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 EDUCATION. IN INDIA. 
 
 A brief Revie tv of its history and development , special 
 
 reference to the progress of Christianity , 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. J. BARTON, M. A v 
 
 SECRETARY TO THE MADRAS CORRESPONDING COMMITTEE, C. M. S. 
 
 (Reprinted from the Indian Evangelical Review J 
 
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 EDUCATION IN INDIA AS RELATED TO 
 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 There are few subjects which possess a deeper interest for 
 every thoughtful Christian in India than that which forms 
 the topic of the present paper. To watch a great nation \ 
 emerging from the twilight of an ancient but effete civili¬ 
 zation, and brought into contact with Western thought and 
 energy and progress; to see old religious systems under¬ 
 mined and upheaving under the influence of modern 
 science and modern philosophy, and tottering to their very 
 base ; and then to speculate whereunto all this will grow,—• 
 what will be the final issue of it all ;—such are some of the 
 questions that present themselves on the very threshold of 
 the subject, and claim the earnest and thoughtful attention 
 of every true friend of India and its people. 
 
 It is not our intention in the present paper to enter upon 
 the very interesting discussion of the place which Education 
 should occupy as a missionary agency. That question has 
 recently received a large share of public attention through 
 the prominence given to it at the recent Missionary Confer¬ 
 ence at Allahabad, and probably nearly all was said upon it 
 that could be said to an}^ purpose in the papers then read, 
 and the discussion which followed. Our object at present 
 is rather to deal with Indian Education as a wdiole, to trace 
 its progress from its first beginnings half a century ago 
 down to the present time, and to endeavor to estimate the 
 
2 Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 influence it has exerted from that day to this in assisting or 
 retarding the progress of Christianity in this country. 
 
 Two opposing forces appear to have been at work from 
 the very first, directing and influencing the attitude of Gov¬ 
 ernment in regard to the education of its Indian subjects. 
 On the one hand there have always been a certain number 
 of persons holding high and influential positions in the Gov¬ 
 ernment service, whose partiality for everything Oriental 
 has been so strong that they have almost out-herodecl Herod 
 in their zeal for the maintenance of Hindu and Mahamma- 
 dan institutions, and have viewed with jealousy and alarm 
 any disposition on the part of Government to ally itself 
 with the cause of Christian enlightenment and progress. On 
 the other side there have been ranged Christian philanthro¬ 
 pists of the school of William Wilberforce, Charles Grant 
 ' and Lord Teignmouth, who have never ceased to affirm in 
 the words of that Parliamentary Resolution of 1793 which 
 first paved the way for missionary effort in India, that it is 
 the peculiar and bounden duty of the British legislature to 
 promote, by all just and prudent means, the interest and 
 happiness of the inhabitants of the British dominions in 
 India, and that for these ends such measures ought to be 
 adopted as may gradually tend to their advancement in 
 useful knowledge, and to their religious and social improve- 
 \ ment.” 
 
 Between views so diametrically opposite any sort of 
 alliance or agreement was clearly impossible, and the result 
 has been, as might have been expected, a compromise based 
 [ upon grounds of mere expediency. As neither party could 
 agree as to what sort of religion should be taught in the 
 schools maintained by the State, the Government decided to 
 exclude the subject altogether, and the result has been a 
 purely secular system, which, while professing to be neutral 
 in religious matters, has in reality exercised a far more destruc¬ 
 tive and anti-religious influence than could have arisen from 
 any amount of direct missionary teaching. 
 
 At the outset indeed it seemed as if the Orientalists were 
 likely to gain the day, for though at the renewal of the East 
 India Charter in 1813,Mr.Wilberforce and his friends, backed 
 by an overwhelming number of petitions from all parts of 
 the country, had succeeded in carrying the clauses pledging 
 the Government to the adoption of such measures as might 
 tend to the moral and religious no less than the social wel¬ 
 fare of the people, the antagonistic influences at work in 
 
3 
 
 Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 An educational despatch was, it is true, sent cut to India, 
 shortly after the renewal of the Charter, bearing date 3rd 
 June 1814, but no one would have gathered from it that 
 any further object was contemplated by the Court of 
 Directors than the encouragement of Oriental learning, and 
 not the slightest reference appears in it from first to last 
 to the subject of Mr. Wilberforce’s Resolutions. And as for 
 morals, here is all that an enlightened Christian Govern¬ 
 ment then deemed it its duty to provide for the benefit of its 
 heathen subjects:— 
 
 “ We are informed that there are in the Sanskrit language many 
 excellent systems of ethics with codes of laws, and compendiums of the 
 duties relating to every class of the people, the study of which .might (!) 
 he useful to those natives who may he destined for the Judicial Depart¬ 
 ment of Government 
 
 Whatever however may have been the wish or intention 
 of the Court of Directors, the desire for something a little 
 more nourishing than the dry bones of Sanskrit and Arabic 
 jurisprudence became so strong among the well-to-do middle 
 classes of Hindu society that it was impossible to repress it. 
 
 In 1815, a number of wealthy and influential native 
 gentlemen, headed by Rammohun Roy and Mr. David Hare, 
 a Calcutta watchmaker, banded themselves together to start 
 a new and independent institution under purely native 
 management, in which the English language was to be the 
 main vehicle of instruction, and Western science and English 
 literature the chief subjects of study. To our minds how¬ 
 ever the chief feature of interest in this new institution, 
 wasnotso much the indication thus afforded of that unquench¬ 
 able desire for Western learning which has since led to such 
 extraordinary results, as the independence and public spirit 
 which appear to have been called forth by this association 
 together of so many influential members of the native 
 community for a common object. 
 
 It is true that difficulties and mutual jealousies afterwards 
 arose which compelled the chief promoters of the scheme to 
 place the Institution under Government management, but 
 the fact remains that, nearly sixty years ago, the desire for 
 higher English education was so strong as to lead the 
 native gentry of Bengal to come forward of their own accord 
 and raise among themselves no less than a lakh and a half 
 
4 
 
 Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 of rupees for the support ofa high clas fcollegiate In stitution ; 
 and this not merely without any direct encouragement from 
 Government, but actually in the very teeth of the policy 
 that then prevailed in high quarters. Such a fact seems to 
 show, as we shall have occasion to notice more fully here¬ 
 after, that there is no lack of public spirit among the 
 natives of India, if only the right means are employed to 
 stimulate and call it forth. 
 
 The next important step taken to carry out the provi¬ 
 sions of the new Charter was the formation ofa Committee 
 of Public Instruction. This took place in the year 1823. under 
 the temporary administration of Mr. Adam, the ad interim 
 Governor on the retirement of Lord Hastings. To this 
 Committee, which embraced some ot the most distinguished 
 members of the Civil Service, was entrusted the manage¬ 
 ment of the entire business of education, subject onty to the 
 general supervision of Government, and within the limits 
 of the funds assigned for the purpose. 
 
 In some respects no doubt this was a decided step in 
 advance of all that had gone before. It brought all the 
 existing institutions under the control of one central 
 authority, and so ensured greater uniformity of system, 
 as well as greater economy in expenditure. Viewed how¬ 
 ever from a Christian stand-point, or even from that of 
 independent education, the influence exercised by this 
 Committee was certainly very far from favorable. 
 
 In the first place, as might have been expected from its 
 very constitution, the bias of the Committee in favor of pure 
 Orientalism was exceedingly strong. Most of its members, 
 and especially the seniors, were civilians, who had dis¬ 
 tinguished themselves for their Oriental attainments at the 
 College of Fort William, then at the height of its reputa- 
 tation ; most of them too were members, and some of them 
 distinguished members, of the Bengal Asiatic Society, the 
 professed object of which was the investigation of the history 
 and antiquities of the Fast. With men like these, the desire 
 for schools and colleges, in which Western literature and 
 science were to be taught through the medium of English, 
 naturally found little sympathy; and as to the interests of 
 religion, there can be little doubt that their influence, as a 
 whole, was still more decidedly antagonistic, not because of 
 their sympathy with Oriental learning, for religion is no foe 
 to knowledge, and has always rejoiced to enlist all true learn¬ 
 ing oh its side, but because of the too generally negative 
 
Education in India as related to Christianity. 5 
 
 character of a man’s own religious convictions, to which 
 unhappily a strong Oriental bias is so commonly allied. 
 
 Not less prejudicial however to the interests of true 
 progress and enlightenment, was the idea which seems 
 to have underlaid all the proceedings of the Committee 
 that, inasmuch as the funds at their disposal were 
 quite inadequate for the purposes of general education, 
 the best application of them would be to the promotion of 
 high collegiate education, which was of course wholly out 
 of the reach of the masses, and only attainable by a few. 
 They seem further to have regarded it as a necessary part 
 of their scheme, that all schools maintained or assisted out 
 of Imperial revenues must of necessity be directly under 
 Government management. The idea never seems to have 
 entered their minds that improvement is not only far less 
 costly, but on political grounds far better than reconstruc¬ 
 tion, and that a tree which has taken firm root in the soil, 
 even though it may make but a poor appearance for the 
 time, is likely to be far more long-lived than one which, 
 howevei showy, needs daily watering and constant care to 
 keep it in health. 
 
 We shall have occasion later on to revert again to this 
 topic; for the present we return to the Committee itself 
 and its proceedings. 
 
 The discussion of the respective merits of Oriental and 
 Western learning lasted twelve long years, and at last 
 culminated in the now famous minute of Lord Macaulav, 
 and the Resolutions of Lord William Bentinck’s govern¬ 
 ment which followed, bearing date 7th March 1835. 
 
 The new policy thus authoritatively laid down has never 
 since been departed from, and some years later received still 
 more emphatic confirmation in the despatch of 1854. The 
 change in itself was one in which every true friend of India 
 must unfeignedly have rejoiced. Nothing could well be more 
 preposterous, or more condemnatory of the old system, than 
 that, at the very time when the natives themselves were cry¬ 
 ing out to be instructed in European literature and science, 
 and were protesting against a continuance of the prevailing 
 Orientalism, a body of English gentlemen, appointed to ini¬ 
 tiate a system of education for the country, should have 
 insisted not merely upon the encouragement of Oriental 
 learning, for to that no just exception could have been 
 taken, but to the inculcation of such learning to the practical 
 exclusion of all besides. What, for example, could be more 
 
6 Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 grotesque than the account which Bishop Heber has given 
 in his Journal of his visit to the Sanskrit College at Benares, 
 where in a lecture on Astronomy, the lecturer produced a 
 terrestrial globe, and identified Mount Meru with the North 
 Pole; while under the Southern Pole he declared the 
 tortoise rested, and supported the earth ? Well might 
 Lord Macaulay and his colleagues protest against the 
 appropriation of public money to the teaching of such 
 egregious rubbish ! 
 
