Education and statemanship in India, 1797 to 1910

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EDUCATION AND STATESMANSHIP
IN INDIA, 1797-1910

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

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EDUCATION AND
STATESMANSHIP IN INDIA

1797 TO I9IO

BY

H. R. JAMES

M.A., CH. CH., OXFORD
INDIAN EDUCATIONAL SERVICE, PRINCIPAL, PRESIDENCY COLLEGE, CALCUTTA

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON

NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA

1911

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Libiary

nsi

PREFACE

The slightness of these papers, compared with the
magnitude of the subject of which they treat, would
have decided me against their separate pubhcation, were
it not possible, as I conceive, that even in their present
shape, they may serve a useful purpose in helping to
a better understanding, so necessary for sound judgment,
of educational work in British India. I have at the
same time some hope that what I have written may
tend to hearten educational workers there, both those
in the service of Government and those who are outside
Government service, for the difficult and often dis-
appointing task on which they are engaged.

The papers appeared in the Calcutta Statesman in
January, February, and March of this year, and are
published with the concurrence of the proprietors.
They are reprinted very nearly as they first appeared.
A few corrections have been made, which were necessary,
or seemed expedient.

H. E. JAMES.
June 21th, 19H

808191

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CONTENTS

PAGE

I. The Need for a Review i

II. Origin of the Educational Movement . . 6

III. The First Stirrings 12

IV. The Adoption of English Education . . 17
V. The Adoption of English— was it a Mistake ? 25

VI. Progress 1835 to 1854 31

VII. The Foundation and Growth of Universities 39

VIII. The Commission of 1882 46

IX. University Reform 1901-1906 .... 55

X. High English Schools 66

XI. Moral and Religious Education ... 74

XII. Mass Education 93

XIII. The Education Departments and their Work icxj

XIV. The Higher Educational Service . . .108

XV. The Political Movement in its Relation to

Education n8

XVI. Conclusions 133

THE NEED FOR A REVIEW

The recent formation of a separate branch of the Home
Department of the Government of India to deal specially
with education, has given new life to the contention that
an entirely new departure is required in our system of
education, and in Government policy in regard to it.
The contention is not new, it is as old as the endeavour
to educate at all in British India ; for there were always
two parties. It has been gaining strength and insistence
for some years past ; and the last four years with their
painful record of murderous conspiracy and desperate
outrage have added to the argument the coercive force
of things done and suffered, so that it is not surprising,
if any who know educational work in India only
by these supposed results, look askance at education
itself. The expectation that Government intends on the
inauguration of the new department not only to undertake
large schemes for the co-ordination and extension of
education but to initiate a fundamental change in edu-
cational policy, shows that we are, or may be, once more
at a dividing of the ways. It is scarcely possible to
over-estimate the gravity of such a crisis.

To comprehend the full significance of such a new
departure as this expectation indicates, it is necessary
to pause and look back ; to turn away from the present
results of three-quarters of a century of strenuous effort

2 EDUCATION AND STATESMANSHIP IN INDIA

over the building up of an educational system, and go
back to the beginning with a mind as open as possible
to impartial judgment, to see what was the existing state
of things when the obHgation to educate was first spoken
of, to see why in India it was spoken of at all as a concern
for Government ; why this was attempted and not that,
and how step by step we have come to what we all see
and many deplore, at the present time. We shall then
be in a position to say with some assurance (for we must
inevitably carry into our retrospect the knowledge and
foresight which the present gives) whether mistakes have
been made, and where, and when ; and so come with
greater sureness to a consideration of how at this date
to rectify what has been done wrongly. Without such
preliminary discipline we are only too likely to blunder
out of one error into another and add to folly, if folly
there has been, too precipitate a repentance. It will be
for some of us a dismal result, if we have to confess that
we have been wrong from the beginning ; that we never
should have attempted to introduce into India knowledge,
as knowledge has been understood in Europe since the
time of Descartes and Bacon ; that we never should have
founded universities ; never have encouraged the study
of Enghsh literature and European science ; that we
should have held fast to traditional learning and pre-
Copernical science, and have based any more popular
education which there was scope for strictly on the
vernaculars : that it was bad policy, and folly little short
of a crime to introduce the races and peoples of
Hindustan to the heights and depths of Western specu-
lation, and to the principles that underlie discovery in
natural science. It will be a dismal result : but if it is
true, the conclusion must be faced practically, and all
well-wishers of education must join the Government of

THE NEED FOR A REVIEW 3

India (if the decision of the Government of India is to
lead the way in such reform) in retracing the steps that
have been wrongly taken and in laying anew the founda-
tions that have been falsely laid. A dismal result,
certainly, after some four- score years of misdirected
effort, if such the conclusion must be. But if it falls
out otherwise— and for the purposes of this inquiry at
least judgment must be suspended — then it may be
agreed that no such retrieving of past errors is called
for, but rather we may go on with fresh courage in the
endeavour to bring a little nearer accomplishment work
begun with honest purpose, and carried on at a great
cost of labour and expense. One or other of these con-
clusions must follow such an historical and critical
inquiry as is here proposed, and, whichever conclusion
is reached, if any assurance of truth can be reached in
a matter of so much intricacy and uncertainty, it must
be accepted and followed as a guide. Two things will, I
think, be allowed by all who have given consideration to
this question that, firstly, it is of boundless importance
what direction is given to educational policy at the
present time ; secondly, that we should accept the arbitra-
ment of facts and reason, and maintain or change the
system, according as a fair review of the whole problem
shows one or other to be justified. That the latter
alternative needs to be very seriously taken account of
must be admitted when, not to speak of the gathering
volume of criticism in India, so friendly and disin-
terested an observer from overseas as Sir Henry Craik
is found endorsing without hesitation the opinion that
educational work in India is in its main lines hopelessly
wrong.^

• Sir Henry Craik, '« Impressions of India " (Macmillan, 1908),
p. 199 ; cf. pp. 203, 204.

4 EDUCATION AND STATESMANSHIP IN INDIA

I propose, then, in a series of papers to consider, first,
the state of education and learning in India at the time
when the movement began, of which the existing
educational system is the outcome; next, the first
stirrings of the new movement for education. On this
it follows to examine in order the successive turning
points in the development of the system; the definite
adoption of English as the instrument of higher instruc-
tion ; the formation of education departments ; the
foundation of universities; the Commission of 1882
together with the great expansion of collegiate education
between 1880 and 1900. The growing distrust of the
results of this expansion must then be traced till it
culminates in the reform of the universities in 1906.
This done, it will be well to take up the inquiry on the
poUtical side with a view to determining with exactitude
the relation of the political to the educational movement :
the aspirations of the educated classes must be fairly
weighed and estimated, and those that are legitimate
distinguished from those that must be summarily con-
demned : the tendency to resort to violence in further-
ance of revolutionary aims must be faced, and the
question must be answered whether this tendency is
strengthened or opposed by educational influences.
Finally, it should be possible to gauge how far the
declared educational policy of the present time accords
with the conclusions reached and whether any decisive
change of aim is called for.

It may confidently be expected that some advantage
must result from such a careful and dispassionate
examination of the course of educational progress in
India. The random judgments of the market-place
cannot be trusted. Misconceptions arise from want of
information and from want of reflection. There is much

THE NEED FOR A REVIEW 5

current ignorance and much confusion of thought on
this subject of education. If the facts of its history can
be brought into clearer light, and if more deliberate and
more consecutive thinking is given to them, the proba-
bility of wrong judgment on the great questions involved
is lessened. The issues are momentous. Time given to
their consideration should not be grudged.

An additional reason for undertaking the inquiry
here suggested may be found in the papers on " Indian
Unrest " which appeared last year in the columns of
The Times, and deservedly attracted close attention both
in India and in England.^ Mr. Chirol's references to
education are characterized by moderation and sympathy,
but they are not founded on intimate personal experience,
nor is it likely he would claim to have made independent
inquiry into the early history and progress of the educa-
tional movement. The inquiry here proposed is a
needed supplement to the discerning analysis of political
unrest made in his papers. Mr. Chirol started upon an
investigation of poHtical unrest as his main subject of
inquiry and is incidentally led to pronouncements on
education, because the education given in Indian schools
and universities is so manifestly a factor in his problem.
Here education will be the main theme ; the political
effects will be subsidiary. The conclusion reached by
these opposite paths and from contrasted starting points
may well be widely different. They can hardly be
expected to harmonise at all points. If, however, they
are found in any particulars to coincide, the probability
that here at least we reach firm and solid ground will be
reasonably strengthened.

' "Indian Unrest," by Valentine Chirol. A reprint, revised and
enlarged, from T/ie Tirms^ with an introduction by Sir Alfred Lyall.
Macmillan, 1910.

n

ORIGIN OF THE EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENT

It is generally admitted nowadays that in order to form
a competent judgment of what a thing is, one must know
how it arose. We shall certainly be in a better position
to form a just estimate of the system of education which
has been built up under the tutelage of government in
British India, if we examine with some attention the
circumstances of its origin. British rule itself was a
haphazard, unpremeditated thing. The giving or with-
holding of education was no part of the plans of Clive,
the first founder of the Empire, any more than it was
part of the plans of the enterprising Englishmen who
formed the Company of Merchants of London trading
into the East Indies in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

Now, whatever may have been the strength and
weakness of the Moghul administration in its most
flourishing times (and there is no probability that even
in the days of Akbar such notions as education and
national improvement in the popular sense were ever so
much as spoken of), there can be no question that the
collapse of that administration brought with it moral
chaos and the ruin of learning. The history of the
acquisition of power in Bengal by the English is witness
enough to the moral anarchy. The strong men whose
force of character bore them to dominion out of the
welter of struggling interests were tainted by the

ORIGIN OF THE EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENT 7

prevailing corruption. Clive and Hastings are great
names, but they are not stainless ; though Warren Hast-
ings might well be deemed an angel of light by comparison
with some of the odious desecrators of human character
with whom he contended, and Clive a knight as free of
reproach as he was undoubtedly free of fear. The whole
story of the rise of the political ascendancy of the British
in Bengal is ill-reading to one who desires to view in it
an edifying spectacle of magnanimity and beneficence :
its interest is absorbing to the student of history who
sees moral energy latent in the struggles of force and
craft. This is where the critic mistakes who in these
days turns back and applies the more refined standards
of a political morality untried by anything fiercer than
Boycott and Press laws to a period of tumultuous conflict,
where unscrupulous force carried all that trickery did not
filch away. There was neither law nor morality nor
enlightenment in the break-up of the Moghul Empire ;
and the establishment of the Company's authority at
first only restored the outward order which is the first
condition of their possibility. The rule of the Company
was not in its beginning founded on abstract justice and
the benefit of the governed. Those ideas were not far
distant, because men carry with them to every clime
under heaven the ideas of their race and time, and the
mere exploiting of Bengal for commercial purposes could
not long endure in its integrity. Accordingly before the
close of the eighteenth century we find that men's minds
were turning already towards the perception of a duty to
the millions of men who had so strangely become sub-
jects to a trading company. Clive himself, though not
an exponent of the religious and moral ideals of his time,
saw this, as his measures on his return to India in 1765
show. He endeavoured to curb rapacity and to lay the

8 EDUCATION AND STATESMANSHIP IN INDIA

foundations of tolerable government; and these are at
least the negative conditions which must be secured
before active beneficence is possible. Warren Hastings
did much more. Whatever his faults, and they have
been grossly exaggerated, he was in the truest sense an
enlightened and far-seeing statesman; and he it was
who, first of Englishmen in India, turned his attention
to education. He founded and endowed the Calcutta
Madrasa. The nature and purpose of this foundation
is significant ; but still more significant is it that Hastings
recognized the duty of a civilized government to promote
education.

That science and learning, both Hindu and Maho-
medan, had fallen into a miserable state of decay is
plain most of all from the absence of all notice of them
in the history of those times. It is only somewhat later,
in the opening decades of the nineteenth century, that
this lamentable decay is actually described. But the
absence of all mention is more eloquent than any
notice could be. When Lord Minto in 1811 publicly
animadverted on this decay, the fact was itself evidence
of a reviving interest. The utter absence of mention in
a period of wars, insurrections, treacheries, rivalries, and
unscrupulous competition for power, is evidence that there
was not interest enough in literature and learning to
voice itself in lamentation. In 1811 the first Lord Minto
wrote to the Directors : "It is a common remark that
science and literature are in a progressive state of decay
among the natives of India. From every inquiry I have
been enabled to make on this interesting subject, that
remark appears to me but too well-founded. The number
of the learned is not only diminished, but the circle of
learning, even among those who still devote themselves
to it, appears to be considerably constricted, the abstract

ORIGIN OF THE EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENT 9

sciences are abandoned, polite literature neglected, and
no branch of learning cultivated but what is connected
with the peculiar religious doctrines of the people." This
neglect may have been partly due to the half- century of
rule of a government without spontaneous interest in
Oriental literature. But this was not the whole cause,
nor is there any ground for supposing that literature and
learning were flourishing in Northern India when Clive
procured for the Company the Dewani of Bengal, Behar,
and Orissa. All the evidence tends to show the contrary.
Finally, if one looks back once more to the lamentable
history of Hindustan during the whole period of the
disruption of the Moghul power, sufficient reason is found
a hundred years earlier for the decline of learning which
reached its lowest point with the close of the eighteenth
century. " The condition of India during the half -century
following the death of Aurangzeb may be summed up in
one word — misery. . . . After the great emperor had
passed away, hell was let loose and the people were
ground to the dust by selfish nobles, greedy officials,
and plundering armies. Hardly any one appears who
is worthy of remembrance for his own sake and there
is nothing to be said about literature or art."

The social and political conditions for five hundred
years earlier had not been such as to promote the highest
ideals of public conduct or foster the-manlier qualities of
private character. Where had there been room for civic
ideals like those of republican Kome, or for the ideas of a
law above kings and of personal freedom and responsi-
bility, such as were developed in Europe in the fourteenth
century and gradually worked themselves out in English
and European history ? The first thirty years of British
administration did little or nothing to breathe new life
into ancient ideals, or introduce new ideals from beyond

I O EDUCA TION AND ST A TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

Hindustan. No wonder when men, in whom the Christian
impulse towards active beneficence and an interest in the
uplifting of human character were strong, looked around
them, they were impressed — in shocking contrast with
the reports of early travellers — by the manifestation on
every side of a low state of morality ; the absence of truth
and trust, the almost universal prevalence of sordid
motives, and of a mean self-seeking against which no
considerations of right and honour weighed. The first
Englishman who gave public expression to a sense of the
duty of finding a remedy for this low state of public
morality was Charles Grant, a member of the Court of
Directors of the East India Company. In 1797 Grant
laid before the Court his Observations on the state of
Society among the Asiatic subjects of Great Britain. His
description bears the stamp of simplicity and sincerity.
It is inspired by goodwill. It is based on personal ex-
perience, as the writer had himself spent many years in
India and a considerable time in the interior of the
country. It represents the people of India, both Hindus
and Mahomedans, in a sadly demoralized state. " Upon
the whole," he sums up, " we cannot avoid recognizing in
the people of Hindustan a race of men lamentably
degenerate and base, retaining but a feeble sense of
moral obligation, yet obstinate in their disregard of what
they know to be right, governed by malevolent and
licentious passions, strongly exemplifying the effects
produced on society by great and general corruption of
manners, and sunk in misery by their vices, in a country
peculiarly calculated by its natural advantages to promote
the happiness of its inhabitants." His object was to
find a remedy. The remedy he suggested was education
and practically what has since been known as English
education.

ORIGIN OF THE EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENT II

Grant's paper was carefully debated in the Court of
Directors, and there was at one time a prospect of the
adoption of the measures he advocated. If they had been
adopted, the public organization of education in Bengal
would have been antedated by nearly half a century.
There was opposition, however, and the opposition pre-
vailed. In the end nothing was done. Nevertheless,
the question had been raised, the aspiration had been
expressed, and Charles Grant deserves to be remembered
as the man who j&rst foresaw the possibility of the en-
lightenment which has since become in India a reality.

Ill

THE FIRST STIRRINGS

Though no obvious effect followed Charles Grant's
endeavour to rouse interest in the obligation of the East
India Company, in its ruling capacity, to educate, the
idea lived and worked. It is never the man who voices
an idea who is the real source of its energy. It comes
from without and possesses him. It speaks through him
and gains new efficacy from his voice. But the idea —
whether of the Baconian philosophy or of negro emanci-
pation— is greater than the man and independent of
him. It works on silently when his voice is still, and
his message perhaps seems to have been uttered in vain.
So the idea of a duty on the part of the British Govern-
ment to educate and elevate the peoples of India quietly
did its work, and in due time was carried into action.
But its first results were a quickening of the sense of
responsibility to the indigenous learning of the country.
"Warren Hastings had founded the Calcutta Madrasa in
1781, which is thus the earliest educational institution
due to British influence. In 1791 Jonathan Duncan
founded a Sanskrit College at Benares, and Government
supported the institution with substantial grants. This
direction of energy was strongly reinforced by the newly
awakened interest in Oriental studies which followed the
researches of Sir William Jones and the foundation in
1784 of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. This may, till

THE FIRST STIRRINGS 1 3

the time of Macaulay, be said to have been the Govern-
ment policy in education — that is the revival and
encouragement of Sanskrit and Arabic learning; and
this was an attempt to continue the traditional policy of
preceding administrations, so far as they can be said to
have had any conscious policy. Lord Minto's Minute
of 1811, quoted in the preceding paper, sufficiently
indicates the aim and scope of this policy. The effect of
Lord Minto's representation was that in 1813, under
Parliamentary pressure, it was directed that not less
than a lakh of rupees should year by year be set apart
for educational purposes. The actual words of the
despatch were " set apart and applied to the revival and
improvement of literature, and to the encouragement of
the learned natives of India, and for the introduction
and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences in the
British territories of India." The practical interpreta-
tion given to these instructions — whatever may have
been in the minds of the framers of the despatch, and
this was later to be hotly debated— was that the money
was expended in printing Sanskrit and Arabic works,
and in paying stipends to teachers and students. Even
this was not till 1823, when a Committee of Public
Instruction was first formed. Meanwhile, two other
factors had come into operation, which anticipated
Government in giving quite other directions to educa-
tional enterprise. These were, firstly. Christian mission-
aries; and, secondly, a spontaneous demand for liberal
education on the part of some more advanced-thinking
members of the Hindu community in Calcutta.

The aims of the missionaries were naturally directed
to using education, not as an end in itself, but as a
means to evangelization. But the desh-e to educate as
a means to conversion led then, as it has done

1 4 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

ever since, to single-minded and whole-hearted labours
in the cause of education in and for itself. The
culmination is the Scottish Churches College in Calcutta,
and the Madras Christian College. The most significant
date in these early times is the foundation of the
Serampore College in 1818 ; but Carey, Marshman, and
Ward had started Enghsh schools earlier in the century.
Missionary efforts took a similar direction in Bombay
and Madras at about the same time ; in Bombay some-
what later, in Madras a little earlier. If this effort had
depended for its motive force on religious interest only,
it would have accomplished very little. It was powerfully
supported, however, by the third factor, a new-found
desire on the part of natives of India for a share in the
knowledge and training which they discerned to be a
large part of the secret of the superior efficiency of
nations from the West, and the source of what was
strong and admirable in English character. Naturally,
the first stirrings of this impulse remain somewhat
obscure. They first took solid and tangible shape in the
establishment of the Hindu College in Calcutta. The
history of that establishment can be told; and, as the
history of the Hindu College links itself in the fulness of
time with the foundation of Presidency College, Calcutta,
and the organization of education departments in all
the provinces of British India, we are in that history
relating also the substantial beginnings of the movement
for education, which has steadily progressed from that
day to the present time.

