 it our boast to occupy, as regenerators of a fourth 
 of the human race. 
 
 Since I last addressed you I have seen Dr. W. 
 W. Hunter's remarkable work upon Indian Musal- 
 mans, to which you have alluded. I desii-e to 
 speak in terms of high commendation of a work so 
 eminently calculated to draw the attention of the 
 public to a subject of very grave importance to the 
 welfare and peace of British India — one which has 
 been too long neglected, although I think it un- 
 fortunate that this able and intelligent writer, to 
 accomplish his aim, has been under the necessity 
 of gi^^ing a somewhat too sensational character to 
 his otherwise extremely interesting and valuable 
 work. It is, perhaps, to be regretted, too, that Mr. 
 Hunter has thought it advisable to criticize, and 
 thus, in a measure, discredit the decisions of the 
 highest authorities in India and Arabia upon points
 
 v 
 
 o 
 
 of Lfiw upon which, whatever tlieir secret opinioiiF; 
 be, it may be assumed their special knowledge is 
 more profound than that of any European in India. 
 It is not my intention to enter mto this subject ; 
 but I may observe, en passant, that the Usui iid- 
 din, or the principles of the Moslim faith, accord- 
 ing to the Siinm's, are four — the Kuran, or Hol}^ 
 Word of God ; the Ilad'ith, or decisions of the 
 Prophet, which were collected in large volumes by 
 Al-Bokhari, Al-Muslim, and four others, constitut- 
 ing the Canons of Islam ; the Ijmai Aiyumma, or 
 concurrence of the Doctors ; and Kit/as, or intelli- 
 gent interpretation. There is little use, in theolo- 
 gical discussions, m appealmg to the bald texts of 
 either the Kuran or the Canons. As you rightly 
 observe, in your very able and sound article of the 
 14th inst., the Law, as to be derived from these 
 sources, was framed for a conquering and not for a 
 subject race. Texts, such as the forty Iladith, on 
 Holy War, could be culled from them to prove 
 anything but what would be conducive to the in- 
 terests of the Musalmans at large. They them- 
 selves early discovered this, and hence the authori- 
 tative decisions of the Shaikh-ul- Islam, and other 
 competent authorities, are mvested with very great 
 weight in Mohammadan countries. 
 
 From this point of view, the fatwahs lately given 
 by the Muftis of Mecca and by the learned Musal- 
 mans of Delhi, Lucknow, and Rampoor, m favour 
 of India being dar ul-Islam, or a country in which
 
 14 
 
 Moslims may reside, are, or ought to be, of sin- 
 gular importance to the Government of India and 
 its Musalman subjects. For this reason I am sorry 
 to find my friend Mr. Hunter, who deserves so 
 well of Indian Musalmans, outheroding Herod, if 
 I may use the expression of one who, judgmg him 
 by his own evidence, would be a Wahhabi, if he 
 were not too good a Sunni or Sliiah Moslim. If the 
 Government of India have shewn a want of political 
 sagacity in one respect more than another in their 
 treatment of the Wahhabi difficulty, it is in not 
 having taken greater pains to place the large body 
 of their well- affected Musalman subjects m a better 
 position to resist the attacks upon theii* loyalty or 
 any attempts to undermine it, on the score of reli- 
 gion, than they now are, to protect them, as it 
 were, from incurring the odium tlieologicum. This 
 the present Government of India is, I believe, very 
 well aware of. 
 
 I do not in any wise mean to assert that the Go- 
 vernment of India, continuing to pursue the j)olicy 
 of Warren Hastings, should have kept the ci\dl 
 admmistration of the country in the hands of the 
 Musalmans, or have adopted all or any of the early 
 traditions of the East India Company; nor that it 
 should have secured to the Musalmans, in consi- 
 deration of their 600 years of conquering supre- 
 macy, any special privileges, civil or religious, over 
 Hindoos or Christians ; nor yet that out of defer- 
 ence to their unwillingness to accommodate them-
 
 15 
 
 selves to the altered circumstances of their position 
 — their stiff-neckedness — the pro;^ress of the conn- 
 try shonld have been arrested one hour. Still 
 having come into possession — how, it is of no 
 moment to mquire — of a Musalman mheritance of 
 many centuries' date, more care, I think might 
 have been taken to insure, as far as in us lay, that 
 if comparisons between past and present were made, 
 they should be as much as possible in our favour. 
 Starting from our own stand-point of strictly reli- 
 gious neutrality, both Hmdoos and Mohammadans 
 might reasonably object to a considerable sum out 
 of the revenues raised by the sweat of their brows 
 being devoted annually to the maintenance of an 
 Established Church for the benefit of Christians, be 
 they Government servants or not, while no annual 
 grant at all from the revenues is made for the sup- 
 port of Hindoo and Mohammadan places of worship, 
 or for their clergy. The natives of India, as far as 
 I am aware, have never taken objection to this 
 grant. With the Musalmans possibly our position 
 would not be improved were it discontinued, for 
 then from Aid i Kitah^ or people of the Book (Holy 
 Scriptures), we might come mto the category of 
 infidels. I mention the fact, then, not disapprov- 
 ingly, but rather to give point to the complaints of 
 the Musalmans, which I believe to be as under : — 
 They object (I) that the Inam Commission 
 unjustly deprived many of their class of the lands 
 granted to them by the Mohammadan Sovereigns
 
 16 
 
 of India ; that (2) their civil and rehgious law, 
 which Her Majesty had bound herself never to in- 
 terfere with, has been broken by the Act securing 
 to converts to Christianity the rights of inheritance, 
 which they had forfeited under the Mohammadan 
 code, and that thus the British Government, while 
 offering inducements to conversion to Christianity, 
 has weakened the foundations of Islam ; that (3) 
 the appointment of Kadhi (Cazi) and Government 
 Mohammadan law officers has been abolished, 
 whereby they have been deprived of the benefit of 
 properly constituted authorities to perform and 
 register many of their ci\41 rites ; that (4) funds 
 left by charitable and pious Moslims for educa- 
 tional purposes have been taken from them, and 
 religious bequests (loahf)^ or funds left to be de- 
 voted to the " service of God," have been misap- 
 plied by Government, which is the self-appointed 
 trustee for their proper administration; that (5) 
 they have been elbowed out of almost all Govern- 
 ment appointments by Hindoos, and no efforts are 
 made by Government to rectify this injustice or to 
 better their prospects ; that (6) no offices under 
 Government are open to Musalmans learned m 
 theii' own sciences, laws, literature, and languages ; 
 that consequently learning and learned men have 
 disappeared, and their community is left in dark- 
 ness, while the Government system of education is 
 such that they cannot accept it and retain the
 
 17 
 
 respect of their co-religionists, if even they may 
 remain good MosHms. 
 
 The above, which I beUeve to be the main 
 
 grievances put forward by Indian Musalmans — 
 
 chiefly in Bengal, be it observed — I have stated 
 
 exactly as they have often been represented to me. 
 
 They have others, which in secret they brood over, 
 
 but it is unnecessary to allude to them, as they are 
 
 inevitable under British rule, and irremediable 
 
 unless under a dynastic change. I have no desire 
 
 to endorse all these complaints, although I think 
 
 many of them are well founded, and in all of them 
 
 I sympathize with the Musalmans of India, who, 
 
 from being the proud rulers of the Indian Empire, 
 
 I find now in danger of bemg reduced to the level 
 
 of hewers of wood and drawers of water unless 
 
 something is done for them. It would not be for 
 
 the honour and glory of England that history 
 
 should record the consummation of such a result ; 
 
 wliile it will certainly not be for the mterest of the 
 
 British Government that, as some of its counsellors 
 
 advise, it should aid m bringing it about. 
 
 Some are of opinion that all the Musalmans' 
 complaints are based upon hatred of the Christian. 
 It is certainly not so. They have infinitely more 
 reason on their side than those who do not under- 
 stand them arc aware of. Many high Indian 
 ofiicials have gone beyond the Musalmans m 
 admitting that (1) some of the proceedings of the 
 Inam Commission were "iniquitous." In regard 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 again (2) to the Act securing the rights of inherit- 
 ance to Chi'istian converts, however just in the 
 abstract, it was in statecraft a blunder, because in 
 reference to Mohammadans it was uncalled for, 
 converts from that rehgion being almost unknown. 
 It was passed at the mstance of the missionaries, 
 and was calculated to attain a minimum of good 
 with a very large result of political evil. Touching 
 the abolition of (3) the Kadhi al-Kudhat, or Chief 
 Justice, and other Khadhis, agam, the same or 
 similar remarks will apply. They were no expense 
 to Govermnent, and, although they had no admi- 
 nistrative functions, theii* existence furnished all 
 well-disposed Musalmans with an argument of 
 some weight against their co-religionists who 
 asserted that India was no longer dar ul-Islam. 
 After the terrible scenes of 1857-58 this view was 
 very generally maintained, and numbers of Musal- 
 mans in consequence left India and went to reside 
 at Mecca, Medinah, Kurballah, and other places in 
 Arabia. The objections to the measure were at 
 my instance laid before the Governor- General by 
 Sir H. Harington, who has just been laid in his 
 grave ; but there being no Kadhis in the Punjab 
 it was thought they could be dispensed with in 
 Bengal. The Government of India, in the applica- 
 tion of the Marriage Registration Act, have since 
 discovered that this was a mistake. That (4) 
 educational funds and icakf bequests have been 
 misappropriated is well known to many persons
 
 19 
 
 even in England. When in India for a brief period 
 in 1869-70 I was informed that a resolution was 
 about to issue from the Government of India 
 acknowledging the fact, and instituting an inquiry 
 with a view to restitution; but no such resolution 
 that I am aware of has yet, I regret to say, been 
 published. Yet I have heard Moslims stigmatize 
 the misappropriation of trust funds left by Muham- 
 mad Mohsin (the Hooghly Madrassah) as a State 
 robbery, and I do not hesitate to say that it was 
 not creditable to British rule. The objections of 
 the Musalmdns to the educational system of the 
 Government of India, and their ceasing to obtain a 
 fair share of Government appointments are in my 
 humble judgment of grave importance; but the 
 subject is too large to be treated of at the tail end 
 of a long letter. 
 
 The redress of the grievances of the Musalmans 
 of India is a question of great difficulty. That is 
 a good reason, you mil say, for the Government no 
 longer evading its consideration ; but there is pos- 
 sibly a still better one, one which the Musalmans 
 have not had the acumen to detect the full force 
 of, viz. that the discontented feeling which exists 
 among the Mohammadans of Bengal is more the 
 fault of Government than of the Musalmans, for 
 in. Bengal certainly it is due mainly to those unjust 
 and iniquitous proceedings of early Indian Govern- 
 ments which made landlords out of Hindu collec- 
 tors of revenue, and finally crystallized the injustice 
 
 B 2
 
 20 
 
 thus done to the community in general, and the 
 Mohammadan portion of it in particular, by that 
 gigantic blunder, the Perpetual Settlement, which 
 having necessitated the Income- Tax and other mea- 
 sures of direct taxation, has brought odium upon 
 the Government, and placed the whole of India 
 under unequal and unjust contribution. 
 
 November 2, 1871. 
 
 Sir, — In my first letter upon Indian Musalmans, 
 I addressed myself to their loyalty to their Sove- 
 reign, Queen Victoria ; in my second I discussed 
 then' alleged discontent with British rule ; and in 
 this letter I propose, with your permission, to say 
 a word upon the redress of their grievances in so 
 far as that is possible under the government of an 
 alien race. 
 
 It Avould not, certainly, be easy now to redress 
 the injustice done by the resumption of rent-free 
 tenures under the operation of the Inam Commis- 
 sion. But there would be no difiiculty in repealing 
 the Act interfering with the laws of inheritance as 
 regards Moslims, or the Act II., of 1864 in so far as 
 it relates to the Kadhi-al-Kudhat, or the local Kadhis. 
 Still less difficulty would there be in restoring to the 
 Musalmans, with simple interest, and after an accu- 
 rate account had been taken, all zt^aA^ bequests and 
 educational funds left for their exclusive benefit. 
 
 Still, all this, though it would go a considerable
 
 21 
 
 way to satisfy the minds of Indian Musahnans that 
 there was no intention on the part of the British 
 Government to look upon them with disfavour or 
 to depress them, woukl go but a small way towards 
 compassing that moral and intellectual regeneration 
 of the race which would raise them in the social 
 scale and secure for them that ease of circumstances 
 which begets contentment, — another term for loy- 
 alty to the rulmg power. Measures wider in their 
 scope, more permeating in their influence, and more 
 lasting in their results are necessary, and you. Sir, 
 in your able article of the 14th inst., have indicated 
 the direction they should take. They are, prima- 
 rily, such a modification of the Government educa- 
 tional system as will induce the Musalmans of India, 
 in common with all other races and creeds, to avail 
 themselves of its benefits, and such a reform of 
 Musalman collegiate institutions as I have myself 
 many years ago advocated. 
 
 A prosperous people are usually satisfied with 
 their Government ; a poverty-stricken people are 
 invariably discontented with it. But for a people 
 to be prosperous it is necessary that they should be 
 actively employed ; to be actively employed they 
 must be fitted for employment ; and to be fitted 
 for employment they must be instructed, if not 
 educated. The logic of this simple syllogism I take 
 to be indisputable. The means, however, employed 
 to accomplish this end, to be effectual, must not be 
 those simply which a Government, in its wisdom,
 
 22 
 
 approves, and strives capriciously or conscientiously 
 to adopt ; they must be those which the people for 
 whose benefit they are intended can, or at least 
 will, consent to accept. All may not so readily 
 assent to this latter proposition, but at the present 
 hour, with the results of the blundering policy which 
 for years has been adopted with reference to Ireland 
 staring us in the face, it would, in my humble 
 judgment, be childish to waste time in discussing 
 either it or the converse of it. I will pass on then 
 to review the question more in detail, but in doing 
 so it will be desirable to clear the ground by taking 
 a brief retrospect of what has been done by the 
 Government of India for the past century of British 
 rule in India. 
 