 Like other similar administrative revolutions, however, the 
 change had its drawbacks, and attendant reactions. The 
 pendulum which has swung to too great a distance in one 
 direction, oscillates only to swing to as great a distance in 
 the other. And so in enunciating its vehement protest 
 against a system exclusively Oriental, an impression seems 
 to have gone abroad in some quarters, notably in Madras, 
 that no vernacular education of any kind was thencefor¬ 
 ward to receive aid from the State, and that the imperial 
 allotment for educational purposes was to be thenceforth 
 employed in English education exclusively. Such was 
 certainly not the intention of the Government by whom the 
 new policy was inaugurated; still the impression gained 
 ground ; and, as a matter of fact, the study of the Indian 
 vernaculars continued to be almost ignored in almost 
 all the higher educational institutions in India, until the 
 despatch of 1854, when the establishment of the three Indian 
 Universities once more turned the current of public opinion, 
 and secured for the Indian vernaculars their due share of 
 attention in the school and college curricula . 
 
 Meanwhile a new power had been brought to bear upon 
 the progress of education in India, which, however small 
 and humble in its beginnings, was destined eventually to 
 exercise no little influence upon its future character, and 
 religious bearings upon the people. 
 
 In the year 1830, while the controversy between the 
 Orientalists and Anglicists was still at its height, Dr. Duff 
 arrived in Calcutta, to establish in connexion with the Church 
 which sent him forth a Seminary in which a sound literary 
 and scientific education should be imparted on distinctively 
 Christian principles, with the English language as the 
 medium of instruction. The accession of so powerful an 
 advocate doubtless contributed in no small measure to turn 
 the scale in favor of the party of progress and western 
 enlightenment, while the effect produced by his arrival 
 
Education in India as related to Christianity. 7 
 
 upon the disorganized elements of native society was no 
 less conspicuous and remarkable. At the time of his 
 arrival, as Dr. Duff himself h/as told us in the very interesting 
 Appendix to his Lectures on Indian Missions, the Anglo- 
 Indian College had begun to put forth some of its ripest fruits. 
 It had now been some twelve years in existence pits endow¬ 
 ment amounted to no less than one and a half lakhs of rupees; 
 for several years it had enjoyed the careful supervision of 
 a distinguished Oriental scholar, Dr. H. H. Wilson; its 
 classes contained nearly 500 pupils, all of the more respect¬ 
 able castes of Hindu society; its scholars were well versed 
 in English literature and philosophy, and were as familiar 
 with Shakspeare and Addison as an English school-boy is 
 with his Horace or Virgil. But there was one subject 
 which had no place in the College curriculum, and that 
 was religion. The education they were daily receiving in 
 Western science and philosophy had long since convinced 
 them of the utter absurdity and untenableness of their own 
 religious systems, but nothing was offered or allowed to be 
 substituted, in its room. The more advanced students were 
 consequently fast becoming sceptics; some had already 
 drifted into downright atheism. What wonder, then, 
 that even moral and social obligations began to share the 
 fate of religious beliefs, and that the whole native commu¬ 
 nity should have been thrown into alarm at the spread of 
 the new views ? At such a crisis it was that Dr. Duff ap¬ 
 peared upon the scene. To quote the eloquent words of 
 one who for a brief space was permitted to labor side by 
 side with the veteran missionary in the cause of India's 
 evangelization, the late Bishop Cotton,—“ it was his special 
 glory, that arriving here in the midst of a great in¬ 
 tellectual movement of a completely atheistic character, 
 he at once resolved to make that movement Christian. 
 When the new generation of Bengalis, and too many, alas ! 
 of their European friends and teachers, were talking of 
 Christianity as an obsolete superstition, soon to be burnt 
 up in the pyre on which the creeds of the Brahmin, the 
 Buddhist, and the Mahometan were already perishing, he 
 suddenly burst upon the scene with his unhesitating faith, 
 his indomitable energy, his varied erudition, and his never 
 failing stream of fervid eloquence, to teach them that the 
 Gospel was not dead nor sleeping, not the ally of ignorance 
 and error, not ashamed or unable to vindicate its claims to 
 universal reverence, but that then, as always, it was march- 
 
8 
 
 Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 ing forward in the van of civilization, and that the Church 
 of Christ was still the light of the world. The effect of his 
 fearless stand against the arrogance of infidelity has lasted to 
 this day, and whether the number whom he has baptized 
 is small or great; some there are among them whom we all 
 know and honor,—it is quite certain that the work which 
 he did in India can never be undone, unless we whom he 
 leaves behind are faithless to his example/' 1 
 
 Such was the first origin of missionary higher class edu¬ 
 cation, and whatever of good has since resulted from it 
 may fairly be traced back to that first school opened in the 
 heart of the native quarter of Calcutta in July 1831. 2 
 
 Exception has often been taken by many zealous friends of 
 missionary effort tc missionaries having anything to do with 
 high education, as if there were some necessary connexion be¬ 
 tween education and infidelity, or as if it were inconsistent 
 with the simplicity of the Gospel to ally itself with any 
 such secular agencies. Opinions will doubtless always vary 
 on this as on other points of missionary policy, but it 
 should at least be remembered in justice to Dr. Duff and 
 his co-workers in the sphere of missionary education, that 
 such a policy was in the first instance really adopted by 
 them in self-defence. When Dr. Duff first landed in Cal¬ 
 cutta, he found the tide of secularism and materialism in 
 full flood, and there was scarcely an educated Hindu in Cal¬ 
 cutta who did not laugh to scorn the bare idea of moral 
 responsibility. Was it then to be wondered at, that beholding 
 on eveiy side of him the pernicious results of a purely secular 
 system of education, Dr. Duff' should have conceived the 
 idea of setting up a rival Institution “on a par with it (as 
 he himself has expressed it in the work already referred to) 
 as an intellectual gymnasium; its unrivalled superior as a 
 nursery of religion and morals ?” 
 
 Whatever views however may be entertained on abstract 
 grounds as to the desirability of employing high class edu¬ 
 cation as a missionary agency, no one can refuse to acknow¬ 
 ledge the remarkable success which attended Dr. Duff's 
 
 1 Bishop Cotton’s Last Charge, 1861. 
 
 2 In saying this we are not unmindful of the good that had been 
 done in previous years in the same direction by the Baptist mission¬ 
 aries at Serampore, but their work had been less distinctly aggres¬ 
 sive; and Serampore was too far away from Calcutta for their labors 
 to exert any very marked influence upon the educated classes of the 
 metropolis. 
 
Education in India as related to Christianity. 9 
 
 efforts in this direction. Not three days had elapsed after 
 the first opening of his school, before its class-rooms were 
 filled to overflowing, and from that day to this there has 
 been no institution, from one end of India to the other, 
 which has been more popular, or more largely attended, 
 than the Calcutta Free Church Institution. Its students 
 are to be found by hundreds in every branch of the public 
 service, and the great day alone will fully reveal how large 
 a share it has borne in moulding and influencing native 
 opinion on the side of Christian truth. The success of the 
 example thus set in Calcutta led the Free Church of Scot¬ 
 land shortly afterwards to establish similar institutions ill 
 the two other Presidency cities, and these in their turn 
 have given birth to a host of others too numerous to mention. 
 
 Nor was this the only benefit that resulted from Dr. 
 Duff’s labours in the cause of Christian education. His 
 efforts prepared the way in no small degree for the intro¬ 
 duction of a new principle into the mode of administering 
 the annual imperial allotment for educational purposes, and 
 served to counteract to some extent that disposition to 
 excessive centralization which has always been the beset¬ 
 ting infirmity of the Indian Government. We have already 
 alluded to this tendency in connexion with the labors of 
 the Central Committee of Public Instruction, but it is a 
 matter of such importance that it claims special notice. 
 
 In a country like India, the natural tendency of the peo¬ 
 ple at large is to look to the Government for everything, 
 more especially when that Government is a strong and 
 enlightened despotism, and exhibits a real desire for the 
 welfare of all classes of its subjects. This natural disposi¬ 
 tion on the part of the people lias been as a rule rather 
 fostered than discouraged by the better class of English 
 officials, whose amour propre is gratified and flattered by 
 being looked up to as the originators and main supporters 
 of every beneficent undertaking, and who are easily led to 
 believe, what they hear so constantly asserted on every 
 side of them, in the delicately seasoned language of Orien¬ 
 tal flattery, that they, the people, can only live by their 
 bounty ; what can they do ? They are only slaves. 
 
 All this would be harmless enough were it not that it has 
 tended to foster an idea that the Government must do every 
 thing, and to keep the people in a position of practical 
 serfdom and dependence. 
 
10 Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 A paternal sj’stem of Government may answer well 
 enough up to a certain point, but it may easily be carried 
 too far. He is not the wisest father who can never realize 
 that his son is out of leading strings, and will never let him 
 think or act for himself. And yet, there have been not a 
 few Indian administrators who seem to have thought that 
 the great business of Government consists in doing every 
 thing for the people, instead of training them to think and 
 act for themselves. 
 
 In no department perhaps of the Administration has this 
 tendency been more manifest, or its effects more disastrous, 
 than in regard to education. For more than 40 years the 
 provisions of the charter of 1813 remained almost a dead 
 letter, because instead of the Government employing the 
 funds at their disposal for the improvement of existing 
 schools, they concentrated all their efforts upon a few higher 
 class institutions, maintained at great cost, and left the 
 primary education of the country to take care of itself. 
 
 An enquiry Avas indeed set on foot by Lord Win. JBentinck 
 immediately after the publication of the Resolutions quoted 
 above, with the view of ascertaining the precise educational 
 condition of the peasantry of Lower Bengal, but nothing was 
 really done in this direction for another ten years, and then 
 it was not Bengal which led the way, but the North-western 
 Provinces. 
 
 Nothing could be more clear or convincing from the 
 
 o o 
 
 reports of Mr. Adam, the special commissioner on whom 
 the conduct of this enquiry devolved, that though a desire 
 lor education of some sort existed even among the humblest 
 laboring classes, as attested by the very large number of 
 indigenous schools, yet the quality of the education 
 imparted in these schools, and the modes of communicating 
 it were such as to render it little better than worthless. His 
 Report concluded with some very sensible, and as we should 
 have thought practicable suggestions, all in the direction of 
 improvement rather than of re-construction, but the Calcutta 
 Committee were set upon the extension of high English 
 education, and that alone. Not only did they throw cold 
 water upon all Mr. Adam’s suggestions, but they deliberately 
 put forward the theory that the only effective way of reach¬ 
 ing the lower strata of the population of any country is by 
 beginning from the top. “ This conclusion,” they say, is 
 not the result of mere theoretical opinions, but is borne out 
 by the experience of every age and country, which uniformly 
 
Education in India as related to Christianity. 11 
 
 teaches that education must first be imparted to the upper 
 and middle ranks, and descend to the lower and more nu¬ 
 merous class of the people.” 
 