Three names are specially associated with the founda-
tion of the Hindu College: Kaja Ram Mohan Roy,
David Hare, and Sir Edward Hyde East, and each has
some title to greatness. Raja Ram Mohan Roy incarnates
the impulse which led thinking Indians to desire and

THE FIRST STIRRINGS 1 5

work for "English education." He was an English-
educated Bengali before the era of English education.
He learnt English before there were English schools,
left a considerable literary product written in English,
and lies buried in English soil near Bristol. He, more
than any man of Indian race, advocated the necessity
of a new departure in education ; of a new departure in
which the ideas and science of the "West should liberate
the minds of his countrymen and bring new light. He
himself broke free from the prejudices and superstitions
of the past, and founded a pure theistic form of Hinduism
which continues in the three branches of the Brahma
Samaj. When it was first proposed to found the Sanskrit
College, Calcutta, Ram Mohan Roy raised his voice in
protest, and begged rather for the foundation of a
modern place of education on the lines of the later
founded Arts Colleges. To Ram Mohan Roy, more than
to any other, must be ascribed the inception of the
project for the Hindu College ; but he found a valuable
ally in David Hare. David Hare represents the purely
philanthropic sympathy which really is sometimes found
in European communities for the welfare of the peoples
of India. He was not a Government official; neither
was he a Christian missionary. Indeed, the independ-
ence of his religious views was the occasion for the denial
to his dead body of the rites of Christian burial.
Wherefore his remains lie to this day under the
monument erected by a people's love to his memory,
on the south side of the tank in College Square, and
within sight of College Street. David Hare had, since
his coming to India in 1800, become convinced of the
necessity of liberal education for the people of India, and
he warmly co-operated with Ram Mohan Roy in the
scheme for a college.

1 6 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

Sir Edward Hyde East was Chief Judge of the
Supreme Court, and he represents the friendly attitude
of the Indian Bench towards education, and that
countenance from official society, which has hitherto
been thought almost indispensable to the success of any
new undertaking. The Chief Justice gave his cordial
support. A meeting of leading Hindus was convened in
his house ; subscriptions were promised, and a Managing
Committee was formed. Raja Ram Mohan Roy, though
the undertaking was due to his inspiration, was not of
the number. His defiance of convention had incurred
the resentment of his fellow-countrymen, and when his
name proved a cause of offence he voluntarily withdrew
it.

The Hindu College was opened January 20, 1817.

IV

THE ADOPTION OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

The declared object of the foundation of the Hindu
College was "to instruct the sons of Hindus in the
European and Asiatic languages and sciences," and we
are told that the first place in importance was assigned to
English. The subscribers were mainly Hindus ; but there
were European subscribers also, Sir Edward Hyde East,
Bishop Middleton, Mr. Baretto the banker, and a few
others. The original fund amounted to Ks.l, 13,179.
Instruction in the first years was free and the number of
pupils was limited to a hundred. The management was
for a time exclusively Hindu. The teaching staff was
Indian, and the board of control was Indian. Then, as
has happened so often since, difficulties arose. Govern-
ment aid was solicited, and this aid was given on condition
that the college should be open to inspection by Govern-
ment. Thiswasin 1824. The Government contribution in
1825 was K8.24,000. A proposal that lectures should be
delivered by EngHsh professors was made in 1825. Such
lectures were first given in 1827, and rather unexpectedly,
the subject was medicine : lectures in law were added in
1832. In 1834 Captain Richardson, a young officer of
the Bengal army, with a strong bent for literature, and
recently invalided from miUtary service, was made Prin-
cipal. By this time numbers had greatly increased;

0

1 8 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

the limit of a hundred had been abolished in 1825,
and fees were introduced. In 1835 there were 384
students. This was the year of Macaulay's Minute
and of Lord William Bentinck's Kesolution adopting
the encouragement of English education as Government
policy.

It has become almost an accepted dictum that we
owe English education as it has since been developed all
over India to Lord Macaulay. There is some truth in
this ascription, but it is already plain that a good deal of
qualification is required. A college for giving Hindus an
education based on a knowledge of English already
existed in 1834 when Macaulay came to India, and in 1835
when he wrote his Minute there were nearly four hundred
students in this college. There were also several schools
in Calcutta in which English was taught. In 1819 the
Calcutta School Society had been founded with the
express object of establishing schools ; one of the schools
thus estabhshed being the Arpooly Pathsala developed
later into the Hare School. In 1824 a Committee of
Public Instruction had been formed in tardy fulfilment
of the instructions issued in consequence of Lord Minto's
representation of 1811. The reports of the Committee
begin regularly from the year 1831. All this shows that
organized instruction on modern lines and the begin-
nings of liberal education in Bengal must be dated from
1816 rather than from 1835.

The position reached in Madras and Bombay was
similar but less advanced as regards the study of English.
The beginnings of liberal education in each are associated
with a name truly great. In Bombay Mountstuart
Elphinstone, among his other labours for the public
good, interested himself in education. He left India in
1827. A Bombay Education Society had been formed in

THE ADOPTION OF ENGLISH EDUCATION 1 9

1815, and a Bombay Native School Book and School
Society in 1822, but there was no institution comparable
to the Hindu College in Calcutta. In the year of
Elphinstone's departure, however, it was resolved by the
principal native gentlemen of Bombay to honour his
name by the foundation of Professorships " to be held by
gentlemen from Great Britain until the happy period
when natives shall be fully competent to hold them."
The object of the professorships was the same as that of
the Hindu College, Calcutta. This Elphinstone Pro-
fessorship fund reached a total of Rs.2,15,000. The
professorships were duly founded, the ^first professors,
Messrs. Harkness and Orlebar arriving in 1835. As
there was no college as yet, the first lectures were given
in a room in the Town Hall. The fund and the pro-
fessorships have ultimately been merged in the Elphin-
stone College, the Presidency College of Bombay. In
Madras Sir Thomas Munro was the first Governor to
promote education. In 1822 he instituted an inquiry
into the actual state of indigenous education. In 1826 a
Board of Public Instruction was formed. Its first efforts
were for the improvement of vernacular education, and it
was not till 1841 that a High School was opened by
Government as part of a scheme for a Madras University.
Meanwhile, in 1837, a missionary school had been started,
destined to be well known later as the Madras Christian
College.

It would appear then that English education was
already an existing institution in Bengal and Bombay in
1835, and was on the way to institution in Madras. The
glory or infamy of introducing modern education into
India is therefore not Macaulay's. When he arrived in
India the Hindu College was working in Calcutta on the
lines since known as English education, the Elphinstone

20 STA TESMANSHIP AND EDUCA TION IN INDIA

Institution in Bombay, and schemes for institutions on
the same model in Madras were ripening. Nevertheless,
Macaulay's influence as a determining factor in the
fortunes of this English education was very great, and
the part assigned to him in popular estimation is to a
large extent justified. He did decisively determine the
inclination of State influence to the side of English
education.

Macaulay landed at Madras in June, 1834. Early in
October he was in Calcutta. He was appointed President
of the Committee of Public Instruction in December, but
did not at once take up the duties of the office. Matters
on the Committee had at this time come to a strange
pass. There had long been differences of opinion on the
question of the aim that should guide its operations and
a division into two parties: a conservative party up-
holding the policy of encouraging Oriental literature and
a forward party believing it to be possible to introduce a
more useful kind of education through the medium of
English. This difference of opinion was in practice a
contention over the expenditure of the lakh of rupees,
which since 1823 had been set aside ioi educational
purposes. The conservative Orientalists \yere for con-
tinuing to devote this sum entirely to the printing of
Sanskrit and Arabic books and the payment of stipends.
The innovating Occidentalists were for diverting at least
a part of it to English education. At the date of
Macaulay's arrival the work of the Committee had long
been at a standstill. The Committee numbered ten ; the
two parties on it were nicely balanced, five against five ;
practically nothing at all could be done. Macaulay
refused to take any active part in the business till the
dispute was authoritatively settled. In January, 1835,
the rival pleas of the two parties were submitted to the

THE ADOPTION OF ENGLISH EDUCATION 21

Governor-General's Council for decision, and Macaulay
as a member of that Council recorded his opinion in the
Minute which has become famous. The precise question
which came before Council was whether there was in the
terms of the Act of 1813 any legal bar to the use of the
educational grant for any other purpose than the revival
of Sanskrit and Arabic learning. Macaulay had no
difficulty in showing that no such limitation existed by
quotation of the text of the Act, which, along with " the
revival and promotion of literature and the encourage-
ment of learned natives," enjoins " the introduction and
promotion of a knowledge of the sciences." It was clear
that the use of part of the funds for new experiments in
education was not contrary to the Act but actually pre-
scribed by it, and that no new legislative act was
necessary (as had been contended) before funds could be
diverted to English. But Macaulay went far beyond
this, and wrote a most trenchant statement of the case
for a modern course of study as against the antiquated
classical learning hitherto maintained by the Committee.
That statement is characterized by all Macaulay's abso-
luteness of diction and some of his particular assertions
are indefensible. The point of real importance is,
whether he was right in his main contention that the
study of English was more useful as the means of intel-
lectual improvement for the classes of India to whom
higher education was open than Arabic and Sanskrit.
The thesis he proposes for discussion is, " We have a
fund to be employed as Government shall direct for the
intellectual improvement of the people of this country.
The simple question is, what is the most useful way of
employing it." He first puts aside the vernaculars on
the ground of general agreement that " the dialects com-
monly spoken among the natives of this part of India

2 2 STA TESMANSHIP AND EDUCA TION IN INDIA

contain neither literary nor scientific information, and
are, moreover, so poor and rude that, until they are
enriched from some other quarter, it will not be easy to
translate any valuable work into them." " It seems,"
he says, "to be admitted on all sides, that the intel-
lectual improvement of those classes of the people who
have the means of pursuing higher studies can at present
be effected only by means of some language not verna-
cular amongst them." He goes on, "What then shall
that language be ? One-half of the Committee maintain
that it should be English. The other half strongly
recommend the Arabic and Sanskrit. The whole question
seems to me to be which language is the best worth
knowing."

Macaulay has no difficulty in showing (1) that
English is the key to more useful knowledge than
Sanskrit or Arabic ; (2) that there was already an
effective demand for English, whereas the study of
Sanskrit and Arabic could only be kept up artificially
by the award of stipends ; (3) that many natives of India
in Calcutta had already a remarkable command of
English, so that there could be no doubt of their being
able to master English sufficiently for the purpose in
view. In his own words, " To sum up what I have said,
I think it clear that we are not fettered by the Act of
Parliament of 1813 ; that we are not fettered by any
pledge expressed or implied ; that we are free to employ
our funds as we choose ; that we ought to employ
them in teaching what is best worth knowing; that
EngUsh is better worth knowing than Sanskrit or
Arabic ; that the natives are desirous to be taught
English, and are not desu'ous to be taught Sanskrit or
Ai'abic ; that neither as the language of law, nor as
the language of religion, has the Sanskrit or Arabic

THE ADOPTION OF ENGLISH EDUCATION 23

any peculiar claim to our engagement, that it is pos-
sible to make natives of this country good English
scholars, and that to this end our efforts ought to be
directed."

Macaulay's energetic rhetoric was decisive. His
Minute is dated the 2nd of February. On March the 7th
came the Resolution of the Governor-General : " His
Lordship in CouncU is of opinion that the great object
of the British Government ought to be the promotion of
European literature and science among the natives of
India, and that all the funds appropriated for the
purposes of education would be best employed on
English education alone."

It was almost Lord William Bentinck's last public act,
as he left India on March the 20th, within a fortnight
of the date of the Resolution. It is also fair to note that
the actual decision, whatever its wisdom, was his rather
than Macaulay's, and that Lord William Bentinck's
sympathies had been with English education before
Macaulay's arrival. Undoubtedly this was a turning
point of the very greatest importance ; for from that time
forward to the present the promotion of liberal education
by means of EngHsh has been the acknowledged, though
by no means the exclusive, aim of the Government
educational policy. The battle was fought and decided
in Bengal ; but its effect was universal in range. Thus
Mr. Satthianadhan in appending the text of Macaulay's
Minute to his History of Education in the Madras
Presidency notes : " This Minute and the following
Resolution have been entered here, as having set at rest
the question — at the time they were written an important
one— as to what should be the character of the instruc-
tion imparted in the Government schools and colleges,
whether Oriental or European. It is a question which

24 STA TESMANSHIP AND EDUCA TION IN INDIA

was never raised in Madras, but the decision of which
was equally important to this Presidency as to Bengal,
for if the advocates of Oriental instruction had carried
their point, the Oriental system would probably have
been adopted all over India."

THE ADOPTION OF ENGLISH— WAS IT A
MISTAKE ?

The formal adoption of English education as the prime
object of Government encouragement was a decision
pregnant with important consequences, some of them
foreseen and desu-ed ; others, though they might have
been foreseen and were by some few predicted, would
certainly not have been desired. We now know a great
deal more of this English education, its possibiUties and
tendencies ; for we have seen its expansion and its results
in the seventy-five years which have passed since
Macaulay wrote his Minute with such vigour and confi-
dence. It has now to be asked not so much, do we
approve the results, as must we still endorse the decision
then made : if we were back at that fateful turning-point,
would we decide in the same way again ?

Some admissions unfavourable to Macaulay must first
be made. There was much which Macaulay did not see.
He did not see the full necessity of giving attention to
vernacular education, though he did not altogether ignore
it. He did not see that there might in India be other
reasons for the study of Arabic and Sanskrit after the
traditional method than the strictly utilitarian. He did
not see the necessity of making provision for more than
the intellectual side of education. He did not take
account of the disintegrating effect of the new truth which

26 STATESMANSHIP AND EDUCATION IN INDIA

he prized so liighly, nor had he Plato's perception of the
possible value of beneficent falsehood. He had not the
imaginative insight or sympathy which would have put
him in a right attitude to his subject. He never got into
the right relation to India and the East. His pronounce-
ments are too glib, too confident, too unqualified, and
sometimes err against good taste. These defects and
faults do not alter the real issue, which is, was he right
on the main question ? Quite apart from Macaulay and
his Minute was it right to introduce into India the
literature of Europe and modern science? Was it
possible to take any other course in view of the question
which had arisen ; a question which was something wider
than the dispute dividing the Committee of Public
Instruction. It was the question of the admission, or
refusal of admission, to Western enlightenment of the
peoples of India, when they asked for it, and when their
political history had brought them within its gates.
Herein lay the real strength of Macaulay's position and
of those who thought with him : " We are withholding
from them," he wrote, " the learning for which they are
craving; we are forcing on them the mock learning
which they nauseate." That this was essentially true
is shown by the fact of the establishment of the Hindu
College and of the schools which fed it. It was shown
also by the actual acquirement of English by natives of
India. " There are in this very town," says Macaulay,
" natives who are quite competent to discuss political or
scientific questions with fluency and precision in the
English language. I have heard the very question on
which I am now writing discussed by native gentlemen
with a liberality and an intelligence which would do
credit to any member of the Committee of Public Instruc-
tion." This is significant testimony. The true issue

ADOPTION OF ENGLISH— WAS IT A MISTAKE .? 2 7

had been forcibly stated by Ram Mohan Roy in 1823,
the year of the formation of the first Committee of Public
Instruction. When the proposal to found a Sanskrit
College in Calcutta was put forward, Ram Mohan Roy
addressed to Lord Amherst a protest which anticipates
Macaulay by twelve years. " We find," he wrote, " that
the Government are establishing a Sanskrit school under
Hindu Pandits to impart such knowledge as is already
current in India. This seminary (similar in character
to those which existed in Europe before the time of Lord
Bacon) can only be expected to load the minds of youth
with grammatical niceties and metaphysical distinctions
of little or no practical use to the possessor or to society.
The pupils will there acquire what was known 2000 years
ago, with the addition of vain and empty subtleties since
produced by speculative men, such as is already taught
in all parts of India. In order to enable your Lordship
to appreciate the utility of encouraging such imaginary
learning as above characterized, I beg your Lordship
will be pleased to compare the state of science and Htera-
ture in Europe before the time of Lord Bacon with the
progress of knowledge made since he wrote. If it had
been intended to keep the British nation in ignorance
of real knowledge, the Baconian philosophy would not
have been allowed to displace the system of the school-
men, which was the best calculated to perpetuate ignor-
ance. In the same manner the Sanskrit system of
education would be the best calculated to keep this
country in darkness, if such had been the policy of the
British Legislature." He goes on, " But as the improve-
ment of the native population is the object of Govern-
ment, it will consequently promote a more liberal system
of instruction; embracing mathematics, natural philo-
sophy, chemistry, anatomy, with other useful sciences

28 STA TESMANSHIP AND EDUCA TION IN INDIA

which may be accomplished with the sum proposed, by
employing a few gentlemen of talents and learning,
educated in Europe, and providing a college with the
necessary books, instruments, and other appliances."

This appeal is unanswerable. The British people
having — through whatever accidents and by whatever
means — come to bear sway in Bengal and other parts of
India, they could not wilfully and deliberately shut out from
India the light and science in which they themselves had
been nurtured. It was inevitable what the answer must
be when the question was asked in a plain and definite
way, which there was no shirking, whether by Ram Mohan
Roy, or by Thomas Babington Macaulay. The answer
had to be " We will admit this light." " We will help
forward the enlightenment to the utmost extent of our
resources." The question has been asked again virtually
at every crisis of the history of education in India, and
though there have always, it must be acknowledged, been
dissentients, and competent dissentients, the verdict of
thoughtful and far-seeing statesmanship, as represented
by the most highminded and the most authoritative
administrators, has always been the same.

The obligation to forward enlightenment being
admitted, the use of English as the instrument follows
of practical necessity, and English education with its
methods and implications is the result. There is one
further most potent consideration. EngHsh education
would have come independently of Lord WilHam Ben-
tinck's decision. It would have come in somewhat
different garb, and its progress would have been slower ;
but it would have come. When day has dawned you
cannot shut out the light by merely refusing to open the
windows. It streams in through every crevice and cranny,
and knowledge is even more penetrative than daylight ;

ADOPTION OF ENGLISH— WAS IT A MISTAKE f 29

for, when the windows are shut, it percolates through
them. This is proved sufficiently, I think, by the exist-
ence in 1835 of the Hindu College and the success it had
obtained, not, it is true, altogether without Government
aid, yet mainly through forces independent of Govern-
ment. It is proved by the use made of English in
controversy by Ram Mohan Roy, and by the germination
of new thought which his religious activities showed. If
Government had systematically opposed instead of syste-
matically promoting the vitalizing thought of the West,
the educational advance might have been delayed; but
there is every probability that it would have come
eventually. Japan, Persia, China, Turkey, all give wit-
ness in different fashions and in varying degrees to that
probability. How exactly it would have come and with
what force, and how far the effects would have been
identical with, or would have differed from, those we are
familiar with, it is impossible to say with certainty, but
there is a possibility that the ultimate force would not
have been less, and that the disintegrating tendency
would have been stronger than has actually happened.

When the question of Macaulay's time is fairly faced
again with a perception of what the circumstances then
were, and a recognition of what the actual results have
been, the conclusion is almost inevitable that the answer
found was the only answer possible. Modern education
through English had to come, if British rule continued —
or even if it did not — and it was better that it came as
it did with the approbation and under the control of
Government than as an intrusive and almost clandestine
thing, under suspicion from the authorities, if not positively
forbidden. The advent of the English as rulers in Bengal
meant the advent of English ideas and English hterature,
and the mere force of imitation and emulation brought

30 STA TESMANSHIP AND EDUCA TION IN INDIA

about that the more forward spirits among the natives of
India aspired to gain the more advanced knowledge of
Europe, and to breathe the freer air of European thought.
The ideas could not be kept out because the English
brought them with them, and exhaled them in their
speech and conduct. It was inevitable that these ideas
should germinate and take root in the surrounding soil :
they belong to the spirit of the time. They were all-
pervading, and would have entered without doors. It
was more prudent as well as more generous to help to
introduce what could by no precautions have been kept
out. It was more politic, though it is not to be supposed
that such prudence was the motive from which the
pioneers of English education acted. The spirit of the
movement for the promotion of the new education is
faithfully expressed by men like Sir Thomas Munro and
Mountstuart Elphinstone. It is they, and not Macaulay,
who were the true initiators of English education.

Too much significance cannot well be ascribed to this
turning-point ; for all that follows is contained within it
by implication. Possibly Charles Trevelyan did not
really overstate the matter when he wrote : " So much,
perhaps, never depended upon the determination of any
Government." ^
1 Trevelyan, " On the Education of the People of India," 1838, p. 12.