 In the earlier years of the occupation of India 
 by the English almost the whole of the time and 
 thoughts of the Indian Government were taken up 
 with measures of conquest. The natural result was 
 that the civil government of the country — always 
 excepting the collection of revenue — was neglected, 
 and the social institutions which existed under the 
 old regime became so dislocated that Government 
 soon found itself embarrassed for properly qualified 
 officers to discharge the duties of the judicial and 
 revenue departments of the State. This state of 
 thmgs induced that great statesman, Warren Hast- 
 ings, to record a Minute in which he declared that 
 learning was disappearing from the land, and that, 
 as the Government considered it expedient to retain
 
 23 
 
 the civil administration of the country in the hands 
 of the Musalmans, an institution for their education 
 should be established. With this view he laid the 
 foundation of the present Mohammadan College of 
 Calcutta. At first Warren Hastings maintamed 
 the institution entirely at his own cost ; but finally 
 his measures were approved and sanctioned by the 
 Court of Directors, who endowed this college with 
 a grant of land thenyieldmg 32,000 rupees (£3,200) 
 a year. This gi'ant by the Government of Sir John 
 Shore (Lord Teignmouth) was afterwards ordered 
 to be separated from the general revenues of the 
 State for the benefit of the institution. Subse- 
 quently the Court of Directors sanctioned an amiual 
 grant of £10,000 a year for the purposes of educa- 
 tion throughout their territories. The policy then 
 adopted supplied the Government with a sufiicient 
 number of Musalman civil ofiicers for all its pur- 
 poses. The Mohammadan College of Calcutta was, 
 in fact, the Haileybury of Bengal. But the grant 
 was, of course, utterly ineffectual as a means of 
 educating the people. Yet was the early policy of 
 the Court of Directors not wholly inoperative, or 
 without some good results. The encouragement 
 given by the Government to the study of the Laws, 
 Literature, and Languages of the natives gave birth 
 to a small band of Englishmen distinguished as 
 statesmen, lawgivers, and scholars, whose names 
 will live in the memory of the people of India as 
 long as, and perhaps longer than, our Government
 
 24 
 
 lasts. I need only mention the names of Sir Wil- 
 liam Jones, Colebrooke, Macnaghten, James Prinsep, 
 Horace Wilson, John Gilchrist, &c., to prove that 
 however unsuitable to the present day, the policy 
 of the then Home and Indian Governments was not 
 altogether a mistake. Things ran on in this groove 
 for thirty or forty years, at the close of which there 
 was plenty of learning, and no lack of learned men, 
 as those terms are understood in the East, in Bengal. 
 Governors and governed seemed satisfied with each 
 other. But a reformer was born in the person of 
 Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay, who rudely 
 broke the spell of the enchanted circle. He de- 
 clared that the books of the Hindoos contained 
 nothing but mythological fables and absurd super- 
 stition, and those of the Musalmans nothing but false 
 science, false philosophy, and false religion. The 
 Enghsh language, he averred, was the "key of 
 knowledge," and for the ruling power to withhold 
 it from the conquered natives was to deny them the 
 means of elevating themselves in the social scale to 
 a level with their European conquerors. A hotly 
 and well-maintained struggle between the advocates 
 of the old and the proposed new system ensued, in 
 which the best intellects in India took part. This 
 contest was known as the " Battle of the Orientalists 
 and the Anglicists," and ended in the discomfiture 
 of the former, and the victory and triumph of the 
 latter, or the party of Macaulay. From that day 
 EnjTflish has been recognised as the medium of
 
 25 
 
 liiglier education in India, and the sul)jccts taught 
 in it have been entirely European. Still the change 
 then effected amounted, as regards the education 
 of the people, to nothing ; and, as regards the upper 
 classes in Bengal, ostensibly to little more than the 
 substitution of the Hindu College, with an English 
 education for Hindus, for the Mohammadan College, 
 with a Musalman education for the followers of 
 Islam, for no funds were made available for educa- 
 tional measures on an extended scale. Virtually, 
 however, the change made was of considerable poli- 
 tical importance, for its effect was the gradual but 
 steady transfer of the civil government of the 
 country from the Musalmiins to the Hmdiis, without 
 any authoritative enunciation of the change in the 
 policy of the British Government in this respect, nor 
 the introduction of any statesmanlike measure that 
 would obviate evil results. Ousted from their 
 rights m the soil by the perpetual settlement of 
 Lord Cornwallis, it is only very recently, indeed, 
 that the Musalmans of Bengal have awoke to the 
 discovery that by the change in the educational 
 policy of the Government of India made thirty-five 
 years ago they have been ousted out of not simply 
 their monopoly, but even a fair share of Government 
 patronage. 
 
 About twenty years later (1854) Lord Halifax, 
 through the first Educational Despatch worthy of 
 the name issued by the British Government, (it 
 nominally issued from the Com't of Directors),
 
 26 
 
 constituted an Educational Department for all 
 India, and provided funds from the revenues of 
 the country for maintaining it. By this despatch 
 the Government founded the Universities of Cal- 
 cutta, Madras, and Bombay, coimecting with them 
 by a system of link Scholarships all the institutions 
 in the country for the general education of the 
 people, from the highest collegiate institution to 
 the lowest vernacular school, and prescribed Eng- 
 lish for higher and middle, and the vernacular for 
 lower education, as media for instruction. No 
 provision was made in the general scheme then 
 promulgated for the classical languages of India — 
 Sanskrit and Arabic — English and the vernaculars 
 taking their place ; nor in carrying out the mea- 
 sure was any place in the system accorded to the 
 Mohammadan College of Calcutta, the Sanskrit 
 Colleges of Calcutta or Benares, nor to other so- 
 called Oriental CoUeges in which these languages 
 were taught, though they were directed to be 
 maintained. 
 
 The Education Despatch of 1854 was replete 
 with confessions as to the shortcomings of the 
 British Government in regard to measures for the 
 education of the people, and rife with promises of 
 future improvement. It contained many noble 
 and lofty sentiments, and was in all respects highly 
 honourable to its framers and the Government that 
 issued it. It had, however, serious defects. All 
 new measures of the kind have and must have
 
 27 
 
 defects, which their practical working alone can 
 disclose, and the Home Government of India did 
 not assume for their great and good measure a 
 perfection unattainable in human affairs. The 
 Government of India was called upon for a report 
 upon the measure by Lord Stanley when he was 
 Secretaiy of State for India in 1859, or within 
 five years after it came into operation. Informa- 
 tion was collected in Lidia, but no report was 
 furnished. Some years later Sir Stafford North- 
 cote again called for a report. The same process 
 was gone through m India with not quite, but 
 very nearly the same results. Notes and memo- 
 randa there have been, but no comprehensive 
 report by the Government of India to the Secre- 
 tary of State upon the working of, and the results 
 of the Education Despatches of 1854 and 1859 
 has yet been written or published. And yet the 
 policy therein laid down has been so far departed 
 from in the Bengal Presidency that the classical 
 languages were put in place of the vernaculars in 
 liio-her education without the sanction of the Secre- 
 tary of State in Council, and without the know- 
 ledg:e even of the Government of India. True an 
 alteration in the Regulations of the Calcutta Uni- 
 versity was reported to Government by the Syndi- 
 cate, but in such a manner as to lead Govern- 
 ment to believe that the proposed change was of 
 the most insignificant unportance. And it is in 
 defence of the Government of India I make this 
 statement, for the change brought the whole
 
 28 
 
 fabric of Lord Halifax's despatch of 1854, which 
 was based on affiliated Anglo-vernacular colleges 
 and middle-class and vernacular schools, con- 
 nected by a system of link Scholarships, to the 
 ground, threw the Calcutta University out of 
 sympathy with the sister Universities of Madras 
 and Bombay, and involved the entire Department 
 of Education in Bengal in inexplicable confusion. 
 Nor was it till the change was completed that its 
 mischievous effects were discovered, and the sole 
 plan for remedying the evils which suggested itself 
 to the educational authorities in Bengal was the 
 destruction of the Mohammadan College of Cal- 
 cutta and other Oriental colleges in Bengal, or 
 their absorption hito the Presidency English Col- 
 lege, or into the general system, which means the 
 same thing. 
 
 No blame, then, can attach to the Secretary of 
 State for India, if now, after the lapse of nearly 
 twenty years, he is unable to inform Parliament if 
 the noble scheme for the education of the people of 
 India, inaugurated m 1854, is suitable for them, or 
 whether all classes of Her Majesty's Indian sub- 
 jects equally avail themselves of its benefits, for 
 though a mass of voluminous documents and re- 
 turns are periodically printed and sent home, no 
 despatch from the Government of India upon the 
 whole question has reached the India Office. Nor 
 am I surprised that the Government of India 
 should shrmk from the responsibility of the task, 
 from a sense of inability to dictate any despatch
 
 29 
 
 that would not be more misleading in its conclu- 
 sions than likely to furnish sound data for future 
 legislation. One of the most mischievous effects 
 of the new system was that it enabled the Govern- 
 ment of India to transfer its own responsibility as 
 regards public instruction, in matters relating to 
 lower education, to local Governments, and in 
 higher education to such wholly irresponsible 
 bodies as the Presidency Universities — in any 
 country a dangerous, in India positively a perilous, 
 experiment. Such being the case, however, it 
 seems to me time that some one should make 
 known that the Government educational system of 
 the British Government in India is not acceptable 
 to all classes of Her Majesty's Indian subjects, and 
 that the sooner the matter is looked to, the better 
 it will be in the future for England, as well as for 
 India. This, however, is not a general or hap- 
 hazard statement 5 it can be verified by conclusive 
 proof. The upper classes in the Punjab have re- 
 jected the Government system, as is evidenced by 
 their infantile efforts to found a University of their 
 own, independent of it. And that the Musalmans 
 throughout India will have none of it, was proved 
 to the satisfaction of Lord Mayo by the returns 
 laid before liim in 1869, which shewed how misera- 
 bly small a proportion of Musalmans were brought 
 under the influence of the Government system. To 
 his Excellency, with his long Irish experience, these 
 results should not have proved startlmg or even
 
 30 
 
 surprising, for to quote from the letter of an Eng- 
 lish nobleman to me within the past few days, " by 
 the adoption of such a system here you would 
 exclude all good Catholics from Irish posts, as, to 
 be consistent, you would require them to go 
 through Trinity College, or one of the godless 
 colleges, and insist on their passing examinations in 
 Darwin, Huxley, Hegel, and other mfidel books." 
 Within the last few months a resolution has issued 
 from the Government of India giving more promi- 
 nence to the languages of the Musalmans in the 
 University system ; but such legislation is mere 
 trifling with a question of great national import- 
 ance.* 
 
 Being personally concerned, I would prefer to 
 say nothing of the measures proposed by me for 
 the reformed education of the Musalmans of India ; 
 but as you have been good enough to allude to 
 them approvuigly, it is due to you that I should 
 briefly explam their principles which, after being 
 accepted by Lords Canning and Halifax, have been 
 set aside in India as unsound. The measures of 
 reform I proposed were so simple that two or three 
 lines will suffice to explain them ; and they had 
 this advantage, that they were not only in accord- 
 ance with the despatches of 1854 and 1859, but in 
 accordance also with the policy of our great Euro- 
 pean rival in the East — Russia. They were that 
 
 * Vide Advertisemeut.
 
 31 
 
 there should be an Oriental Faculty as well as an 
 English Faculty of Arts in the Calcutta University, 
 that all Oriental colleges should be affiliated to it • 
 that in this faculty education, instead of being 
 given in the language of the foreigner, should be 
 given in the languages of the people of the country, 
 their classics taking the place of Latin and Greek, 
 and English, or a sufficient knowledge of it to fit 
 candidates for all Government employments, though 
 a compulsory study, being treated simply as a lan- 
 guage ; and that all natives, whether Hindoos or 
 Musalmans, should be free to graduate m the Uteris 
 humaniorihus of the East or the West, as they 
 pleased. 
 
 Certain persons in the East believed, or affected 
 to believe, that my views were antiquated, that my 
 object was to revive the days of Orientalism, and 
 that the policy I advocated was retrograde. Even 
 here, since my letters to you have been published, 
 it has been asserted by a leading journal (vide Stan- 
 dard^ 21st inst.) that I have allowed myself to be 
 somewhat carried away by sympathy for " my 
 Mohammadan ^roi^e^es." Ignorant delusion ! My 
 sympathies m this matter are neither with Jew nor 
 Gentile, Hindii, Musalman, nor Christian. They 
 are with peace and good government ; and my 
 object is the maintenance of British rule in India 
 on that sure and firm basis which alone will enable 
 the Government to carry out the great work of 
 civilization which Providence in his wisdom has in-
 
 32 
 
 trusted to the Sovereign of the British Empire and 
 this Nation — the good will and the happiness of a 
 contented people. I repeat that no purely English 
 education that we can give the Musalmans in 
 India will make them of any use to us, for it will 
 give them no influence whatever with their co- 
 religionists. 
 
 I contested my position not with the Govern- 
 ment of India, but with the Local Government of 
 Bengal, and in no spirit of dogmatism. My oppo- 
 sition consisted in my refusing to carry out a sys- 
 tem which was contrarv to the existing: orders of 
 the Secretary of State, and as injurious to British 
 interests as it was distasteful to the Musalmans of 
 India, until such time as the whole question of the 
 education of the Musalmans had been carefully 
 considered by the Government of India and the 
 Secretary of State in Council. I went no further, 
 and I went thus far, because I conceived that a 
 very grave responsibility rested upon all parties 
 adopting a policy of education for twenty or thirty 
 millions of Musalmans. The question, in my hum- 
 ble judgment, is not one of detail, or involving the 
 practical application of a system approved by the 
 highest authority. It is not one m the philosophy 
 of education which the professors even of a 
 European University could be safely trusted to 
 deal with. It is a question invohdng political as 
 weU as social considerations of singular and serious 
 importance, which the very highest authority alone
 
 33 
 
 is competent to decide. A Local Indian Oovern- 
 ment is plainly not the authority to decide questions 
 of this nature. The Viceroy and Governor- General 
 himself should not finally dispose of a question of 
 this magnitude; and Her Majesty's Secretary of 
 State would act wisely certamly in consulting the 
 ablest men in England before issuing orders on such 
 a subject. M. Guizot did not introduce his Law 
 into the French Chambers without having first sent 
 the lamented Victor Cousin to Prussia, to examine 
 and report on their system of education, and, with 
 all his caution, the results of his measures in France 
 have not justified his expectations. Lord Mayo, 1 
 am told, has within the past few months had this 
 question as regards the Mohammadan College of 
 Calcutta before him, and has passed some orders 
 thereon ; but it is not too late for the Secretary of 
 State to review, not simply these orders, but the 
 whole question. 
 
 And let me add one word in conclusion. It is a 
 common belief that principles are the same all over 
 the world, and that all we have to do in India is to 
 apply those principles of government which have 
 been successful in Europe, or more generally in 
 England. I admit the former, and deny the latter. 
 If principles remain unaltered, it is to tln'ir more 
 intelligent application and the adaptation of mea- 
 sures based on them to circumstances which will 
 alone insure success. Many people, and ]nM)])li' of 
 
 c
 
 34 
 
 great European experience, have grand ideas of the 
 200,000,000 of Her Majesty's Indian subjects being 
 welded into a great English speaking and English 
 thinking nation, which, sinkmg distinctions of race 
 and creed, shall take its place in the great family 
 of nationalities of the world. But these philan- 
 thropists forget that the Indian Empire is as 
 large as the whole of Europe without Russia, 
 and contains very many nationalities. They 
 forget that circumstances as found in Euro- 
 pean countries, taking India as a whole, are 
 reversed in Hindostan. They forget that if V union 
 fait la force in European nationalities, m India 
 Vunion fait la faihlesse^ from the British rule 
 stand-point. They forget that the Ilindii races 
 extend no further than the limits of Hindostan 
 {Hindii-isthcni^ or place of Hindiis), and that while 
 the Hindu is amenable to public opinion as it exists 
 within our own boundaries, the Musalman races 
 extend over Persia, Arabia, Eg}"pt, European 
 and Asiatic Turkey, Affghanistan, Central Asia, 
 and now part of China. The Musalman is amen- 
 able to the public opinion of his co-religionists 
 over these widely extended regions, and his educa- 
 tion must be such as will enable him at least to 
 hold his own and prevent him bemg taunted as a 
 Hindu, a Christian, or an infidel. They talk about 
 educating the people of India to govern them- 
 selves, and they forget that the very measures they 
 propose are those which must insure our being
 
 35 
 
 driven out of the country lono- before that h.ippy 
 period could possibly arrive. Sir Bfirtle Frerc has 
 wisely and well dilated on the difficulties we en- 
 counter from the absence of pul)lic opinion in India ; 
 and if some efforts were made to obtain it, no doubt 
 better government would follow. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 W. NASSAU LEES. 
 
 Beachlands, Eyde, Isle of AViglit, Oct. 30. 
 
 C 2
 
 36 
 
 Of the Influence exercised on the Education^ both 
 University and Popular of England^ hy the late 
 Prince Consort. 
 
 We have before alluded to the secession of the 
 men of the North from the Universities of Enoiand 
 in the early part of the seventeenth century, and 
 the subsequent foundation of the University of 
 Edinburgh ; and it is not surprising that it was a 
 student of that Institution, Lord John Russell, 
 supported by public opinion, who carried the 
 measure in Parliament to which England is in- 
 debted for the new constitutions her two Great 
 Educational Institutions received in 1852. How 
 these constitutions will meet the requirements of 
 the present age, or how those persons entrusted 
 with the responsibility of governing the Univer- 
 sities will adapt them to the altering circumstances 
 of a progressive civilization, it is yet too soon to 
 predict. But, endowed with that spirit of vitality 
 which in all well-reo:ulated institutions of national 
 growth is certaui to be inherent, we may hope 
 that the result will not disappoint the expectations 
 of the country, or of those who took a prominent 
 part in initiating and bringing these reforms about.
 