 With all due deference to the opinions of the Committee, 
 we venture to think that the experience of all practical edu¬ 
 cationists, in India at any rate, leads to a very different 
 conclusion, and that such a view as that enunciated above is 
 based upon a very inadequate conception of the real state of 
 affairs. To concentrate all the resources of Government on 
 the preparing of a few thousand young men for subordinate 
 posts in the public service, however good and desirable 
 a thing in its way, is not educating the people , but rather, 
 as it seems to us, to sacrifice the claims and interests of 
 every 999 of the population for the sake of the remaining 
 one. The whole “ filtration” tlieorv, as it has been not 
 inaptly called, rests in fact upon the assumption that 
 education, like any other valuable commodity, will make its 
 own way by the natural laws of supply and demand, and 
 that consequently it may safely be left to voluntary action. 
 Now if there is any kind of education of which this could 
 with any truth be said, it is that which qualifies its possessor 
 for appointments in the public service, and it is by no means 
 improbable that this might have been safely left years ago 
 to voluntary action, under proper supervision, and with 
 due stimulus afforded to improvement in the way of prizes 
 and rewards. Yet this is just the education which the 
 Government have thought it necessary to spend nearly all 
 its resources upon, and this to such an extent that the 
 number of applicants for every vacant appointment have 
 now become so great as to be positively embarrassing. 
 
 On the other hand it is simply ridiculous to speak 
 of the education given in a village school as being a 
 valuable commodity to its possessor. It may prevent the 
 ryot from being cheated by the village shop-keeper, or the 
 Revenue underlings, but a strong pair of arms and legs and 
 a good constitution, are in reality worth far more to him 
 than any amount of education he can acquire in school. 
 
 The most conclusive argument however to our minds 
 against the soundness of such a theory is the practical 
 one of experience. So far from voluntary action having 
 come in to supplement the action of the State, and so caused 
 the education given in the higher schools to pemeate 
 downwards, it was found as a matter of fact when 
 Sir G. Campbell assumed the reins of the Bengal Go- 
 
12 Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 vernment iu 1870, that while the expenditure on high 
 and middle class education had increased ten-fold, the 
 condition of the ryot population was practically very 
 little in advance of what it had been forty years before, 
 when Mr. Adam first presented the result of his investi¬ 
 gations. 
 
 The “ filtration” theory, however, carried the day, and 
 Mr. Adam’s reports were consigned to the shelves of the 
 Bengal Secretariat to lie unnoticed and forgotten for 
 another dozen years, till another turn of the political 
 wheel should once more bring the subject to the front, and 
 direct the attention of the reigning authorities to the 
 educational claims and needs of the agricultural classes. 
 
 It is not, however, so much on grounds of mere adminis¬ 
 trative policy, that the part taken by Government in regard 
 to high English education seems to us chiefly to be 
 regretted, as for the position of practical hostility which it 
 lias thereby assumed to the interests of religion, and not 
 Christianity merely, but religion generally. For not only 
 has it 'excluded all religious and moral teaching from its 
 own schools, but by thus throwing all the weight of its 
 prestige and influence into the scale of secular education, it 
 has practically led to the exclusion of religious teaching 
 from the aided schools under native management also, not 
 necessarily through ignorance or distrust, on the part of their 
 native managers, of the value of religion as a basis of educa¬ 
 tion ; but through sheer inability to compete with a purely 
 secular system, when weighted with the additional burden 
 of religious instruction. 
 
 It has sometimes been urged by apologists for the Go¬ 
 vernment system of education that, so far as it goes, it is 
 on the side of Christianity, as it excludes every thing to 
 which Christianity is opposed. This may be, but as no 
 moral code was ever yet constructed on a system of mere nega¬ 
 tions, it may reasonably be questioned whether an education 
 which ignores religion altogether, and which cannot—as in 
 secular schools established in Christian lands—be effectively 
 supplemented by religious teaching outside the school cur¬ 
 riculum, is not in reality a most deadly foe to religion of 
 every kind, inasmuch as while refusing to teach that there 
 is a God, it practically asserts that there is no God. 
 
 We are ready indeed to acknowledge with much thank¬ 
 fulness that the truly Christian lives of not a few teachers in 
 Government institutions, both European and native,has done 
 
Education in India as related to Christianity. 13 
 
 much to lessen the evil, and to redeem theGovernment system 
 of education from its otherwise necessarily godless character , 
 while the labours of missionary educationists like Dr. Duff 
 have tended still further indirectly to fill the “ dreary void” 
 of minds cast adrift from their ancient moorings, and 
 launched upon the shoreless sea of religious speculation. 
 Still, regarding the Government system of education as a 
 whole, it is our own deep conviction that it would have been 
 better in the end for the interests of morality, and have 
 tended far more to promote the real good of the people, if 
 the Government had never entered the field of high 
 education at all, and so never assumed the very serious 
 responsibility which now lies at their door, of educating 
 whole generations above their own creed, and above that 
 sense of relation to another world on which men base all 
 their moral obligations. Things may now appear smooth 
 and quiet enough, but the power which mere mental culture 
 gives, apart from the sanctions and restraints of religion, is 
 a power that can only be potent for evil, and sooner or later 
 the time will come when the Government will recoil in 
 dismay from the monster of their own creation, and find 
 how dangerous a weapon is liberty and mere intellectual 
 enlightenment, when no longer controlled and kept in check 
 by motives either of fear or expediency. 
 
 On the other hand, as regards primary education, the case 
 is wholly different. In such schools the education imparted is 
 necessarily of so elementary a character, that it scarcely touches 
 upon the sphere of religion at all;—while as a matter of fact 
 it has been found that the moral tone of a village com¬ 
 munity has been rather raised than otherwise by the quick¬ 
 ened intelligence and diversified interests to which the es- 
 
 u_> 
 
 tablishment of a school has given birth. 
 
 Our indictment then against the Government is twofold : 
 not only that it has done too much, but too little ; and we 
 know not which is the more to be regretted, viz., that it 
 should have attempted what it was never in a position to 
 undertake, professing to give an education in which the 
 needs of the most important part of man’s nature were left 
 out of sight altogether, or that it should have so grievously 
 neglected a duty which it alone was in a position to under¬ 
 take, the communication of elementary instruction to the 
 community at large. 
 
 Happily in spite of that tendency to optimism which has 
 always been so characteristic a tendency of our Indian admini- 
 
14 Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 strators, there have never been wanting eminent individuals 
 in the public service, large-minded enough to discern and 
 acknowledge the evils of the existing system, as well as pub¬ 
 lic-spirited enough to endeavor to rectify it. Foremost 
 among such must ever be mentioned the name of Mr. 
 Thomason, Lieutenant-Governor of the N. W. P. To him 
 belongs the high praise of having not merely devised, but 
 actually carried into practice, a system of primary educa¬ 
 tion, adapted to the wants of the country, and based upon 
 the very principle which throughout these pages we have 
 been seeking to recommend and illustrate, the co-operation 
 of Government with private enterprise. He saw clearly 
 enough that to wait, as the advocates of the filtration theory 
 proposed, till a desire for a liberal education should have 
 permeated down into the lowest social strata of the com¬ 
 munity, was, in point of fact, to consign the great bulk 
 of the population for an untold number of generations 
 to a condition of abject and hopeless ignorance. He ac¬ 
 cordingly determined that, whatever else might be left 
 undone, it should be his business to see that every peasant 
 in the provinces under his charge should be taught to 
 read, write, and cipher, with, at any rate, sufficient intelli¬ 
 gence to enable him to keep the accounts of his own lands, 
 and to check for himself those of the petty Revenue officials. 
 As for education of the higher kind, while fully admitting its 
 importance, he felt that it might be left to a very large extent 
 to private enterprise. The business of the State in his 
 opinion was to foster and develop education in every way 
 possible, and to turn to the best account the resources that 
 lay at its command ; and if in any localities private enter¬ 
 prise was able to supply the lack, so far from wishing to 
 interfere, he rather rejoiced that the funds available for 
 educational purposes should be thereby set free for other 
 places where they were more required. 
 
 Mr. Thomason was not spared to witness the complete 
 success of his educational measures, but it was something to 
 have shown by practical demonstration that the education 
 of the masses was not so impracticable or Utopian an idea 
 as had commonly been supposed, and to be able to report, as 
 he was able to do a few months before his death, in the early 
 part of 1853, as the result of a partial trial of the new 
 system in 8 out of the 31 districts under his rule, that more 
 than 1,400 schools with nearly 20,000 scholars had been 
 created, that the quality of the instruction given in these 
 
Education in India as related to Christianity. 15 
 
 schools was greatly in advance of anything that had 
 been known beforethat sound elementary treatises had 
 been introduced and made popular, and that everywhere 
 a new spirit of energy and mental activity had been 
 aroused. 1 Perhaps, however, the best commentary upon 
 the success of Mr. Thomason’s scheme is that in those 
 four provinces 2 in which it has been adopted, though 
 embracing in area little more than one-third of the whole 
 British territory, the number of scholars now receiving 
 elementary instruction is twice as great as in all the other 
 provinces put together. 
 
 Not the least important result however of Mr. Thomason’s 
 labors was the influence exerted by them upon the policy 
 and counsels of the Board of Directors at home. Just at 
 the time when the success of his plans had become so 
 apparent as to win over some of those most prejudiced on 
 the other side, the renewal of the East India Company’s 
 Charter came before Parliament for the fourth time. As on 
 former occasions a number of eminent witnesses were 
 examined before a Parliamentary Committee, and the 
 evidence was overwhelming in favor of some broader and 
 more comprehensive system of education than had ever yet 
 been attempted, some system which might be equally 
 applicable, with a few modifications of detail, to every part 
 of the country, and which would draw out and utilize to the 
 largest possible extent all available local resources. Nothing 
 indeed could have been more satisfactory than the over¬ 
 whelming weight of testimony which the enquiry elicited 
 as to the advantages of the new system initiated in 1835 
 over the Orientalism which had preceded it. At the same 
 time it was no less clearly shown that the efforts 
 of the Government had up to that time been confined, 
 with a few notable exceptions, to the upper and middie 
 classes, to the almost total neglect of the great body of the 
 
 1 For these and most of the other similar quotations already 
 given from official sources, we are indebted to a most interesting and 
 valuable resume of the rise and progress of Education in India 
 in an official “ Note” by A. Howell, Esq., late Under-Secretary to 
 the Government of India in the Home Department. Though unable 
 to accept all his conclusions, it is most refreshing to meet with an 
 official paper in which the whole subject is dealt with in a tone 
 of such manly independence, and pervaded by so thoroughly Chris* 
 tian a spirit. 
 
 2 Viz., the North Western Provinces, Central Provinces, Punjab 
 and Bombay. 
 
16 Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 peasantry. The evidence moreover of missionary educa¬ 
 tionists like Dr. Duff demonstrated most conclusively that, 
 •whatever difficulties might lie in the way of Government 
 giving religious instruction in its own schools, there was no 
 reluctance on the part of the natives generally to receiving 
 such instruction, and a simple and easy path was thus 
 marked out by which Government might enlist on its side 
 the agency of private individuals, without in the slightest 
 degree departing from its avowed policy of religious 
 neutrality. 
 
 The enquiry extended over many weeks, and the upshot 
 of it all was the great educational despatch of July 1854, in 
 which was laid down a scheme of education for all India 
 so comprehensive that it left nothing to be desired, and so 
 statesmanlike that it has been appealed to ever since by 
 all successive Governments as the great Charter of Indian 
 education. 
 