PROGRESS 1835 TO 1854

A MARKED invigoration of educational activity in Bengal
followed Macaulay's accession to the Committee of Public
Instruction. It is possible that English education owes
more to his organizing industry than to his Minute. At
the beginning of 1835 there were fourteen institutions
under the control of the Committee. Seven new institu-
tions were started during 1835 and six more were in
process of establishment. By the end of 1837 there were
forty-eight institutions with 5196 pupils, of whom 3729
were in Anglo-Vernacular schools or colleges. The
average monthly expenditure was Es.25,439. These
figures are by present standards moderate enough, but
they show a great advance on 1835 : they show also how
largely educational effort in Bengal was at this time ex-
pended on English education. Progress continued steadily
from year to year on these lines. An extensive system
of scholarships was introduced in 1839 and added a new
motive to exertion. In 1852 the number of scholarships
in Bengal (Oriental and English together) was 291, and
the expenditure on this account was nearly Rs. 50,000.
In 1844 another step had been taken which gave ulti-
mately a far stronger impetus to English education. On
the 10th of October in that year appeared Lord Hardinge's
resolution definitely enjoining the selection for Govern-
ment service of candidates who had received an English

3 2 STA TESMANSHIP AND EDUCA TION IN INDIA

education. It was directed against lingering prejudices,
though it must not be supposed that yoang men who
had learnt English in the new colleges were altogether
shut out from service under Government. On the con-
trary, success in obtaining employment had been from
the first one of the incentives to English education ; but
Lord Hardinge's Educational resolution lays down defi-
nitely selection on educational grounds as a principle.
The exact words of the resolution are of interest : ** The
Governor-General having taken into consideration the
existing state of education in Bengal, and being of opinion
that it is highly desirable to afford it every reasonable
encouragement by holding out to those who have taken
advantage of the opportunities afforded them a fair
prospect of employment in the Public Service and
thereby not only to reward individual merit, but to
enable the State to profit as largely and as early as
possible, by the result of the measures adopted of late
years for the instruction of the people, as well by the
Government as by private individuals and Societies, has
resolved that in every possible case a preference shall
be given in the selection of candidates for pubHc employ-
ment to those who have been educated in the institutions
thus established and especially to those who have dis-
tinguished themselves therein by a more than ordinary
degree of merit and attainment." The immediate effect
of this resolution does not appear to have been great :
its ultimate influence has been scarcely less than that of
the adoption of English education. For it has given ■
English education its value in terms of livelihood. A
third measure has been equally, or even more, influential
in determining the supremacy attained by English edu-
cation. This is the adoption of English as the language
of public business. This had been contemplated as the

PROGRESS 1835 TO 1854 33

settled policy of Government as early as 1829, when, in
reply to the Committee of Public Instruction, a Govern-
ment letter says that " his Lordship in Council has no
hesitation in stating to your Committee, and in authorizing
you to announce to all concerned in the superintendence
of your native seminaries that it is the wish and admitted
policy of the British Government to render its own lan-
guage gradually and eventually the language of public
business throughout the country ; and that it will omit
no opportunity of giving every reasonable and practicable
degree of encouragement to the execution of this project."
This was in the first year of Lord William Bentinck's
administration. Here again it is not the immediate but
the ultimate effects of the policy which were important.
When Persian was first abolished in the Courts, its place
was taken by the vernaculars, and in 1838 Charles Tre-
velyan was able to write : " Everybody is now agreed in
giving the preference to the vernacular language." ^ The
claim of the vernacular has never since been lost sight
of, yet broadly English now is and has long been the
language of public business. It is to be observed indeed
that this measure and also the employment in the work
of public administration of the men of the new learning
were only logical consequences of the decision of Govern-
ment to promote English education actively. Their
importance in contributing to the ultimate result, the
rapid spread of English education, must not on that
account be overlooked in a just appreciation of cause
and effect. English education has not extended solely
by its own intrinsic value. Three factors have co-
operated: (1) educational organization determined by
the decision of 1835 ; (2) the policy of requiring more
and more a knowledge of English as a condition of

» Trevelyan, " On the Education of the People of India," p. 148.

D

34 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

employment in the public services in all but the lowest
positions ; (3) the more and more complete adoption of
English as the language of public business. These
causes, moreover, are interlaced, and act and react each
upon the others.

The course of events in other parts of India was
roughly similar. In Bombay there were in 1834 two
schools under English masters ; 214 students of English
in one and 100 in the other. In 1835 the total number
under instruction (Vernacular and English) was 5018.
In 1840 the first report of the Board of Education gives
a total of 7426 and for the Elphinstone Institution 681.
In 1850-51 the total in Government schools and colleges
is 13,460 and for EngHsh education 2066.

The advance in Madras was less rapid. As we have
seen, it was not till 1837 that Madras had a school
teaching English at all, and not till 1841 that a Govern-
ment institution resembling the Hindu College, Calcutta,
was opened. This was called the Madras " University,"
and consisted of two departments, a High School and a
College. Numbers in this place of education did not
ever reach 200 up to the year 1852. On the other hand,
the work of Missionary Societies in Madras was com-
paratively extensive. By the year 1852 the total number
of Mission Schools in the Madras Presidency was 1185
and of pupils 38,005. Also the Madras Christian College
had between 200 and 300 pupils, while still known as
the General Assembly's School.

Returns laid before the House of Lords in 1852 give
the totals in the three Presidencies and the North West
Provinces of Bengal : 25,372 under instruction, 9893 for
Enghsh education, and an expenditure of Rs.7,14,597.
These figures obviously exclude all but Government in-
stitutions. Then came the epoch-making despatch of

PROGRESS 1835 TO 1854 35

1854. From 1835 to 1854, it may be noted in passing,
is nineteen years, a time equal to the interval between
1910 and 1891. The despatch itself is by far the most
impressive measure of the advance made.

The despatch of 1854 is important on every account
in the history of Indian education, and is quite rightly
looked upon as a charter of educational privilege. It
was the first authoritative declaration of policy on the
part of the sovereign power responsible for the adminis-
tration of British India — at that time still the Court of
Directors. The policy therein defined is that which to-
day controls the system in operation throughout the
Indian Empire, and is co-extensive in scope with the
whole field of education. It ordained the formation of
Departments of Public Instruction. It promised the
establishment of Universities and sketched the university
scheme in full detail. All the lines of Public Instruction
as we know them now in successive departmental reports
and university calendars are laid in this comprehensive
document. There is even one thing more which it is
acknowledged has been imperfectly attended to and
which is destined, perhaps, to mark the next great era
of advance, a plain recognition of the importance of
measures to convey " useful and practical knowledge "
to the great mass of the people.

The occasion of the despatch was the renewal of the
Company's charter by Parliament in 1853. Lord Dal-
housie was then Viceroy, and the great material reforms
which he initiated were then in progress. Education
was engaging his anxious attention when the despatch
of Sir Charles Wood ^ came bringing " a scheme of educa-
tion for all India, far wider and more comprehensive than
the Local or the Supreme Government would have
' Raised to the peerage in 1866 as Viscount Halifax.

o

6 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

ventured to suggest." It will be convenient to give sepa-
rate treatment to each of the main parts of the scheme
indicated above, examining the details, investigating how
far they have been carried out in the established system,
and reviewing the results actually achieved. It will be
convenient also to vary the order so far as to take first
the universities, because they are more directly in the
line of advance from the resolution of 1835. But first
the preliminary statement of policy may be briefly con-
sidered. "Among many subjects of importance," says
the despatch, " none have a stronger claim to our atten-
tion than that of education. It is one of our most sacred
duties to be the means, as far as in us lies, of conferring
upon the natives of India those vast moral and material
blessings which flow from the general diffusion of useful
knowledge, and which India may under Providence derive
from her connection with England." A little further on
it declares emphatically "that the education which we
desire to see extended in India is that which has for its
object the diffusion of the improved arts, science, philo-
sophy, and literature of Europe ; in short, of European
knowledge." The despatch pays a fitting tribute to the
antiquarian and historical interest of the classical lan-
guages of India and to the honourable and influential
position of those who maintain the traditional learning.
It explicitly repudiates any aim or desire " to substitute
the English language for the vernacular dialects of the
country." In these respects it makes good the tempera-
mental defects of Macaulay's minute. At the same time
it says as plainly as Macaulay that ** the systems of
science and philosophy which form the learning of the
East abound with grave errors, and Eastern literature
is at best very deficient as regards all modern discovery
and improvements ; Asiatic learning, therefore, however

PROGRESS 1835 TO 1854 37

widely diffused, would but little advance our object." It
affirms that " a knowledge of English will always be
essential to those natives of India who aspire to a high
order of education." It expresses the desire "of extend-
ing far more widely the means of acquiring general
European knowledge of a less high order, but of such a
character as may be practically useful to the people of
India in their different spheres of life." It regrets a
tendency which it fears has been created ** to neglect the
study of the vernacular language." Consequently it lays
down that "in any general system of education, the
EngHsh language should be taught where there is a
demand for it; but such instruction should always be
combined with a careful attention to the study of the
vernacular languages of the district, and with such general
instruction as can be conveyed through that language."
For the mass of the people, the authors of the despatch
hold, the only possible medium of instruction is the
mother- tongue ; but it is significant that while this con-
viction is stated very plainly it is also indicated that the
teachers themselves should know English. The general
scope of the whole is " to decide on the mode in which
the assistance of Government should be afforded to the
more extended and systematic promotion of general edu-
cation in India, and on the measures to be adopted to
that end."

Unquestionably, the despatch of 1854 is a most
memorable document. It rises to the height of its ;.
problem and comprehends its length and breadth. It |
outlines a complete and systematic organization of educa- '\
tion in India from the university to the elementary school.
In the fifty-six years that have passed since it was re-
ceived. Government, the Education Departments, and
private effort have toiled and panted at the tasks it

38 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

set ; they are straining at them still, and adequate fulfil-
ment is not even yet within view. For it is nothing
short of a complete system of national education which
it sketches. The despatch of 1854 is thus the climax in
the history of Indian education : what goes before leads
up to it ; what follows flows from it. It offers a con-
venient measure both of attainment and of failure of
attainment. It will repay, therefore, the most careful
study in relation to the problems of to-day.

vn

THE FOUNDATION AND GROWTH OF
UNIVERSITIES

The Indian universities owe their origin to the despatch
of 1854. Already, nine years earlier, in 1845, a proposal
for establishing a central university had been made by
the Council of Education (the name by which the
Committee of Public Instruction had been called since
1842), and put aside by the Court of Directors as
premature. It is not difficult to understand the
motives which influenced those who advocated the
establishment of a university, or universities. The first
successes of EngHsh education had been striking. In
point of mere number we have seen the Hindu College
reaching a total of 562 pupils in the year 1841. In
1851 there were 1464 students in the four Bengal
colleges, the colleges at Hooghly, Dacca, and Krishnaghar,
and the Hindu College, Calcutta, besides 227 studying
EngHsh at the Sanskrit college, and two Madrasas
(Calcutta and Hooghly) : the total number sharing in
English education was 4341. On the other hand, the
standard attained by individuals was creditably high.
In the early years the remarkable quickness and powers
of expression of the students of the new learning were
regarded with a sort of gaping wonder. The scholarship
examination offered a strong incentive to effort, and
afforded a more solid and definite test of attainment.

40 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

The answers " of the Most Proficient students in the
Presidency and Mofussil Colleges" were year by year
printed in the General Eeports of Public Instruction,
and very fairly bear out the claims made for the standard
reached. When, after 1844, this examination was made
a gate to the public service, there was already, as Sir
Frederick Halliday said, " the germ of a university." It
was natural that the need should be felt for some more
distinctive recognition of academic attainment for the
"large and annually increasing number of highly
educated pupils." The Council, in 1845, calls it " a
matter of strict justice and necessity." Naturally, a
university was thought of, and degrees like those of
European universities; and the London University,
which had been established only in 1836, afforded a
convenient model, for it was an examining and non-
resident university. So, when the subject was brought
up before Parliament in 1852, and evidence both for and
against universities taken, the advocates of universities
for India carried the day. At all events, the complete
scheme of the Indian university as we know it is found in
the Despatch of 1854, and in 1857 the universities were
incorporated by Acts dated January 24th for Calcutta, for
Bombay July 18th, and for Madras September 5th.

The first Entrance Examination of the Calcutta
University was held in April, 1857. There were 244
candidates, and 162 passed. Within five years there
were over a thousand candidates, and nearly five hundred
passes. In the eleventh year (1867) there were 1507
candidates. In 1871 there were 1902. In 1881 there
were 2937. In 1891 there were 5032. In 1901 there
were 6135, and the number passed was 3307. This
certainly looks, as far as figures can show it, like an
effective demand for university education.

FOUNDATION AND GROWTH OF UNIVERSITIES 4 1

Or take it on the financial side. In 1857 the
University cost Government Rs.11,918. In 1872-73,
though its total expenditure had risen to Rs.46,519, it
was just self-supporting. In 1873-74 there was a small
but substantial balance of Rs.6236. In 1906, when for
several years the expenditure had exceeded two-and-a-
half lakhs, a reserve fund of over six lakhs had accumu-
lated. As a practical business concern the University
must also be pronounced a success. In these two
respects, growth of numbers and financial independence,
the University had certainly, by the end of the century,
justified its promoters. These things were precisely
what they had prophesied for it. " The adoption of the
plan," the Council had said, "would only be attended
with a very trifling expense to Government in the
commencement; for, in the course of a few years, the
proceeds of the Fee Fund would be more than sufficient
to defray every expense attendant upon the University."
At Convocation in 1866, nine years from the foundation
of the University, Sir Henry Maine, in urging the
necessity of university buildings, had said : " The thing
must be seen to be believed. I do not know which was
the more astonishing, more striking— the multitude of
the students, who if not now, will soon, be counted not
by the hundred, but by the thousand ; or the keenness
and eagerness which they displayed. For my part, I do
not think anything of the kind has been seen by any
European University since the Middle Ages, and I doubt
whether there is anything founded by, or connected with,
the British Government in India which excites so much
practical interest in native households of the better class,
from Calcutta to Lahore, as the examinations of this
university."

If the question be asked, as it has been asked any

4 2 EDUCA TION AND ST A TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

time these j&fty years past, "Was the foundation of
universities in India premature? Was the Calcutta
University wisely and timely founded ? " it would seem
that at least a 'prwia facie case for an afifirmative
answer lay patent in the bare facts of its practical
success. And yet, somehow, the latter end has been
confessedly unsatisfactory, and the last five years have
been given to a continued effort at university reform.
How came it that, in addressing Convocation in 1901,
the Yice-Chancellor said : *' It is not putting the case too
strongly to say that, by many persons well qualified to
judge, our whole university system is regarded with critical
suspicion, or with positive disapproval ? " Among the
critics was an Indian editor, who wrote : "If education
be the transmission of life from the living through the
living to the living, we do not know how to describe the
system of teaching that prevails here. It is carrying
death from the dead through the dead to the dead."
Something must have been wrong somewhere; some-
thing must have been overlooked; some latent defect
must have been admitted into the system and allowed to
grow, that, after forty years of flowing success and
expansion, such statements should have been barely
possible. What was it? — Possibly a more careful
scrutiny may discover it.

First, it has to be observed that, though by 1901 the
three original universities of Bombay, Calcutta, and
Madras had all grown greatly, and two later universities
had been added, the question of the ripeness of the times
for the establishment of a university in 1857 is almost
purely a question of Bengal. It was in Calcutta that the
proposal for a university was put forward; it was in
Bengal only that the conditions justifying the proposal
subsisted. In 1857, when the order for the establishment

FOUNDATION AND GROWTH OF UNIVERSITIES 43

of universities came, there was but one college in
Madras with 302 students ; in Bombay there were two
colleges with 103 between them, whereas in the Lower
Provinces of Bengal there were fourteen colleges, public
and private, and the students in them numbered 921 ;
without counting four colleges in the North-west
Provinces and Oudh and their students. There is not
less significant contrast in the development of the
universities. In 1857, as already said, 162 candidates
passed the Calcutta Entrance Examination ; 54 passed
the Madras Matriculation : no examination was held in
Bombay. The first Bombay examination was not till
1859, and then 122 passed. In 1867 the number for
Madras was 338 ; for Bombay 163 ; for Bengal 814. In
the first fourteen years, from 1857 to 1870, the total
number of students who had matriculated at the three
Indian universities was 11,093, and of this total 7560,
or rather over two-thirds belong to Bengal ; only 1227
to Bombay. A comparison of figures for graduation
gives similar results. There is a total of 856 graduates
from 1858 to 1870, and of these 577, or again over two-
thirds, belong to Calcutta. Of the 279 remaining, 163
graduated at Madras, 116 at Bombay. The question,
then, of due preparedness for university organization
and ambitions is primarily a question for Calcutta. In
the Despatch itself the definite proposal of universities
is made for Calcutta and Bombay only : the Council of
Education in Calcutta and the Board of Education in
Bombay were, with additional members, to constitute the
Senates of the new universities. A university at Madras
was made conditional on the existence of a sufficient
number of institutions, from which properly qualified
candidates could be supplied.

The contrast between the rapid extension of university

44 ED UCA TION A ND S TA TESMA NSHIP IN INDIA

education in Bengal, and the slow advance in Bombay
and Madras in these early years is very marked. Is it
possible that in this contrast we may find a clue to the
ultimate dissatisfaction with university progress ? At a
later epoch there was to be an equally rapid expansion
in Madras, and in numbers the Madras University was
sometimes to outstrip Calcutta ; but that was not as yet.
Mr. Arthur Howell, of the Bengal Civil Service, in
reviewing " Education in British India " in 1871, notices
two objections " not infrequently raised against the
Calcutta University." One of these, that the University
fails to encourage the Eastern classical languages in the
manner intended by the Despatch of 1854, he meets
easily by showing that Sanskrit and Arabic studies have
not been neglected, and gain rather than lose by
association with the new methods of education. The
second is more serious ; " that, looking to the poor and
superficial acquirements of the great mass of those who
obtain university distinctions, and to the fact that such
distinctions are not pursued for their own sake, but
merely as a means to employment or reward, there is
really no status as yet for a university in the European
sense of the term." This charge he excuses but does not
altogether repel. He recognizes that "the pursuit of
high culture for its own sake is rare in India, and
certainly in Bengal," but continues : " Even admitting
that the distinctions conferred by the Indian universities
are poor and superficial, it may still be said that there
is clearly a need of the kind of institution which Indian
universities aspire to be, that is a practical and uniform
test of the schools and colleges of high education, many
of which are maintained by Government."

Surely the key to the mystery hes in the consideration
of quality. The success of Calcutta University, the

FOUNDATION AND GROWTH OF UNIVERSITIES 45

figures quoted above, and all those published year by
year for all the universities, from 1871 right on to 1900,
which afford such obvious material for congratulation,
concern the quantitative extension of education only.
They tell nothing of its intent or quality. What, it may
be asked, was the real value of the education being given
year by year to wider circles of young men? What
precautions had been taken to secure that the men sent
out with university degrees should be in a true sense
educated? It is of special interest to notice what
guidance the Despatch of 1854 affords on this point. It
has something to say about the standard for degrees,
though, naturally, what it says is expressed only in
general terms. It suggests a twofold standard; a
standard for "common degrees," and a standard for
honours. As to the standard for honours, the Despatch
is not in doubt: " care should be taken 'to maintaia such
a standard as will afford a guarantee for high abOity and
valuable attainments." The standard for the ordinary
degree presents difficulty; it "will require to be fixed
with very great judgment." The definition which the
Despatch suggests is, that " the standard required should
be such as to command respect, without discouraging the
efforts of deserving students." This is by no means a
precise definition, yet, perhaps, it serves well enough as
a touchstone of attainment. It is manifest that the
degrees of the Indian universities, more especially the
Calcutta degree, did not, in 1901, " command respect."
That they did not was one of the great impelling forces
to reform.

vm

THE COMMISSION OF 1882

Careful enough attention has not been paid of recent
years to the influence of the recommendations of the
Education Commission of 1882 in determining the
development of education in India between 1882 and
1900. In relation to the present undertaking they
demand attention very specially, because one of the
tendencies of the present time is in a direction precisely
opposite to the most important and far-reaching of its
recommendations ; while others of its important recom-
mendations, which have been allowed to fall out of
view, are among those being now specially pressed for
consideration.