 37 
 
 If to Lord John Russell, however, find to his 
 supporters, is due the merit of having enabled the 
 Crown to exercise its previously doubtful preroga- 
 tive of instituting enquiries into the management 
 of the affairs of Corporations so influential, so 
 wealthy, and so powerfully protected by the Char- 
 ters and Letters Patent of ancient Kings and 
 Queens, as the Universities of Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge, there is another personage to whom is due 
 the more exalted merit of having, long prior to 
 the action of Parliament, appreciated the true 
 principle of elevating the higher education of the 
 Nation ; and there is another quarter in which we 
 must seek the origin of those mfluences which 
 prepared the public mind for the acceptance of 
 changes in the character of venerated institutions 
 — a quarter, too, where, considering the peculiar 
 circumstances of the case, few Eno'lishmen would 
 have expected to find it. We allude to the late 
 illustrious and lamented Prince Consoet. 
 
 From the most distant times of which we have 
 any distinct record, whether we ascend to the 
 esoteric teaching of the Pythagoreans, or go back 
 still further to those m3^steries of the Egyptians or 
 Indian Brahmins, in which some suppose them to 
 have had their origin; or Avhethcr, retracing our 
 steps, we approach gradually through the dark 
 ages down to the borders of the age in which we 
 live, it has been the ruling idea that knowledge is 
 the inheritance of a special class, — the property of
 
 38 
 
 the favoured few. Even at the present day, 
 although probably not many would accept the posi- 
 tion as we offer it, the number of those who have 
 maintained, and who still maintain, that the educa- 
 tion and enlightenment of the upper classes is the 
 siimmum honum^ and that it is to tliis aim the 
 efforts of a Government ought to be mainly directed, 
 is bv no means inconsiderable. " A little leaven 
 leaveneth the whole lump," and so it has been, 
 and is still, supposed by many, that education, if 
 established on high, will percolate downward, 
 permeating the ranks of all classes of the people. 
 But the whole history of ci^dlization demonstrates 
 the falsity of this proposition, the converse of which 
 we have long believed to be true. And although 
 we do not assert that Prince Albert was the first 
 to discover this disputed yet simple truth, or to 
 propound it as a theory ; nor that he was even the 
 first person to give prominence to this idea ; we do 
 assert that he stood foremost amongst the profound 
 thinkers and distinguished statesmen of his age, in 
 having been the first person in Great Britain to 
 give a practical ap];)lication to the grand j^rinciple 
 which this theory involves. The teaching of books, 
 of Schools, of Colleges, and of Universities, may do 
 much for the advancement of learning and science, 
 but these are not the best means of ennohling the 
 national mind, — of elevating the tone of a Nation's 
 whole social system, — or of rescuing the great body 
 of the subjects of a State from the practice of
 
 39 
 
 demoralizing \dces and low and unworthy pursuits 
 and pastimes, which blunt the sensibilities, and 
 degrade man to the level of the brute. Indeed, 
 taking a comprehensive view of the subject, we 
 may almost say that to such ends they are not a 
 means at all. Softer and more gentle influences, 
 influences wliicli, while appealing to those higher 
 qualities of which the human mind, however 
 debased, can never be totally devoid, are better 
 adapted for the purpose than the severe teaching 
 of the school-room, the lecture-room, or the cloister, 
 provided always that they are judiciously applied, 
 and practical in their tendencies, or, to speak more 
 intelligibly that, while elevating the mind, they 
 conduce to the greater material prosperity and 
 the greater social happiness of the people. 
 
 Now it is a peculiarity of all great educational 
 and social reforms originating with, and encouraged 
 by. Prince Albert, that they were pre-eminently 
 calculated to effect some solid — some real o'ood. 
 His first consideration, his highest aim, was that 
 the objects he sought to promote should have 
 some useful and practical result. One of the 
 gravest faults of character attributed to the Ger- 
 mans by the English is, that in their undertakings 
 they are not, generally, practical ; and it seems 
 passing strange that, in a country like England, a 
 German, and above all, a German Prince, should 
 merit the hi<2:h honour of having done more towards 
 that immense improvement in agriculture which
 
 40 
 
 has taken j^lace of late years, than any other 
 person in it. Nor did he accomplish this end 
 roerely by encouragmg others, or by lecturing and 
 speaking about the subjects in which he was inte- 
 rested, as most persons in his exalted position 
 Avould have been content to do. He was amongst 
 the very first not only to appreciate the advantages 
 of deep drainage, the apphcation of steam power, 
 and the resources of chemistry to practical agricul- 
 ture, but, as a practical agriculturist, himself to 
 demonstrate them. The practical was evidently 
 his cherished aim, and in the outlines of the com- 
 prehensive plan which he sketched for the accom- 
 plishment of the great work he set himself to do, 
 this seems ever to have been kept prominently 
 before his view. That he had such a plan, we are 
 left very little room to doubt. His earnest endea- 
 vours to improve the culture of the great body of 
 the people, by inspiring within them a taste for 
 the refinements of Music and the Fine Arts ; the 
 deep interest evinced by him in National Educa- 
 tion, especially in pointing out the great importance 
 of the cultivation, hy all classes^ of such branches 
 of knowledge, as, by expounding the laws, and 
 unfolding the beautiful truths of Nature, enlarge 
 the mind ; his untiring and unceasing exertions to 
 effect, with the development of intellectual power, 
 the formation, on the most approved model, of the 
 character of the labouring classes, are, one and all, 
 so many convincing proofs that his numerous
 
 41 
 
 undertakinfijs were not the result of conclusions 
 accidentally or hastily arrived at, but each distinct 
 and separate portions of a happily conceived and 
 well-designed plan for elevatmg and ennobling the 
 Nation. Havmg early appreciated the fact that, 
 however enlightened and highly cultivated the 
 upper ten thousand may be, no people, as a Nation, 
 can ever become truly great, unless the masses are 
 imbued with a kuidred spirit, it required but a 
 small effort of his genius to arrive at the conclu- 
 sion, that to Avhatever level in mtellectual culture 
 he could raise the middle and lower strata of the 
 population, the higher classes, to hold their own, 
 must of necessity be compelled to raise themselves 
 above it. " Let us hope," said he in his speech on 
 laying the foundation stone of the National Gallery 
 of Edinburgh, " that the impulse given to the 
 culture of the Fine Arts in this country, and the 
 daily increasing attention bestowed upon it by the 
 people at large, will not only tend to refine and 
 elevate the national tastes, but will also lead to 
 the production of works, which, if left behind us as 
 memorials of our age, will give to after-generations 
 an adequate idea of our advanced state of civili- 
 zation." 
 
 But we would give a false impression of the 
 distinguished services of the late Prince Consort 
 to the cause of Education, if what we have said 
 should induce any of our readers to suppose that 
 he was \mmindfid of the claims of higher education
 
 42 
 
 on the State, or disposed to leave its amelioration 
 to follow the course of events. As Chancellor of 
 the University of Cambridge, it was undoubtedly, 
 in a great measure, due to his influence, that that 
 Institution evinced a greater readiness than Oxford 
 to correct the abuses which had grown up with the 
 University system of England. Himself, as highly 
 gifted a scholar as he was a refined and an accom- 
 plished man, throughout his life, and almost to the 
 last hour of it, he lost no opportunity of indicating 
 the necessity, in an educational system, of attach- 
 ing due importance to each and every department 
 of knowledge necessary to " perfect the man." On 
 the occasion of laying the first stone of the Bir- 
 mingham and Midland Institute he said : — " The 
 study of the laws by which the Almighty governs 
 the universe is therefore our bounden duty. Of 
 these laws our great Academies and seats of educa- 
 tion have^ rather arbitrarily^ selected only ttvo 
 spheres or groups (as I may call tliem) as essential 
 parts of our national education : the laws which 
 regulate quantities and proportions^ which form the 
 subject of Mathematics^ and the laws regulating the 
 expression of our thoughts^ through the medium of 
 language^ that is to say^ grammar^ lohich finds its 
 purest expression in the classical language. These 
 laws are most important branches of knowledge ; 
 their study trains and elevates the mind, but they 
 are not the only ©nes, there are others which we 
 camiot disregard, which we cannot do without."
 
 43 
 
 'I'hese, he added, are Logic and Metaphysics, Phy- 
 siology and Psychology, Politics, Jurisprudence, 
 and Political Economy, and the Physical Sciences. 
 And again, on assuming the Presidentship of the 
 British Association for the Advancement of Science, 
 after dwelling on the difficulties the Association 
 had to contend with in a country similarly circum- 
 stanced to England, he said : — " Is it, then, to be 
 wondered at that the interests of Science, abstruse 
 as Science appears, and not immediately shewing 
 a return in pounds, shillings, and pence, should be 
 postponed, at least to others which promise imme- 
 diate tangible results ? Is it to be wondered at 
 that even our public men require an effort to wean 
 themselves from other subjects, in order to give 
 their attention to Science and men of Science, 
 loheii it is remembered that Science^ loitli the excep- 
 tion of Mathematics^ was^ tmtil of late^ almost syste- 
 matically excluded from our School and University 
 education; that the traditions of early life are 
 those which make and leave the strongest impres- 
 sion on the human mind ; and that the subjects 
 with which we become acquainted, and to which 
 our energies are devoted in youth, are those for 
 which we retain the liveliest interest in after years ; 
 and that for these reasons the effort required must 
 be both a mental and a moral one?" 
 
 We could cull from the admirable discourses of 
 this illustrious Prince many extracts illustrating, 
 from our present stand-point, the high and enlight-
 
 44 
 
 ened principles by which his educational policy was 
 guided, and in proof of the firm and undeviating 
 integrity with Avhich, speaking more generally, he 
 followed that line of conduct which, from the first, 
 he prepared himself to pursue ; but it would be im- 
 possible to compress mto two short columns a tenth 
 part of them. With a rare combination of ability 
 and energy, patience and perseverance, tact and good 
 sense, he laboured assiduously to accomplish the one 
 great object of his public career, devotion to the 
 highest interests of that Nation whose Sovereign 
 Lady had chosen him to be her Consort Prince; and 
 with such high-minded disinterestedness, and such 
 singular integrity, did he discharge his responsible 
 duties to both, that, sinking his own individuality 
 m that of his Queen, he preferred to receive honor 
 rather as the reflex of the lustre which his own 
 good works had shed around her Throne, than as 
 the just due of one who had been mainly instru- 
 mental in diffusing that light from which it ema- 
 nated. England does not know, England cannot 
 know, the deep debt of gratitude it owes to this 
 virtuous Prince, because the people of England can 
 yet hardly appreciate the great value of the services 
 which he rendered to the Nation. There is, besides, 
 another reason for tliis ignorance. With all his 
 intellectual superiority, with all the prestige of his 
 exalted rank and position, much good that he 
 effected, and much more that he proposed to effect, 
 was veiled from the public \aew, by that innate
 
 45 
 
 modesty which is peculiarly the type of true nobi- 
 lity, and which was one of the distinguishing 
 features of his character. In the willing attention 
 which the people bestowed on liis teaching^ and in 
 the patient perseverance with which they laboured 
 in those fields, the fertile resources of which he 
 first pointed out, this good Prince sought his simple 
 but noble reward ; and in the abundant harvest, 
 rich in the increase of intellectual power, the moral 
 and social improvement, prosperity, contentment, 
 and happiness of all classes, which has been gathered 
 as the fruit of his labours, he has bequeathed to the 
 nation a legacy more valuable than treasures of 
 gold, and to posterity a testimony of liis own 
 worth, more enduring than monuments of brass. 
 
 We have extended our remarks beyond our usual 
 limits, but the subject is one so full of mournful 
 interest to Englishmen in all quarters of the globe, 
 that we need make no apology. Had it pleased an 
 all-wise Providence to leave this illustrious Prince 
 amongst us for a longer period, it is impossible to 
 say what further benefits he might not have con- 
 ferred on Great Britain and her people. As we 
 look back on his whole life, it appears to us to 
 resemble rather a beautiful allegory than that hard 
 reality which we are accustomed to find in the lives 
 of Kings and Princes. Like some pure and limpid 
 stream, gently it seemed to flow onward, extending 
 its rich and fertilizing influences to all things Avithin 
 its reach ; gently, having run its course, it passed
 
 46 
 
 away, leaving throughout the land wide -spread and 
 beneficial results, but, alas ! in the immediate vici- 
 nity of its home, a desolation, the intensity of 
 which ONE alone can comprehend. 
 
 Of the futility of attempting^ hy systems of educa- 
 tion^ to destroy the nationality of a jyeople. 
 
 To make up the Present of all nations there must 
 be a Past. The present, to use the words of the 
 late Prince Consort in his address to the British 
 Association, stands on the shoulders of the past; 
 and if so, upon the shoulders of what past shall we 
 build the present of India? Upon those of the past 
 of Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome ; 
 Germany, France, England, or any other modernly 
 civilized nation of the world, or upon the past of 
 India herself ? Surely, if ever there was a countr}', 
 the past of which is interesting and instructive to 
 the student of history, that country is India. What ! 
 exclude from the course of an Indian University, 
 the ancient history of that people, who, issuing from 
 our common home, established in a remote land, a 
 civilization, unique in itself, which penetrated as 
 far as Egypt, and beyond it ; forbid its students 
 to recall that period, when, all Europe but a little 
 spot being sunk in barbarism, Alexander the Great, 
 if the records of Megasthenes and Strabo are to be
 
 47 
 
 believed, found in India schools of philosophers 
 whose whole life was devoted to the study of the 
 sublimest transcendentalism, the profoundest of all 
 knowledge, •— the knowledge of the soul ? Are we 
 to hide from our Kativc students our own belief in 
 the superiority of the race from which they have 
 sprung, — that race, who, having settled amongst 
 savage tribes, reduced rude societies to order, 
 mvented letters, and elaborating a wondrously 
 perfect language, laid the very foundations, we may 
 say, of the highest order of philology, and who, 
 having similarly invented numbers, unaided, but 
 by the force of their natural genius, advanced to 
 arithmetic and astronomy, calculated eclipses, and 
 made other accurate astronomical observations ? 
 Are we to hold back from those, we fain would 
 elevate, the knowledge that, when all was chaos in 
 Northern Europe, their forefathers had established 
 systems of law, logic, and mental and moral philo- 
 sophy, which, if at the present day they are con- 
 sidered eccentric, prove them, nevertheless, to be 
 capable of, and at one time to have attamed, the 
 very highest mental culture, and then to have been 
 possessed of an original, and not a purely imitative 
 genius ? Are the names of Manu, Yajnavalkya, 
 Parasara, Yiswamitra, Sakya Muni, Kapila, Saunaka, 
 Katyayana, Panini, Kalidasa, Vyasa, Valmiki, and 
 a whole host of others we might mention, to be pro- 
 scribed, and their great works to be held up to public 
 scorn, or, so to speak, to be burned l)y the common
 
 48 
 
 hangman ? Or, to take a nearer retrospect, is that 
 Oriental Unk to be cut out of the chain which con- 
 nects the civihzation of our own times with that of 
 Ancient Greece ? Is it from the pages of Chaucer 
 alone that the students of an Eastern University 
 are to learn that, in Ms day, knowledge in England, 
 as in the rest of Europe, was sought from 
 
 olde Esculapius, 
 
 And Discorides, and eeke Eufus ; 
 Old Tpocras, Haly, and Gralien ; 
 Serapyon, Eazis, and Avycen ; 
 Averrois, Damescen, and Constantyn ; 
 Bernard, and G-atisden, and Gilbertyu ? 
 