 So great however has been the vis inertice to be overcome 
 of precedent and custom, and so strong the centralizing ten¬ 
 dency of official departmentalism, that far less practical 
 advance has been made during the last twenty years than 
 might reasonably have been expected, and the policy 
 still pursued in most parts of India is in point of fact 
 very little in advance of that which prevailed forty years 
 ago. This is however a subject too wide to be considered 
 here, and must be reserved for a future number. 
 
 J, B, 
 
Second Paper. 
 
 I N a previous paper 1 we traced in brief the history and progress of 
 education in India down to the year 1854, when the promulga¬ 
 tion of the Court of Di rectors* Despatch of July 19th ushered in a 
 new era, and laid the foundations of a really comprehensive system 
 of education adapted to meet the wants of every class of the popula¬ 
 tion. Instead of the uncertain and ever-vacillating policy which for 
 half a century had prevailed in regard to education, as the views of 
 Orientalists or Anglicists, of “ filtrationists” or Thomasonians, had 
 alternately a majority at the Bast India House, it was something to 
 have laid down, in language so clear and definite that it could not be 
 misunderstood, the aims which Government set before itself, and the 
 principles by which its educational policy was thenceforth to be 
 guided. 
 
 The Despatch commences by stating that the education which 
 the Directors wish to see extended in India is that which has for its 
 object the diffusion of the improved arts, science, philosophy , and liter¬ 
 ature of Europe, in other words of European knowledge, (para.7.) 
 That knowledge, they go on to state, can only be adequately con¬ 
 veyed to the great mass of the people of India through the medium 
 of the vernaculars, the teachers being for the most part natives, who, 
 being also acquainted with English, and having thereby access to the 
 latest improvements in knowledge of every kind, will be in a position to 
 impart to their fellow-countrymen, through the medium of their mother 
 tongue , the information thus obtained. The English language and the 
 vernacular languages of India together, were accordingly to be re¬ 
 garded thenceforth as the media for the diffusion of European know¬ 
 ledge. (para.14.) 
 
 A final death-blow was thus given to the orientalism of the old 
 school of Indian Civilians ; while at the same time care is taken to 
 guard against the undue reaction to which the Resolutions of 
 Lord William Bentinck*s Government had led in favor of an exclu¬ 
 sively English education. The Directors fully recognize the value 
 of the study of the classical languages of India for the cultivation 
 and improvement of the several Indian vernaculars, no less than for 
 historical, juridical, or antiquarian purposes ; but such learning, 
 however important, can only, they say, be regarded as an auxiliary, 
 and as quite inadequate to form the foundation of any general 
 scheme of Indian education, (para. 9). 
 
 1 See Vol. I of this Review, page 477. 
 
IS 
 
 Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 A detailed statement is then given (paras 15—38) of the ma¬ 
 chinery to be brought into existence for the superintendence and 
 direction of education, consisting: (1) of an Educational Department, 
 and (2) of Universities; and then the Despatch passes on 
 to treat more particularly of the persons for whom this edu¬ 
 cation is designed. Prominent mention is made of the fact that the 
 efforts and funds of the State had hitherto been confined almost ex¬ 
 clusively to the provision of the means of education for a class 
 who were for the most part in a position to provide it for them¬ 
 selves, and which, from being given almost entirely through the 
 medium of English, was necessarily limited to a few, while scarcely 
 any thing was being done for the great bulk of the people who 
 could only be reached through the vernaculars. The causes of this 
 policy on the part of Government are thus hinted at. 
 
 The wise abandonment of the early views with respect to native education 
 which erroneously pointed to the classical languages of the East as the media 
 for imparting European knowledge, together with the small amount of pecuni¬ 
 ary aid which in the then financial condition of India, was at your command, 
 lias led, we think, to too exclusive a direction of the efforts of Government to¬ 
 wards providing the means of acquiring a very high degree of education for a 
 small number of the natives of India, drawn, for the most part, from what we 
 should here call the higher classes, (para. 39.) 
 
 t( Our attention,’* they go on to say, “ should now be directed to 
 “ a consideration, which has hitherto, we are bound to admit, been too 
 " much neglected ; namely how useful and practical knowledge suited 
 il to every station in life, may be best conveyed to the great mass 
 “ of the people, who are utterly incapable of obtaining any educa- 
 <f tion worthy of the name by their own unaided efforts.** (para. 41.) 
 
 Various practical suggestions then follow by which this object 
 maybe attained, and the system of improving indigenous schools, 
 first set on foot by Mr. Thomason, is specially held up for imitation 
 in other parts of India, as having proved a most successful means of 
 accomplishing the end desired. 
 
 A still more marked feature, however, of the Despatch, more 
 marked even than its advocacy of mass-education, is the cordial and 
 emphatic recognition given by it to independent educational efforts, 
 and the desire which it expresses to encourage and aid alU such 
 efforts to the utmost. Up to this time, no official recognition what¬ 
 ever had been given to any schools which were not under the 
 immediate control of the Government. The Hindu College, though, 
 as already mentioned, it had owed its original foundation entirely 
 to private liberality, had for many years become a purely Govern¬ 
 ment institution, while such institutions as Dr. Duff’s, and the Free 
 School founded by Rajah Joynarain Ghosal at Benares, had been 
 carried on for years without any assistance, or even encouragement, 
 on the part of the ruling authorities. In marked contrast to this 
 indifference are the passages which follow :— 
 
19 
 
 Education in India as related to Christianity . 
 
 When we consider the vast population of British India, and the sums 
 which, are now expended upon educational efforts, which, however successful 
 in themselves, have reached but an insignificant number of those who are of 
 a proper age to receive school instruction, we cannot but be impressed with 
 the almost insuperable difficulties which would attend such an extension of the 
 present system of education by means of Colleges and Schools entirely sup¬ 
 ported at the cost of Government, as might be hoped to supply, in any reason¬ 
 able time, so gigantic a deficiency, and to provide adequate means for setting 
 oil foot such a system as we have described, and desire to see established. 
 
 Nor is it necessary that we should depend entirely upon the direct efforts 
 of Government. We are glad to recognize an increased desire on the part of 
 the native population, not only in the neighbourhood of the great centres of 
 European civilisation, but also in remoter districts, for the means of obtain¬ 
 ing a better education; and we have evidence in many instances of their 
 readiness to give a practical proof of their anxiety in this respect by coming 
 forward with liberal pecuniary contributions. Throughout all ages, learned 
 Hindoos and Muhammadans have devoted themselves to teaching, with little 
 other remuneration than a bare subsistence; and munificent bequests have 
 not unfrequently been made for the permanent endowment of educational 
 institutions. 
 
 At the same time, in so far as the noble exertions of societies of Christians 
 of all denominations to guide the natives of India in the way of religious 
 truth, and to instruct uncivilized races, such as those found in Assam, in the 
 Cossya, Garrow, and Rajmehal hills, and in various districts of Central and 
 Southern India, who are in the lowest condition of ignorance, and are either 
 wholly without a religion, or are the slaves of a degrading and barbarous 
 superstition, have been accompanied, in their educational establishments, by 
 the diffusion of improved knowledge, they have largely contributed to the 
 spread of that education which it is our object to promote. 
 
 The consideration of the impossibility of Government alone doing all that 
 must be done in order to provide adequate means for the education of the 
 natives of India, and of the ready assistance which may be derived from 
 efforts which have hitherto received but little encouragement from the State, 
 has led us to the natural conclusion that the most effectual method of provid¬ 
 ing for the wants of India in this respect will be to combine with the agency 
 of the Government the aid which may be derived from the exertions and libe¬ 
 rality of the educated and wealthy natives of India, and of other benevolent 
 persons, (paras 48—51.) 
 
 The Court resolved, accordingly, to adopt in India the system 
 of grants-in-aid, which had been carried oat for several years in Eng¬ 
 land with great success, and express their confident anticipations 
 that by thus drawing support from local resources, in addition to 
 contributions from the State, there would result a far more rapid 
 progress of education than could follow any mere increase of expendi¬ 
 ture by the Government alone, while a further advantage of the system 
 is stated to be “ the fostering thereby of a spirit of reliance upon 
 “ local exertions, and a combination for local purposes, which is of 
 “ itself of no mean importance to the well-being of a nation.’* 
 
 Such, briefly summarized, is the Educational Code of 1854, 
 a document of the highest value, not only on account of the 
 importance of the purely educational issues at stake, but even more 
 for the great principles of administrative policy which it embodies 
 
20 
 
 Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 and enunciates. On the one hand it clearly lays down that it is 
 the primary duty of a Government to communicate to its subjects 
 that knowledge which will tend to make them better citizens, and 
 promote most largely the general good, in other words, to promote 
 as much as possible elementary education ; while on the other hand 
 the necessity is no less clearly recognized of the Government seek- 
 ing the aid and co-operation, in all such benevolent efforts, of every 
 class of the community, and turning to account every agency that 
 may be already in the field. In other words, its two great funda¬ 
 mental principles are - 
 
 (l.) The extension of the benefits of education from the com¬ 
 paratively well-to-do middle classes to the great bulk of the popu¬ 
 lation generally. 
 
 (2.) The substitution of Government and private effort united 
 for Government action alone. 
 
 We have now to enquire how far the views thus authoritatively 
 promulgated have been actually carried out during the twenty years 
 that have followed, and what has been the bearing of the policy thus 
 inaugurated upon the progress and prospects of Christianity. 
 
 We should be sorry to seem captious or fault-finding where there 
 is so much that is worthy of all praise, yet we cannot refrain from 
 expressing it as our deliberate opinion, founded upon a considerable 
 personal acquaintance with the working of the educational machinery 
 of Government in several parts of India, that in no province has the 
 policy enunciated in the Despatch been fairly or fully carried out. 
 
 We wish not to be misunderstood. That there has been great 
 improvement since 1854 in the quality of the education imparted 
 throughout the country generally, as well as a large increase in the 
 number of pupils brought under instruction, we fully admit; but 
 this is not the point. The growth of English education, though an 
 undoubted and most significant fact, can hardly be said to be the 
 result of the Despatch; it is rather due to the general spread every¬ 
 where of Western ideas and enlightenment, and would in all proba¬ 
 bility have been equally marked, whatever might have been the ad¬ 
 ministrative machinery employed. The same remark applies to the 
 Universities, which, though officially called into being by the Des¬ 
 patch, are yet in their first conception of much older date, the estab¬ 
 lishment of one of them at any rate, that of Calcutta, having been 
 urged by the Bengal Government upon the Court of Directors as far 
 back as 1845. We fully recognize again the vigour that has marked 
 the action of several of the local Governments in educational matters, 
 as well as the ability of not a few of their educational officers. 
 