The reasons given for the appointment of the Com-
mission were the length of time that had elapsed since
the Despatch of 1854 and the consequent expediency of
"a more careful examination into the results attained
and into the working of the present arrangements than
has hitherto been attempted." It was really due largely
to outside agitation and to the pledges given by the
Marquis of Ripon before leaving England in 1880 for a
thorough and searching inquiry how far the prescriptions
of the despatch had been followed. The precise instruc-
tions given to the Commission were accordingly "to
inquire particularly . . . into the manner in which
effect has been given to the principles of the Despatch of

THE COMMISSION OF 1882 47

1854; and to suggest such measures as it may think
desirable in order to the further carrying out of the
policy therein laid down," There were " certain limita-
tions" of the field of inquiry, and it is specially
noteworthy that " the general working of the Indian
Universities " was one of the subjects so excepted. The
exception did not, however, extend to University educa-
tion as carried on in the colleges.

The Commission was appointed in February, 1882.
Sir William Hunter (at the time Member of the Viceroy's
Legislative Council) was President : Mr. B. L. Kice,
Director of Public Instruction, Mysore and Coorg, was
Secretary ; and there were twenty other members, in-
cluding' Sir Sayyid Ahmed, Mr. A. M. Bose, Sir Alfred
Croft, Sir William Lee Warner, Dr. Miller of Madras,
Babu Bhudeb Mookerjee and Maharaja Sir Jotendro
Mohan Tagore. The Commission first deliberated for
some seven weeks in Calcutta. Then for eight months
evidence was collected locally in the various provinces,
and the President made a tour in order to hold sessions
and examine witnesses. " A great enthusiasm," writes
Mr. Satthianadhan, ** was excited on the subject of
education throughout the length and breadth of the
country. At every place that was visited large meetings
were held to welcome the Commission." Nearly two
hundred witnesses were examined and over three hundred
memorials were presented. Further dehberations followed
in Calcutta from December, 1882, to March, 1883. Two
hundred and twenty-two resolutions were passed, one
hundred and eighty unanimously. The report, which
was drawn up by a committee of six, extends to over six
hundred folio pages.

The most far-reaching of the recommendations were
those which concerned the withdrawal of Government

48 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

from higher education. Something of this had been
tentatively put forward in the Government Resolution
appointing the Commission, as a subject for consideration.
The Despatch of 1854 had introduced " grants-in-aid "
because of " the impossibility of Government alone doing
all that must be done " for the organization of education
in India. Grants-in-aid "were intended to encourage
self-help and foster ** a spirit of reliance upon local
exertions." Local management under Government in-
spection, stimulated by grants-in-aid, was to supplement
and finally, perhaps, in large measure, to supersede
direct management by Government. The aim of the
Commission was to carry the transfer of direct manage-
ment further. Their recommendations are carefully
guarded, but the net result is the affirmation of gradual
withdrawal as definitely the aim of Government policy.
This is implied or hinted in various places ; the explicit
recommendation is " that all Directors of Public Instruc-
tion aim at the gradual transfer to local native manage-
ment of Government schools of secondary instruction
(including schools attached to first or second grade
colleges) in every case in which the transfer can be
effected without lowering the standard, or diminishing
the supply of education, and without endangering the
permanence of the institution transferred." This explicit
recommendation concerned only secondary schools, and
it seemed to be carefully safeguarded by qualifying con-
ditions. The practical result in the long run was the
partial withdrawal of Government from the direct conduct
of higher education ; and conversely the imparting of a
strong stimulus to the founding of schools and colleges
by private enterprise. This was in fact the result
deliberately and expressly aimed at. " We venture to
hope," says the report in concluding on this subject,

THE COMMISSION OF 1882 49

" that the Hue of action we have marked out in the above
recommendations will result, not all at once, yet with no
longer interval than is always required for changes
fruitful of large results, in public sentiment taking a
direction which will lead to the gradual and, by and by,
to the rapid transfer to bodies of native gentlemen of the
institutions now maintained by Government." It all reads
very plausibly in the pages of the report, and a great
deal is said of the need of caution that the highest educa-
tional interests should not suffer, and of due care for the
maintenance of high standards. The question is, was it
really wise to put forward at that time such recommenda-
tions at all, and were the salutary precautions enjoined
successfully taken ?

There were many minor recommendations, all having
as their object " to improve and strengthen the position
of aided schools " as the complement to the policy of
Government withdrawal. One of them runs, " That in
order to encourage the establishment of aided schools,
the managers be not required to charge fees as high as
those of a neighbouring Government school of the same
class." This is for schools: there is a similar recom-
mendation for colleges : — " That while it is desirable to
affirm the principle that fees at the highest rate con-
sistent with the undiminished spread of education should
be levied in every college aided by the State, no aided
college should be required to levy fees at the same rate
as that charged in a neighbouring Government college."
On the surface perhaps these recommendations read very
innocently. If they are attentively considered, it will be
found that their natural effect must boito undermine the
very possibiHty of sound education. The more carefully
they are examined, the more plainly will it appear that
they are largely, if not mainly, responsible for the state

50 ED UCA TION AND S TA TESMA NSHIP IN INDIA

of University education which the reform movement of
1901 to 1906 set out to remedy. For could anything
have been better calculated to promote the spread of in-
efficiency, to bring about what has actually resulted — the
multiplication of schools and colleges insufficiently staffed,
miserably equipped, utterly unfit to give useful educa-
tion ? The more directly injurious provision was the
authorization of low fees, which effectually secured that
new schools and colleges founded by private enterprise
should be of a weak and inefficient type. It is true that
another rule proposed ran, " that the Director of Public
Instruction should, in consultation with the managers of
schools receiving aid from Government, determine the
scale of fees to be charged and the proportion of pupils to
be exempted from payment therein." There was, how-
ever, opposition to the carrying out of this proviso, and
even in Madras, where it had been the practice for many
years before the Commission, it was ultimately dropped.
The second Quinquennial Keview of the Progress of
Education in India, written by Mr. Nash and published
in 1893, makes this significant comment : " The reason
for this change of system is not given in the reports, but
probably it was due to the difficulty experienced by aided
schools in competing with unaided schools in which lower
fees could be charged ; in some cases the managers
of aided schools resigned the grants in order to be able
to reduce the fees." It would be difficult within reason-
able compass to bring out the full tale of e\dls— ill-paid
and incompetent teachers, overcrowded class-rooms, bad
buildings, poor school furniture — with which that one
sentence is pregnant. The calamitous significance of
what was happening is only grasped when it is considered
that for many schools which came into existence under
these influences the fees were almost the sole source of

THE COMMISSION OF 1882 5 1

income. Common sense would have dictated a rule the
very reverse of that enunciated by the Commission ; that
the private schools and colleges should be empowered to
charge higher fees, not lower. The Government schools
and colleges had other resources, and did not depend on
the fee fund for their proper up-keep. The private
schools and colleges, on the other hand, were for the
most part unendowed and, except in the case of mis-
sionary institutions, had seldom any revenues other than
those derived from fees. Fees were to them all-important ;
for they drew their whole support from them. To give,
as it were, authoritative countenance to low fees was to
ensure the inevitable and lasting inefficiency of the insti-
tutions. It remains only further for the careful historian
to remark that some of the scho^ols and colleges equipped
and staffed on this promising basis have actually at times
worked to private profit.

In another important division of education the express
prescription of the Commission of 1882 has been dis-
credited by experience. The Commission adopted for
elementary schools the system of payment by results
which at that time still ruled in Great Britain. Their
recommendation is " That preference be given to that
system which regulates the aid given mainly according
to the results of examinations." " This system," writes
Mr. Orange in the last Quinquennial Review of Indian
Education, "notorious by the name, of payment by
results is universally acknowledged to have been a failure
wherever it has been introduced." The Commission of
1882 was not, then, infallible, and it is open to us to
disagree with its findings, if we see reason to do so.
Many of them were undoubtedly sound and judicious
and have been absorbed into the educational system.
Such were the rules and regulations limiting the removal

52 ED UCA TION A ND S TA TESMA NSHIP IN INDIA

of pupils from one school to another, now known as
"Transfer Rules;" their recommendations about Text
Book Committees, Normal Schools, Educational Con-
ferences, Departmental Codes of Rules, and many other
matters of educational interest, great and small. In
some matters recommendations, in themselves excellent,
have proved in advance of the times, in so far as they
have remained up to the present a dead letter. Such are
the suggestions of the formation of " a general educa-
tional library and museum at some suitable locality in
each Province," and that " in the upper classes of high
schools there be two divisions — one leading to the Entrance
examination of the Universities, the other of a more
practical character, intended to fit youths for commercial
and other non-literary pursuits." As regards the latter,
heroic attempts have indeed been made to divert a branch
stream from the main current of high school education,
but up to the time of the last Quinquennial Review,
"ninety-five per cent, of the boys who pass through
secondary schools follow the curricula prescribed by the
Universities for the Matriculation examination." The
important recommendation that "as a general rule
transfers of officers from Professorships of colleges to
Inspectorships of schools, and vice versa, be not made,"
has been partially adopted through sheer force of circum-
stances, but has yet to receive the recognition its
importance as a fundamental principle requires. Very
great stress was laid by the Commission on the moral
side of education. In relation to every stage of educa-
tion they call marked attention to its importance. Of
Primary schools they say, " That all inspecting officers
and teachers be directed to see that all the teaching and
discipline of every school are such as to exert a right in-
fluence on the manner and conduct and the character of

THE COMMISSION OF 1882 53

the children. ..." Similarly, of Secondary schools,
" That the importance of requiring inspecting officers to
see that the teaching and discipline of every school are
such as to exert a right influence on the manners, the
conduct and the character of pupils, be re-affirmed."
For colleges they recommend " Lectures on the duties of
a man and a citizen," and a " moral text-book." The
latter is still a debated but, on the whole, discredited
proposal. The supreme importance of the education of
character is taking a prominent place among the
questions of the hour.

In the details of school management and of educa'
tional organization the Commission of 1882 is generally
right. It is on the larger question of policy that its
conclusions are disputable. The largest of all has only
so far been noticed by implication, and this, the place of
Primary education in the educational scheme for India, is
also the question which is again at the present time being
specially pressed for attention. The views of the Com-
mission are clear and uncompromising. It is Elementary
education, indigenous or departmental, which has the
first claim. The claims of higher education to State aid
are only legitimate when the requirements of popular
education have been adequately met. They recommend
specifically " That primary education be declared to be
that part of the whole system of Public Instruction which
possesses an almost exclusive claim on local funds set
apart for education and a large claim on provincial
revenues." Again : " That while every branch of educa-
tion can justly claim the fostering care of the State, it is
desirable, in the present circumstances of the country, to
declare the elementary education of the masses, its pro-
vision, extension and improvement, to be that part of the
educational system to which the strenuous efforts of the

54 ED UCA TION AND STA TESMA NSHIP IN INDIA

State should now be directed in a still larger measure
than heretofore." So conversely of secondary education,
" That it be distinctly laid down that the relation of the
State to secondary is different from its relation to
primary education in that the means of primary educa-
tion may be provided without regard to the existence of
local co-operation, while it is ordinarily expedient to
provide the means of secondary education only where
adequate local co-operation is forthcoming, and that,
therefore, in all ordinary cases, secondary schools for
instruction in English be hereafter established by the
State preferably on the footing of the system of Grants-
in-aid." There is plausibility in this statement of prin-
ciple, and it has all the weight that the analogy of
European countries can give it. Is it, however, the
right principle for India, and is it practically applicable
at the present time? These are momentous questions,
and a good deal of ground has still to be traversed in
these papers before we are in a position to answer them
with a clear perception of the issues. We require first
to study the character and causes of university reform ;
and then to make some independent survey of secondary
and primary school education in India as each of these
has been developed under the influence of the Despatch
of 1854 and the Commission of 1882.

IX

UNIVERSITY REFORM 1901-1906

The causal connection suggested in the course of the
review of the recommendations of the Commission of
1882 is this. The affirmation by Government of a
poHcy of " gradual withdrawal " from higher education
coupled with a virtual approbation of low fees led to a
rapid expansion of university education between 1882
and 1890 ; but this rapid expansion involved a disastrous
sacrifice of the essential conditions of sound education.
Statistics are notoriously fallacious, and figures, it is
known, obey the powerful spells of those who charm
with them ; but here the figures as they stand recorded
in university tables and in successive reviews of edu-
cational progress are so plain and straightforward that
mistake of their meaning is hardly conceivable. There
are complicating circumstances, it is true, if one analyses
the figures searchingly, but broadly there was extra-
ordinary expansion in the years immediately following
1882. For schools the most striking comparisons are
those of the first five years. For 1881-2 the total of
pupils in secondary English schools is given in the first
general review of education in India as 149,233. For
1884-5 the total is 254,802, an increase of over 100,000
in three years ; for 1886-7 it is 271,654, an increase of
120,000 in five years. By 1891-2 the figures of 1881- 2
are just doubled, standing at slightly over three hundred

5 6 EDUCA TION A ND ST A TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

thousand. Numbers have advanced steadily since, but
never at a rate so rapid. At the end of the next ten
years the total is 422,187 ; and the latest tables avail-
able, those for 1906-7, give 473,130. These figures are
not, however, exactly apposite to the present inquiry,
since owing to a principle of classification adopted in
1883, Middle English Schools are included along with
High Schools in the totals recorded. Our direct concern
is now with High Schools only. The estimate of the
Commission of 1882 for pupils in High Schools at that
date is 65,448, and the total for 1901 is given in the last
general review as 251,626, but for the intervening years
the figures are not recorded. The statistics of matricu-
lation afford a more accurate measure for present pur-
poses. For Bengal the Entrance Examination certainly
indicates roughly the advance of High School as well
as of collegiate education. All the higher secondary
schools that came into being were of one type. All
aspired to send up candidates to the Entrance Exami-
nation. Many had (and have except for a compulsory
limit now) congested Entrance classes. Again there is
a roughly (very roughly) constant proportion between
the number of candidates at the Entrance Examination
and the number actually matriculated; and again a
roughly constant variation between the number of
matriculates and the number of candidates at the degree
examinations. Thus the matriculation examination
affords a fairly accurate measure, at all events in Bengal,
of the extension of higher education. Adopting this as
a rough measure generally, we see that in 1882 the
total of candidates for matriculation in the three uni-
versities then existing was 7429. In 1885-6 the total
for India is 13,093, nearly double in four years, and in
1889 it is 19,138. The further increase to 1906 is under

UNIVERSITY REFORM 1 901-1906 57

six thousand, making a total of 24,963. Looking sepa-
rately to Bengal — and it is with Bengal that university
reform is connected in its causes and inception as well
as the beginning of universities — we find that in 1872
the number of candidates at the Entrance Examination
had been just over 2000 (2144). In 1882 it was just
over 3000. In 1885 it was 4317. In 1888 it was 6134,
more than doubling the 3000 of 1882. The total only
once exceeded this maximum between 1888 and 1900,
namely, in the year 1900 itself with 6309 ; but it never
fell below 5000. From 1902 on the number was always
over 7000, till in 1907 it fell to 5290.

Now, if the Matriculation Examination of Calcutta
University had been a satisfactory test as a school
leaving examination, and if the education of the colleges
had been sound and good, this wonderful expansion
between 1882 and 1888 — these are the most significant
dates — could only have been cause for rejoicing. Natu-
rally it seemed such to those who lived through those
exhilarating years, and who did not scrupulously assay
the value of the results attained. Address after address
at Convocation vibrates with subdued elation, though
now and again, it is true, the attentive listener catches
an undertone of misgiving. Any one who wishes to
enter vividly into the feelings of that time, and to
obtain a graphic view of the forces at work in the Cal-
cutta university, of what was admirable in it as well as
what was of hurtful tendency, cannot do better than
read Sir Courtney Ilbert's widely ranging and exceed-
ingly instructive address of December 19th, 1885. An
important series of changes in the arrangements for
the Arts Examination had just been brought to com-
pletion. Numbers still showed a marked and rapid
increase. The dominant tone is one of satisfaction and

5 8 EDUCA TION AND STA TES MANS HIP IN INDIA

congratulation. Of the revised courses, he says : " As far
as I can judge, they appear to me to be entirely in the
right direction. . . . Their tendency is towards greater
specialization and concentration at the later stages of
the university course, and thus towards more exact and
thorough knowledge of the subjects which the student
applies himself to master." He is able to say of the
honours men of the university that ** not only is the
number of graduates in Honours steadily increasing,
but the highest standard which they attain is steadily
rising." There is only one sentence in the speech which
suggests another side to the picture, but that sentence
is significant. " As collegiate education has become
more common," says the speaker, " the value of the
symbol which denotes it has proportionately fallen." It
is not, however, till 1889 that we definitely hear of over-
production as a criticism to be met, when Lord Lans-
downe, as Chancellor, said : " I am afraid that we must
not disguise from ourselves that if our schools and
colleges continue to educate the youth of India at the
present rate, we are likely to hear even more than we do
at present of the complaint that we are turning out
every year an increasing number of young men whom
we have provided with an intellectual equipment, admi-
rable in itself, but practically useless to them, on account
of the small number of openings which the professions
afford for gentlemen who have received this kind of
education." But in Convocation addresses the voice of
criticism is in these years almost wholly silent. "We
must look elsewhere for strict scrutiny of the intrinsic
value of what was outwardly such a triumphant pro-
gress. Nor do we look for it vainly. For there were
always some among educational workers who looked
more carefully into the education which was being so

UNIVERSITY REFORM 1901-1906 59

rapidly extended and raised their voices against un-
critical satisfaction. As early even as 1860 two leading
educationalists in the North-West Provinces, Mr. Reid,
Director of Public Instruction, and Mr. Kempson, Prin-
cipal of the Bareilly College, warned the university of
the dangers of a too ambitious course of studies and of
education lacking accuracy and depth. It is not, how-
ever, from direct and express criticism that we get the
illuminating flashes which enable in retrospect the
sharpened vision of the inquirer to discern how the way
was surely prepared for a catastrophe of some kind, but
in things incidentally written in relation to some question
of the hour without any directly critical intention. For
instance, in 1871, the head of a Calcutta college, writing
a2)ro2)os of certain wide proposals from the North- West
Provinces, said: "From what I know of University
students I should hardly regard the knowledge of English
possessed by those who pass in the second class at the
First Arts Examination as sufficient; and certainly I
should hold the knowledge of a student who passed in
the third class to be insufficient." In 1870, out of 520
candidates for this examination 28 passed in the first
division, 108 in the second, and 97 in the third. In the
same series of opinions another correspondent laments
that under the existing system a class of men who
might be called ** mere machines of memory " was mul-
tiplying very fast. " Education," he says, " has too long
been viewed in Bengal as the cramming in a large
amount of ill-digested knowledge — memory has been
cultivated to the exclusion of the higher faculties ; and a
class of students has been produced who, whatever
crammed book-knowledge they possess, have, with a few
noble exceptions, neither original ideas nor the power
of observing or judging for themselves." This, be it

60 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

carefully noted, was before the great expansion between
1882 and 1888, and, be it further observed, that between
1871 and 1900 nothing whatever was done to improve
the standard of English which was absolutely vital to a
system of education deliberately and avowedly carried
on in English.

The extreme importance of the sufficiency of the
standard of English at the Entrance Examination does
not, indeed, seem to have been adequately realized either
in the early years of the university or in the years of
growing prosperity following on the Commission of 1882.
In 1886 and 1887 a Committee was engaged in consider-
ing the Calcutta Entrance Examination. Opinions were
sought on all sides, from heads of colleges and others.
It is a remarkable fact that though the questions of
standard were warmly canvassed, scarcely a single voice
was raised on behalf of an adequate standard in English.
Most of the opinions are mere verbiage. One letter there
is, however, which is remarkable as going to the root of
the matter, and laying bare one of the causes which
ultimately made some reform of the system necessary.
" I am sorry," says the writer, " to find that beyond the
proposal . . . not a single modification has been intro-
duced tending to remedy the so universally recognized
evil, viz. that the University examinations, and perhaps
more particularly the Entrance Examination, favour
memory work more than is desirable, and that cram is
sufficient to secure a pass. Any one acquainted with the
practical work of preparing Indian students for these
examinations must confess in all fairness that degrees
are at a low ebb." A curious commentary this, on the
Vice-Chancellor's address at the end of 1885, but it is
the commentary of the teacher actually engaged upon the
work and knowing it. He adds a little later : " Without

UNIVERSITY REFORM 1901-1906 6 1

anything like a complete course of general education,
any candidate gifted with a good memory is sure to carry
off his Entrance certificate. And this is mainly to be
ascribed to the appointment of text-books in every subject,
containing all that a student is expected to answer at the
examination."