 Are our students to be permitted to read in Elphin- 
 stone. Mill, Elliot, and others, or in the proceed- 
 ings of the Asiatic Society, of the foundation of 
 mighty empires, the building of temples, the endow- 
 ment of colleges, schools, and charitable institu- 
 tions, the encouragement of learning and men of 
 letters, by the mighty sovereigns who have ruled 
 over this land; to see around them the ruins of 
 canals, roads, fortresses, mosques and mausoleums 
 of the most exquisite architecture, and exhibiting a 
 highly refined taste, and to compare them with that 
 monument of '' empty bottles" which it was said, and 
 a very few years back might very justly be said, 
 was all we should leave behind us ; to hear such 
 men as Sir William Jones, James Prinsep, Sir W. 
 Macnaghten, Colebrooke, H. H. Wilson, Sir Henry 
 Elliot, and the few scholars British India has pro-
 
 49 
 
 diiccd, attoinecl a European celebrity from their 
 profound knowledge of the Past of India, and yet 
 be expected to believe that that Past is " unmixed 
 evil." In short, having eyes shall they see not, ears 
 shall they hear not, and understanding shall they 
 be dead to those impulses which, be they of creed, 
 of nation, or of race. Nature has implanted in the 
 hearts of all it has endowed with superior mtelli- 
 gence ? Impossible ! Yet such would really appear 
 to be the visionary idea of the authorities of our 
 chief Indian Educational Institutions. The past 
 of India, her mythology, her religions, her laws, her 
 ancient languages, her literature with its dramas 
 and epics, her logic, her antiquities, have all been 
 carefully excluded from the Calcutta University 
 system ;* and, whichever way we view it, what a 
 melancholy parody on that system is it, that before 
 the close of the first decade of the Institution's exist- 
 ence, its Vice-Chancellor has thought it necessary 
 to devote a third of his annual address to a vain 
 endeavour, to wean the students from dwellinir on 
 that period of their country's history, which is said 
 to be "unmixed evil." And why is this? Why, 
 we would ask, whether the past of India be good ov 
 evil, should the sons of her soil be Avarned airainst 
 a practice, which from time immemorial, the natives 
 of all countries have considered one of their dearest 
 privileges ? Why, again, should it be deleterious ? 
 
 * A weak attempt has lately been made to introduce a lillle 
 Arabic aud Sauskrit at wliat is called the ' little go,' 
 
 D
 
 50 
 
 Or, admitting, for argument sake, the past of India 
 to be all e^dl, and the present all good, why should 
 any one having full confidence in the latter, dread 
 a comparison with the former, however highly that 
 comparison might be coloured ? We really can see 
 no reason for it ; but, on the contrary, every reason 
 why such comparison should be encouraged to the 
 utmost, as the surest means of making the students 
 appreciate those great advantages which they are 
 told they enjoy under British rule. 
 
 But a question arises on the threshold of this 
 argument, and of all similar arguments in which the 
 premises are not demonstrable facts or admitted 
 truths, — is the conclusion true ? Is the Past of India 
 unmixed evil? With the most convincing proofs 
 of the high place in the intellectual history of the 
 world which Ancient India has a right to claim, 
 furnished by early Greek Historians, proofs which 
 European savans have verified and increased many 
 fold, and with the institutes of Akbar before us — to 
 which as the Government of India are now defraying 
 the expenses of a new edition, they would probably 
 not be ashamed to OAvn their obligations, — we think, 
 we may spare ourselves the trouble of advancing 
 further evidence to prove the negative of so novel a 
 proposition. The Past of India may be singular 
 according to our notions, and, as with the Past of all 
 nations which recede into very remote antiquity, it 
 may contain much that is repugnant to modern ideas 
 of civilization, but, most certainly, no one with any
 
 51 
 
 but a very superficial knowledge of that Past, could 
 be so bold or so rash as to pronounce it unmixed evil. 
 Indeed, could any one succeed in establishing the 
 affirmative of this proposition, we fear that he would 
 prove too much ; for, were it so, it would be im- 
 possible to find a circumstance more condemnator}' 
 of the present system, than that those brought up 
 under it, preferred to look back with longing eyes 
 to those evil times, than to the bright prospect 
 which, they are so confidently assured, lies before 
 them. Depend upon it, if such is the case, there 
 must be something much more wrong with the ]pre- 
 sent than Avith the past^ and that the fault lies not 
 with the students, or in the practice by them of 
 any modern tricks which they might have picked 
 up from their European instructors, but that the 
 evil has deeper roots. Depend upon it the Natives 
 of this, or of any other country, will not withdraw 
 their thoughts from the present, to dwell with satis- 
 faction or pride on the past, or to yearn after its 
 imaginary blessings, unless they feel the want of 
 some real blessing which the present does not sup- 
 ply. The learned Doctor, it appears to us, has 
 overlooked — possibly rather looked over, the true 
 cause of discontent which finds expression in 
 regrets for the past, if it really exists. The edu- 
 cated natives of this country, if we understand their 
 aspirations rightly, have no desire whatever to be 
 astrologers, poets, or chroniclers to mythical 
 Indian Princes of ancient memory, nor do they 
 
 D 2
 
 52 , 
 
 waste much of their time in comparing the bril- 
 liancy of the careers of learned men in ancient and 
 modern India. Taking them at Dr. Maine's high 
 valuation, they are far too astute, and far too sen- 
 sibly alive to their own interests, to have any such 
 silly notions. What they deplore is, that the real 
 Kings, Viceroys, and Prmces of British India, have 
 no astronomers, poets, or historians, attached to 
 their Courts ; and that there are no learned men in 
 India. In other words, learning is not encouraged ; 
 there is no demand for it, and consequently, it is 
 not produced. 
 
 Under Mohammadan rule, there was always a 
 large literary class, spread throughout India. The 
 last vestiges of this class still exist, but they are 
 reduced in circumstances, and are scattered so far 
 and wide, that they may almost be said to have 
 disappeared. The class can obtain no fresh blood, 
 or new life, because, for a man to devote himself 
 to any kind of learning noiv^ is to make mendicity 
 his profession — or to starve ! The class, therefore, 
 and, with it, all learning, is dymg out. This, 
 very probably, is what the educated Natives feel ; 
 and it is with this very natural feeling, no doubt, 
 which Sir Donald McLeod, and many who coin- 
 cide with him in his views regarding the present 
 system of exotic education, have very great sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 Nor do we mean, by anything we have said 
 above, to exalt what is commonly called "Oriental
 
 53 
 
 learning" over knowledo-e of the Eiif^ish laniruajre 
 and literature, and Western science. Far from it. 
 We have no desire to keep the Natives of India 
 doion ; we belong to no particular school ; we advo- 
 cate the views of neither Anglicists nor Orientalists, 
 if any such exist at the present day; we should 
 heartily rejoice to see m India men of learning in 
 every branch of knowledge ; and it is because we 
 do not find them in any^ that we thmk there must 
 be something very rotten in the system Vice-Chan- 
 cellor Maine has so highly extolled. 
 
 Of Lord Macaidays celehrated Education Minute. 
 
 Its bright side. 
 
 About thirty years ago some sharp passages of 
 arms took place in Calcutta. The battle field was 
 the Committee or Board of Public Instruction. Its 
 members, who were split into two factions com- 
 monly known as Orientalists and Anglicists.^ were 
 the combatants. The bone of contention between 
 them was £10,000 a year, which was the whole 
 sum then set apart from the revenues of the coun- 
 try for the " revival and promotion of literature 
 and the encouragement of the learned Natives of 
 India, and for the introduction and promotion of a 
 knowledge of the sciences," and over this Jo^ie, and 
 how it should be disposed of, the combatants, who
 
 54 
 
 on both sides numbered amongst their ranks the 
 first men of the day, fought many long and well- 
 contested battles. Previously to 1835 the Orien- 
 talists had had it all their own way. The money 
 had been expended in printing and publishing valu- 
 able Oriental texts, in the stipends of students and 
 the salaries of learned Natives, and in translating 
 into Arabic and Sanskrit, English works of 
 approved merit, on various subjects — historical, 
 mathematical, scientific, &c. 
 
 At the close of 1834, however, an event occurred 
 w^hich was destined materially to disturb existing 
 arrangements, and to give a turn to preconceived 
 notions and ideas on the subject of Education. 
 This event was the arrival in India of Thomas 
 Babington Macaulay. He was immediately ap- 
 pointed a Member of this Committee, and his keen 
 eye at once detected very many grave errors in the 
 system of public instruction which had been 
 adopted, and it was under the influence, no doubt, 
 of his views, that one half of the Committee formed 
 themselves into an opposition. Warm discussions 
 were soon raised and much controversy of a bitter 
 and rancorous character followed. Both sides, 
 moreover, exhibited some obstinacy and a good 
 deal of bigotry in the views and opinions they 
 expressed. 
 
 The Orientalists maintained that " learning," in 
 the Act of Parliament, meant the learning only of 
 the East, and "learned men," those who were pro-
 
 55 
 
 found in this kind of knowledge; and that the 
 Committee of Public Instruction liad no authority 
 whatever to devote one rupee of the revenues of 
 the country to any other object. From this posi- 
 tion they would not retreat an inch. 
 
 The Anglicists^ on the other hand, were equally 
 uncompromismg. They would accept of nothhig 
 short of the elimination of all Sanskrit and Arabic 
 from the course of study ; the total destruction of 
 all works in these languages, which they asserted 
 to be " waste paper ;" the ultimate annihilation of 
 those natives who were learned in them, and the 
 substitution of teachers acquainted with the Eng- 
 lish language and literature and Western science. 
 
 The Committee never met, and the controversy 
 was carried on m voluminous minutes which con- 
 tain some not over-good logic, and a good deal of 
 strong language ; but, as the strength of both 
 parties was very evenly balanced, their battles 
 ended without any result, and in this state the 
 question came before the Supreme Council of India 
 for final decision. Lord Macaulay, besides being a 
 Member of the Committee of Public Instruction, 
 was also a member of the Government, and he took 
 no part in the discussion in Committee of the imme- 
 diate point which was referred, purposely that he 
 might enter upon it unhampered by any previously 
 expressed opinions when it came before him in 
 Council. This happened on the 2nd February, 
 1835, and he then wrote his celebrated Education
 
 56 
 
 Minute, — a minute which will live in the memory 
 of all interested in the education of the people of 
 India, probably as long as the language in which it 
 is written. In this remarkable and very able 
 paper, Macaulay threw himself, heart and soul, into 
 the cause of the Anglicists. He declared that the 
 wording of the Act left the Government of India 
 perfectly free to spend the existing grant " for the 
 purpose of promoting learning, in any way that 
 might be thought advisable," and quite as compe- 
 tent "to direct that it should no longer be employed 
 in encouraging Arabic and Sanskrit, as to direct 
 that the reward for killing tigers in Mysore should 
 be diminished." 
 
 The real question, he said, was, " what is the 
 most useful way of employing it." It was admitted, 
 he stated, that the Vernacular languages of India 
 " contained neither literary nor scientific informa- 
 tion, and were so poor and rude, that until enriched 
 from some other quarter, it would be difficult to 
 translate any valuable work into them ;" and it 
 could not be denied that " a single shelf of a good 
 European library was worth the whole native lite- 
 rature of India and Arabia ;" while, on the other 
 hand, whoever knows the English language " has 
 access to all the vast intellectual wealth which all 
 the wisest nations of the earth have created and 
 hoarded in the course of ninety generations." The 
 question then, he said, was " simply whether, when 
 it is in our power to teach this language, we shall
 
 57 
 
 teach languages in which, by universal confession, 
 there are no books on any subject wliich deserve 
 to be compared- to our own ; whether, when we 
 can teach European science, we shall teach systems 
 which, by universal confession, Avhcnever they differ 
 from those of Europe differ for the worse ; and 
 whether, when we can patronise sound Philosophy 
 and true History, we shall countenance, at the 
 public expense, medical doctrines which would 
 disgrace an English farrier; Astronomy, wdiicli 
 would move laughter in girls at an English board- 
 ing school ; History, aboundmg with Kings thirty 
 feet high, and reigns tliirty thousand years long ; 
 and Geography, made up of seas of treacle and seas 
 of butter." " We are not without experience," he 
 added, " to guide us." Had our ancestors, at the 
 great revival of letters among the Western nations 
 at the close of the fifteenth century, acted as the 
 Committee of Public Instruction has hitherto acted ; 
 had they neglected the language of Cicero and 
 Tacitus ; had they confined then- attention to the 
 old dialects of our own island ; " had they printed 
 nothing and taught nothing at the Universities but 
 chronicles in Anglo-Saxon and Norman French, 
 would England have been what she now is ? AYhat 
 Greek and Latin were to the contemporaries of 
 More and Ascham," said he, " our tongue is to the 
 people of India." 
 
 Another instance, he said, was still before our 
 eyes, — Russia, " which, in the time of our grand-
 
 58 
 
 lathers was probably behind the Punjab, may, m 
 the time of our grandchildren, be pressing close 
 on France and Britain in the career of improve- 
 ment." " And how," he asked, " was this change 
 effected ? Not by flattering national prejudices, 
 not by feeding the mind of the young Muscovite 
 with the old woman's stories which his rude fathers 
 had believed ; not by filling his head with lying 
 legends about St. Nicholas; not by encouraging 
 him to study the great question, whether the world 
 was or was not created on the 13th of September ; 
 not by calling him a learned native, when he has 
 mastered all these pomts of knowledge ; but by 
 teachins: him those foreio;n lanoTiaffes in which the 
 greatest mass of information had been laid up, and 
 thus putting all that information mthin his reach. 
 The languages of Western Europe civihzed Russia. 
 I cannot doubt that they will do for the Hindoo 
 what they have done for the Tartar." 
 
 He combated the argument that Arabic and 
 Sanskrit should be taught, because they were valued 
 and aj^preciated by the natives, by shewing that a 
 system of stipends was necessary to accomplish 
 their cultivation, or, in other words, that no native 
 would study these languages unless he was paid 
 for it, and that the only way the Committee could 
 get rid of the twenty-three thousand folio and 
 quarto volumes with which their shelves were 
 laden, was by givhig them away, and yet they 
 could not give as fast as they printed. In the
 
 59 
 
 three years ending December, 1834, he said, the 
 Committee had expended Rs. G0,000 in printing, of 
 which they had realized by sale only Rs. 1000. 
 As for their languages being necessary for the 
 study of Hindu and Mohammadan law, he denied 
 that the argument had any bearing on the question 
 at all, for Parliament had commanded a digest of 
 the laws of India to be prepared, and " as soon as 
 the code was promulgated, the Shasters and the 
 HidayaJi would be useless to a MoonsifF or Sudder 
 Ameen." But the argument which appeared to 
 him most untenable was, that Sanskrit and Arabic 
 should be taught, because " they are the languages 
 in which the sacred books of a hundred millions of 
 people are written." It is confessed, he added, 
 " that a language is barren of useful knowledge. 
 We are to teach it because it is fruitful of mon- 
 strous superstitions. We are to teach false history, 
 false astronomy, false medicine, because we find 
 them in company with a false religion. We ab- 
 stain, and I trust we shall always abstain, from 
 giving any pubhc encouragement to those who are 
 engaged in converting natives to Christianity. And 
 while we act thus, can we reasonably and decently 
 bribe men out of the revenues of the State to waste 
 their youth in learning how they are to purify 
 themselves after toucliing an ass, or what text of 
 Vedas they are to repeat to expiate the crime of 
 killing a goat ?" 
 
 " To sum up," continued Macaulay, " I think it
 
 60 
 
 clear that we are not fettered by the Act of Par- 
 Hameut of 1813 ; that we are not fettered by any 
 pledge expressed or implied ; that we are free to 
 employ our funds as we choose ; that we ought to 
 employ them in teaching what is best worth know- 
 ing 5 that English is better worth knowing than 
 Sanskrit or Arabic ; that the natives are desirous 
 to be taught English, and are not desirous to be 
 taught Sanskrit or Arabic ; that neither as the lan- 
 guages of law, nor as the languages of rehgion, 
 have the Sanskrit and Arabic any peculiar claim to 
 our encouragement ; that it is possible to make 
 natives of this country thoroughly good English 
 scholars ; and that to this end our efforts ought to 
 be directed." 
 