 Our position is simply this, that whereas it was strongly insisted 
 on in the Despatch of 1854 that the higher education of the country 
 
Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 21 
 
 should be made more self-supporting 1 , and that the funds and efforts 
 of the Government should thenceforth be chiefly directed to the 
 education of the masses, the fact is, that in 1874, the higher Schools 
 and Colleges still absorb an altogether disproportionate share of the 
 annual Imperial allotment for educational purposes; and further, that 
 whereas it was the obvious intention of the Despatch, in creating 
 a separate Department of Education, to make it rather a supervising 
 agency for all education, by whomsoever conducted, or in the words 
 of the Despatch, for the utilization of other educational agencies, 
 (i. e. other than that of the Government itself,) which had up to that 
 time been either ivholly neglected , or imgoerfectly taken advantage of, 
 (para. 1 7) rather than an agency for the multiplication and extension 
 of schools directly supported by the State, that Department has, in 
 point of fact, become an educating agency on the most extensive 
 scale, and so far from any of the Government higher class schools 
 having been closed, or transferred to private management, as con¬ 
 templated by the Despatch, the tendency has been all the other way. 
 
 In support of these two positions, we shall hazard no general 
 statements, but simply confine ourselves to the evidence afforded 
 by official reports and statements issued under the authority and 
 direction of the Government itself. 
 
 In 1870-71, the latest year for which we have reliable figures 
 at hand, the entire grant from Imperial funds for education in India 
 was Its, 65,71,090. Of this amount, Rs. 15,57,433, or nearly 
 one-fourth, was expended on the education of 51,566 boys and young 
 men in Colleges and Higher Schools. The education of 1,58,728 
 boys and girls in Middle class schools cost Its. 12,00,893 more; 
 while only Rs. 8,50,999, or little more than one-eighth of the 
 entire grant, was allotted to the education of the masses. 
 
 It appears, further, that while the education of each pupil in 
 a Hi o-her class School or College costs the State on the average 
 
 O O Cj 
 
 Its. 30 annually, the education of a boy in a primary school costs 
 only Rs. 1J. 
 
 It follows therefore that if the amounts at present devoted 
 to higher and lower education respectively were interchanged, as 
 contemplated by the Despatch of 1854, instead of half a million chil¬ 
 dren now receiving instruction in primary schools, there would be 
 more than twice that number; and instead of the country being 
 deluged with a plethora of English-speaking youths, all eager 
 aspirants after Government clerkships, but of whom the greater 
 number are necessarily doomed to disappointment, there would now 
 be in course of training a moderate number of really superior young 
 men, capable of filling the positions they are called on to occupy, alike 
 with credit to themselves and satisfaction to their employers. 
 
 Or, to take another test, that afforded by a comparison of the 
 number of children actually at school, and the school accommo- 
 
22 Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 dafcion at present provided, with the actual population. This will 
 be seen at once by a glance at the followiug table, taken from 
 Mr. Howell’s Educational Note. 
 
 Lower Class Schools and Fupils in 1870-71. 
 
 Number. 
 
 Government. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Schools. 
 
 Pupils. 
 
 Proportion 
 of Schools 
 to Popula¬ 
 tion. 
 
 Proportion 
 of pupils to 
 population. 
 
 1 
 
 Bengal. 
 
 40,352,960 
 
 2,486 
 
 66,799 
 
 1 to 16,232 
 
 1 to 604 
 
 o 
 
 Madras 
 
 26,539,052 
 
 2,800 
 
 64,298 
 
 9,478 
 
 412 
 
 3 
 
 Bombay 
 
 12,889,106 
 
 2,772 
 
 148,546 
 
 4,649 
 
 86 
 
 4 
 
 N. W. Provinces ... , 
 
 30,086,898 
 
 3,826 
 
 101,300 
 
 7,863 
 
 297 
 
 5 
 
 Punjab. 
 
 17,596,752 
 
 1,722 
 
 64,827 
 
 10,218 
 
 271 
 
 6 
 
 Oudh 
 
 11,220.747 
 
 701 
 
 19,512 
 
 16,006 
 
 575 
 
 7 
 
 Central Provinces 
 
 7,985,411 
 
 1,236 
 
 40,637 
 
 6,460 
 
 196 
 
 8 
 
 British Burmah . 
 
 2,463,484 
 
 50 
 
 1 not given 
 
 • • • 
 
 
 9 
 
 Berars ... 
 
 2,220,074 
 
 297 
 
 10,348 
 
 • • • 
 
 214 
 
 10 
 
 Coorg ... . 
 
 112,952 
 
 31 
 
 1,307 
 
 • • • 
 
 86 
 
 
 Total... 
 
 151,467,436 
 
 15,921 
 
 517,574 
 
 • • • 
 
 ... 
 
 That is to say, reckoning the number who ought to be at primary 
 schools at the very moderate estimate of tVth of the population, it 
 appears that in Bombay, the most advanced of all the provinces, the 
 proportion of such children actually at school to those who ought to 
 be there is only 11 in every 100, whereas in Madras the proportion is 
 only 3 in 100, and in Lower Bengal only 2 ! Well may Mr. Howell 
 remark: “It is clear that in no province is there any adequate 
 system of elementary education” ; and again, “ the enormous disparity 
 between the children who ought to receive primary education, and the 
 children who do receive it, is the great and startling feature in the 
 statistics.” 
 
 Nor is the testimony less strong if we turn from the statistics 
 themselves to the conclusions which the highest authorities have 
 founded upon them. In a Despatch dated 18th October 1869, 
 addressed to the Duke of Argyll, then Secretary of State for India, the 
 Government of the late LordMayo urged a reduction and redistribution 
 of the existing educational expenditure in the followiug terms. 
 
 There is no Department of the Civil Administration in which the Governor- 
 General in Council would attempt, simply oil financial grounds, to effect any 
 reductions with so much caution and reluctance as in that of education. No 
 Department has a higher claim. It is the anxious wish of his Excellency in 
 Council to encourage, to the utmost of his power, the spread of education, nor 
 will he in any way evade the duty and responsibility which properly fall upon 
 the Government of rendering it as accessible as possible to all classes of the 
 people of this country. 
 
 But from a review of the rapid increase of the Imperial charges for educa¬ 
 tion during the last few years, an increase strongly commented on by the late 
 
23 
 
 Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 [Financial Minister, and from a careful consideration of the objects on •which 
 this expenditure is being incurred, the Governor-General in Council is con¬ 
 vinced that some misapprehension exists as to the educational policy of the 
 State, and that reductions of cost can be effected without contracting those 
 practical limits of action which, even in the most flourishing condition of the 
 finances, must, owing to the magnitude of the work before it, be imposed 
 upon the Government. By ignoring these limits, even what is practicable 
 may be never obtained. 
 
 The Governor-General in Council does not wish to advocate any new 
 educational policy for India, but he has decided upon declaring and maintain¬ 
 ing the policy clearly and repeatedly prescribed by the Home Government. 
 
 In 1854, the Court of Directors declared that up to that date the efforts of 
 the Government had heen too exclusively directed towards providing the means 
 of acquiring a very high degree of education for a small number of natives of 
 India, drawn for the most 'part from what %ve should here call the higher 
 classes. * * * * After the establishment of Universities, we shall have done 
 
 as much as Government can do to place the benefits of education painty and 
 practically before the higher classes of India. Our attention should now be di¬ 
 rected to a consideration, if possible, still more important, and one which has 
 been hitherto, ive are bound to admit , too much neglected, namely, how useful 
 and practical knowledge, suited to every station in life, may be best conveyed to 
 the great mass of the people ivlio are utterly incapable of obtaining any education 
 worthy of the name by their own unaided efforts . Schools, whose object should be 
 not to train highly a few youths, but to provide more opportunities than now 
 exist for the acquisition of such an improved education as will make those ivho 
 possess it more useful members of society in every condition of life, should exist 
 in every district in India. * * * The higher classes ivill note be gradually 
 
 called upon to depend more upon themselves. 
 
 The same policy was maintained in Lord Stanley’s Despatch of 1859, after 
 the transfer of the country to the Crown. This Despatch recapitulated the 
 substance of the Despatch of 1854, and added, “ those individuals or classes 
 who desire more than a simple elementary education may, as a general rule, be 
 left to exert themselves to procure it, with or without the assistance of Govern¬ 
 ment.” 
 
 Again, in 1863, the Secretary of State showed that no change had taken 
 place in the views of the Home Government. 
 
 It was, he stated, one great object, proposed in the Despatch of the 19th July 
 1854, to provide for the extension to the general population of those means of 
 obtaining an education suitable to their station in life, which had hitherto been 
 too exclusively confined to the higher classes ; and it is abundantly clear from 
 Lord Stanley's Despa,tch of the 7th April 1859, that Her Majesty's Government 
 entertained at that time the same sentiments which had been expressed by the 
 Home Authorities in 1854. I think it necessary to declare that Her Majesty's 
 Government have no intention of sanctioning a departure from the principles 
 already deliberately laid down. 
 
 Once more, in 1864, the Secretary of State again enjoined upon the Gov¬ 
 ernment that the resources of the State should be so applied as to assist 
 those who cannot be expected to help, and that the richer classes of the people 
 should gradually be induced to provide for their own education. 
 
 And yet the policy clearly and repeatedly prescribed by suc¬ 
 cessive Home Governments had not “ been strictly adhered to,” and 
 in some provinces was growing ‘‘more and more inoperative every 
 day.” 
 
 It would be very easy to prove from the statistics of the last Educational 
 [Reports that the bulk of an annually increasing Imperial expenditure is far 
 
24 
 
 Education in India as related to Christianity . 
 
 from being devoted to the great mass of the people, and that the efforts of the 
 State are still mainly directed to the instruction of the classes referred to. 
 
 A liberal expenditure in this direction was in the first instance justifiable, 
 but it has been admitted that in some parts of India the career now open to 
 well-educated persons, a career far more remunerative in proportion to the 
 expenses entailed by the preliminary education than is the case in European 
 countries, renders it possible and only reasonable that the Institutions of 
 higher education should be placed on a more self-supporting footing than at 
 present. 
 
 The Government of India cannot provide from Imperial resources the 
 means of instruction for all classes of the community, and financial consider¬ 
 ations of paramount importance now render it necessary to decide what classes 
 have the strongest claims, and how the funds available can be best utilized. 
 There is obviously no limit to the demands on account of higher education 
 if the attempt be continued to provide it almost gratuitously at the State’s 
 expense, and the Governor-General in Council is resolved that henceforth 
 the main object of the educational system in each province must be that pre¬ 
 scribed by the Home Government. 
 
 It is not intended that education for the masses is to be the sole end and 
 aim of the several Educational Departments. To insist upon this would be 
 almost as great an error in ihe opposite direction, and one which might be at 
 once refuted from the Despatches above quoted. Higher education must proba¬ 
 bly always, to some extent, spring from and receive encouragement from the 
 Government, and the cost of the agency for testing, for inspecting, and direct¬ 
 ing it, must mainly devolve upon the Government. 
 