Perhaps, however, the most significant clue is that
unconsciously afforded by a naive sentence in the Convo-
cation address of 1883. Speaking of the success of the
first two lady graduates, the Vice-Chancellor said that
they had really done better than their places in the list
showed. " I heard," he says, " from one of the examiners,
that though their answers in his subject were not framed
so as to secure the highest number of marks, the papers
showed an originality, a thoroughness, and a real com-
prehension of the subject, which gave him a high opinion
of the intellectual power of the writers." Examinations
which did not secure the highest marks to intellectual
power, to originality, thoroughness, and a real compre-
hension of the subject ! A horde of candidates securing
passes by memorizing text-books out of a ludicrously
deficient knowledge of English ! In these things surely
there was a good deal for which a remedy had to be
found.

How vital the question of the standard of English
at the gates of the university really is, is at once manifest
on steadily facing the fact that all the studies of the uni-
versity were and are to be carried on through English. A
student who does not start with a competent knowledge
of English has obviously no chance of getting on even
terms with his studies. He is heavily handicapped from
the beginning, and, unless he goes to school again and
learns English, the handicap is never likely to be taken
off, even if by good or bad luck he ultimately obtains a

62 ED UCA TION AND STA TESMA NSHIP IN INDIA

degree. In this vital matter nothing was done to raise
the standard; some things were done to lower the
standard ; and always there was a steady pressure from
the weaker schools and colleges, from year to year
increasing in number under the influence of the plausible
doctrines of the Commission of 1882, tending to lower
standards. Is it wonderful that between 1890 and 1900,
dissatisfaction grew everywhere, though it did not very
often voice itself in public ; or that in 1894, a writer in
the Calcutta Revieiv, who found the remedy in a gradual
raising of the standard in the Entrance Examination,
and the maintenance by Government of schools of a
higher type, said openly : " We are spreading English
education through the length and breadth of these lands
on a system which it is scarcely too harsh to call rotten " ?
When university reform came in strong flood in the year
1901, it did not come too soon.

It is too soon yet to judge in just perspective the
reform movement of the years which follow between 1901
and 1906. It is of profound interest to all concerned
with university work in India, and when its history comes
to be fully written, that interest will not be diminished.
The central fact is that it was (like the inception of
English education) a movement from within, not from
without ; and that Englishmen and Indians co-operated
in the task. The reform movement is associated with
Lord Curzon's administration and with Lord Curzon's
name, and as he bore unmerited obloquy on account of
it, to him also must be assigned a large share of the
praise, if ever praise is awarded. But for Lord Curzon's
known interest in education and his force of character,
it would not have come at that time ; but that it came at
all is most of all due to the persistence from 1860 on-
wards here and there of a few educational workers, who

UNIVERSITY REFORM 1901-1906 63

had more care for the reahty of education than for the
shows, and who had the true interests of students and
universities at heart. EarHer attempts at initiating a
reform movement there had been about the year 1895,
but they never got beyond the stage of draft proposals.
The sequence of events in the actual inception of reform
was this. On February the 16th, 1901, after Lord
Curzon had referred in carefully-guarded language to his
intentions in regard to the university, the Vice- Chancellor
said : " For the first time, the Chancellor asks the
university to consider the possibiHty of constitutional
reform." In March, a strong representation of the need
for inquiry and action was made by a number of pro-
fessors and heads of colleges. In September, a Confer-
ence was held at Simla which made a preliminary survey
of the whole educational field. In January, 1902, the
Indian Universities Commission was appointed. Their
inquiries continued through February, March, and April.
Their report was published in June.

University reform was initiated, as we have seen, in
Bengal, and was directed by its initiators to the circum-
stances of Calcutta University. It was a debatable point
whether the other universities needed reform for analogous
reasons. The Commission came to the conclusion that
they did, and recommended reform on similar lines in
respect of constitution, examinations, courses of study,
standards, social life. Two of the most salient recom-
mendations were (1) that the Syndicate of each University
should fix a minimum fee rate ; (2) that so-called second-
grade colleges should in process of time be eliminated.
The publication of the report called forth an outburst of
criticism. These two provisions, though educationally
very weighty reasons can be given for their expediency,
were assailed with special vehemence. Government gave

64 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

way to the popular outcry on these two points, and
announced their omission from the scheme of reform.

On these bases an Act to amend the law relating to
the Universities of British India was introduced in 1904,
and warmly debated in the Legislative Council. It
received the assent of the Governor-General on the 24th
of March, and took effect on the 1st of September, 1904.
Then began a new phase of university history. New
Senates and Syndicates came into office, appointed on
the principle "that educational standards should be
allowed a predominant influence " in the administration
of a university ; and set about the framing of a revised
body of regulations. These, as finally approved by the
Government of India for the University of Calcutta, came
into operation in July 1906.

It is too early, as I have said, to judge confidently of
the efficacy of the new constitutions and the new regu-
lations. Lord Curzon claimed for his reforms — which in
his view and intention embraced a much wider range
than university education — that " out of them has been
born a new life for higher education in India." This is
certainly true. A definite impetus has been given to the
improvement of both colleges and high schools under
pressure of the new regulations ; more money, much more
money, is being spent on them. There is improvement
in buildings, in staff, in equipment. There has been a
real quickening of energies in all directions. The most
conspicuous improvements in Bengal colleges have been
two : (1) There has been a most marked improvement
in the equipment and methods of science teaching. This
is the greatest change of all, and amounts to no less than
a revolution, a revolution pregnant with potentialities for
the material progress of the country. (2) There has
been a liberal strengthening of staffs. Government has

UNIVERSITY REFORM 1901-1906 65

voluntarily set the example in its own colleges; but
everywhere pressure has been exerted by the Syndicate
to induce colleges to raise their staffs in accordance with
more exacting views of the requirements of efficient teach-
ing. Unless the conditions laid down are conformed
with, affiliation is refused ,* and this applies equally when
the college asking affiliation is a Government college.
The Syndicate has thus effective control. These are very
important successes ; and there are several more points
on which there is assured ground for congratulation.

If we review this whole history of the reform move-
ment fairly, we are bound to admit that the effort for
reform was, in Bengal at all events, thoroughly justified ;
that Government policy has been sound in regard to it,
erring, if anywhere, on the side of caution. We have
good reason to hope that the education being given in the
colleges this year is in important respects better than the
education which was being given in 1905. Lord Curzon
was justified in contending that this was a deliverance,
a deliverance of true education from impediments and
encumbrances. " It is," he said at Simla in 1905, shortly
before leaving India, " the setting free of the service of
education, by placing in authoritative control over edu-
cation the best intellects and agencies that can be enlisted
in the task, and it is the casting away of the miserable
gyves and manacles that had been fastened on the limbs
of the youths of India, stunting their growth, crippling
their faculties, and tying them down." Such certainly
is the aim, whether it is yet quite attained or not ; and
therefore Lord Curzon was justified in adding : " In my
view we are entitled to the hearty co-operation of all
patriotic Indians in the task, for it is their people we are
working for, and their future we are trying to safeguard
and enlarge."

X

HIGH ENGLISH SCHOOLS

Real and substantial as have been the improvements
effected already by university reform, there are one or two
measures of importance which have quite definitely not
been attempted, or not effected sufficiently. One is such
a raising of fees as would at once hinder overcrowding in
colleges and place the unendowed colleges on a better
economic basis. Another, and that the most vital of all,
is the raising of the standard of English at matriculation
to the level of efficiency required by the nature of uni-
versity studies. An improvement of standard, it may be
hoped, has really been effected : there is reason to fear it
is not yet adequate to the end in view, though the
attainment of this end is an indispensable 'condition of
sound work. Now the learning of English is the proper
task not of the colleges, but of the schools. What of the
high English schools and the education they are giving ?
Sound university education is unattainable without the
improvement of high school education. That has been
frankly recognized in the measures of reform already
carried out. All the universities now definitely assume
responsibility for the character of the schools allowed to
send up candidates for matriculation. There are by the
regulations " conditions of recognition " and the condi-
tions are to be made real by effective inspection. All
high schools alike are brought under this new control,

HIGH ENGLISH SCHOOLS 6^

Government and non-Government, aided and unaided. A
great deal of attention has been given to the subject of
high EngHsh schools since the new regulations came
into force. The Third Chapter in the last quinquennial
review of educational progress is most illuminating on
the whole subject. " There is," says Mr. Orange, " every
indication that universities and departments are carrying
out in earnest the powers and duties entrusted to them
in respect of secondary schools seeking the privilege of
University recognition." That was three years ago and
the work has gone on steadily since. Conditions, as
might be expected, vary greatly in the diJEferent provinces
of India, but the conclusion of any general review of the
schools in relation to the universities must be that the
whole subject of high school education still demands
unslackening attention. The two most general defects
appear to be (1) poorly qualified teachers, (2) bad teach-
ing of English ; two points of vital import for collegiate
education. Of the masters in high schools Mr. Orange
writes : " Speaking generally, it may be said that the
qualifications and the pay of teachers in secondary
schools are below any standard that could be thought
reasonable ; and that the inquiries which are now being
made into the subject have revealed a state of things
that is scandalous in Bengal and Eastern Bengal, and is
unsatisfactory in every province." As to teaching, while
method in most subjects leaves much to be desired, in
more than one province English is singled out as the
subject worst taught. High school education is best in
Bombay ; taken in the lump it is worst in the sphere of
Calcutta University. Good schools there are in Bengal
and Eastern Bengal as well as in all other parts of India :
it is the great number of weak and ill-equipped schools
in certain provinces which makes the problem of raising

68 EDUCA TION AND ST A TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

all to a satisfactory standard of efficiency so difficult.
But whatever the defects in teaching, discipline, build-
ings, equipment in Bengal and Eastern Bengal, or any-
where in India, the feature most deserving of notice at
the present time is improvement. A genuine impetus
towards improvement is visible everywhere, due to the
heightened interest in education that has been general
since 1901, and in a more special sense to the impulse of
university reform. The signs are hopeful, provided the
impetus is not allowed to die down, but is reinforced by
further efforts, public and private.

Looking back to find the causes of the present un-
satisfactory state of secondary education, there can be
little doubt that the close subordination of high school
education to a University Entrance examination, how-
ever natural and convenient it may have been in the
beginning and is even now, has in the long run proved
injurious to the best interests of education. It has in
the first place established a false standard for schools
and a wrong aim. School education should educate for
life and should be circumscribed by no narrower aim.
It should give an education relatively complete in itself.
The further education of the university is necessarily for
a limited number, not for all. To contract the education
of all to the pattern of a preparatory course for university
studies, and especially of university studies so peculiarly
conditioned as they are in India, was to cripple school
education. Next it has tended to limit schools to one
type, whereas other types of schools have been wanted. In
particular there has been need of better secondary schools
with aims less scholastically ambitious and more practical
than those of the high school working up to a university
standard. A factor which has swayed disastrously here
is the overweening ambition which has been so common

HIGH ENGLISH SCHOOLS 69

an influence in the history of educational institutions in
Bengal, each aiming at climbing out Of its own class into
the class next above it. Schools have seldom been
content to moderate their ambitions by their resources,
to rest satisfied in doing quiet work in a well-defined but
limited sphere. The middle vernacular school aspires to
be middle English; the middle English school to be a
high school. High schools have schemed to be raised
into second grade colleges, and the second grade college
with better reason aspires to be first grade. This
ambition, which in itself is sufficiently laudable, has,
when unaccompanied by any proper sense of scale in
education, proved harmful, by inciting the promoters of
these institutions to press for the supposed higher status
without any due regard to the standard of equipment
and provision which the higher status requires. The
resulting tendency has been to lower standards and
produce general weakness. The saving truth that a
good middle school is better than a bad high school and
a good school immeasurably better than a weak and
poorly equipped college has been wholly lost sight of. It
has never been sufficiently realized how fundamental is
the question of expense. The provision of schools of
a higher standard entails expense according to an
irreducible scale, the incidence of which can by no
jugglery be avoided. If you want that kind of education,
you must incur the expense. You can only cheapen the
expense by lowering the quality, and then you do not get
the education you want at all but a spurious imitation.
This is a simple principle, absolutely fundamental,
absolutely impossible of evasion. The refusal to admit
these simple truths is the cause of the unsatisfactory
nature of so much of the education given.

Every grade of school has its proper work to do, and

70 EDUCA TION AND ST A TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

in doing it fills a useful place in the system as a whole.
Well-organized high schools, the immediate subject here,
are of special importance, in relation to the highest form
of education, because the success of college education is
based necessarily on the quality of high school education.
Unless the education of the high schools is sound, college
education cannot be sound. The neglect of this vital
perception is what even now hampers the improvement
of college education. Something has been done as was
shown at the beginning of this paper. Much more
remains to be done and can only be neglected at the risk
of losing again the ground that has been gained by
university reform. There is need of a fresh intuition,
the intuition that the school is not less important than
the college, but even more important. Indeed the
mistake of the past in its ultimate expression is that the
cardinal and incomparable value of school education has
not been sufficiently realized. There can be no doubt
now that serious harm has been done by the systematic
subordination of the school to the college. The college
has been magnified; the school has been depressed.
But it is not true that a college is higher educationally
than a school. On the contrary there are valid reasons
why the school as an institution for education is more
important than the college. In Great Britain the school
has an easy primacy, and the special pride of England is
her Public Schools rather than her Universities. The
gift seemingly most easily within her power to give, a
noble school education, England has not yet given to
India. It is a pity it should be so. The names of
English schools are world-famous. Who even in India
has heard the name of any great Indian school ! If
names great in the field of education are thought of in
England, it is the names of great schoolmasters that are

HIGH ENGLISH SCHOOLS 7 1

thought of first — Colet, Mulcaster, Busby, Arnold,
Thring, Ridding, Almond. Why are there no similar
names in India ? Why would it seem strange to speak
even of " a great schoolmaster ? " And yet, when Sir
Alexander Arbuthnot, who later was twice Vice-Chancellor
of Calcutta University, was addressing Convocation in
Madras in 1868, he singled out as the man to be named
first for greatness of character in the nineteenth century,
not any statesman or soldier or man of letters, but Dr.
Thomas Arnold of Rugby. We need in India to think
more worthily of schools and schoolmasters. The great
present hope for higher education lies in such a raising
of high schools in tone, in organization, in equipment as
would not only set university education on sound
foundations, but would also make the schools themselves
a real training ground for life. This is not a fantastic or
problematic undertaking, but something definitely attain-
able at no long-distant time. Several causes combine to
make the present time propitious and the outlook hope-
ful. First there are the influences of university reform,
what has already been achieved, and what is in process
of achievement. Secondly there is the influence of train-
ing colleges.

The Resolution of 1887 ^ pressed strongly the need of
more serious attention to the training of teachers. " No
money," it is said, " is better spent than that allotted to
the support of efficient training schools and colleges for
teachers, and money is not well spent if granted to
schools presided over by untrained and incompetent
teachers, in which discipline and moral training are
relegated to a secondary place. The Governor-General
in Council is of opinion that in the truest interests of
education the cost of providing thoroughly good training
' See below, p. 81.

72 ED UCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

schools and colleges for teachers of English as well as of
vernacular schools should be regarded as a first charge
on the educational grant and that any province which is
now unprovided with institutions suitable for the effectual
training of the various classes of teachers required should
take measures by retrenchment, if necessary, to establish
the requisite training institutions." The Commission of
1882 had been content to record the fact that only in
Madras was there a separate training college for English
teachers. The last few years have seen a great change,
and finally, Bengal and Eastern Bengal, following the
example of Bombay, have founded colleges in which
training for high school work is being carried on with
strenuous purpose. If the training colleges are animated
with the right spirit, they will send out year by year to
high schools throughout the two provinces teachers
inspired with high ideals, instructed in the practice of
methods capable of revolutionizing the whole system of
secondary education. Not least of these is a method of
teaching English which has life in it and a potential
development of which the full measure. has not yet been
taken. This is the third great ground of hopefulness.
The method of teaching English has been so unspeakably
bad in the past that the assured hope of better methods
excites the most lively anticipation of an improvement in
the acquisition of EngHsh out of all proportion to any-
thing hitherto experienced. Such better methods there
are, capable of making the acquisition of English a living,
not a dead, process, whether they are called by a technical
name, or regarded as merely a commonsense development
of methods in use from the beginning of language learn-
ing. There is a consensus of evidence that, wherever it
has been tried, the Direct Method produces results that
may fairly be called astonishing, giving in two or three

HIGH ENGLISH SCHOOLS 73

years a practical and real command of English, which is
not usually acquired in twice as many years of laborious
study with grammars and text-books only. If all those
favouring circumstances are now taken advantage of,
there is assured expectation of a surprising improvement
in Matriculation English in five or six years' time. The
ultimate increase of efficiency might be estimated at two
or three hundred per cent. : the labour-saving and time-
saving might be reckoned in years. For the fulfilment
of these hopes what is required is that the effort for the
improvement of high school education should not be
slackened. Fresh effort must be put forth. The
completion of the reform movement of 1901-1906
requires a more thorough sifting and a stronger subven-
tion of high schools than any that has so far been under-
taken. Higher education can only be securely built up
in the colleges when year by year the foundations are
better laid in the schools.

XI

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

The critics of State education in India are never weary
of pointing out that its fatal defect is the absence of any
moral and religious basis. Among those who say this
are many whose attitude to educational effort in India is
unquestionably friendly. Thus the Times correspondent,
though guarded and moderate in finding fault, speaks of
" the careless diffusion of an artificial system of educa-
tion based none too firmly on mere intellectualism, and
bereft of all moral and religious sanction." ^ Mr. S. M.
Mitra, another discerning critic of its weak points, says :
" Knowledge has been pursued without any regard for
training in the moral virtues or in the development of
character." * Now these and all similar criticisms,
friendly or otherwise, must be admitted to have this
much justification that all of us are agreed that the
strengthening of character is the most important side of
education, and that as yet we are far from satisfied with
the degree of certainty we can feel that the education
being given in India is effective in shaping character
rightly. Yet these criticisms, like all the wise things
that have been said about the moral and religious side
of education since education was spoken of at all in

» Chirol, " Indian Unrest," p. 322.

^ S. C. Mitra, " Indian Problems," with an Introduction by Sir
George Birdwood (Murray, 1908), p. 29.

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 7$

India, remain mere words, until it has been shown prac-
tically how effect is to be given to this desire to give
education in India a stronger moral foundation. For, in
point of fact, admirable things have been reiterated about
the importance of this side of education since quite the
early days. Even when Charles Grant in 1797, before
ever there was any State education at all, put forward
his scheme for spreading the light of knowledge through
India by means of English, the aim which he put first
was moral improvement on the most comprehensive scale.
" We now proceed," he writes, ** to the main object of
this work — for the sake of which all the preceding topics
and discussions have been brought forward— an inquiry
into the means of remedying disorders which have become
inveterate in the state of society among our Asiatic sub-
jects, which destroy their happiness and obstruct every
species of improvement among them." He lays stress
in particular on the effects of seeing " a pure, complete,
and perfect system of morals and of duty enforced by
the most awful sanctions and recommended by the most
interesting motives." Moral improvement is equally
suggested by Lord Minto in 1811 as a reason for the
restoration of Oriental learning. " Little doubt can be
entertained," says the resolution, " that the prevalence
of the crimes of perjury and forgery so frequently noticed
in the official records, is in great measure ascribable,
both in Mahomedans and Hindus, to the want of instruc-
tion in the moral and religious tenets of their respective
faiths. It has been even suggested, and apparently not
without foundation, that to this uncultivated state of the
minds of the natives is in a great degree to be ascribed
the prevalence of those crimes which were recently a
scourge to the country."

The primary object of the foundation of the Hindu

76 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

College was no doubt to impart knowledge, the new
knowledge of the West, which gave to Western nations
their extraordinary superiority in the practical concerns
of life. But David Hare was one of its first founders,
and his connection with the college was undoubtedly
moral in its nature. The close personal influence of
such a man while he lived (he died in 1842) could not
be without its effects. Indeed, its effects are living and
visible to the present day in that cult of his memory
which leads Hindus, alien in race and religion, to meet
together on the anniversary of his death to do honour to
his virtues and keep green the remembrance of his bene-
factions. Gratitude is a moral quality, and in this
instance it has survived death.