 There was one point, however, in which he cor- 
 dially concurred with those to whose general views 
 he was opposed ; " that with the limited means at 
 the disposal of the Committee, it was impossible to 
 attempt to educate the body of the people," and 
 finally he declined, unless the system was changed, 
 to serve on the Committee. "I conceive," he said, 
 " that we have at present no right to the respect- 
 able name of a Board of PubUc Instruction. We 
 are a Board for wasting public money, for printing 
 books which are of less value than the paper on 
 which they are printed was while it was blank ; for 
 giving artificial encouragement to absurd history? 
 absurd metaphysics, absurd physics, and absurd 
 theology ; for raising up a breed of scholars who
 
 61 
 
 find their scholarship an incumbrance and a blem- 
 ish, who live on the public while they are receiving 
 their education, and whose education is so utterly 
 useless to them, that when they have received it 
 they must either starve or live on the public all 
 the rest of theu- lives." 
 
 Macaulay, by this celebrated minute, carried the 
 Governor-General and the Council of India along 
 with him, and an ordinance was promulgated which 
 changed the entire system. Orientalism was doomed ; 
 Oriental learning was henceforth to be allowed to 
 die out, and the English language and literature 
 were to take its place. Macaulay had carried his 
 motion, he had obtamed permission to place in the 
 hands of the people of India the key of knowledge ; 
 he had put forth his strength to emancipate them 
 from the thraldom of ignorance and errors similar 
 to those which had enveloped Europe in darkness, 
 and he had not done so in vain. He had pleaded 
 for the Native of India being placed in a position 
 to raise himself, mtellectually, to a level with his 
 conquerors, and to aspire to share with them in the 
 government of his country, and he had gamed his 
 cause. It is undoubtedly due to the influence of 
 his opmions that a system of Public Instruction was 
 adopted, without which the introduction of Railways 
 and Electric Telegraphs into India would have been 
 extremely difficult, if not altogether impossible ; 
 and it is due to the same cause that natives are now 
 able to enter the Civil Service, to sit on the same
 
 G2 
 
 Bench with an Enghsh Chief Justice, and that 
 Government can assign to them so large a share of 
 the highest and most confidential appointments. 
 For these benefits the Government, the Country, 
 and its People, must ever remain deeply indebted 
 to Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay. 
 
 Of Lord Macaulay'' s celehrated Education Minute. 
 
 Its dark side. 
 
 A few days back we reviewed the celebrated 
 education minute of Lord Macaulay, recording our 
 opinion that very great material benefits had accrued 
 to the Government, the Country, and the People 
 from the adoption of the policy he initiated. The 
 view we have taken of the results of that policy is 
 that, we believe, which has long been held by the 
 larger section of the public, who occupy their atten- 
 tion with this important subject. But the time has 
 come, when, those who heartily and sincerely wish 
 well to the people of India, and who desire to see 
 their education based on a foundation somewhat 
 more solid than that suited to a system destined to 
 fit persons to hold Government situations, must 
 carefully enquire into the soundness of the principles 
 upon which the sudden and complete change efi'ected 
 in the Government policy in 1835 was recommended, 
 and must cautiously examine the arguments urged
 
 63 
 
 in support of it, and investigate from an educational 
 as well as a material point of view the results which 
 have been obtained. 
 
 Hitherto Lord Macaulay's minute has been con- 
 sidered Law. Lord Auckland and the Court ol" 
 Directors subsequently pointed out some of his 
 misconceptions ; but, of late years, no one has ven- 
 tured to dispute its canons. Still, it must be borne 
 in mind, that it was written a few months after the 
 great man landed in Lidia ; that, at that time, the 
 subject of Education, which of all subjects is one 
 which ought to be considered calmly and dispas- 
 sionately, had unfortunately given rise to a violent 
 controversy ; and that, if it cannot be said that 
 Macaulay was the most prominent member of a 
 faction, it cannot be denied that he entered on the 
 discussion with the feelings, and in the spirit, of a 
 partizan. It was referring to this state of things 
 that Lord Auckland remarked in 1839, — when he 
 was compelled by the dissatisfaction exhibited by 
 the Natives at the uncompromising spirit in whicli 
 the new policy was carried out, to modify the pre- 
 vious orders on the subject, — " Unhappily, I have 
 found violent differences existing upon the subject 
 of Education, and it Avas for a time (now I trust 
 past, or fast passing away) a watchword for violent 
 dissensions, and in some measure for the display of 
 personal feelings." 
 
 There can be little doubt, it occasionally happens, 
 that, in times of great excitement, not only is the
 
 G4 
 
 judgment of the ablest men blinded, ]jut their powers 
 of discrimination are weakened ; and it appears to us 
 that there are very many portions of this memor- 
 able minute of Macaulay's, which the distinguished 
 author would have run his pen through, had he 
 been called upon to revise it, some years later. It 
 is only on some such supposition that it is conceiv- 
 able how any discussion could have arisen on the 
 meanmg of the Act of Parliament of 1813, wliich, 
 as it formed the grounds of the controversy, is 
 invested with sufficient importance to warrant our 
 examining it carefully. That Act provided that a 
 certain sum should be set apart " for the revival 
 and promotion of literature, and the encouragement 
 of the learned Natives of India, and for the intro- 
 duction and promotion of a knowledge of the 
 sciences among the inhabitants of the British terri- 
 tories." This passage is punctuated as above in 
 the Act, but were it not so, the wording of it 
 leaves no room whatever to doubt its meaninfr. It 
 contams two distinct sentences, and each indicates, 
 as clearly as words can indicate, the mtentions of 
 Parliament in framing both. The words " revival 
 and promotion," which are used m the first sentence, 
 in the second are changed into " introduction and 
 promotion," and the whole question consequently, 
 hinges on the relative meanings of the words 
 revival and introduction. If they are synonymous 
 in signification, Macaulay was right; if they are 
 not, he was wrong. There can be no dispute on
 
 65 
 
 the point. What, then, are the meanings of these 
 words ; and to whom shall we refer the question ? 
 Webster is at hand, so we consult him, leavino- 
 others to consult Walker or Johnson if they prefer 
 them. Revival^ then, says Webster, is " the recall, 
 return, or recovery from a state of neglect, obli\don, 
 obscurity, or depression, as the revival of letters or 
 learning?" In other words, the reanimation of 
 something that before existed or was known. And 
 introdMction, " the act of brino-ino- somethino- mto 
 notice, practise, or use ; as the introduction of new 
 modes of dress or of tillage:" something new, it will 
 be observed, something that had not before existed 
 or was not known. The passage has evidently a 
 double sense ; if not, why the change of the word 
 " revival?" Reading the text, then, with the calm- 
 ness and dehberate consideration which at the 
 present time we are able to give to it, it is plain 
 that there were two separate and distinct objects, 
 for the promotion of which the British Parliament 
 desired a portion of the revenues of this country to 
 be set apart, — one, the promotion of Oriental 
 learning, and the encouragement of Natives distin- 
 guished for their knowledge of it ; and the other, 
 the promotion of European science, of which the 
 Natives were then ignorant. The former had pre- 
 viously existed, but under the E. I. Company's 
 Rule had begun to languish, — Parliament wished 
 to revive it; the other .had never existed, — Parlia- 
 ment wished to introduce it. The former could 
 
 E
 
 GG 
 
 only be revived^ through the medium of the lan- 
 guages which contained it; the latter, the Ver- 
 naculars, being admittedly imperfect, could only be 
 introduced., through the medium of a foreign and 
 more perfect language, be it a European or an 
 Asiatic one. The only question, then, which should 
 have been discussed, was, is Sanskrit and Arabic, 
 or English, the better medium for communicating 
 to the Natives of India a knowledge of Western 
 science? This solution of the difficulty, if we can 
 speak of a difficulty where there really appears to 
 have been none, would have led to a proportionate 
 distribution of the grant in support of the two 
 objects Parliament wished to promote and encou- 
 rage, and not only have simplified matters by leaving 
 the classical languages of India still in higher educa- 
 tion the languages of literature, and making Englisli 
 the language of European science; but, while not 
 interfermg with any of the good, would probably 
 have prevented many of the evil consequences wliich 
 followed the change of system. But, so blinded 
 were the controversialists by prejudice, and so 
 stirred up with anger and excitement, that neither 
 side would hear of a compromise, although, in the 
 strictest accordance with the Law. All must be 
 hlack^i or all must be white. 
 
 After disposing of the legal difficulty, and dilat- 
 ing on the immense value of English literature, 
 " the question," said Macaulay, " is, whether, when 
 we have it in our power to teach this language, we
 
 67 
 
 shall teach languages in which, by universal con- 
 fession, there are no books on any subject which 
 deserve to be compared to our own?" But could 
 not the same be asked of Latin and Greek, and of 
 every ancient language under the sun? Macaulay 
 himself admits it and more, when, a few lines above, 
 in the same minute, he states that " it may safely 
 be said that the literature now extant in that lan- 
 guage [English] is of far greater value than all 
 the literature, which three hundred years ago was 
 extant in all the languages of the world together;" 
 and a few lines below, that " the literature of Ens:- 
 land is now more valuable than that of classical 
 antiquity." He did not propose to abolish the 
 study of the classical languages of the West, nor 
 declare that they were worthless, though admitting 
 their literature to be inferior to our own. lie 
 could not have done so without altoo^ether defeatina: 
 his own object, for, as one of the most brilliant 
 scholars of his day, he was himself a living instance 
 of the great importance of maintaining, in all Uni- 
 versity systems, classical studies. On the contrary, 
 in a passage which we have quoted in a previous 
 article, he asks, — had our ancestors acted as the 
 Committee of Public Instruction acted prior 
 to his time, had they neglected the language of 
 Cicero and Tacitus, and taught nothing but Chro- 
 nicles in Anglo-Saxon and Norman French, would 
 England have been what she now is? And here 
 be it observed, he speaks of Greek and Latin as 
 
 E 2
 
 68 
 
 languages, and not as media for communicating 
 scientific knowledge. 
 
 The prime error committed by the Orientalists 
 undoubtedly was in attempting, like the schoolmen 
 of the dark ages, to make foreign and dead lan- 
 guages — for Arabic is as much a dead language in 
 India as Sanskrit — the media for communicating to 
 the Natives of India scientific, and in this case, 
 completely new knowledge; but the allusion to 
 Tacitus, Cicero, and the Norman and Saxon Chro- 
 nicles, precludes the supposition that Macaulay 
 in the passage here alluded to meant more than 
 simply literature. Nor, were it otherwise, would 
 the argument hold good, for Copernicus, Galileo, 
 Kepler, Newton, and the other great discoverers 
 in physical science, did not certamly derive 
 tlieir inspiration from the study of the Western 
 classics ? 
 
 English, urged Macaulay, is to the Natives of 
 India what Latin and Greek were to our ancestors. 
 But this is nothing more than a gross blunder — 
 a blimder which, had he known either of the lan- 
 guages, the study of which he condemned, he would 
 not have committed; but which, even with his 
 undoubted knowledge of the structures of English 
 and the Western classical languages, he ought to 
 have been ashamed to make. English does not 
 stand in the same relation to the people of India 
 as Latin and Greek did to the people of England 
 in the sixteenth or any other century of the Chris-
 
 G9 
 
 tian era. It is Sanskrit and Arabic which hold 
 that place, and precisely that place, in India, which 
 Macaulay claimed for Latin and Greek in England. 
 Anglo-Saxon and Norman French were the Verna- 
 cular languages of England; and, as our ancestors 
 set them aside for Latui and Greek, which were 
 the classical languages, not only of England, but 
 of all Europe, so did the Committee of Public 
 Instruction propose to set aside Hindoostani, Ben- 
 gaK, Marhatta, &c., or the Vernacular languages 
 of India, in favour of Arabic and Sanskrit, which 
 are the classical languages of the East. We by 
 no means wish to uphold the action of the Orien- 
 talists at the period referred to in all respects, for 
 we think bigotry of any kind is hateful ; but in this 
 instance they certainly had both reason and right 
 on their side. 
 
 Again, as regards the illustration drawn from the 
 educational policy of Russia, it seems to us more 
 unfortunate still ; for, firstly, the Russians had no 
 ancient literature ; and, secondly, Avithout denying 
 that benefits resulted from the introduction into 
 that country of French and German literature, it 
 is, nevertheless, a fact, that the Russian Govern- 
 ment has long since discovered reasons for conclud- 
 ing its policy in this respect to have been a mistaken 
 one, and, for the last fifteen or twenty years, it has 
 been making the most active exertions to repair 
 its error, by revi\ing the study of tho, language 
 of the country, and encouraging its cultivation.
 
 70 
 
 Moreover it has done this, not only with the full 
 concurrence of its subjects, but to their great hap- 
 piness, contentment, and satisfaction, which with 
 all Governments ought certainly to be an impor- 
 tant consideration. 
 
 Every people prefers its own language to the 
 language of foreigners; it is natural that they 
 should do so, and it is unwise to suppose that the 
 people of India are an exception, or that in this 
 respect they differ from any other people of ancient 
 civilization who have a literature they can call 
 their own. Sanskrit and Arabic, it may be said, 
 are not the languages of India, and it is true that 
 they are not the living languages of India; but, 
 for centuries they have been the languages of its 
 schools and colleges, and are the languages which 
 contain the literature of the people, — a literature 
 which, if others despise, they very highly prize. It 
 is no argument at all to say, that, because youths 
 have to be paid for learning these languages, the 
 natives of India do not appreciate them. Such is 
 the custom of the country, and at the present day 
 every wealthy Mohammadan in this city supports 
 two, three, or four students, while they are prose- 
 cuting their studies in Arabic. 
 
 But there is a very much simpler solution of the 
 paradox. Under British rule there has lately been 
 no demand for Oriental scholarship, and it would 
 have been almost as unreasonable to expect the 
 Natives to pay for learning English in the days of
 
 71 
 
 Akbar and Shah Jehan, as to pay for learning 
 Arabic and Sanskrit in the da}'s of Lord William 
 Bentinck and Lord Macaulay. II f aid vivire is a 
 necessity which Nature has imposed upon the people 
 of the East, equally with the people of the West, 
 and it is a necessity, in regard to the poor^ which the 
 rich everywhere must recognise. It seems, then, 
 hardly generous or even just to peoples whose 
 Kings and Princes have been deprived of their 
 inheritance and humbled in the dust, and whose 
 rich men have been reduced to a state bordering 
 on poverty, for those who have compassed their 
 overthrow, to turn on them and accuse them of 
 want of appreciation of a thing, because they neg- 
 lect it to purchase that which, under the new 
 regime^ alone will give them bread. 
 
 But if this is unjust, how far worse than un- 
 just — how bitterly harsh and cruel is that senti- 
 ment, which led Macaulay to consider the argu- 
 ment " that Arabic and Sanscrit should he taught, 
 because theg are the languages in which the Sacred 
 Boohs of a hundred millions of 2)eople are loritten^' 
 as the most untenable of all the arguments ad- 
 vanced by his opponents. We abstain, said he, 
 from giving public encouragement to those engaged 
 in converting the natives to Christianity, and we 
 are to bribe men out of the revenues of the country, 
 to waste their youth in learnmg then- own Scrip- 
 tures. On reading this passage, one feels almost 
 tempted to suspect that Macaulay had been so
 
 72 
 
 short a time in India Avhen he penned the portion 
 of his minute in which it occurs, that he must 
 have forgotten of what country he was speaking, 
 and what was the main source whence those reve- 
 nues were derived regarding the proper distribu- 
 tion of which, he expressed such confident opinions. 
 It was our desire to pass over in silence the many 
 contemptuous remarks regarding the institutions 
 of the people of India, and especially their reli- 
 gions, which disfigure this, in other respects, very 
 ably written State paper, because they weaken 
 rather than strengthen the arguments advanced ; 
 and we are certain, as before mentioned, that, had 
 Lord Macaulay himself had an opportunity, some 
 years later, of revising his minute, he would have 
 expunged much which, in calmer mood, he could 
 not have approved. But a fallacy lies concealed 
 in this argument, which, as it is still believed in 
 by a very large and influential class both in Eng- 
 land and India, we think it well to dispose of. 
 Lord Macaulay has taken great credit for the neu- 
 trality of the Government of India of his day in 
 religious matters ; but whether, when we refiise to 
 give pecuniary support to men engaged in convert- 
 ing natives to what toe believe to be the true reli- 
 gion, we are to spend the revenues of the country 
 on men engaged in learning and in teaching 
 idolatry and superstition, was not then, nor is it 
 now, the question with which Ave have to deal; or, 
 were it so. there are certainlv other wavs of look- 
 ing at it.
 