 This charge will be considerable, and has an undoubted tendency to in¬ 
 crease. But the Government cannot, in addition to this charge, also undertake 
 the entire, or nearly the entire, charge of providing and maintaining the in¬ 
 stitutions of higher education. Already the Government has gone far beyond 
 the intentions of the Despatch of 1854, which declared that the provision of 
 Universities as the examining bodies for higher education was all that then 
 remained for the Government to do. Since that date, Institutions for higher 
 education, almost entirely supported at the State's expense, have been multiplied 
 throughout the country, the object of the Government having been to create a 
 demand for such education, and this object has now in some provinces been 
 sufficiently, and in nearly all partially, attained. To multiply them still 
 further where there is little or no real demand for them, is not only embarrass¬ 
 ing on financial grounds, but is a measure of very doubtful political expediency, 
 calculated to depreciate the character of the education so imparted, and to dis¬ 
 courage those feelings of self-reliance which form the best incentive to the 
 acquirement of knowledge.” 1 
 
 Facts and statements like the above, ought, one would think, 
 to be sufficient to shew that the principles laid down in the Despatch 
 of 1854 have not been given practical effect to during the last 20 
 years, in spite of all that a complacent optimism may assert to the 
 contrary. And yet, strange as it may seem, there are still able and 
 influential persons both in England and India who seem to think 
 that the progress of education throughout the country generally is 
 everything that could be desired. Even so lately as June of last 
 year, the Supreme Government, in replying to a Memorial from the 
 Missionary body, 2 pointing out certain flagrant departures from the 
 policy laid down in 1854 on the part of some of the Local Govern¬ 
 ments, seemed to question whether there were really any fair 
 
 Parliamentary Blue Book of 29th July 1870, p. 467. 2 See Yol. I. p. 371. 
 
 l 
 
Education in India as related to Christianity . 25 
 
 grounds of complaint, and appeared to think it a sufficient answer 
 to the petitioners to say that “ the Educational policy of 1854 
 had been affirmed and kept avowedly in view in all its recent acts 
 and orders,” and that “ the grant-in-aid system, on which the 
 Memorialists rightly set great value, had neither been discouraged 
 nor disregarded by Government.” 
 
 Quite true, and no one that we know of had ever questioned 
 it, but the point on which the Memorial had laid stress was not 
 that the Government of India had ever changed its tone on the sub¬ 
 ject of education, or had ceased to avow its adherence to the policy 
 enunciated in the despatch of 1854, but simply that all its affirma¬ 
 tions and orders had led to no practical result. The advocates of the 
 old traditional policy had, in fact, been silenced, but not convinced; 
 and finding it useless to attempt to upset the new policy by open op¬ 
 position, they resorted to the Fabian tactics of doing everything 
 in their power to hinder its practical realization. Very little open 
 opposition, that we are aware of, has ever been manifested to the 
 policy advocated in the despatch ; its principles have remained for 
 the most part uncontroverted and unchallenged, but in practice they 
 have been quietly and systematically ignored. 
 
 Thus, for example, in regard to the particular recommendations 
 already referred to, b} 7 which the Supreme Government sought to 
 give practical effect to the policy of the Educational Code, the Duke 
 of Argyll, while careful to reaffirm in general terms the principle 
 that the Government expenditure should so far as possible be 
 reduced with reference to the education of those who were well able 
 to pay for themselves, and should be mainly directed to the provi¬ 
 sion of an elementary education for the masses of the people, de¬ 
 clined nevertheless to give his sanction to the proposed Resolution 
 on the ground that “ the judicious application of that principle to our 
 educational system in India would require a very careful regard to the 
 circumstances, disposition , and degree of civilization of the peopleI 1 
 
 If these words were intended to mean anything more than a 
 polite way of refusing to do anything, they can onty be interpreted 
 as implying that, however good and sound the principles laid down 
 in the Despatch might be, their practical application to the 
 circumstances of India was quite another matter, and must be re¬ 
 garded as lying altogether in the remote future. 
 
 No doubt this proposal of the Government of India for the 
 reduction of expenditure on higher education came at a particularly 
 inopportune moment, when not a few members of the Indian 
 Council had just been greatly disquieted by another project of far 
 greater magnitude which had been referred to them from Calcutta, 
 viz., the introduction of a land cess into the Lower Provinces of Ben¬ 
 gal for the support of primary education ; a measure which had 
 evoked the most strenuous opposition of the whole body of native 
 
 1 Despatch of 2Gth !V£ay 1870, para. 6. 
 
26 Education in Indict as related to Christianity. 
 
 landholders, backed by the Bengal Government itself. Allowing, 
 however, that the Government of India may have been disposed to 
 push matters on a little too fast, it is, wo think, much to be regretted 
 that the Secretary of State should have so retrograded from the 
 views urged by his predecessors, and taken up a position which, 
 whatever it might have appeared on the surface, was a virtual 
 abandonment of the policy inculcated in the Educational Code. 
 
 Nor is it merely in regard to the education of the labouring 
 classes that so little practical effect has hitherto been given to the 
 policy of the Despatch, it has also been no less virtually set aside 
 in another of its most distinctive features, viz., the promotion of 
 independent education by means of grants-in-aid. The object of 
 that system was not merely to spread the Government allotment 
 for education over a wider area, but it was also distinctly contem¬ 
 plated that at no very distant period “ many of the then existing 
 Government institutions, especially those of the higher order, might 
 be safely closed, or transferred to the management of local bodies, 
 under the control of, and aided by,-the State.” (para. 62.) So far 
 from this having been the case, almost every year has witnessed 
 the expenditure of a larger and larger amount upon Government 
 high schools and colleges, while so far from any such institutions 
 having been closed or withdrawn to make room for aided schools 
 under private management, the tendency has been altogether the 
 other way, not a few of such schools having, during the last few 
 years, been absorbed into the Government system, and passed 
 under the direct control of the educational department. 
 
 The memorial already referred to quoted a number of instances 
 in which this absorption had taken place, and the process is still 
 going on. Of course a host of good reasons could in each case 
 be urged on the other side to shew that the transfer was either most 
 desirable in itself, or else had been so strongly urged by the native 
 managers themselves, that it was impossible to refuse them ; but the 
 fact remains as stated, the effect of the transfer being invariably 
 to double or even treble the cost of the school in question to Gov¬ 
 ernment, and to put an extinguisher upon the local subscriptions, 
 a higher fee rate being usually levied in their place. What seems 
 however to us most to be regretted in such cases is not the mere fact 
 of the transfer, which, in the majority of cases, was no doubt greatly 
 for the benefit of the school as regards discipline and general effi¬ 
 ciency, but that it should so generally be allowed to take place 
 without a single expression either of regret or explanation on the 
 part of the heads of the Educational Departments, or a word of any 
 sort to indicate that they viewed it as affording ground for 
 any other feelings than those of unmixed satisfaction. Indeed, some 
 of the Directors make no secret of their strong preference for 
 schools under their Immediate management to those over which 
 they have no such direct control. There have indeed been one ox* 
 
Education in India as related to Christianity. 27 
 
 two notable and honourable exceptions to this state of things, but 
 so few and far between as only to confirm what has now been said, 
 and to establish the point for which we have been contending, that 
 the Educational Department so far from caring to promote or 
 encourage independent education barely tolerates it. 
 
 It would seem indeed as if the one object which most Directors 
 have in view were mere scholastic efficiency, and to this every¬ 
 thing else must give place. We would be the last to undervalue 
 either smartness or trimness in the general outward appearance 
 of a school, but it may fairly be questioned whether these may not 
 sometimes be secured at the expense of what is infinitely more 
 valuable, viz., the inculcation of those principles of self-help and 
 self-government which lie at the root of all that is really valuable 
 or lasting in national life. India, to our minds, needs lessons in 
 the art of self-government, quite as much in all the “ologies,”— 
 and we know of no better way by which her capacities in this 
 direction may be drawn out and tested than by entrusting to those 
 who have learnt to value education for themselves the care and ma¬ 
 nagement of similar schools for the education of their children. 
 
 It seems then very evident that, in spite of all the Despatches 
 and Resolutions of successive Governments, whether in England or 
 India, and the apparent acceptance on all sides of the policy enun¬ 
 ciated in the Educational Code of 1854, the field is by no means as 
 yet won, and unless there is a persistent reiteration of these gene¬ 
 rally recognized principles, and a determination not to rest till 
 they are fairly carried out, the provisions of that code may con¬ 
 tinue to be practically ignored and set at nought for another 20 }mars 
 as they have been hitherto. 
 
 But whence, it may naturally be asked, comes all this opposition ? 
 We believe it is to be mainly traced to the three following causes :— : 
 
 First, an honest, though as it appears to us, altogether mistaken 
 belief in the “ filtration’’ theory, i.e., that education must begin 
 naturally with the upper classes of society, and through them reach 
 the classes below. 
 
 Secondly, an altogether exaggerated view of the principle of 
 religious neutrality, and an almost morbid dread of doing anything 
 which might seem even to encourage, however indirectly, the efforts 
 of Christian Missionaries. 
 
 Lastly, the strong bias in favour of higher class education en¬ 
 tertained, almost unconsciously perhaps, yet none the less really, by 
 nearly all the officers of the several Educational Departments, most 
 of whom are men of English University distinctions. 
 
 With regard to the first point, we have little to add to what 
 we have urged already in our former paper. We entirely agree 
 with Mr. Howell 1 that the filtration theory, however plausible 
 in itself, fails altogether in its application to India, owing to the 
 
 1 Educational Note, page 81. 
 
28 
 
 Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 simple fact that the interests of landowner and cultivator, of 
 employer and employed, are at present in hopeless antagonism, and 
 seem likely to remain so, at any rate for a long while to come. 
 
 One of the greatest difficulties, in fact, with which our Indian 
 administrators have had to contend in their beneficent efforts for the 
 good of the millions committed to their rule, has been the exclusive¬ 
 ness and class jealousy engendered by the caste system, and the utter 
 lack of anything like true patriotism. The landholders are always 
 keenly enough alive to anything which affects their own interests, 
 as also the mercantile and professional classes to theirs, and both 
 have abundant means of making their voice heard through the press 
 and other ways; but if the interests of the agricultural peasantry are 
 to be entrusted to their keeping, it will be but a poor look-out for 
 the latter. It is all very well to say in the words of the Despatch 
 already referred to l ,” that “ if we can once instil into the real upper 
 classes of India the conviction now entertained, but not entertained 
 till very lately by every enlightened man in England, that one of the 
 main duties of society is to provide for the sound primary instruction 
 of the humbler classes, we shall lay the real foundation for a general 
 system of primary education”, but in that “ if” lies all the difficulty. At 
 present, no one who knows anything of India can fail to see that the 
 sole tie which holds its people together is that of self-interest. The 
 great object of each class of the population, naturally enough, is to 
 get as much benefit for themselves as possible from the existing 
 regime , and to look with apprehension, not to say indignant alarm, 
 on any measure that may interfere with their own privileges and 
 vested interests. Hence the loud outcry on the part of the native 
 press which has always greeted any attempt to shift on to the 
 shoulders of the middle and professional classes any part of the 
 burden that has hitherto been borne by the classes below them, and 
 the persistent opposition which they have always manifested to any 
 attempt to carry out in practice such principles as those advo¬ 
 cated in the Educational Code. If then the education of the pea¬ 
 santry has to wait until the landholders and professional classes 
 are enlightened enough to be willing to tax themselves for their 
 benefit, we fear they will have to wait a long time. This tree of 
 “ enlightenment” has in its time produced many and strange fruits, 
 and in India its growth is certainly tropical enough in its character, 
 but we question whether the day is not already at hand when some 
 of its warmest friends will not be the first to cry out and com¬ 
 plain of the results to which it is even now leading ; and never 
 yet, that we are aware of, has it produced that fruit of self-denying 
 effort for the common welfare, without which little real good will 
 ever be effected. The filter, in fact, may work well enough in a 
 country like England, but here it is so choked with the clay of 
 selfishness and class-prejudice that it fails altogether. 
 