No doubt also Macaulay's enthusiasm is for " intel-
lectual improvement ; " and his faith is that the way of
improvement lies through the learning of English and
the study of European literature. But it would be
unfair to suppose that this zeal for pure knowledge and
the impetus to educational effort which followed it are
divorced from moral ideas. They were, on the contrary,
inspired by an essentially moral idea, the idea of a
general elevation in civilization. All that may fairly be
said in criticism of Macaulay's standpoint is that it was
too easily assumed that more accurate knowledge would
necessarily bring with it moral improvement and hap-
pLuess. Yet there was definite moral instruction in
Government institutions under the auspices of the General
Committee after 1840. In that year Mr. Cameron,
then a member of the committee, and from 1842 to
1847 its President, wrote in a Minute on the import-
ance of moral training : " In most countries morality is
taught as part of religion. Here we are prevented by
the circumstances of the country from teaching morality

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION yj

in that manner. It is, therefore, more incumbent than
upon other ministries of publio instruction to teach
morality in the form of Moral Philosophy." In 1851
Mr. J. F. Thomas, one of the members of the Madras
Council of education in a Minute criticizing sharply on
many points the existing system, drew special attention
to the very want of effective moral education which
is fastened upon to-day. " Education without moral
culture," he wrote, " is probably as often injurious as
beneficial to society ; and at all events a system like that
at present in force, which to a great degree overlooks
this point, and which makes little or no provision for
this most essential part of education, is so radically
defective that I feel satisfied that although it may be
upheld for a time under special and pecuHar circum-
stances, it must in the end fail, and I hold that unless it
can be shown that the people of this Presidency are
opposed to receiving moral instruction, combined with
intellectual, there is no ground for this palpable practical
omission in the existing system."

There is no paragraph of the Despatch of 1854
directly bearing on the subject of moral education, but
an earlier letter is quoted in support of the encourage-
ment of education as calculated " not only to produce a
higher degree of intellectual fitness, but to raise the
moral character of those who partake of its advantages ; "
and a valuable testimony is later given to the actual
efficacy of education in producing such effects. The
Directors say : " We are sanguine enough to believe that
some effect has already been produced by the improved
education of the public service in India. The ability and
integrity of a large and increasing number of the native
judges, to whom the greater part of the civil jurisdiction
in India is now committed, and the high estimation in

78 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

which many among them are held by their fellow-coun-
trymen is, in our opinion, much to be attributed to the
progress of education among these officers, and to their
adoption along with it of that high moral tone which
pervades the general literature of Europe."

The preamble to the Act constituting the universities
in January, 1857, says nothing of moral education. The
model of the Universities of Calcutta, Madras, and
Bombay was the London University, their declared aim
was the test of proficiency in study and the affihated
colleges were non-residential. The method of education
in the colleges, however, was what it had been before the
establishment of universities, and what had been said in
1851 about moral education by the first historian of
education in Bengal, Mr. J. Kerr, held good: "What-
ever enlarges the mind or refines the taste, tends to
improve character. All the studies of our colleges have
thus, in a greater or less degree, the effect that is aimed
at in a systematic treatise on moral science. If our
students remain stunted in moral growth, it is not for
want of instruction, which is imparted largely and in
most attractive and impressive forms.

The Education Commission of 1882 devoted separate
sections to moral and religious training. Their pre-
liminary remarks on the former settle once for all the
limits of discussion : " The subject of moral training in
colleges is replete with difficulties — difficulties, however,
that are mainly practical. For there is no difference of
opinion as to moral training being as necessary as intel-
lectual or physical training, and no dissent from the
principle that a system in which moral training was
wholly neglected would be unworthy of the name of
education. Nor, again, is there any difference of opinion
as to the moral value of the love of law and order, of the

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 79

respect for superiors, of the obedience, regularity, and
attendance to duty which every well-conducted college is
calculated to promote. All these have, by the nearly
universal consent of the witnesses, done a great deal to
elevate the moral tone and improve the daily practice of
the great bulk of those who have been trained in the
colleges of India. The degree in which different colleges
have exerted a moral influence of this kind is probably
as various as the degree of success that has attended the
intellectual training given in them and has doubtless
been different in all colleges at different times, depend-
ing as it does on the character and personal influence of
the Principal and Professors who may form the staff at
any given period. So far all the witnesses, and probably
all intelligent men, are substantially agreed. Difficulties
begin when the question is raised whether good can be
done by distinct moral teaching over and above the
moral supervision which all admit to be good and useful,
and which all desire to see made more thorough than it
is at present." After a careful review of the conflicting
opinions and practice, the Commission made two recom-
mendations on the subject of direct moral instruction :
(1) That an attempt be made to prepare a moral text-
book based upon the fundamental principles of natural
religion, such as may be taught in all Government and
non-Government Colleges. (2) That the Principal or
one of the Professors in each Government or Aided
College deliver to each of the College classes in every
session a series of lectures on the duties of a man and a
citizen.

These recommendations did not win the acceptance
either of the Local or of the Supreme Government and
have remained a dead letter. Some arguments used by
the Commission in their report go far to remove any

8o EDUCA TION AND ST A TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

regret that might be felt on this account. They say :
" In all colleges and under all courses of instruction the
most effective moral training consists in inculcating
habits of order, diligence, truthfulness, and due self-
respect combined with submission to authority, all of
which lessons a good teacher finds useful opportunities
of imparting. The formation of such habits is promoted
by the study of the lives and actions of great men, such
as the student finds in the course of his English reading ;
and it may be hoped, by the silent influence upon his
character of constant intercourse with teachers, whom
he is able to regard with respect and affection. Nor,
again, is there reason to believe that collegiate education
of the present type has any injurious effect upon the life
and character of students. On the contrary, the nearly
unanimous testimony of those who have had the best
opportunities of observing goes to show that in integrity,
in self-respect, in stability of purpose, and generally in
those soUd qualities which constitute an honourable and
useful character, the University graduate is generally
superior to those who have not enjoyed the advantages
which college training confers."

As regards direct religious teaching the Commission
of 1882 report with no uncertain voice its impracticabiUty.
Government institutions cannot undertake such teaching
owing to Government's declared policy of religious neu-
trality. The Commission weigh carefully the complaints
that have been made of the demoralizing influence of the
exclusion of religion. They consider the remedy proposed
" that Government should employ teachers of all prevalent
forms of rehgion to give instruction in its colleges, or
should at least give such teachers admission to its colleges
if their services are provided by outside bodies." They
conclude: "We are unable to recommend any plan of

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 8 1

this kind." However praiseworthy the feelings that
underlie such a proposal, " we are satisfied that no such
scheme can be reduced to practice in the present state of
Indian society."

It cannot be said that the subject of moral education
has been neglected. If anything is wanting it is supplied
by a resolution of the Government of India in 1887
directed wholly to enforcing the necessity of careful
attention to school and college discipline. " The question
of discipline in schools and colleges," it premises, " does
not seem to have hitherto received any comprehensive
consideration apart from the discussion of the subject
by the Education Commission ; " and it acknowledges
that " the growth of tendencies unfavourable to discipHne
and favourable to irreverence has accompanied the general
extension of education." It advocates the firm mainten-
ance of discipUne in Indian schools and colleges, based
on the standard recognized in the highest schools and
colleges in England which nowadays does not err on the
side of severity. It then deals at length with the problem
of discipline in schools, discerningly pointing out that,
if right habits of discipline are formed in schools, the
problem of collegiate discipline is materially simplified.
Among the suggestions for schools are the introduction
of the monitorial system, the building of boarding-houses,
well-defined rules ; and the value of training for teachers
is especially insisted on. For colleges the su gestions
are of weekly college meetings and recognized disciplinary
powers (fines, suspension, rustication, expulsion) for both
Principals and Professors. The value of the encourage-
ment of physical exercise is emphasized, and teaching
having a direct bearing upon conduct is recommended.
The resolution concludes with an emphatic affirmation
of the importance of the subject. " In conclusion I am

G

82 ED UCA TION AND ST A TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

to commend the whole subject to early and careful atten-
tion, for the importance of the considerations thus
brought to notice cannot be exaggerated. The true
interests of' education are bound up with the solution of
the problems now touched upon."

It would appear from all this that the importance of
the moral side of education has by no means been over-
looked in the sixty years that have passed since the
despatch of 1854 formally adopted English education.
If, as we have seen, there has been a steadily deepen-
ing sense of responsibility for the moral side of education
in the policy of the Government of India, as evidenced
by authoritative documents, and yet well-meant criticism
continues to show that we have little ground to con-
gratulate ourselves on the success achieved, the cause
of failure must be sought otherwhere than in want of
attention to the subject. A suspicion may take shape
that the impediment lies in the nature of the task
attempted. The education of character, which is pre-
sumably what is meant by moral education, is something
very deep-lying, and depends on a number of factors of
which school life is only one. Now it is not very difficult
to put together a number of common-places on the im-
portance of moral education. It may in some circum-
stances be exceedingly difficult to turn precept into
practice. The thing to be done is so to train boys that
they may grow up to be manly, truth -loving, courageous,
law-abiding, with just notions of self-respect and of what
is due to others. It is by no means easy anywhere to
bring this to pass through the daily routine work of
school and college, and in India there are hindrances of
a very baffling nature. In any case the burden is laid
upon the professed teacher in school and college. He
it is who must bear the responsibility and do the work,

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 83

if it can be done. It may be well then to listen to the
comments of one whose profession is education on the
last and most pointed government utterance on the sub-
ject, the very judicious circular of 1887.

" I would respectfully beg leave to say a word or two
with respect to the causal connection assumed in the
letter of the Government of India to exist between the
education imparted in our schools and colleges, and
' the growth of tendencies unfavourable to discipline and
favourable to irreverence in the rising generation.' No
one could be more sensible than I am of the imperfec-
tions of our educational system, but I cannot believe that
schools and colleges have been largely instrumental in
bringing about the state of things complained of. I
consider, on the contrary, that we teachers have cause
to complain that the tone of our schools has been pre-
judicially affected by the tendencies unfavourable to
authority invading them from without . . . Indian
society is breathing the same social and political atmo-
sphere as all other civilized communities — an atmosphere
which happens at present to be deficient in reverence
for authority and in willingness to submit to it. Are
the seeds of these tendencies sown in our schools and
colleges and fostered and made to fructify there? I
think not. Beyond what naturally follows from that
emancipation of thought which is one of the first-fruits
of a liberal education everywhere, I do not believe that
the system of education pursued in India has had any
hand in fostering 'the growth of tendencies unfavour-
able to discipline and favourable to irreverence.' My
contentions that these tendencies belong to the world
that lies outside our schools and colleges, that they
colour the thoughts and feelings and aspirations of the
grown-up generation, and that from this outside world

84 ED UCA TION AND ST A TESMA NSHIP IN INDIA

they invade our schools and infect our pupils — these
contentions are borne out by the two following considera-
tions : first, that it was not till after the political and
racial excitement of recent years had spread throughout
India that the youth attending schools and colleges
showed signs of turbulence and insubordination; and
secondly, that these tendencies were practically confined
to those provinces in the north of India where political
and racial feelings were most bitter. In the Madras
Presidency, where the feelings never ran very high, our
educational institutions have hitherto enjoyed an almost
absolute immunity from such disturbances ; and to the
honour of the students of this college, be it said, there
has not, during the eighteen years I have been connected
with them, been any other disposition manifested than
that of cheerful and loyal obedience to the rules of the
institution."

This commentary shows the whole question of the
relation of the political and educational movements in
a new aspect. Is it possible that cause and effect are
being confused, when education is blamed, and that it
is not the educational system which has produced
political disaffection, but disaffection towards the existing
order, otherwise generated, has first produced its effects
in society at large, then invaded and injuriously affected
the educational system. The relations of cause and
effect are in a complicated material hard to disentangle,
and where interaction is a necessary factor in the
problem, mistake as to the ultimate causation is easily
made. But the question here is not of the causes of
" unrest," but of the means of improving the moral in-
fluence of education. The writer of the memorandum
from which the above quotation is made was Dr. Duncan,
at the time Principal of the Presidency College, Madras,

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 85

and afterwards for many years Director of Public In-
struction in the Madras Presidency. His opinion in the
matter is entitled to great weight, and what he further
says on the subject may help to determine just con-
clusions on the difficult question of moral and religious
education in Indian colleges and schools. Judgment of
what has been done in the past and of what may be
better done in the future depends closely on just con-
clusions as to what is possible.

I will take first the question of religious education.
When I see religious education seriously advocated as
the basis of morality in Indian schools and colleges, I
wonder if those who advocate it have any clear ideas as
to what they mean. Which religion? In India there
are many religions. " Have there not been, are there
not religious beliefs utterly antagonistic to genuine
morality? In spite of this people speak and write as
if the problem of moral education would be solved were
rehgious instruction provided for the young ! It surely
ought to be recognized that everything wiU depend on
the moral character of the religious behefs inculcated.
No one would recommend the teaching of any and every
religious dogma in Indian schools ; and untU such beliefs
as may on moral grounds be taught, are separated from
such as may not be taught, the question of religious
instruction must remain one on which no practical policy
can be adopted." Dr. Duncan wrote thus in 1888. Now
twenty years later the voices protesting the inadequacy
of secular education and the indispensable necessity of
religious education are many and powerful. Sir Andrew
Eraser writes in October last in the Nineteenth Century
"we want a higher type of education, a system that
recognizes the moral and religious side of a man's train-
ing as well as the intellectual and physical." " The

S6 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

genius of Indian thought, the demands of Indian parents,
the strong representation of Indian chiefs are all in
favour of religious education." ^ Bishop Welldon, who
knows a little of India and much of education, is re-
ported a few weeks ago as declaring that he held with
an intensity of conviction which it was difficult to express
" that secular education, wherever it was given, and by
whomsoever it was given, was a lamentable failure."
If one is seriously desirous of amending what is
amiss with the educational system in India such utter-
ances as these must give him pause. There is also
something plausible and persuasive in the argument,
especially when it follows on the failure, or assumed
failure, of moral education without religion. Still one
does not readily, perhaps, shake oneself free of the old
prepossession that religious teaching is impossible in
conjunction with modern education in India, which
seemed so short a while ago a maxim universally
accepted. At any rate we are entitled to inquire by
what particular instrumentality it is to be done; done
rightly; and done safely. For we have been apt to
look upon religion in India as somewhat like a powder
magazine, to be approached cautiously. Certainly there
are difficulties. Illustrations quite remote from India
will help to their clearer apprehension. Could we be
content to found our school morality on the worship of
Thor and Odin, of Hela and the Valkyries ? Could we
cheerfully revive in our colleges the many coloured
polytheism of Greece and Rome? We should acknow-
ledge there were elements of good in the rehgion of
Hellas. There were also evil elements against which
Plato and the philosophers inveighed before ever the

^ " Indian Unrest," by Sir Andrew Fraser. Nineteenth Century for
October, 1910, p. 753.

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 87

zeal of the early Christians turned the gods of Greece
into demons. There was the worship of Dionysus and
Aphrodite as well as of Apollo and of Pallas Athene.
In some cults human sacrifice survived. The thief, the
murderer, and the adulterer all found their patron deity
to pray to. In India, too, there are many and divers
cults, and there is at all events danger of reviving re-
ligious cults in favour of evil morals rather than good.
The problem is too hard for us. We take refuge in
toleration. We tolerate all religions in colleges, so long
as they do not actively propagate crime: we give free
opportunity to religious teachers outside the guarded
sphere of scholastic training. We do not actively assist
religious teaching within it, because we are debarred
from exercising any discrimination as to what we judge
good or ill. We cannot secure that only the good shall
come in : so we think it safer to admit none at all.

There is a practical difficulty remaining also, if we
should determine to make the experiment of aiding and
abetting direct religious instruction. So far as colleges
were intended to represent one religion only, like the
Sanskrit College or Alighar, there would not be (as there
is not now) any difficulty. But it is not practicable,
even were it desirable, to make all schools and colleges
sectarian. How can religious teaching be introduced, if
the school or college authorities do not themselves take
the responsibility for it? Only by admitting teachers
from outside. This, however, gives rise to an objection
which to the man who works in school or college is
probably decisive : it would be to introduce rival authori-
ties into college and school, the educational and the re-
ligious. There would be too great apprehension that this
rival authority might undermine discipline for the
teacher ever to acquiesce in it with an easy mind.

88 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

It is not possible to discuss the subject exhaustively,
and more might doubtless be said on both sides. The
balance appears to the present writer to be decisively
against the expediency of making a radical change in
the poHcy hitherto followed by the Government of India
in regard to religious education.

It remains, then, that our education of character, so
far as schools and colleges are concerned, must be inde-
pendent of a specially religious basis. This does not,
however, at all necessarily mean that it is cut off from
all appeal to what is most morally persuasive in religion.
The true essence of belief, as far as morals are concerned,
is that God is on the side of righteousness. This it is
which gives effective power to religion as a motive to
morality. The appeal to this fundamental faith is not
denied to the teacher on a purely secular basis of educa-
tion. This beUef involves no theological dogma and
offends no religious susceptibilities. The appeal is,
therefore, always within the secular teacher's dis-
cretion.

For the rest our task must be to make the best of
the ordinary means of moral education : and the only
practical question here is whether any means have been
overlooked which might be employed ; is there anything
more which might be done now ? " Morality," Dr.
Duncan well says, " must be taught in schools in the
way in which it is taught at home, and in the social life
of the young. Morality cannot be taught as a branch
of knowledge forming part of the school curriculum, nor
is a special text-book the best means of inculcating it.
That danger of neglecting the spirit for the letter, which
has to be particularly guarded against, when text-books
are used in teaching the ordinary branches of knowledge,
would be much more menacing were the attempt made

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 89

to teach morality through a specially prepared text-
book." This is well said and decisive against one of
the two practical suggestions of the Commission of 1882.
The second was for series of lectures on the duties of a
man and a citizen. Now it is very certain that college
addresses by the principal of a college to the college as
a whole are very necessary as an incentive and support
of the corporate life of a college. They should, however,
deal with the duties of the members of a collegiate society
rather than duties of members of the community in a
wider sense. Such addresses should be made to students
as students of the college (and of that college in par-
ticular), and should bear closely on the particular and
present circumstances of life in the college. They should,
in a broad sense, be lay sermons. A principal who is
not full to overflowing with thoughts for such addresses
can have very imperfectly realized the obligations and
privileges of his position. If in particular cases, and for
exceptional reasons, a principal feels unable to take on
himself this responsibility, he may delegate the function
to such members of the college staff as are fitted to
discharge it. There is some loss of efficacy if the head
of the college speaks by deputy, but the essential point
is that there should be regular addresses, and that these
addresses should concern themselves with the students'
present surroundings and responsibilities. If the student
learns aright the lesson of his duties as a student, there
will be no question later on as to his recognition of what
is due from him as a man and a citizen. Addresses need
not be very frequent, better not. Once or twice in a year
should suffice; but there can be no hard-and-fast line
drawn in the matter. Along with such direct and solemn
incentives to right doing, the most potent instrument of
moral education is, undoubtedly, good rules of discipline.

90 EDUCA TION AND ST A TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

considerately imposed and firmly enforced. The habit
of obedience to rule has formal value in itself; willing
obedience to good rules with a recognition that they are
good is moral education of the most effective kind. In
the main character must be formed by action ; right
actions from right motives trained into virtuous habits.
As Dr. Duncan writes : — " Practical morality is an art
which is learnt like every other art, solely by doing
moral actions." Hence the preponderant value of well-
regulated school and college discipline. Yet even that
cannot be fully efficacious of itself. So much depends
also on the nature which the pupil brings for school
discipline to mould and on the influences of his other
surroundings, his earliest associations, his out-of-sehool
companions, his home. These things cannot be regu-
lated by the teacher : they lie almost absolutely outside
the reach of his influence ; and these outside influences
are by no means always favourable. All the more
pressing is his responsibility and the need for increas-
ing the efficacy of moral teaching in the school.

