the promotion of European literature and science
amongst the natives of India and therefore all the
funds appropriated for the purposes of education
would be best employed to English education alone."
Indigenous educational institutions, neglected and
shorn of all state support and guidance, withered
away and were replaced by the half-hearted, imitative
and sterile education of the present day.
And what a fall by 1900!
Lord Curzon stated, "Four villages out of five are
without school. Only one girl in 40 attend any school."
In 1813, the magnificent sum of Rs. one lakh was
allotted to education in the Central budget and this
sum was not fully utilised for a decade! In 1907, only
36 lakhs out of 180 lakhs of boys of school-going age
were actually at school; that'is, 80 per cent had no
schooling whatever. Gokhale's modest demand in 1910
that a beginning should be made in the direction of
making elementary education free and compulsory
was turned down by British votes. The Compulsory
Education Bill was defeated by 31 votes against 13.
1941 census places the percentage of the illiterates at
85 per cent.
"Just going to school" hardly means anything. The
Hartog Commission focussed attention on the wastage
in our educational system. As an instance, primary
schools of Bengal showed a wastage of over 90 per
cent.
Only 7 per cent of those who start learning get
to class IV. Naturally there is a very slow increase in
the number of literates. In this case too there is a race
with population growth. Percentage of 'literacy' has
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