 1 Despatch of 26th May 1870, para, 9. 
 
Education in India as related to Christianity . 
 
 29 
 
 We have little doubt, however, that the main hindrance to the 
 lo}^al carrying out of the policy of the Educational Code is to be 
 found in the second and third causes referred to above. 
 
 The old spirit of alarmism which instigated the fierce opposi¬ 
 tion to Mr. Wilberforce’s Resolutions in the Charters of 1793 and 
 1813, though compelled to succumb outwardly to the pressure of 
 more enlightened public opinion, still lingers on in the minds of 
 not a few of our Indian administrators, and is apparently still 
 strong enough to make itself felt at the Council Board of the India 
 Office. Even so lately as 1870, the Blue book from which we have r 
 already quoted records a minute of a late Governor of Bombay ( 
 couched in the following somewhat trenchant language. 
 
 I dissent from the decision passed by the Council on Friday last, because /S> 
 I consider it unfair to the people, and an underhand measure. It adopts 
 the principle of leaving education to zealous missionaries, supported by In¬ 
 dian public money, where [sic] we well know that the people desire the dis¬ 
 bursement of what we can spare for such purpose, from revenue derived 
 from them, in aid of their education by other means. 
 
 One would have thought that the sacrifice of duty now offered for an 
 illusory alliance with the Tinnevelly Missionaries is peculiarly imprudent, 
 because only a few years ago Tinnevelly was the scene of a disturbance be¬ 
 tween Hindus and so-called converts, a disturbance stated by the Magistrates 
 to be “ got up by influential public servants” sympathising with the former, 
 against whom our troops advanced, killing ten and wounding nineteen. 
 
 With regard to these grants-in-aid,—what may be now their amount I 
 don’t know, the original scheme was £300,000 per annum—there can be no 
 doubt that the present Governor of Jamaica, previously Lieutenant-Governor 
 in Bengal 1 , was perfectly right when, being required to give an opinion on the 
 Governor-General’s 2 recommendation of Mr. McLeod’s suggestion of the mea¬ 
 sure, [he said] that “the proposal was momentous, and in violation of an 
 unbroken chain of express orders issued by a long succession of Home Gov¬ 
 ernments.” The interference of the Government in support of Missionary 
 schools from the revenues of India is indeed momentous; moreover, it is 
 liable to defeat, rather than to advance, the great object in view. Who that 
 knows India is not aware that the imprudent Missionary who accepts the 
 grant is thenceforth universally regarded as “ Sirkar-i-naukur.” Thus is 
 created a sentiment of antagonism in the minds of the people. * * * 
 
 The determination to support Missionary Schools in India by its public 
 revenue was conceived by some to be an able measure of progress towards 
 conversion ; I do not believe it has proved to be the means of adding one true 
 convert to Christianity. 
 
 The being driven into this course of provocation, danger, and wasteful 
 bribery is ascribed to the force of public opinion, or what the Missionary 
 newspaper at Serampore (1) and wild declamation at Exeter Hall (!!) are pleased 
 to term public opinion. It is remarkable that the real public opinion of India 
 is never sought for by its modern rulers. Not more than one in 100 of our 
 Government officers now take the trouble to procure and read any other ver¬ 
 nacular newspapers than the constituted venal expositors of our transcendant 
 virtues. 3 
 
 1 Sir J. P. Grant. 2 Lord Dalhousie. 
 
 3 Our readers may wonder what the decision could have been that called 
 forth this vehement protest. It was nothing more than the intimation of a 
 “ general concurrence” in the opinions expressed in a Resolution of the Govern¬ 
 ment of Madras, in which, among other matters, it was stated that they had 
 
Education in India as related to Christianity : 
 
 This is strong language, somewhat stronger probably than most 
 statesmen would care to commit themselves to, but it is well that 
 the friends of Missionary education should know the kind of oppo¬ 
 sition with which they have to contend, and be prepared accord¬ 
 ingly. No doubt the religious difficulty will always be a consider¬ 
 able one, especially while there are influential persons like Sir 
 George Clerk to fan the slumbering embers of Hindoo religious zeal 
 into an unwonted flame, but it is by no means insuperable, and it is to 
 be met, not by a so-called religious neutrality which, while making 
 a shew of protecting the interests of all the native religions of India, 
 is in reality doing its best to undermine and overthrow them all, 
 but by a generous and tolerant consideration of the feelings and in¬ 
 terests of every class of the community, Hindoo, Muhammadan, and 
 Christian alike, giving free play to all, but favoring none. This is 
 precisely what is secured by the grant-in-aid system, if fairly and 
 honestly worked, and it is on this very ground of its being the only 
 way possible of meeting the religions difficulty, in a way that can 
 give no real ground of offence to any, that it has always so com¬ 
 mended itself to all unbiassed minds. 
 
 In answer then to Sir G. Clerk, and other dissentients from the 
 policy of the Educational Code, who say that the principle of 
 grants-in-aid is inconsistent with our profession of religious neutra- 
 lity, we reply, ‘ It is you who seek to violate those pledges, not 
 we. You would give the people of India an education which avow¬ 
 edly saps the foundations of all religion, and would deprive the 
 young Hindoo of every incentive to a pure and upright life beyond 
 that of mere expediency; whereas, on the other hand, the grant-in- 
 aid system, while recognizing and respecting all religions, is in the 
 strictest sense neutral , showing no sort of favor to any, and making 
 the assistance it offers entirely dependent on the measure of secular 
 instruction imparted/ 
 
 We see then not only no hardship, but on the contrary the 
 highest wisdom and benevolence, in the Government seeking at the 
 earliest moment possible to escape from the false position in which 
 it now finds itself placed, and following a line of policy which 
 will be one of real , and not pretended, neutrality in matters of 
 religion. 
 
 And even supposing that the immediate result of the with¬ 
 drawal of Government from the work of higher education were to be, 
 as is sometimes alleged, but which we do not believe, the throwing 
 of that education almost entirely into the hands of Missionaries, 
 
 declined to accede to the prayer of certain inhabitants of the town of 
 Tinnevelly, asking Government to establish a Zillah School there, on the 
 ground that there were already two higher class aided schools in the place, 
 one under native and the other under missionary management, which together 
 were fully sufficient for all the educational requirements of the place. And 
 this is the policy which is stigmatized as the “ violation of an unbroken chain 
 of express orders issued by a long succession of Home Governments” J 
 
31 
 
 Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 where is the injustice ? Who is responsible for such a result ? The 
 Government, which impartially offers aid to all alike, or the objectors 
 themselves, who, while they clamour so loudly in behalf of their own 
 religion, are yet too indifferent, or too indolent, even to lift a finger, 
 or make any sort of sacrifice on its behalf? Surely if the Hindoo 
 cares so little for his ancestral faith as not to be at the pains, with the 
 assistance so liberally offered by Government, to provide for his 
 children such an education as will secure that faith from injury, it 
 can hardly be the business of Government to take measures for 
 protecting it. 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten, in this balancing of supposed con¬ 
 flicting interests, that there is another section of the native commu¬ 
 nity which has no less a right to be heard than the Hindoos or 
 Muhammadans, we mean, the native Christians. A body which 
 already numbers nearty a quarter of a million adherents, not a few 
 of whom are of the highest respectability and intelligence, has at 
 least as good a right to be heard as any other section of the com¬ 
 munity. In their estimation, at any rate, whatever may be thought 
 by other bodies of their fellow-countrymen, no education is com¬ 
 plete without religion; are their schools then to receive no aid 
 from the state for fear of some Hindoos who may attend them 
 being thereby led to become Christians ? Our firm belief, however, 
 is that the religious difficulty would never have existed at all, if it 
 had not been first suggested to the minds of the people by some of 
 their rulers themselves. So far from regarding with distrust any 
 assistance given to Mission Schools on account of the religion taught 
 in them, they are much more inclined to wonder at the so-called 
 Christianity of mamy of their rulers in which there is so little 
 recognition of a God at all. We trust the day may soon come 
 when a bolder and manlier, because truer, policy may prevail, 
 and Christian men in high positions, while careful to abstain 
 from any abuse of the power entrusted to them by employing it 
 for other purposes than that for which it has been bestowed, may 
 yet not be ashamed to own themselves the followers and disciples 
 of Christ, and to exhibit in their own lives and conduct the attrac¬ 
 tive beauty and excellence of Christ’s religion. 
 
 There still remains, however, one more cause for the non-realiza¬ 
 tion of the objects contemplated by the Despatch of 1854, regarding 
 which it is necessary for us to say a few words, viz., the present con¬ 
 stitution of the Educational Department itself. So little has it 
 practically discharged the function which that despatch originally 
 assigned to it, that instead of being, as was contemplated, the 
 patron and foster-nurse of independent education, it has as a rule 
 barely tolerated it. To judge indeed from the tone of most of the 
 educational reports issued by the various Directors of Public Instruc¬ 
 tion in different parts of India, one would suppose that they had 
 but little to do with any other schools than those supported 
 
32 Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 directly by tbe State. Private schools receiving aid from the State 
 are indeed recognized, and their efficiency commented on, but it 
 is very apparent that they are looked upon throughout rather as 
 supplementary to the schools maintained by Government, than as 
 an agency which it is the especial aim of the Department to foster 
 to the greatest extent possible, in order that the Government may 
 eventually retire from the field of direct education altogether, and 
 transfer its aid to localities and classes of the population where 
 its assistance is more needed. Nor is this to be wondered at, 
 considering what the constitution of the Educational Department 
 has hitherto been, and whence its ranks have been for the most part 
 recruited. 
 