Undoubtedly the most important factor of all is the
character of the teacher himself. And here again
Government policy has not failed, but is on the right
lines. "The Government of India," says Dr. Duncan,
" have rightly given the foremost place among their
recommendations to the employment of trained teachers
and the provision of efficient training schools " ; and he
is able to point with satisfaction to the attention which
had already at that date been paid to the subject in
Madras. Bengal, on the other hand, has lagged behind
and is endeavouring with the happiest promise to make
up ground now. The extreme importance of right
selection of teachers in every grade, and especially in
the highest, is not yet sufficiently recognized, at any

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 9 1

rate not sufficiently provided for. In the matter of
discipline also the support the teacher may count on
getting might be made more assured. The enforcement
of judicious rules is, as has been said, the chief educa-
tional instrument. There must be no doubt that the
fearless enforcement of discipline by the teacher will
receive support, if support is needed. This has not
always been sufficiently well assured in the past. If
these two things are better done: (1) unsparing eifort
made to secure that teachers shall be men of high
character; (2) due provision made for establishing and
maintaining sound discipline. Government will have
done all that is at present possible for moral education.
No radical change of policy is called for ; only the better
and more efficient carrying out of the policy long since
adopted.

xn

MASS EDUCATION

There can be no doubt that the Despatch of 1854 con-
templated a general extension of popular education, and
desired in particular to bring education to those classes
" who are utterly incapable of obtaining any education
worthy of the name by their own unaided efforts." But
when the Commission of 1882 flatly recommended " That
primary education be declared to be that part of the whole
system of Public Instruction which possesses an almost
exclusive claim on local funds set apart for educa-
tion and a large claim on provincial revenues," they
went far beyond anything in the Despatch of 1854.
In the Despatch of 1854 it will be found that primary
and secondary schools are dealt with together in the
same paragraphs as parts of the one problem of popular
education. " Schools — whose objects should be not to
train a few youths but to provide more opportunities
than now exist for the acquisition of such an improved
education as will make those who possess it more useful
members of society in every condition of life — should
exist in every district in India. ..." " We include in
this class of institutions those which, like the Zillah
Schools of Bengal, the district Government Anglo-
Vernacular Schools of Bombay, and such as have been
established by the Raja of Burdwan and other native

MASS EDI/CATION 93

gentlemen in different parts of India, use the English
language as the chief medium of instruction ; as well as
others of an inferior order, such as the Tahsili schools in
the North-West Provinces, and the Government Verna-
cular schools in the Bombay Presidency. . . ." " Lastly,
what have been called indigenous schools should by wise
encouragement ... be made capable of imparting correct
elementary knowledge to the great mass of the people."
All classes of schools were to be encouraged by the new
system of grants-in-aid, and it is specifically laid down
that grants should as a general principle " be made to
such schools ... as require some fee, however small,
from their scholars." The Commission of 1882 still
contemplated the levying of fees in aided schools as a
general rule, but advocated the admission of free students
on the ground of poverty and " a general or larger
exemption in the case of special schools established for
the benefit of poorer classes."

The overwhelming verity in respect of primary educa-
tion is the immense scale of the problem. In 1885 Sir
C. P. Ilbert, after recalling the great advance between
1853 and 1882, adds : " And yet, after all these figures
the stern fact remains that education has succeeded in
reaching only some ten per cent, of the male population
of India and has scarcely reached the female population
at all." His conclusion is : " The task of the futm'e is
gigantic but not impracticable." A quarter of a century
has passed since he wrote, and the latest statistics avail-
able show that whereas the total number of boys who
should be at school in primary schools proportionately to
the population of India is eighteen millions, the number
actually at school is rather over three and a half millions,
or a fifth of the whole. The actual total for 1885 is
somewhat under two milHons and a half, so that the

94 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

advance of twenty-five years is one million two hundred
thousand. The figure for male literacy by the census of
1901 is 102 per thousand, or practically still 10 per cent.
It cannot be contended that these facts and figures afford
much ground for satisfaction.

The resolution of March the 11th, 1904, the latest
formal statement of the Government of India's educa-
tional policy, reaffirms the great need of primary education
and acknowledges the obligation for more attention to it.
The conclusion to which Government is brought in Sec-
tion 18 is '* that primary education has hitherto received
insufficient attention and an inadequate share of the public
funds. They consider that it possesses a strong claim
upon the sympathy of the Supreme Government and of
the Local Government, and should be made a leading
charge upon Provincial revenues ; and that in those
provinces where it is in a backward condition, its en-
couragement should be a primary obligation." As regards
aims and policy, then, there has been consistency of
statement and a growth in the intensive perception of
the responsibility involved from 1854 ,to 1904. But re-
cognition of the greatness of the problem and affirmation
of the duty of accepting responsibility for it, though
valuable as incitements to effort, leave things just as
they were, until words and intentions take shape in
action. What action has been taken ? 'V\Tiat action is
possible ? These are the practical problems. Something
has been done since 1901. Primary education had a
share in the Imperial grant of 40 lakhs to education in
1902. Thirty-five lakhs have been given exclusively to
primary education from Imperial revenues since 1905.
Between 1902 and 1907 schools have increased by 10,700 ;
scholars by 622,000. This is something substantial, and
all the more significant that progress between 1892 and

MASS EDUCATION 95

1902 is hardly appreciable. But this half million or
so of boys is itself but a small fraction compared with
fourteen million still to be reached. Mr. Orange says :
" If the number of boys at school continued to increase
even at the rate of increase that has taken place in the
last five years, and there were no increase of population,
several generations would still elapse before primary
education can be universally diffused." In face of the
vast area of the problem still untouched, the contrast
between what has been done and the doctrine of free
compulsory education is grotesque. On any plain read-
ing of facts and possibilities compulsory education is
beyond the horizon and free education on any compre-
hensive scale of doubtful expediency. The reasons why
beyond a certain point, which possibly has already been
almost reached, the extension of popular education must
of necessity be increasingly difficult, were cogently stated
by Mr. Nathan in the review of 1902. " The main
cause," he writes, " is no doubt that numerical progress
must be made downwards, and that every step down is
attended by greater and greater difficulty and expense.
When the Education Departments began to devote their
attention to the general furtherance of primary instruc-
tion, they had in the first place to deal with a portion
of the population who were accustomed to and valued
education and who lived in populous and easily accessible
parts of the country ; and they were aided by a more or
less widespread system of indigenous schools. In such
circumstances progress was comparatively easy. These
favourable conditions have now been to a great extent ex-
hausted, and the portion of the problem which remains to
be dealt with is far harder. The benefits of education have
now to be conveyed to the poorer raiyats, the lower castes
and the wilder tribes who have from time immemorial

96 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

lived without instruction. ... In many cases the
illiterate portion of the population lives in scattered
villages and in parts of the country in which the means
of communication are still indifferent. To establish small
schools in such localities for an indifferent or unwilling
population cannot fail to be a difficult and expensive
task." There is obviously a just perception of hard
realities in this statement of causes, though it is far from
excluding a large, a very large, practical demand for new
schools if only money were forthcoming. But not only
has the area over which primary education has still to
spread to be considered, but, unless all the lessons of the
past are to go for nothing, the quality of primary educa-
tion has to be well considered also before any forward
movement on an extraordinary scale is further planned.
Several considerations offer here; and while signs of
good comfort are not wanting, there is much which calls
for deliberation and caution. School buildings have to
be considered, equipment, plans of education and, above
all, teachers. On lall these heads, and especially the
last, there is much to give the "impatient idealist"
pause. No great forward movement is practicable with-
out a greatly reinforced army of teachers; no forward
movement will be of real avail without an army of trained
teachers. Efforts are being made to train teachers in
every province of the Empire, and considerable success
is being achieved. But what has been done does not by
a long interval suffice for the adequate officering of the
schools which already exist; there is no great reserve
from which battalions for fresh conquests can be drawn.
Long continued and ever more determined effort is
needed and the lapse of many years before there can
by any possibility be a multitude of duly trained teachers
to be sent forth to occupy new territories. If there is

MASS EDUCATION 97

one point clearly brought out by the last quinquennial
review, by the Resolution of 1904, by provincial reports
on public instruction since 1907, especially those for
Bengal, it is the inadequate payment of primary school
teachers and the imperative necessity of making the
teacher's livelihood better and better assured, if there is
to be any advance of popular education worth the name.
This is the consideration of dominant importance,
and to this, if the intention to throw greater energy into
the organization and spread of primary education is real,
attention must be paid in the first place— even before the
provision of training schools, absolutely essential as the
training of teachers is to success. It is known that in
Bengal at all events the agency for training elementary
teachers, inadequate as it is, has already outgrown the
effective demand which the actual prospects of teachers
make on the pupils of training schools. Inspectors report
that too frequently teachers are trained at public expense
in guru-training schools and then betake themselves to
callings less ill-remunerated than that of the village
schoolmaster. This question of the provision of qualified
teachers is so much the most important that all other
requirements of primary education sink into insignifi-
cance compared with it. And yet the provision of schools
and of suitable equipment for schools are problems of
great scale and some difficulty. In the planning of
suitable courses of instruction great progress has been
made, and this is the most promising factor in the
problem. Common sense has at last effected the adop-
tion of courses which have a practical and intimate
relation to the life of the classes for whose benefit they
are instituted. There is great hope here. When the
teachers are added to the courses of instruction, the most
important conditions will have been secured for a great

H

98 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

and memorable advance, which will only then be further
limited by the extent to which Imperial and local funds
can be provided.

There is not and cannot be any question of cheeking
any effort which the new Department or Local Govern-
ments may make in the immediate future for the im-
provement and expansion of mass education. Only out
of the experience of the past fifty years certain lessons
should be laid to heart, and these prescribe caution.
Two cautions in particular would seem to be timely.
One is not to let go any vantage that has accrued from
educational effort since 1857, and, in particular, the
gains, at present insecure and only beginning to be
realized, of the educational movement from 1901 to 1906.
The other is less welcome to a sincere faith in the efficacy
of education and in the grandeur of the design outlined
by the authors of the Despatch of 1854 and of the other
great documents which define the policy of the Govern-
ment of India, but none the less necessary to state. It
is this. The success of the great expansion of higher
education since 1857, and more specially since 1882,
though not in the main to be doubted, is not in all
aspects so clear and undoubted that we can go on light-
heartedly to take in hand a problem of far vaster magni-
tude and of potentialities even more deeply hidden from
our ken. Some of the results of higher education have
been unanticipated and have taken its well-wishers by
surprise. We did not know what the economic results
of higher education would be ; we did not know what the
political results would be. Are we sure we can gauge all
the consequences of universal mass education, and that,
if we could, we should welcome them all? English
education had surprises in store alike for pedagogue and
statesman. Is it possible that universal popular education

MASS EDUCATION 99

might have some also? There is reason for greatly
enhanced effort. There is reason for hopefulness and
enthusiasm and zeal. There is justification for all and
more than all that the new Department and all the Local
Governments can do. But there is reason also for caution
against haste to expand, to see results, to quote statistics.
Nothing useful can be accomplished solely by sweeping
ordinances from headquarters and the announcement of
a grandiose programme. If good is to be done, it will be
done by the quiet effort of myriads of humble workers,
inspired and patiently organized by educational captains.
A chastened recognition of the greatness of the task to
be undertaken and of the insufficiency of the means,
unless by persistent hopefulness and unfaltering zeal
they are multiplied and intensified into adequacy, must
go before any effective advance on the great scale. It
is perseverance and indomitable renewal of effort, steady
and gradually enlarged development of the agencies at
work, that are needed, not any striking new departure.

XIII

THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENTS AND THEIR
WORK

" In the selection of the heads of the educational depart-
ments, the inspectors and other officers, it will be of the
greatest importance to secure the services of persons who
are not only best able from their character, position, and
acquirements, to carry our objects into effect, but who
may command the confidence of the natives of India. It
may, perhaps, be advisable that the first heads of the
Educational Department, as well as some of the inspectors,
should be members of our civil service ; as such appoint-
ments in the first instance would tend to raise the
estimation in which these officers will be held, and to
show the importance we attach to the subject of educa-
tion, and also as amongst them you will probably find the
persons best qualified for the performance of the duty."

In these words the Despatch of 1854 strikes the
right key-note, the paramount importance in education
of selecting the right men. In reviewing the work of
the departments it will be well to give the foremost place
to this aspect of organization, because apart from men
to work it, machinery is of Uttle avail. I shall examine,
then, what steps were originally taken to give effect to
this cardinal principle, and how it has since been safe-
guarded.

WORK OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENTS lOI

The earliest appointed Directors of Public Instruction
in accordance with the suggestion of the despatch were
members of the Indian Civil Service; in Bengal, Mr.
Gordon Young (described by Sir Alexander Arbuthnot in
" Memories of Rugby and India " as a man of imposing
physique ^) ; in Bombay, Mr. J. C. Erskine (a little later
Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University) ; in Madras, Mr.
A. J. Arbuthnot, whose memoirs, published last year,
have just been referred to. But it was not intended to
make education a branch of the existing civil service.
It was eventually to be independently administered by
men specially qualified for educational work. The des-
patch continues : " But we desire that neither these
offices, nor any other connected with education, shall be
considered as necessarily to be filled by members of that
service, to the exclusion of others, Europeans or Natives,
who may be better fitted for them ; and that in any case
the scale of their remuneration shall be so fixed as
publicly to recognize the important duties they will have
to perform." These points are emphasised in a supple-
mentary despatch dated April 7th, 1859. It is added :
" The spirit of the instructions of the Court of Directors
with regard to the classes from whom the officers of the
department were to be selected appears to have been
duly observed. In Bengal, the North-Western Provinces,
Madras, and Bombay, members of the civil service were
in the first instance appointed Directors of Public In-
struction; and the several appointments of Inspectors
were filled indiscriminately by civil servants, military and
medical officers, and individuals unconnected with any of
these services. In the Punjab, the office of Director has

» " The latter (Mr. Gordon Young) was a very agreeable, and, as far
as I could judge, an extremely able man, immensely tall and broad in
proportion," pp. 113, 114.

I02 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

from the first been held by a gentleman who was at the
time of his nomination in the military service, but who
retired from the army immediately on appointment. In
Bombay the first Director, Mr. Erskine, has been suc-
ceeded by a gentleman who was previously a barrister ;
and among the present Inspectors it is believed that
there are not in all the Presidencies more than two or
three members of the civil service."

So far there is no explicit recognition of the fact that
there is, or might be, a distinct educational profession for
which special qualifications and training are required, as
distinct from those of military, medical, and administra-
tive officers, or practising barristers, and that gentlemen
appointed to an Education Department should by pre-
ference have these qualifications; but it seems to be
glanced at later on in this despatch, where it is written :
" After a full consideration of the grounds on which the
Court of Directors formerly gave their sanction as a
temporary arrangement to the employment of covenanted
civil servants in the Department of Education, Her
Majesty's Government are, on the whole, of opinion that
as a general rule all appointments in the Department of
Education should be filled by individuals unconnected
with the service of Government either civil or military.
It is not their wish that officers now in the department
should be disturbed for the sole purpose of carrying out
this rule; and they are aware that difficulty might at
present be experienced in finding well qualified persons,
unconnected with the regular services, to fill vacant
offices in the department. But it is their desire that
the rule now prescribed be kept steadily in view, and
that every encouragement be given to persons of education
to enter the educational service, even in the lower grades,
by making it known that in the nominations to the

WORK OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENTS I03

higher offices in the department preference will hereafter
be given to those who may so enter it, if competent to
discharge the duties." The reasons for this policy are
stated somewhat more trenchantly by Sir G. R. Clerk,
at the time an Under-Secretary of State, in a memorandum
dated March 29, 1858. Among other suggestions and
criticisms he urges it as advisable " To discontinue the
practice of appointing civilians or others properly belong-
ing to the civil or military administration to conduct any
of the departments of education. When so engaged they
are themselves in a transition state. They are looking
for promotion in departments quite unconnected with
education. They are therefore eager for immediate dis-
tinction in the sphere in which they find themselves
temporarily placed."

A separate educational service was accordingly formed
parallel with the Civil, Medical, Opium, Jail, Police,
Customs and other branches of administration under the
several provincial governments. This higher service was
subsequently after reorganization and improvement known
as the Graded Educational Service; and after 1896 as
the Indian Educational Service, and since leadership and
guidance in the actual field of education have necessarily
been committed to the men appointed to this service, the
conditions of service and the quality of the men attracted
to it were matters of the deepest moment. A curious
complication of the problem of selection has been that
in India the education departments have discharged a
function usually performed by distinct agency, the staffing
of colleges doing university work. In Germany university
professors are appointed by Government, and receive their
salaries from the State, but they are not, so far as I am
aware, graded in a list which includes also school in-
spectors. In the United Kingdom the State Education

I04 EDUCATION AND STATESMANSHIP IN INDIA

Department is concerned only with school education, and
for the most part primary school education. The signi-
ficant difference is best brought out by saying that in
England till recently the Education Department had
nothing to do with secondary education, and has com-
paratively little even now, and that it has never had
anything at all to do with university education. In
India collegiate education was an important branch of
the work of the education departments — even the most
important in proportion as the bias since 1835, and still
more since 1857, has lent to the side of university educa-
tion. After 1855 the staffing of Government colleges in
a province was the business of the provincial education
department. Principals and professors of colleges, as
well as inspectors of schools, were recruited for and
graded in a single service. This may not have been
felt as an embarrassment from the beginning; but it
became so as soon as the departmental system came
fully into operation, and questions of promotion and of
transfer from one appointment to another arose. Even
this produced no great inconvenience in the earlier years,
though a professor of Mathematics or Botany might next
year find himself an inspector of schools, or one appointed
for his quahfications in Philosophy or History be required
a little later to teach English literature, because work
was little specialized in the colleges, and it was not till
later that any great importance was attached to special
training to fit the school inspector for his work. When,
however, the work of the colleges became more advanced
with the institution of Honour and M.A. courses of study,
serious inconveniences arose and have become more and
more sensibly felt; and, finally, definite protests have
been raised against them with growing emphasis in the
last twenty years. Also as the studies of the colleges

IVORK OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENTS 105

became more advanced and more specialized, men with
more special qualifications were brought out from time
to time direct from the English universities to teach
Chemistry or Physics, Mathematics or Philosophy,
History or Economics, though it is only quite recently
that the conviction that any Englishman (Scotchman or
Irishman) of moderate education could teach English
literature has begun to give ground. The inconvenience,
when the conditions were fully matured, of combining
in a homogeneous service functions markedly hetero-
geneous, is sufficiently obvious. For an inspector of
schools you want common sense and administrative
capacity coupled with zeal for and belief in education,
and such an intimate knowledge of schools as would
make him thoroughly master of all the details of their
practical organization and working. In a college pro-
fessor you want first and foremost a competent knowledge
of his subject and ability to teach it. A college professor
must be a learned man, and a specialist in a particular
branch of knowledge. In an inspector of schools you
want primarily practical capacity and bodily activity
combined with a good general education. These
differences are well recognized now in Bengal, and the
higher educational service is practically divided into two
branches, the collegiate supplying professors equipped
with special knowledge of literature and science for
colleges; the administrative consisting of divisional in-
spectors of schools. But relics of the anomaly survive,
inasmuch as these two kinds of " officers " are gazetted
in the same list, and there is nothing to prevent an inter-
change of appointments when departmental convenience
suggests it. This confusion of functions may fairly, I
think, be set down as a defect in the organization of
the education departments. It is hardly perhaps to be

I06 EDUCATION AND STATESMANSHIP IN INDIA

called an original mistake, because in the fifties the
difficulties of recruitment were greater, there was little
relevant experience for guidance as to method, and the ill
effects of the confusion were not at once apparent, because,
as I have said, the work was not as yet really specialized,
and one man was within limits equally well-fitted for a
variety of functions. It is a defect now, and has been for
a long time, and it might have been sooner amended. The
same confusion is found in what are now known as the
Provincial Educational Services, and in the subordinate
branches called respectively the Subordinate and Lower
Subordinate Educational Services. In the Provincial
Service are found, as in the Indian Service, principals
and professors of colleges, demonstrators in science,
headmasters and inspectors of schools ; and, in addition,
translators to Government and incumbents of other
anomalous posts. In the Subordinate and Lower Sub-
ordinate Services are graded promiscuously head and
assistant masters, subordinate inspecting officers, gym-
nastic instructors, librarians, members of the various
clerical estabhshments, store-keepers, circle pandits,
master-blacksmiths, and reformatory guards and escort-
ing officers. The suspicion is generated and grows,
whether the departmental system on this comprehensive
scale is suited for educational work, unless at all events
classes of work are first carefully distinguished ; and
stronger suspicion takes definite shape, whether the
departmental system is suitable at all for colleges;
whether a college should not rather be recruited for and
equipped solely ad hoc (as Sir Alexander Grant actually
proposed in 1867) every man in his appointed place and
with his special work, and with distinct and appropriate
prospects in that work. Startling at first as such a pro-
position may be to minds familiar with the departmental

WORK OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENTS 1 07

basis of organization, the impracticability will be found
to dwindle when steadily looked in the face, and may
even fade away altogether when it is remembered that
practically every college in England and most secondary
schools are organized on the rival principle. It is not
suggested that any wide change would be practicable or
expedient, but the drawbacks incidental to a departmental
system might with advantage be recognized, and watched ;
and the endeavour to lessen the disadvantages be con-
sistently maintained.