 73 
 
 The questions, from this pouit of view, for 
 histance, which first occur to us would be ; — 
 are Ave to take from the people of this country 
 £47,000,000 of annual revenue for the purposes 
 of the Government of the country, and allow not 
 one rupee of those millions, the greater portion of 
 which has been raised by the sweat of their brows, 
 for the maintenance of their religious institutions ? 
 Are we to spend annually out of these revenues 
 £150,000 on bishops, priests, deacons, and ecclesi- 
 astical establishments, maintained solely for the 
 spiritual welfare of a few thousand Englishmen, 
 and leave the 150,000,000 of our Hindu and 
 Mohammadan subjects, to provide for the care of 
 their own souls out of the pittance our Revenue 
 collectors may leave them for their private pur- 
 poses, on the plea that their religions are monstrous 
 superstitions? Are we to lay out annually, and to 
 take immense credit for so doing, £G 60,000 of 
 those revenues mainly in teaching them our own 
 language and literature, for which the great body 
 of the natives of India do not, and never can, care 
 one straw, — a large portion of which, moreover, is 
 paid to Societies and men with whom conversion 
 to Christianity is confessedly a primary object, and 
 Education, if an object at all, but a means to what 
 they consider a far higher end, — and yet gTudge a 
 few hundred pounds a month for teaching the lan- 
 guages which contain the Religion and Laws of 
 our native subjects? Are wx to do all these
 
 74 
 
 things, and others we might mention, and still 
 prate of the tolerance of British Rule, and 
 glory over the strictness and impartiality with 
 which we observe our traditional policy of perfect 
 Neutrality in matters relating to Religion? Far 
 better would it have been to leave Christianity and 
 Monstrous Superstition out of the account, for if 
 this is Neutrality, it is Neutrality with a vengeance 
 indeed. 
 
 As before mentioned, we are no bigots ; but our 
 abhorrence of bigotry is not one-sided, nor is it 
 confined to any particular colour or creed. It is 
 universal. We prefer to look at National ques- 
 tions, whether they be political, religious, or 
 educational, from the broad j)latform of the States- 
 man, rather than from the narrow grating of the 
 cloister ; and in discussing them, to shew as much 
 consideration for the feelings and wishes of the 
 Hindu and Mohammadan, as for those of the 
 Christian and the Jew. We yield to none in our 
 high appreciation of the English language and 
 literature; we admit to the full the benefits that 
 have accrued to the country and the people from 
 the impulse given to the study of that language 
 since 1835; and we look forward, not only with 
 some national pride, but with sincere and unfeigned 
 satisfaction, to the further benefits which will flow 
 from continuing to encourage its cultivation. We, 
 nevertheless, maintain that it is not, and never has 
 been, the policy of the British Parliament, directly
 
 75 
 
 or indii-ectly, to deprive the natives of India of the 
 opportunities, and, consequently, of the means of 
 acquirmg a knowledge of the languages in which 
 their Scriptures are written ; that, consequently, 
 Macaulay misread the Act of Parhament he 
 essayed to interpret, and thereby misled the Indian 
 Government of the day ; that, in viewing the ques- 
 tion solely as one of the comparative values of the 
 literatures extant ui the English language and the 
 classical languages of the East, and completely 
 ignoring all consideration of the value of the 
 latter as a means of mental culture and discipline, 
 he committed an egregious blunder in the philo- 
 sophy of education, — a blunder wliich sooner or 
 later the Government of India must be at great 
 pains and labour and some expense to repair ; and 
 that m rudely and violently disregarding the 
 national and religious feelings of our native sub- 
 jects, he committed an equally grave political error, 
 by causing the Government, of which he was a 
 member, to violate the soundest prmciple of its 
 Constitution, — that of basing the stability of Bri- 
 tish rule in India, on the happiness and contentment 
 of the people.
 
 76 
 
 Of the impossihility of giviyig a National basis to a 
 system of Puhlic Instruction^ in loliicli National 
 Institutions and National Feelings are ignored. 
 
 In our review of the Education Minute of Lord 
 Macaulay, we pointed out that the sudden change 
 of system introduced mto India in 1835, was not in 
 accordance with the provisions of the Act of Par- 
 hament, and was consequently, in our opinion, 
 illegal; that the error of the Anglicists and Orien- 
 talists lay, in both parties rushing into extremes; 
 and that, according to the rule in such cases, the 
 correct course, and in this instance the legal course, 
 lay between these extremes. Some of the mischief 
 premeditated, however, was arrested, by Lord 
 Aucldand, who desired to shew more consideration 
 for the feelings and wishes of the Natives, and, with 
 the view of effectmg the transition from Orientalism 
 to Anglicism, more gently, to maintain existing 
 means for affording the Natives opportunities of 
 learnino' their own classical lano-uao-es and literature. 
 Still much was done that was thought, and is still 
 thought, by the Natives, to have been harsh and 
 unjust. In some mstances bequests made by Natives 
 for the promotion of Oriental learning, were appro- 
 priated for English education, which was very 
 naturally considered little short of spoliation. This 
 certainly was unwise, for it was a wrong, — and it
 
 77 
 
 is a wrong which, notwithstanclhig the enormously 
 increased Parliamentary grant, still continues. ]\Iore 
 unwisely still, an exclusiveness was set up wliich 
 was fatal to that harmony and union which alone 
 can insure strength, and which is so essential to 
 the success of every great national movement — an 
 exclusiveness which, though always a charge pre- 
 ferred against the Orientalists, was, in truth, one 
 which, with a greater show of justice, could be 
 urged against the Anglicists. The high classes of 
 Hindus, from caste prejudices may have objected to 
 the lower classes sitting on the same benches with 
 them, and Mohammadans may have had religious 
 scruples on the subject of English education ; but 
 neither, we believe, would have objected to receive as 
 much English as was good for them, provided it had 
 been combined with instruction m theu' own classics, 
 and that greater consideration had been shewn for 
 their religious feelings, as Avell as more judgment in 
 the application of a system which, as being opposed 
 to their preconceived notions on the subject, was 
 distasteful to them. 
 
 Deep-rooted prejudices cannot be overcome in an 
 hour, a day, or a year. Time, patience, and per- 
 severance are necessary to the attainment of the 
 end, provided its accomplishment is intended to be 
 effected without violence. It has been said, and 
 truly said, that nothing would be so painful to a 
 blind man, as to be suddenly restored to sight in 
 the bright light of noon-day. And the illustration
 
 78 
 
 is applicable to almost all mental, equally with all 
 bodily, sensations. Macaulay asserted the position 
 to be that of a people of highly intellectual attain- 
 ments, called upon to superintend the education of 
 a people comparatively ignorant, and he objected 
 that the learners should prescribe the course the 
 teachers ought to take. He looked upon the lan- 
 ffuag-es and literatures of the East as a diseased 
 limb, and he proposed to cut it off. But he not 
 only under -rated the intellectual attainments of the 
 learned Natives, and undervalued their languages 
 and Hterature, but he forgot that with a skilful 
 surgeon, cure is a primary consideration, and ampu- 
 tation a last resource, — a remedy seldom or never, 
 moreover, applied without the consent of the 
 patient. 
 
 Writers in this journal, and speakers elsewhere, 
 on the subject we have undertaken to review, have 
 spoken of the question of to-day as a revival of the 
 controversy between OrientaUsts and Aiiglicists ; 
 but they are altogether mistaken. That the argu- 
 ments of those who view the subject from Sir 
 Donald McLeod's stand-point, appear to be directed 
 against the principles of the Anglicists may be true ; 
 but that such should be the case is unavoidable, 
 because this faction, having gained the upper hand 
 in the struggle of tliirty years back, their principles 
 were, in great part, adopted as the basis of the 
 new system then brought into operation. But 
 neither Orientalism nor Anglicism have anj'thing
 
 79 
 
 whatever to do with the question of to-day. Tliat 
 question is not which of the controversialists of 
 1835 was in the right ; but whether or not tlie 
 principles of the system of higher education then 
 laid down, and which, speaking generally, have 
 been acted upon ever since, are sound; and the first 
 and most essential qualification in any one who 
 desires to discuss this question on its merits and 
 without prejudice, is the admission that both Orien- 
 talists and Anglicists were, if not wholly, in great 
 part in the wrong. 
 
 The movement which has lately taken place in 
 the Punjab, and which has obtained the support of 
 the Lieutenant-Governor of that Province, and of 
 His Excellency the Governor-General, has nothing 
 to do with party feeling of any kind. It is simply 
 a spontaneous effort on the part of the native nobi- 
 lity and gentry of the Punjab to re\dve the cultiva- 
 tion of the classical languages of India — or, in other 
 words, to carry into effect an important part of the 
 provisions of the Act of Parliament of 1813, which 
 we have shewn pretty clearly in a pre\dous article 
 the Indian Government of the day either misunder- 
 stood or misuiterpreted. How the pi'omoters of 
 this movement will carry their \iews into effect 
 remains to be seen; but the movement has not 
 originated with Government, — it comes from Avithm, 
 and is therefore entitled to more respect than ordi- 
 nary movements of the kmd, which origmate usually 
 in pressure from without, and embody little more
 
 80 
 
 than official inspiration. It is supported by a large, 
 respectable, and influential body of our Native sub- 
 jects, and as clearly indicating their disapproval of 
 the existing Government system of education, is 
 invested with an importance, and has a significance 
 which renders it desirable that it should receive 
 attention. 
 
 We entertain the profoundest admu*ation for 
 Lord Macaulay's brilliant talents ; but without any 
 wish to detract from his great merits, we may say 
 that by this time it is, or ought to be known, that 
 at no period of his career had he sufficient Indian 
 experience to lay down a project for the reform of 
 any department of the administration of Indian 
 affairs, which could be adojDted in full detail, with 
 any reasonable prospect of success. Had his Penal 
 Code been put in force at the time he drafted it, 
 we have no hesitation in sapng that, instead of 
 being beneficial, it would have been mischievous in 
 its effects ; and had it, at any time, been adopted 
 in the form in which he left it, it would have broken 
 down almost as soon as it was promulgated. The 
 same may be said of his scheme for officermg the 
 Ci\al Service of India ; and that his Educational 
 \iews, which were put forth a few months after he 
 landed in India, should have been such as could 
 safely be adopted throughout India in their integ- 
 rity, without modification or adaptation, is hardly 
 to be expected. All honour is due to Lord Macau- 
 lay for his powerful advocacy of the claims of oiu-
 
 81 
 
 Indian subjects to be afForded, not only opportu- 
 nities, but ample means for acquiring a language 
 which would give them access to that knowledge, 
 which has made the people of England a great 
 Nation. But the grammar and structure of the 
 English language are not such as to render it, as a 
 mental discipline, suitable for I'cplacing Latin and 
 Greek or Arabic and Sanskrit ; and, as before 
 pointed out, here was a weakness in the basement 
 of the system, which, it should have been self- 
 evident from the very outset, unfitted it to bear 
 the weight of a solid superstructure. Yet, if it 
 can be said that this was a defect sufficiently im- 
 portant to have raised serious doubts as to the suc- 
 cess of the scheme, another error was committed 
 which, looking at the question from a National 
 point of view, was such as to place success beyond 
 the bounds of possibility. 
 
 In 1835 the Overland Route had not been esta- 
 blished, and India was, in 2:>oint of time, very much 
 further then than it is now from Europe. It 
 therefore probably did not attract the attention of 
 the Indian Government of the day, that when the 
 discussion of this great question came on in Cal- 
 cutta, the foundations of a National system of 
 Public Instruction had just been laid down in 
 France ; and it consequently did not occur to them 
 to compare the opinions submitted for their con- 
 sideration by Macaulay, with those expressed by 
 men in Europe, who, if not his superiors in orato- 
 
 F
 
 82 
 
 rical power and mastery over language, were cer- 
 tainly so in knowledge of the subject under consi- 
 deration and in statesmanship. We allude to the 
 distinguished Educationist and Author, M. Victor 
 Cousin and M. Guizot. Let us see how the re- 
 formers acted in the East and the West, not under 
 circumstances wholly dissimilar. 
 
 Macaulay came to India and found a tree as it 
 appeared to him barren of fruit ', he waited not 
 three years, nay, hardly three months, — he stayed 
 not to dig about it, nor to dung it, but said at once, 
 " Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?" 
 
 What, on the other hand, did M. Guizot do ? 
 He sent Victor Cousin, one of the most profound 
 and popular writers of the age, into Prussia, 
 which was then that country of Europe in which 
 education had received the greatest development, 
 to make the most careful investigation into the 
 Prussian system, and to acquaint himself with its 
 results. M. Guizot was satisfied from M. Cousin's 
 report of the soundness of the Prussian system of 
 National Education, but nevertheless he did not, 
 on that account, attempt to transplant it in its in- 
 tegrity into France. He adapted it to the Institu- 
 tions of his country, and framed a modification of 
 it which he thought would be more in accordance 
 with the feelings and wishes of his countrymen, 
 and which consequently, as a National measure, 
 would afibrd more reasonable hopes of success. 
 '' Nothing," said M. Victor Cousin in his Report
 
 83 
 
 to the Minister, " must pass into Law which has 
 not the warranty of success. Lmos are not to be 
 perilous experiments on society ; they ought simply 
 to sum up and to generalize the lessons of experi- 
 ence." And again : — " I wish for a Law, and at 
 the same time I dread it; for I tremble, lest we 
 should plunge into visionary and impracticable pro- 
 jects again, without attendiny to ichat actnalhj 
 exists^ And M. Guizot repeated the same senti- 
 ments, when, in introducing his measure to the 
 Chamber of Deputies in 1832, he said: — "We con- 
 ceive that, on the subject of the education of the 
 people, our business is to methodize and improve 
 what exists, rather than to destroy, for the purpose 
 of mventing and renewing upon the faith of dan- 
 gerous theories." 
 
 These great reformers saw at once that, however 
 defective an existing system might be, violently to 
 tear it up by the roots, would outrage the feelings 
 of all who had been brought up under it, and 
 whose co-operation was especially essential to their 
 success. The Clergy were especially to be conci- 
 liated. " We must have the Clergy," said Victor 
 Cousin ; but how did he propose to associate them 
 with him in the business of reform? " AVe nm&t 
 neither deliver over our Committees," said he, 
 "into the hands of the Clergy, nor exclude them; 
 we must admit them, because tliey have a riyht to he 
 there, and to represent the religion of the peopled 
 
 Had the Indian Government of 18o5-oG carried
 
 84 
 
 out tlieir measures of reform in the same spirit, 
 and with the same cautious forethought, — had they 
 shewn the same consideration for the religions of the 
 people, and for those who represented them, — had 
 they recognized what was good in that which existed, 
 and rejected only what was bad, superadding any- 
 thing else they pleased, — had they been content to 
 Introduce their reforms as steadily, but still more 
 gradually, and with a stricter regard to maintain 
 the great principle of Urn'on,— they would have 
 carried the whole country along with them, and, it 
 is difficult now to say, what great results would 
 not have been attained. But no ; all these con- 
 siderations, the observance of which, to give the 
 system a National basis, was of the essence of 
 success, were ignored. The learning which our 
 Native subjects not only respected but revered, was 
 condemned as worse than worthless ; their books 
 were pronounced to be of less value than the paper 
 on which they were printed whilst it was blank ; 
 their Pundits and Moulavies^ — the Clergy of India, 
 ■ — were declared to be ignorant and incompetent ; 
 and their religions not only reviled but ridiculed 
 as monstrous superstitions. It is not such means 
 which have ever proved successful in leading a 
 Nation from the paths of error to the paths of 
 truth ; because such arguments are, least of all, 
 likely to carry conviction home to the minds of any 
 people imbued Avith strong prejudices. The oppor- 
 tunity, then, of founding a National system of
 
 85 
 
 education for India, if it had arrived, was lost ; and 
 no attempt has since been made to improve it. The 
 terms Oriental and English Colleges still remain, 
 indices of the disunion which was effected thirty 
 years ago — beacons to warn future Governments of 
 India off that fatal rock, upon which the State 
 vessel which carries the best fortunes of the Empu'e 
 was then wrecked. 
 