 The Educational Code had particularly specified (para. 21.) that 
 in the selection of the heads of the Educational Departments, the In¬ 
 spectors, and other officers, it would be of the greatest impor¬ 
 tance to secure the services of persons who would be best able 
 from their character, position, and acquirements, to carry out the 
 objects aimed at in the Despatch, and with a view to this suggest¬ 
 ed the advisability of the higher officers of the department being in 
 the first instance members of the Civil Service, as such appoint¬ 
 ments would tend “ to raise the estimation in which the offices 
 would be held, while among them would probably be found the 
 persons best qualified for the performance of such duties/'’ 
 
 A most wise provision, as it seems to us, and one which, if it 
 had been only adhered to, would have secured the carrying out of 
 the principles of the Despatch in the most effectual way possible. 
 The able, though short, administrations of civilian Directors, like 
 Mr. Stewart Reid in the North-Western Provinces, Mr.—now Sir— 
 Alexander Arbuthnot in Madras, and Mr. Gordon Young in Lower 
 Bengal, have not only sufficiently proved the especial aptitude of 
 civilians for this particular branch of work, but also demonstrated 
 most satisfactorily the practical applicability of the principles laid 
 down in the Educational Code to the wants and circumstances of the 
 people of India. Unhappily however for the success of the new 
 policy, it was shortly after ruled that the higher posts in the Depart¬ 
 ment of Public Instruction should thenceforth be recruited, as vacan¬ 
 cies occurred, from the subordinate ranks of the educational service. 
 This may have had motives of economy to recommend it, as a mem¬ 
 ber of that service, no doubt, costs the State less than a civilian, 
 but in all other respects we think it was a great mistake, and alto¬ 
 gether fatal to the successful carrying out of the new system. Was it 
 likely, indeed, that a policy, the avowed object of which was the 
 gradual withdrawal of Government from the field of higher education, 
 would find much favor from those whose earliest and best jmars in 
 India had been spent in that very field, and all whose sympathies 
 and predilections were already strongly enlisted in its behalf? . 
 
 It may, perhaps, be urged on the other side, and probably in the 
 
Education in India as related to Christianity. S3 
 
 eyes of Government this was one main justification of the course 
 pursued, that Education being to a certain extent a technical science, 
 like Engineering or Medicine, it requires for its efficient conduct 
 some one practically acquainted with the art of teaching, and that 
 consequently the best persons to fill the offices of Director or In¬ 
 spector of Education are those who have themselves been instructors 
 of youth. This argument might have some weight, if by the term 
 education were merely meant such instruction as is imparted in 
 High Schools and Colleges. When, however, as in the case be¬ 
 fore us, the object to be aimed at is not the mere training 
 of a few young men for the University class lists, but how to com¬ 
 municate instruction in the rudiments of useful knowledge to the 
 great bulk of the people at large, the question assumes quite a 
 different aspect, and a very little consideration would seem to shew 
 the desirability of the higher offices in the educational service, or 
 at any rate that of Director, being filled by a Civilian, rather than 
 by a College Principal or Professor. 
 
 We cannot but think it of the highest importance that] there 
 should be among those who direct the business of the State 
 at least one member who has had an opportunity at some previ¬ 
 ous period of his career of becoming personally conversant with 
 the work of education, and who is therefore able to speak 
 with some degree of authority on all educational matters that 
 may come up for consideration. The very fact, too, that the 
 office of Director would from time to time become vacant, as its 
 occupant passed upwards to a higher position, would seem to us ra¬ 
 ther an advantage than otherwise, for the same reason that it is 
 thought desirable to make our Governorships and other high ap¬ 
 pointments tenable for a limited period only. 
 
 Then again, as regards any measures that may be needed 
 for the extension of primary education, how is it possible that 
 any adequate scheme for the improvement of village schools 
 can either be devised or successfully carried out by officials who 
 have no personal knowledge of, and possibly no sympathy even with 
 the classes on whose behalf such efforts are to be originated ? The 
 civilian, whose earlier years have been passed among the people 
 themselves, and who has become thoroughly conversant with their 
 language and customs, must necessarily know far more of their 
 actual wants than one whose Indian experience has been almost 
 entirely confined to the larger towns and cities. The great secret 
 of Mr. Thomason’s success in framing his scheme of education 
 for the peasantry of the North Western Provinces undoubtedly 
 lay in his own personal knowledge of the people, gained through 
 many years’ residence among them as a district officer, and his 
 being able to secure for the practical carrying out of the scheme 
 the services of another able civilian, like Mr. Stewart Reid, whose 
 views were in full sympathy with his own. So long as the educa- 
 
34 Education in India as related to Christianity . 
 
 tional machinery of Government was administered by such men, the 
 result could hardly fail to be other than successful, and it is not to 
 be wondered at that the North Western Provinces should for so 
 many years have taken the lead of the other provinces of India in 
 regard to primary education. 
 
 Until then a change is made in the constitution of the Educa¬ 
 tional Department itself, and the old plan is reverted to of placing 
 at its head members of the Civil Service, instead of College Profes¬ 
 sors or Principals, we have little hope of any real progress being 
 made towards the realization of the objects aimed at by the Edu¬ 
 cational Code. That there are difficulties attending everywhere 
 the carrying out of a really adequate system of primary instruction 
 we readily admit, but with Mr. Thomason’s example before us, 
 and the satisfactory results that have been already attained during the 
 last few years, in the same direction, in Bombay and the Central 
 Provinces, we cannot allow that they are insuperable. If only there 
 be a really hearty desire for it on the part of those in authority, and 
 if the Educational Department is thoroughly in harmony with the 
 executive as to the object to be aimed at, the education of the masses 
 will soon become a fait accompli , and the higher education of the 
 country will become established on so firm and independent a foot¬ 
 ing as to need no further aid from Government than a small grant 
 in aid, this again being capable of a progressive gradual reduction, 
 as the remunerative character of such education becomes more 
 generally recognized. 
 
 We have thus far been arguingfor a more loyal carrying out of 
 the principles of the Despatch of 1854 rather on grounds of general 
 policy and sound statesmanship than in the interests of religion, and 
 we have done so designedly, for we should be the last to wish for 
 any special privileges to be granted to Missionary Societies or native 
 Christians different from those held out to Hindus and Mahomme- 
 dans. The cause of Christianity needs no such assistance from with¬ 
 out, all that it asks for is a fair field and no favour. If any Hindus 
 or Muhammadans object on religious grounds to send their sons to 
 mission schools, most certainly they are entitled to receive such aid 
 from the State as will enable them to establish schools of their own, 
 and the Government should be ready to afford them every facility 
 for so doing. We must, however, raise once more our most earnest 
 protest against the continuance of a system which, under the plea 
 of religious neutrality, in point of fact completely subverts the faith 
 of the rising generation in their own ancestral religion without 
 offering them anything whatever in its place, and thus leaves them 
 not merely without a creed, but also without a single counter-balanc¬ 
 ing motive to draw them from the vicious influences around them to 
 an upright and moral life. Orthodox Hindoos and M uhammadans, 
 Brahmos and native Christians, all alike agree in deploring the 
 
Education in India as related to Christianity. 35 
 
 licentiousness which, unhappily, forms so marked a characteristic of 
 the “ young India” ot the present generation; shall then a Govern¬ 
 ment which, if not by actual constitution a Christian one, yet at any 
 rate, still represents a great Christian nation, continue to have the 
 reproach laid at its door by the very people it seeks to benefit, of 
 being the chief cause of this lamentable state of things, especially 
 when the way of escape is so plain and so easy ? 
 
 It is all very well for a certain influential and somewhat noisy 
 section of the native community to raise an outcry, when occasion 
 serves, against any withdrawal on the part of Government from 
 the work of higher education, and to say that such a step will be 
 to “ surrender English education of a high order to Christian mission- 
 “ aries, whose avowed object it is to proselytize the people of the 
 “ country and to subvert their national religion j” 1 but no one knows 
 better than those who make such assertions that it is a mere fagon 
 de parler, adopted simply because it is an argument likely to And 
 favor with their English rulers, who plume themselves, almost to a 
 fault, on their tolerance and perfect impartiality. The real reason 
 of their objection to the policy in question is, of course, obvious 
 enough, and it is a very natural one; it is to this same higher edu¬ 
 cation that they owe their own present position and advancement in 
 life, and they are hoping to get their sons and relatives on by the 
 same means; to tell them accordingly that this education should be 
 made more self-supporting is tantamount to saying to them, ‘You 
 must now pay two rupees for what has hitherto cost you only 
 one/ Let it not be supposed for a moment that we grudge them 
 the high position they have thus won for themselves by persevering 
 diligent industry; on the contrary, the more the country has of such 
 men, the better. All that we would say to them is just what every 
 father says to his grown-up son when his education is complete, and 
 the time has come for his entering on a profession for himself:—‘ I 
 ‘ have now given you a good education, and provided j r ou with the 
 ‘ means of earning your own livelihood, for the future you must 
 ‘ depend upon yourself, and by and bye as your income increases, I 
 f shall look to you to assist me in educating your younger brothers/ 
 The son may not like it, but he cannot refuse to admit that the 
 argument is a just and fair one. And just so would wesay to those 
 who, for the last two generations or more, have been receiving a first- 
 class education at so little cost to themselves, * Now you must take 
 ‘ upon yourselves the main burden of your children’s education, and 
 * be ready in your turn to give a helping hand to the class below you.’ 
 
 As to any likelihood of the progress of education being checked 
 by such a course of action on the part of Government, as some have 
 seemed to fear, that apprehension may be dismissed at once as one 
 for which there is not the slightest ground in fact. 
 
 1 Memorial of the British Indian Association Meeting of July ‘2nd, 1870. 
 
oCi Education in India as related to Christianity. 
 
 The very appreciation indeed of the advantages of higher 
 education which the outcry manifests is a sufficient proof in itself 
 that the interests of that education can never really suffer if left 
 mainly to the natural laws of supply and demand, with such tempo¬ 
 rary aid from the State as may be necessary to make the transition 
 from the old system to the new smooth and easy. As Mr. Howell 
 has well put it in his Note:—“ This objection,” (viz., that Government 
 withdrawing from its own higher institutions and leaving the field to 
 private enterprise, would be unjust as compelling the people to send 
 their sons to missionary schools to which they object on religious 
 grounds)—“ implies the proposition that the real demand for high 
 “ education which the present state of civilization of Bengal ensures, 
 “—and it might equally well be added, Madras also—will not create 
 “ a supply, and that, after enjoying it for so many years, the natives, 
 l< if left to themselves, would not, even when aided by the State, 
 “ attempt to supply this demand.” “ And,” he truly adds, “ if it be 
 “ doubtful whether such an attempt would be made if the Government 
 “ were gradually to withdraw from direct competition, it is hardly 
 “ doubtful that so long as Government maintains such competition, 
 “ no attempt will be made ; for it will certainly fail. If the Hindu 
 “ community could found and maintain an Anglo-Indian college for 
 u themselves in 1815 to supply an obvious want then, are we to sup- 
 f pose that if there were no other means of supplying this want, ffiey 
 “ would be unable to do so in 1872, when the want is so much more 
 “ obvious ? I think it would be an injustice to the Bengal community 
 “ to suppose that the wealth and ability that assembled in the Town 
 “ Hall of July 1870 to discuss this very subject, could not do far more 
 “ ably and successfully what their grandfathers did before them 57 
 “ years ago.” 
 
 So say we; and we trust we may yet see among those whom 
 God in His Providence shall raise up to guide and administer the 
 affairs of this great Indian empire, men not only discerning enough, 
 like those who framed the Despatch of 1854, to see what is 
 required to place the education of the country on a really sound and 
 satisfactory footing, but also courageous enough to carry it out, 
 despite all the clamour and opposition that self-interest and prejudice 
 may raise against them. 
 
 J. B. 
 
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