 Some are impressed with the idea that, because 
 twelve or fifteen hundred students annually enter 
 themselves for the Examinations of the Calcutta 
 University, it is a popular institution ; but this is a 
 mischievous mistake. The Presidency College, 
 though always an English College, and though its 
 foundation was ojiposed, remained a popular Insti- 
 tution, because it was raised on the foundation of 
 the old Hindii College which the Katives had 
 learned to appreciate and respect ; the Sanskrit 
 College and the Madrassah, notwithstanding that 
 religion and the sciences have been excluded, 
 are still popular, because they were given, at their 
 foimdation, a Constitution wliich was agreeable to 
 the Natives, and because they still retain a portion 
 of their former prestige. But the Presidency 
 College for some reason or other, is fast losing its 
 popularity, the Sanskrit College is bemg gradually 
 absorbed into this College ; and strong efforts have 
 been repeatedly made to abolish the Hooghly and 
 Calcutta Madrassahs altogether. The Calcutta 
 University is not popular, and we doubt ii' it ever
 
 86 
 
 will be popular. It would have collapsed at the 
 outset had not its examinations been made the 
 tests for all the Government School and College 
 scholarships in the Presidency. Were the number 
 of these scholarships largely increased, the number 
 of candidates for entrance would soon be doubled ; 
 were its licenses and certificates a certain passport 
 to a Government clerkship, more rapidly still would 
 they be quadrupled. As it is, their number will 
 ere long be so large, that no machinery the Govern- 
 ment of India can provide will be equal to con- 
 ducting the University examinations with any 
 species of integrity. 
 
 But all this is no indication of popularity ; for 
 there can be little doubt that, were Government to 
 appoint Chinese as the test for appointments in 
 their service, instruction in it would be as eagerly 
 sought and as readily paid for, as for what is now 
 called an English education. But would any one, 
 from this fact, be justified in concluding that the 
 study of the Chinese language was popular with 
 the people of India ? No !
 
 87 
 
 APPEXDTX. 
 
 LORD MACAULAY'S MINUTE. 
 
 " 2nd February, 18.35. 
 
 '* As it seems to be the opinion of the gentlemen who 
 compose the Committee of Public Instruction, tli;it the 
 course which they have hitherto pursued was strictly pre- 
 scribed by the British Parliament in 1813, and as, if that 
 opinion be correct^ a legislative Act will be necessary to 
 warrant a change, I have thought it right to refrain from 
 taking any part in the preparation of the adverse state- 
 ments which are now before us, and to reserve what I 
 had to say on the subject till it should come before me as 
 a member of the Council of India. 
 
 " It does not appear to me that the Act of Parliament 
 can, by any art of construction, be made to bear the 
 meaning which has been assigned to it. It contains 
 nothing about the particular languages or sciences which 
 are to be studied. A sum is set apart ' for the revival 
 and promotion of literature and the encouragement of the 
 learned natives of India, and for the introduction and pro- 
 motion of a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabi- 
 tants of the British territories.' It is argued, or rather 
 taken for granted, that by literature the Parliament can 
 have only meant Arabic and Sanscrit literature, that they 
 never would have given the honourable appellation of a 
 ' learned native' to a native who was familiar with the 
 poetry of Milton, the metaphysics of Locke, and the
 
 88 
 
 physics of Newton ; but that they meant to designate by 
 that name only such persons as might have studied in the 
 sacred books of the Hindoos all the usages of cusa- grass, 
 and all the mysteries of absorption into the Deity. This 
 does not appear to be a very satisfactory interpretation. 
 To take a parallel case ; suppose that the Pacha of Egypt, 
 a country once superior in knowledge to the nations of 
 Europe, but now sunk far below them, were to appro- 
 priate a sum for the purpose of ' reviving and promoting 
 literature, and encouraging learned natives of Egypt,* 
 would anybody infer that he meant the youth of his 
 pachalic to give years to the study of hieroglyphics, to 
 search into all the doctrines disguised under the fable of 
 Osiris, and to ascertain with all possible accuracy the 
 ritual with which cats and onions were anciently adored ? 
 Would he be justly charged with inconsistency, if, instead 
 of employing his young subjects in deciphering obelisks, 
 he were to order them to be instructed in the English and 
 French languages, and in all the sciences to which those 
 languages are the chief keys ? 
 
 " The words on which the supporters of the old system 
 rely do not bear them out, and other words follow which 
 seem to be quite decisive on the other side. This lac of 
 rupees is set apart, not only for ' reviving literature in 
 India,' the phrase on which their whole interpretation is 
 founded, but also for ^ the introduction and promotion of 
 a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of the 
 British territories,' — words which are alone sufficient to 
 authorize all the changes for which I contend. 
 
 " If the Council agree in my construction, no legislative 
 Act will be necessary. If they differ from me, I wiU 
 prepare a short Act rescinding that clause of the Charter 
 of 1813, from which the difficulty aries. 
 
 " The argument which I have been considering aflfects
 
 89 
 
 only the form of proceeding. But the admirers of the 
 Oriental system of education have used another aro-umcnt, 
 which, if we admit it to be vahd, is decisive against all 
 change. They conceive that the public faith is pledged 
 to the present system, and that to alter the appropriation 
 of any of the funds which have liitherto been spent in 
 encouraging the study of Arabic and Sanscrit would bo 
 downright spoliation. It is not easy to understand by 
 what process of reasoning they can have arrived at this 
 conclusion. The grants which are made from the public 
 purse for the encouragement of literature differed in no 
 respect from the grants which are made from the same 
 purse for other objects of real or supposed utility. "We 
 found a sanatarium on a spot which we suppose to be 
 healthy. Do we thereby pledge ourselves to keep a sana- 
 tarium there, if the result should not answer our expecta- 
 tion ? We commence the erection of a pier. Is it a 
 violation of the public faith to stop the works, if we after- 
 wards see reason to believe that the building will bo 
 useless ? The rights of property are undoubtedly sacred . 
 But nothing endangers those rights so much as the prac- 
 tice, now unhappily too common, of attributing them to 
 things to which they do not belong. Those who would 
 impart to abuses the sanctity of property are in truth 
 imparting to the institution of property the unpopularity 
 and fragility of abuses. If the Government has given to 
 any person a formal assurance ; nay, if the Government 
 has excited in any person's mind a reasonable expectation 
 that he shall receive a certain income as a teacher or a 
 learner of Sanscrit or Arabic, I would respect that person's 
 pecuniary interests — I would rather err on the side of 
 liberality to individuals than suffer the public faith to 
 be called in question. But to talk of a Government 
 pledging itself to teach certain languages and certain 
 
 G
 
 90 
 
 sciences, though those languages may become useless, 
 though those sciences may be exploded, seems to me 
 quite unmeaning. There is not a single word in any 
 public instructions from which it can be inferred that the 
 Indian Government ever intended to give any pledge on 
 this subject, or ever considered the destination of these 
 funds as unalterably fixed. But, had it been otherwise, I 
 should have denied the competence of our predecessors 
 to bind us by any pledge on such a subject. Suppose 
 that a Government had in the last century enacted in the 
 most solemn manner that all its subjects should, to the 
 end of time, be inoculated for the small-pox : would that 
 Government be bound to persist in the practice after 
 Jenner's discovery ? These promises, of which nobody 
 claims the performance, and from which nobody can grant 
 a release ; these vested rights, which vest in nobody ; this 
 property without proprietors ; this robbery, which makes 
 nobody poorer, may be comprehended by persons of 
 higher faculties than mine — I consider this merely as a 
 set form of words, regularly used both in England and 
 India, in defence of every abuse for which no other plea 
 can be set up. 
 
 " I hold this lac of rupees to be quite at the disposal 
 of the Governor- General in Council, for the purpose of 
 promoting learning in India, in any way which may be 
 thought most advisable. I hold his Lordship to be quite 
 as free to direct that it shall no longer be employed in 
 encouraging Arabic and Sanscrit, as he is to direct that 
 the reward for killing tigers in Mysore shall be diminished, 
 or that no more public money shall be expended on the 
 chanting at the cathedral. 
 
 *^We now come to the gist of the matter. We have 
 a fund to be employed as Government shall direct for the 
 intellectual improvement of the people of this country.
 
 91 
 
 The simple question isj what is the most useful way of 
 employing it ? 
 
 " All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that tho 
 dialects commonly spoken among the natives of this part 
 of India contain neither literary or scientific information, 
 and are, moreover so poor and rude that, until they are 
 enriched from some other quarter, it will not be easy to 
 translate any valuable work into them. It seems to bo 
 admitted on all sides that the intellectual improvement of 
 those classes of the people who have the means of pui'suing 
 higher studies can at present be effected only by means of 
 some language not vernacular amongst them. 
 
 " What, then, shall that language be ? One half of tho 
 Committee maintain that it should be the English. Tho 
 other half strongly recommend the Arabic and Sanscrit. 
 The whole question seems to me to be, which language is 
 the best worth knowing ? 
 
 " I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic. — 
 But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate 
 of their value. I have read translations of the most cele- 
 brated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have conversed both 
 here and at home with men distinguished by their pro- 
 ficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take 
 the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists 
 themselves. I have never found one among them who could 
 deny that a single shelf of a good European library was 
 worth the whole native literature of Lidia and Arabia. Tho 
 intrinsic superiority of the Western literature is, indeed, 
 fully admitted by those members of the Committee who 
 support the Oriental plan of education. 
 
 " It will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the depart- 
 ment of literature in which the Eastern writers stjind 
 highest is poetiy. And I certainly never met witli iiny 
 Orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and 
 
 G 2
 
 92 
 
 Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the great 
 European nations. But, when we pass from works of 
 imagination to works in which facts are recorded and 
 general principles investigated, the superiority of the 
 Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable. It is, I 
 believe, no exaggeration to say, that all the historical 
 information which has been collected from all the books 
 written in the Sanscrit language is less valuable that what 
 may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at pre- 
 paratory schools in England. In every branch of physical 
 or moral philosophy the relative position of the two nations 
 is nearly the same. 
 
 " How, then, stands the case ? We have to educate a 
 people who cannot at present be educated by means of 
 their mother-tongue. We must teach them some foreign 
 language. The claiins of our own language it is hardly 
 necessarily to recapitulate. It stands pre-eminent even 
 among the languages of the West. It abounds with works 
 of imagination not inferior to the noblest which Greece 
 has bequeathed to us ; with models of every species of 
 eloquence ; with historical compositions, which, considered 
 merely as narratives, have seldom been surpassed, and 
 which, considered as vehicles of ethical and political in- 
 struction, have never been equalled ; with just and lively 
 representations of human life and human nature ; with 
 the most profound speculations on metaphysics, morals, 
 government, jurisprudence, and trade'; with full and 
 correct information respecting every experimental science 
 which tends to preserve the health, to increase the comfort, 
 or to expand the intellect of man. Whoever knows that 
 language, has ready access to all the vast intellectual 
 wealth, which all the wisest nations of the earth have 
 created and hoarded in the course of ninety generations. 
 It may safely be said that the literature now extant in that
 
 93 
 
 language is of far greater value tlian all the literature 
 which three hundred years ago was extant in all the lan- 
 guages of the world together. Nor is this all. In India, 
 English is the language spoken by the ruling class. It is 
 spoken by the higher class of natives at the seats of 
 Government. It is likely to become the language of 
 commerce throughout the seas of the East. It is the lan- 
 guage of two great European communities which are rising, 
 the one in the south of Africa, the other in Australasia ; 
 communities which are every year becoming more impor- 
 tant, and more closely connected with our Indian empire. 
 Whether we look at the intrinsic value of our literature, 
 or at the particular situation of this country, we shall see 
 the strongest reason to think that, of all foreign tongues, 
 the English tongue is that which would be the most useful 
 to our native subjects. 
 
 " The question now before us is simply whether, when 
 it is in our power to teach this language, we shall teach 
 languages in which, by universal confession, there are no 
 books on any subject which deserve to be compared to our 
 own ; whether, when we can teach European science, we 
 shall teach systems which, by universal confession, when- 
 ever they differ from those of Europe, differ for the worse; 
 and whether, when we can patronise sound Philosophy 
 and true History, we shall countenance, at the public 
 expense, medical doctrines w^hich would disgrace an Eng- 
 lish Farrier — Astronomy, which would move laughter in 
 girls at an English boarding school — History, abounding 
 with kings thirty feet higli, and reigns thirty thousand 
 years long — and Geography, made up of seas of treacle 
 and seas of butter. 
 
 " We are not without experience to guide us. History 
 furnishes several analogous cases, and they all teach the 
 same lesson. There are in modern times, to go no further,
 
 94 
 
 two memorable instances of a great impulse given to tlie 
 mind of a whole society — of prejudices overthrown — of 
 knowledge diffused — of taste purified — of arts and sciences 
 planted in countries which had recently been ignorant and 
 barbarous. 
 
 " The first instance to which I refer is the great revival 
 of letters among the Western nations at the close of the 
 fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. 
 At that time almost everything that was worth reading 
 was contained in the writings of the ancient Greeks and 
 Romans. Had our ancestors acted as the Committee of 
 Public Instruction has hitherto acted; had they neglected 
 the language of Cicero and Tacitus ; had they confined 
 their attention to the old dialects of our own island ; had 
 they printed nothing and taught nothing at the univer- 
 sities but Chronicles in Anglo-Saxon and Romances in 
 Norman-Frenchj would England have been what she now 
 is ? What the Greek and Latin were to the contemporaries 
 of More and Ascham, our tongue is to the people of India. 
 The literature of England is now more valuable than 
 that of classical antiquity. I doubt whether the Sanscrit 
 literature be as valuable as that of our Saxon and Nor- 
 man progenitors. In some departments — in History,, for 
 example — I am certain that it is much less so. 
 
 *' Another instance may be said to be still before our 
 eyes. Within the last hundred and twenty years, a nation 
 which had previously been in a state as barbarous as that 
 in which our ancestors were before the Crusades, has 
 gradually emerged from the ignorance in which it was 
 sunk, and has taken its place among civilised communities 
 — I speak of Russia. There is now in that country a large 
 educated class, abounding with persons fit to serve the 
 state in the highest functions, and in nowise inferior to 
 the most accomplished men who adorn the best circles of
 
 95 
 
 Paris and London. There is reason to hope that this vast 
 empire, which in the time of our grandfathers was pro- 
 bably behind the Punjab, may, in the time of our grand- 
 children, be pressing close on France and ]^i'itain in tho 
 career of improvement. And how was this cliango effected? 
 Not by flattering national prejudices ; not by feeding tho 
 mind of the young Muscovite with the old woman's 
 stories which his rude fathers had believed : not by filling 
 his head with lying legends about St. Nicholas : not by 
 encouraging him to study the great question, whether tho 
 world was or was not created on tho 13th of September : 
 not by calling him ' a learned native,' when he has mas- 
 tered all these points of knowledge : but by teaching him 
 those foreign languages in which the gi'eatest mass of 
 information had been laid up, and thus putting all that 
 information within his reach. The languages of Western 
 Europe civilized Russia. I cannot doubt that they will do 
 for tho Hindoo what they have done for the Tartar. 
 
 " And what are the arguments asfainst that course 
 which seems to be alike recommended by theory and by 
 experience ? It is said that we ought to secure tho co- 
 operation of the native public, and that we can do this 
 only by teaching Sanscrit and Arabic. 
 
 " I can by no means admit that, when a nation of high 
 intellectual attainments undertakes to superintend tho 
 education of a nation comparatively ignorant, the learners 
 are absolutely to prescribe tho course which is to be taken 
 by the teachers. It is not necessary, however, to say 
 anything on this subject. For it is proved by unanswer- 
 able evidence that we are not at present securing tho 
 co-operation of the natives. It would bo bad enough to 
 consult their intellectual taste at the expense of their intel- 
 lectual health. But wo are consulting neither — wo aro 
 withholding from them the learning for which they ai-e
 
 96 
 
 craving; we are forcing on them the mock-learning which 
 they nauseate. 
 
 " This is proved by the fact that we are forced to pay 
 our Arabic and Sanscrit students, while those who learn 
 English are willing to pay us. All the declamations in 
 the world about the love and reverence of the natives for 
 their sacred dialects will never, in the mind of any impar- 
 tial person, outweigh the undisputed fact, that we cannot 
 find, in all our vast empire, a single student who will let 
 us teach him those dialects unless we will pay him. 
 
 " I have now before me the accounts of the Madrassa 
 for one month- — the month of December, 1833. The 
 Arabic students appear to have been seventy- seven in 
 number. All receive stipends from the public. The 
 whole amount paid to them is above 500 rupees a month. 
 On the other side of the account stands the following 
 item : Deduct amount realized from the out-students of 
 English for the months of May, June, and July last, 103 
 rupees. 
 
 "^ I have been told that it is merely from want of local 
 experience that I am surprised at these phenomena, and 
 that it is not the fashion for students in India to study at 
 their own charges. This only confirms me in my opinion. 
 Nothing is more certain than that it never can in any 
 part of the world be necessary to pay men for doing what 
 they think pleasant and profitable. India is no exception 
 to this rule. The people of India do not require to be 
 paid for eating rice when they are hungry, or for wearing 
 woollen cloth in the cold season. To come nearer to the 
 case before us, the children who learn their letters and 
 a little elementary Arithmetic from the village school- 
 master are not paid by him. He is paid for teaching 
 them. Why, then, is it necessary to pay people to learn 
 Sanscrit and Arabic ? Evidently because it is universally
 
 97 
 
 felt that the Sanscrit and Arabic are languages the know- 
 ledge of which docs not compensate for the trouble of 
 acquiring them. On all such subjects the state of the 
 market is the decisive test. 
 
 " Other evidence is not wanting, if other evidence were 
 required. A petition was presented last year to the Com- 
 mittee by several ex-students of the Sanscrit College. 
 The petitioners stated they had studied in the college ten 
 or twelve years ; that they had made themselves ac- 
 quainted with Hindoo literature and science ; that they 
 had received certificates of proficiency : and what is the 
 fruit of all this ? ' Notwithstanding such testimonials/ 
 they say, ' we have but little prospect of bettering our 
 condition without the kind assistance of your Honourable 
 Committee, the indiS'erence with which we are generally 
 looked upon by our countrymen leaving no hope of en- 
 couragement and assistance from them.' They therefore 
 beg that they may be recommended to the Governor- 
 General for places under the Government, not places of 
 high dignity or emolument, but such as may just enable 
 them to exist. ' We want means,' they say, ' for a decent 
 living, and for our progressive improvement, which, how- 
 ever, we cannot obtain without the assistance of Govern- 
 ment, by whom we have been educated and maintained 
 from childhood.' They conclude by representing, very 
 pathetically, that they are sure that it was never the in- 
 tention of Government, after behaving so liberally to them 
 during their education, to aba7adon them to destitution 
 and neglect. 
 
 " I have been used to see petitions to Government for 
 compensation. All these petitions, even the most unrea- 
 sonable of them, proceeded on the supposition that some 
 loss had been sustained — that some wrong had been in- 
 flicted. These arc surely the first petitioners who ever
 
 98 
 
 demanded compensation for having been educated gratis — 
 for having been supported by thepubhc during twelve years, 
 and then sent forth into the world well furnished with lite- 
 rature and science. They represent their education as an 
 injury which gives them a claim on the Government for 
 redress, as an injury, for which the stipends paid to them 
 during the infliction were a very inadequate compensation. 
 And I doubt not that they are in the right. They have 
 wasted the best years of life in learning what procures 
 for them neither bread nor respect. Surely we might,' 
 with advantage, have saved the cost of making these per- 
 sons useless and miserable ; surely, men may be brought 
 up to be burdens to the public and objects of contempt 
 to their neighbours at a somewhat smaller charge to the 
 State. But such is our policy. We do not even stand 
 neuter in the contest between truth and falsehood. We 
 are not content to leave the natives to the influence of 
 their hereditary prejudices. To the natural difficulties 
 which obstruct the progress of sound science in the East 
 we add fresh difficulties of our own making. Bounties 
 and premiums, such as ought not to be given even for 
 the propagation of truth, we lavish on false taste and 
 false philosophy. 
 
 " By acting thus we create the very evil which we fear. 
 We are making that opposition wdiich we do not find. 
 What we spend on the Arabic and Sanscrit colleges is 
 not merely a dead loss to the cause of truth : it is the 
 bounty-money paid to raise up champions of error. It 
 goes to form a nest, not merely of helpless place-hunters, 
 but of bigots prompted alike by passion and by interest 
 to raise a cry against every useful scheme of education. 
 If there should be any opposition among the natives to 
 the change which I recommend, that opposition will be 
 the effect of our own system. It will be headed by per-
 
 99 
 
 sons supported by our stipends and trained in our col- 
 leges. The longer we persevere in our present course, 
 the more formidable will that opposition be. It will be 
 every year re-inforccd by recruits whom we are paying. 
 
 " From the native society left to itself we have no difli- 
 culties to apprehend ; all the murmuring will come from 
 that oriental interest which we have, by artificial means, 
 called into being and nursed into strength. 
 
 " There is yet another fact, Avhich is alone sufficient to 
 prove that the feeling of the native public, when left to 
 itself, is not such as the supporters of the old system 
 represent it to be. The Committee have thought fit to 
 lay out above a lac of rupees in printing Arabic and 
 Sanscrit books. These books find no purchasers. It is 
 very rarely that a single copy is disposed of. Twenty- 
 three thousand volumes, most of them folios and quartos, 
 fill the libraries, or rather the lumber-rooms, of this body. 
 The Committee contrive to get rid of some portion of 
 *]ieir vast stock of Oriental literatm^e by giving books 
 away. But they cannot give so fast as they print. About 
 twenty thousand rupees a year are spent in adding fresh 
 masses of waste paper to a hoard which, I should think, 
 is already sufficiently ample. During the last three years, 
 about sixty thousand rupees have been expended in this 
 manner. The sale of Arabic and Sanscrit books, during 
 those three years, has not yielded quite one thousand 
 rupees. In the mean time the School-book Society is 
 selling seven or eight thousand English volumes every 
 year, and not only pays the expenses of printing, but 
 realizes a profit of 20 per cent, on its outlay. 
 
 " The fact that the Hindoo law is to be learnetl cliiefly 
 from Sanscrit books, and the Mahomedau law from Ai*abic 
 books, has been much insisted on, but seems not to bear 
 at all on the question. Wo arc commanded by Parliament
 
 100 
 
 to ascertain and digest the laws of India. The assistance 
 of a law commission has been given to us for that purpose- 
 As soon as the code is promulgated, the Shasters and the 
 Hedeya will be useless to a Moonsiff or Sudder Ameen. 
 I hope and trust that, before the boys who are now enter- 
 ing at the Madrassa and the Sanscrit college have com- 
 pleted their studies, this great work will be finished. It 
 would be manifestly absurd to educate the rising genera- 
 tion with a view to a state of things which we mean to 
 alter before they reach manhood. 
 
 " But there is yet another argument which seems even 
 more untenable. It is said that the Sanscrit and Arabic 
 are the languages in which the sacred books of a hundred 
 millions of people are written, and that they are, on that 
 account, entitled to peculiar encouragement. Assuredly 
 it is the duty of the British Government in India to be 
 not only tolerant, but neutral on all religious questions. 
 But to encourage the study of a literature admitted to be 
 of small intrinsic value only because that literature incul- 
 cates the most serious errors on the most important sub- 
 jects, is a course hardly reconcilable with reason, with 
 morality, or even with that very neutrality which oughts 
 as we all agree, to be sacredly presei'ved. It is confessed 
 that a language is barren of useful knowledge. We are 
 told to teach it because it is fruitful of monstrous super- 
 stitions. We are to teach false history, false astronomy, 
 false medicine, because we find them in company with a 
 false religion. We abstain, and I trust shall always 
 abstain, from giving any public encouragement to those 
 who are engaged in the work of converting natives to 
 Christianity. And, while we act thus, can we reasonably 
 and decently bribe men out of the revenues of the state 
 to waste their youth in learning how they are to purify 
 themselves after touching an ass, or what text of the
 
 101 
 
 Vedas they are to repeat to expiate the crime of kilKng a 
 goat? 
 
 " It is taken for granted by the advocates of Oriental 
 learning that no native of this country can possibly attain 
 more than a mere smattering of English. They do not 
 attempt to prove this ; but they perpetually insinuate it. 
 They designate the education which their opponents re- 
 commend as a mere spelling-book education. They 
 assume it as undeniable^ that the question is between a 
 profound knowledge of Hindoo and Arabian literature 
 and science on the one side, and a superficial knowledge 
 of the rudiments of English on the other. This is not 
 merely an assumption, but an assumption contrary to all 
 reason and experience. We know that foreigners of all 
 nations do learn our language sufficiently to have access 
 to all the most abstruse knowledge which it contains, 
 sufficiently to relish even the most delicate graces of our 
 most idiomatic writers. There are in this very tovni 
 natives who are quite competent to discuss political or 
 scientific questions with fluency and precision in the Eng- 
 lish language. I have heard the very question on which 
 I am now writing discussed by native gentlemen with a 
 liberality and an intelligence which would do credit to 
 any member of the Committee of Public Instruction. 
 Indeed, it is unusual to find, even in the litcrarj"- circles 
 of the continent, any foreigner who can express himself 
 in English with so much facility and correctness as we 
 find in many Hindoos. Nobody, I suppose, will contend 
 that English is so difficult to a Hindoo as Greek to an 
 Englishman. Yet an intelligent English youth, in a much 
 smaller number of yeai'S than our unfortunate pupils pass 
 at the Sanscrit college, becomes able to read, to enjoy, 
 and even to imitate, not unhappily, the composition of the 
 best Greek authors. Less than half the time which
 
 102 
 
 enables an English youtli to road Herodotus and Sophocles 
 ought to enable sL Hindoo to read Hume and Milton. 
 
 " To sum up what I have said : I think it clear that we 
 are not fettered by the Act of Parliament of 1813 ; that 
 we are not fettei'ed by any pledge expressed or implied ; 
 that we are free to employ our funds as we choose ; that 
 we ought to emi)loy them in teaching what is best worth 
 knowing; that English is better worth knowing than 
 Sanscrit or Arabic ; that the natives are desirous to be 
 taught English, and are not desirous to be taught Sanscrit 
 or Arabic ; that neither as the languages of law, nor as 
 the languages of religion, have the Sanscrit and Arabic 
 any peculiar claim to our encouragement ; that it is pos- 
 sible to make natives of this country thoroughly good 
 English scholars, and that to this end our efforts ought to 
 be directed. 
 
 " In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whose 
 general views I am opposed. I feel, with them, that it is 
 impossible for us, Avith our limited means, to attempt to 
 educate the body of the people. We must at present do 
 our best to form a class who may be interpreters between 
 us and the millions whom we govern ; a class of persons, 
 Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in 
 opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we 
 may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the 
 country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science 
 borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render 
 them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to 
 the great mass of the population. 
 
 " I would strictly respect all existing interests. I would 
 deal even generously with aU individuals who have had 
 fair reason to expect a pecuniary provision. But I would 
 strike at the root of the bad system which has hitherto 
 been fostered by us. I would at once stop the printing
 
 103 
 
 of Arabic and Sanscrit books; I would abolisli tbo Mad- 
 rassa and the Sanscrit college at Calcutta. Benares is 
 the great seat of Bralimanical learning ; Delhi, of Arabic 
 learning. If we retain the Sanscrit college at Benares 
 and the Mahomedan college at Delhi, we do enough, and 
 much more than enough in my opinion, for the Eastern 
 languages. If the Benares and Delhi colleges should bo 
 retained, I would at least recommend that no stipend shall 
 be given to any students who may hereafter repair thither, 
 but that the people shall be left to make their own choico 
 between the rival systems of education without being 
 bribed by us to learn what they have no desire to know. 
 The funds which would thus be placed at our disposal 
 would enable us to give larger encouragement to tho 
 Hindoo college at Calcutta, and to establish in the prin- 
 cipal cities throughout the Presidencies of Fort William 
 and Agra schools in which tho English language might 
 be well and thoroughly taught. 
 
 " If the decision of his Lordship in Council should bo 
 such as I anticipate^ I shall enter on the performance of 
 my duties with the greatest zeal and alacrity. If, on tho 
 other hand, it be the opinion of the Government that tho 
 present system ought to remain unchanged, I beg that I 
 may be permitted to retire from the chair of the Com- 
 mittee. I feel that I could not be of the smallest uso 
 there — ^I feel, also, that I should be lending my coun- 
 tenance to what I fii-nily believe to be a mere delusion. 
 I believe that the present system tends, not to accelerate 
 the progress of truth, but to delay the natural death of 
 expiring error. I conceive that we have at present no 
 right to the respectable name of a Board of Public In- 
 struction. We are a Board for wasting public money, 
 for printing books which are of less value than the 
 paper on which they are printed was while it was
 
 104 
 
 blank; for giving artificial encouragement to absurd 
 history, absurd metaphysics, absurd physics, absurd 
 theology ; for raising up a breed of scholars who find 
 their scholarship an encumbrance and a blemish, who live 
 on the public while they are receiving their education, 
 and whose education is so utterly useless to them that, 
 when they have received it, they must either starve or live 
 on the public all the rest of their lives. Entertaining 
 these opinions, I am naturally desirous to decline all share 
 in the responsibility of a body which, unless it alters its 
 whole mode of proceeding, I must consider not merely as 
 useless, but as positively noxious." 
 
 THE END.
 
 AA 000 564 014 
 
 TUE IITSSULMANS OF LNDIA. 
 
 To the Editor of the Times. 
 
 Sir, — I have read with the utmost interest your 
 very able articles on the learned letters of Colonel 
 Nassau Lees and Su* Cliarles Trevel}-an, on " In- 
 dian Mussulmans," but it seems to me the views 
 of Colonel Nassau Lees have not been quite well 
 understood. He does not advocate a return to the 
 old policy ; he does not desire the adoption of the 
 study of Oriental classics to the exclusion of the 
 English, but he says : — 
 
 " Have as mucli English as you like, but do not forcibl}^ 
 exclude the Oriental classical languages. Give the natives 
 their choice between a thorough English education, with a 
 little Arabic or Sanscrit, and a thorough Oriental education 
 with a little English." 
 
 That appears to me rational and practicable, and, 
 for my part, I should desire its realization. 
 
 I remain, honourable Sir, 
 
 Yours sincerely^ 
 GARCIN DE TASSY, 
 
 Membrc de I'lnstitut de France. 
 
 43, Eue St. Audre-des-Arts, 
 Paris, Nov. 17.