It now falls to be considered more particularly how
in the recruitment of men for the higher educational
service effect was given in practice to the policy of the
despatch of 1859 to attract to it men specially qualified
for educational work, and so to fix the remuneration
offered as "publicly to recognize the important duties
they will have to perform." It is, however, advisable
to reserve this inquiry for separate treatment.

XIV

THE HIGHER EDUCATIONAL SERVICE

When colleges for more advanced education in English
were first started in India, no little difficulty was natu-
rally experienced in staffing them. They were at first
staffed locally, as we should now say ; that is, the least
unsuitable men who could be found ready at hand were
appointed. Obviously there was no specially literate
class of Englishman in India previous to 1854. Even
the Haileybm*y men, however high their intellectual
capacity, were not academically educated, and were not
pre-eminently scholars. Moreover, as we have seen,
members of the Civil Service were implicitly excluded
by the Despatch of 1854 from the work of the education
departments after the first few years, and I am not aware
that a single member of that service was ever a college
principal or professor.

From what material, then, could selection be made ?
An examination of the earliest appointments will show.
It will show also that if there was ever a qualified
teacher among them it was by accident.

At the Hindu College the teaching staff was origi-
nally Indian, but one of the two secretaries was a
European " appointed for the special purpose of super-
intending the English department." The suggestion
that it might be necessary to bring teachers from
England appears first in 1823 in connection with the

THE HIGHER EDUCATIONAL SERVICE 109

teaching of natural science, or, as it was then called,
natural philosophy. Five hundred pounds was spoken
of as " the lowest sum likely to attract a well-qualified
individual to India." The General Committee com-
mented in 1825 on the want of well-qualified instructors :
" In order to afford to the students of the Hindu College
that full and comprehensive instruction that was de-
sirable, persons duly qualified for the office must be
brought from England." "The General Committee
considered it of importance that' those gentlemen who
might be brought out from England should have received
a Collegiate education ; that they should be laymen, so
as to afford no possible ground for misinterpreting the
motives of Government; and that they should be
persons of extensive -acquirements, and capable of com-
municating as well as accumulating knowledge." The
proposal was for two professors so appointed, a Professor
of Mathematics and a Professor of Enghsh Literature,
and particular consideration was given to the qualifi-
cations required in the latter. The Committee pointed
out that whereas no special qualifications were wanted
for teaching Mathematics in India beyond those needed
for such work in England, " a teacher of English lite-
rature would be placed in a situation to which there was
nothing analogous at Home." They added that as it
was of great moment to inspire a feeling of interest in
our national literature " the preceptor in this department
should be imbued with its spirit, and should be a man
of taste as well as of letters. He should not only be
well read in English authors of different periods, but
familiar with their merits, and be able to teach them so
that they shall be felt as well as understood." All this
was admirably well considered. No professor was
appointed from England till 1841 when " two gentlemen

1 10 EDUCA TION AND ST A TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

selected by Dr. Mill and Mr. Macaulay" arrived in
India. "Previous to 1839," writes Mr. Kerr in his
Review of Public Instruction in the Bengal Presidency
(dated 1853), from which the preceding quotations are
also made, " the higher situations in the public colleges,
including those of Professors, were invariably filled by
men who were available on the spot. The Army, more
particularly the Medical Service, furnished some valu-
able officers, and others were selected from the miscel-
laneous class who came out to push their fortunes in
India. As the colleges rose in importance this source
of supply became inadequate, and in 1839 Government
perceived the necessity of engaging the services of well-
educated men in England."

As soon as it was decided to bring men from England
for educational work in India the question of remune-
ration and prospects at once became acute. What would
suffice for men whose homes were in India, and whose
strictly educational qualifications were negligible, became
ridiculously inadequate for men of " distinguished attain-
ments" from Oxford and Cambridge. The Court of
Directors took strong ground on the principle that the
colleges " should be placed under European superinten-
dence of the most respectable kind, both as to station
and acquirements." " It is, however, to be regretted,"
adds Mr. Kerr, " that Government has not seen fit to
adopt the most rational means in its power of attracting
talent to the educational service by holding out the
inducement of more liberal remuneration." In 1852,
when this was written, the salary of Principals of
colleges was Rs.600 a month, of a Professor Rs.40O
to Rs.500. This scale was the result of arrangements
made in 1840. " It must be allowed," writes Mr.
Kerr, "that a very great improvement was effected at

THE HIGHER EDUCATIONAL SERVICE III

this time. But the scale of remuneration is still too
low. It is essential to the efficiency of the service that
there should at least be a few appointments better paid
than any which are at present open to us. As it is,
there are no high prizes to reward successful exertion.
Our prospects are limited to the attainment of a very
moderate income, upon which we live in comfort so long
as we enjoy uninterrupted health, but which does not
except in the most favourable circumstances, enable us
to make any provision for our families, or to retire to
our native land."

It is not without relevance to the present to note the
exact circumstances of these small beginnings and of
the earliest protests of the professional teacher for a
more adequate recognition of the importance and worth
of his profession. When the Graded Educational Service
was organized (about 1870) it afforded something in the
shape of the higher prospects, the want of which Mr.
Kerr deplored. The initial salary was Es.500. The
highest attainable was Rs.l500. There were four grades,
the 4th from Rs.500 to Es.750 ; the 3rd from Rs.750 to
Rs.lOOO ; the 2nd from Rs.lOOO to Rs.l250, and the 1st
from Rs.1250 to Rs.l500. In 1896, the service was
reorganized under the title of the Indian Educational
Service appointed in England. Meanwhile the fall of
the rupee had changed relative values much for the
worse as compared with earlier times. The range of
salaries otherwise remained the same, Rs.500 to Rs.l500.
The only change of importance was that instead of
waiting for vacancies before promotion from the 4th to
the next highest class members of the service are
advanced steadily from Rs.500 to Rs.lOOO in the first
ten years of service. This gives the advantage of
regular increase of income, independent of accident.

1 1 2 EDUCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

The prospects beyond ten years were not improved. A
very limited number of personal allowances were added,
lower allowances of Ks.200 to Rs.250; higher allowances
of Rs.250 to Rs.500; and in default of one of these
there is an allowance of Rs.lOO after fifteen years of
approved service. The ordinary limit of the prospects
of a member of the Indian Educational Service is
Rs.1500 a month, or ^61200 a year; and as these higher
allowances are very few in number, the average prospects
must be rated at something below that.

Two questions can very pertinently be asked from
the standpoint of the present: (1) Has the result of
these measures been entirely satisfactory? (2) If not,
has everything in reason been done to ensure success in
this particular? Now as regards the first it happens
that a very striking and very public deliverance has
recently been made by an observer who must be admitted
both competent to pass an opinion and impartial, the
author of the Times articles on "Indian Unrest." Mr.
Valentine Chirol speaks of the Indian Educational
Service as " regarded and treated as an inferior branch
of the public service."^ This is at a time when the
immense importance of education is reiterated by every
responsible representative of Government; and that
such a reference could for a moment be made with any
plausibility shows that something must be very wrong.
It is obligatory then to investigate what has been the
mode of recruitment, and what have been the status and
attainments of the personnel of the higher educational
service. In theory appointments to the service, at all
events latterly, were made in England : in practice a
certain number have always been made in India. A
good many of the men appointed were already engaged

» Chirol, " Indian Unrest," p. 227.

THE HIGHER EDUCATIONAL SERVICE II3

in educational work in India. Some had come out as
missionaries, some as schoolmasters to institutions like
the Calcutta Martiniere and the Doveton College, some as
tutors to Indian minors of high birth and ample estates.
A certain percentage of appointments have always been
so made sometimes with very happy results for edu-
cational work. Others again have been adventurous
pioneers of Oriental scholarship like Blochmann, who
took their fortune in their hands, determined only some-
how to get to India and gain access to the treasures of
learning hidden there. These, rightly valued, have been
even the brightest ornaments of the educational service :
still, from the purely " Service " standpoint little prestige
was brought by any appointment made in India. Spas-
modically, however, special pains have been taken to
bring out to India from Oxford and Cambridge and
other British universities men whose degree qualifi-
cations were beyond cavil. There has, therefore, all
along been a sprinkling, and ultimately much more than
a sprinkling, one way and another, of men whose claims
to respect on academic, scientific or literary grounds are
indisputable. A scrutiny of the lists of the services
between 1855 and the present time reveals not a few
names of more than quite local distinction. First among
these may be noted Sir Alexander Grant, editor of Aris-
totle's Ethics, who was Professor and Principal of the
Elphinstone Institution from 1860 to 1865, and after-
wards Director of Public Instruction. To the Bombay
service also belong the great names of Biihler and Kiel-
horn. In Bengal alone there have been J. W. McCrindle,
editor of Arrian, Megasthenes, and other Greek writers
about India; Sir Roper Lethbridge, Press Censor in
Lord Lytton's time, since well-known in English politics ;
C. H. Tawney, some time Senior Classic at Cambridge,

I

1 1 4 EDUCA TION AXD ST A TES MANS HIP IN INDIA

who has translated Bharatrihari and other Sanskrit
classics ; Sir John Eliot, founder of Meteorological
Science in India; C. B. Clarke, the distinguished
botanist ; Sir Alfred Croft ; Sir Alexander Pedler ; Dr.
C. R Wilson, whose antiquarian investigations in Cal-
cutta resulted in the exact determination of the site of
the Black Hole, and in the two volumes of his " Early
Annals of the English in Bengal." Sir Edwin Arnold's
name can be added to those of distinguished men on the
Bombay side, as he was for some years Principal of the
Deccan College. The North-West Provinces have pro-
duced several Oriental scholars of high repute, James
Ballantyne, Balph Griffith, A. E. Gough, and Dr.
Thibaut. To Bengal again belong Blochmann and
Rudolph Hoernle. The first Director in the Punjab was
William Delafield Arnold, son of Dr. Arnold of Rugby,
and immortalized by his elder brother, Matthew, in
" Stanzas from Carnac " and " A Southern Night." The
Punjab had till recently in its educational service the
explorer. Dr. Stein, who also was at one time in charge
of the Calcutta Madrasa. Madras was fortunate in
her first Director, Mr. A. J. (afterwards Sir Alexander)
Arbuthnot, who was a member of the India Civil Service
and returned after some years to general administrative
work, but who was essentially a man educationally minded.
Other names of distinction in Madras are Mr. E. B.
Powell and Dr. Duncan.

These are the more eminent names, taking account
only of men no longer on the active Hst. From the
rank and file of the service, whether recruited in England
or in India, respectable academic qualifications have
always been required, and the picked men have had high
academic qualifications. If the service has not that
prestige and standing which it is expedient it should

THE HIGHER EDUCATIONAL SERVICE II5

have, it does not appear to be from want of a reasonable
high standard of academic qualification. There are,
however, circumstances which have operated unfavour-
ably, and hindered the educational service from attaining
that consideration and influence which the importance
of its work and the educational qualifications of its
members should rightly carry. Many reasons for this
might be suggested, and one of them would be a certain
backwardness in pushing their own interests on the part
of the members of the service themselves. There are
two reasons in special: (1) The educational service
necessarily suffers by comparison with the Indian Civil
Service, its members being drawn from the same social
classes, and having approximately equal qualifications —
unless it can be seriously maintained that there is spe-
cific virtue in one more competitive examination, and
the finish imparted by the crammer's art. (2) The
nature of higher educational work is little understood in
India : it meets with neither sympathy nor appreciation.
If educational work were better understood and proper
consideration shown to those engaged upon it on this
account, as is to a certain extent the case in England,
where a teacher is sometimes esteemed a person entitled
to more respect than a man with twice the salary and
holding official rank, the disproportion in pay and
prospects would matter less. Since, however, the pe-
culiarly delicate and responsible nature of educational
work is not socially recognized, and the only standard of
value accepted is salary and prospects, the less advan-
tageous terms on which *' education " men work, results in
a real lowering in public esteem, and this disparagement
has undoubtedly exercised a somewhat depressing effect
on the atmosphere of educational work.

It might well be deemed a concern for statesmanship

1 1 6 EDUCA TION AND STA TES MANS HIP IN INDIA

to inquire what steps are necessary in order to assure to
the educational service such a heightening of tone and
energy as might invigorate the work to the utmost. Two
directions of inquiry may be suggested: (1) Supposing
the intention to be to secure the steady recruitment of
men of exceptional ability, are the terms offered ade-
quate? (2) Are all possible means used — have they
been used in the past, to make the nature and interest
of educational work in India known in such a way as to
attract the most desirable candidates ? Unless an affir-
mative answer can confidently be given to both these
questions, it is statesmanship itself which is at fault,
not the educational services. They are what Govern-
ment has made them. But this is not all. Of all the
great work done in India during the last hundred years,
there has been none more difficult to do than the work
of higher education. "High class education has much
to struggle against in this country," wrote the second
Director of Public Instruction in the Bombay Presidency
in 1860, and it is still true in 1911. The task taken in
hand was, indeed, incredible, the difficulties almost in-
superable, so much so that critics, not ill-qualified, now
declare the whole movement to have been a mistake ;
not observing, as I think, the great advance, intellectual
and moral, made between 1835 and 1910. Let a little
more credit be given to the men who have struggled
against these difficulties and worked on quietly and un-
ostentatiously in a sphere of labour withdrawn from the
the main current of official preferment. At least, let
the Indian public acknowledge what it owes to those by
whose labour and devotion the educational system has
been built up, and by renewed efforts brought nearer to
thoroughness and efficiency. This is said for the men
of the higher educational service first, because in them

THE HIGHER EDUCATIONAL SERVICE II7

is vested a certain primacy in virtue of the qualifications
demanded of them and of their relation to Government.
But it is said also for all classes of educational workers :
for the Provincial Service, for the Subordinate and
Lower Subordinate Services, all in their places and
degrees, and for the numerous workers of all grades out-
side Government service in missionary and private insti-
tutions; for all who have done and are doing faithful
educational service of any kind. Very much more
might be said : this much perhaps suffices for the purpose
of these papers.

XV

THE POLITICAL MOVEMENT IN ITS RELATION
TO EDUCATION

The life of a community cannot be separated into un-
related compartments any more than the life of an
individual. Each part affects the rest. The develop-
ment of one faculty, or side of character, produces effects
on other faculties, and influences the organism as a
whole. And so the educational movement has, in a
certain sense, been political from the outset. That is to
say, in the very nature of things, and by reason of the
essential constitution of the mind, it was impossible to
educate a single native of India without thereby affecting
his relation to British rule. Education enables a man
to understand better society, government, and his own
relation to both. An educated man is able to place
himself in the universe ; to realize better his true relation
to what has gone before, and what will come after. If
political ideas are in the air, the educated man will make
acquaintance with them, and they will alter his mental
outlook. So it might have been predicted, and so it was.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy was, I suppose, the first
English educated native of India. He reached man's
estate about the year 1802 ; and there was nothing that
could be called English education publicly begun till
1817. He owed his education and his knowledge of
English to his own genius and exertions. He was no

THE POLITICAL MOVEMENT AND EDUCATION 1 1 9

enemy to British rule, though he relates in his brief
autobiography that he began " with a great aversion to
the establishment of the British power in India." It
was after he was twenty years of age that he first " saw
and began to associate with Europeans," and soon after,
he says, "made myself tolerably acquainted with their
laws and form of government ! " He continues : " Find-
ing them generally more intelligent, more steady and
moderate in their conduct, I gave up my prejudice
against them, and became inclined in their favour,
feeling persuaded that their nile^ though a foreign yoke,
zvould lead more speedily and surely to the amelioration of
the native inhabitants; and I enjoyed the confidence of
several of them, even in their public capacity." This, on
a fair view, is typical of the normal effects of education
in the general. That the natives of India, Hindu or
Mahomedan, Mahratta or Madrasi, should naturally and
spontaneously prefer a foreign government and admire
manners and customs so unlike their own is altogether
against nature. To suppose that antipathy to European
ways, and criticism of European manners are new, and
the pernicious effects of "EngUsh education," is to be
ignorant alike of the laws of human nature and the plain
facts of history. The natural and "unenlightened"
view of English manners and customs has been vividly
drawn by Trevelyan in his "Competition Wallah": —
" But, on the other hand, many of our usages must, in their
eyes, appear most debased and revolting. Imagine the
horror with which a punctilious and devout Brahmin
cannot but regard a people who eat the flesh of cows and
pigs, and drink various sorts of strong hquor from
morning till night. It is at least as hard for such a
man to look up to us as his betters, morally and socially, as
it would be for us to place amongst the most civilized

1 20 EDUCA TION AND STA TES MANS HIP IN INDIA

nations of the world a population which was in the habit
of dining on human flesh, and intoxicating itself daily
with laudanum and sal- volatile." ^ This is from the
natural standpoint of Hindu orthodoxy, and the effect of
education could hardly be to deepen such aversion. It
might do something to temper it.

Neither is criticism of the British Government really
anything new. Before the close of the eighteenth
century, when the British administration of Bengal was
still a novelty not twenty years old, Syed Gholam
Hossein Khan, in the fourteenth section of his Sdr
Mutakherin, or " Review of Modern Times," is at pains
to set forth at length twelve causes of the decrease of
population and revenue which he laments. The first is
"that these new rulers are quite ahen to this country
both in customs and manners " ; the second " their
differing in language, as well as in almost every action
and every custom in life." And yet the Syed is in many
respects an admirer and shows readiness to accord praise
to the forceful foreigners, when in his judgment it is
due. Some of his " causes," curiously enough, such as
inaccessibility to interviewers, frequent changes of ap-
pointments, excessive regard for promotion by seniority,
are the commonplaces of criticism of the Anglo-Indian
bureaucracy to this day. He even gives a large place
in his sixth cause to the " drain." ** The sixth cause is
that the EngHsh have deprived the inhabitants of these
countries of various branches of commerce and benefit,
which they had ever enjoyed heretofore." Similarly,
Ram Mohan Roy, in his evidence to the Select Committee
of the House of Commons, which was considering the
renewal of the Company's charter in 1831, refers to the

' Trevelyan (Sir George Otto), "The Competition Wallah" (Mac-
millan), 2nd ed., p. 346.

THE POLITICAL MO VEMENT AND EDUCA TION 1 2 1

"large sum of money now annually drawn from India
by Europeans retiring from it with the fortunes realized
there." There is really not very much difference in the
point of view of Syed Gholam Hossein Khan writing
about 1780, Ram Mohan Roy writing in 1831, and Mr.
Romesh Chunder Dutt writing in 1901, though the first
knew httle or no English, the second was educated before
Government introduced any system of education, and
the third is the fine flower of English education. The
truth is that the criticism, sound or unsound, arises out
of the circumstances,^ and would be in the minds of the
peoples of India, altogether independently of their power
of expressing it in English. All three may be said to be
well affected towards British rule in the sense of willing
it to continue.

If we inquire into the causes of disaffection, it may
plausibly be suggested that we shall find them to depend
little on education, at least directly ; indirectly they may
depend a good deal. Disaffection is the contrary of
affection. In the mildest degree it connotes merely the
absence of affection, and passes from this through every
degree of dislike up to settled hatred. Education has
certainly not produced in India hatred of all things
English; not obviously of English literature, English
games, English standards of conduct, English institu-
tions: because the political party which voices the
aspirations of the educated classes in India, and is

• On the vexed question of " the drain," the fair-minded inquirer
should read chaps, viii. and ix. of Sir Theodore Morison's recently-
published book '* The Economic Transition in India." See especially
p. 241 : " The answer, then, which I give to the question, ' What
economic equivalent does India get for foreign payments ? ' is this :
India gets the equipment of modern industry, and she gets an admini-
stration favourable to economic evolution cheaper than she could
provide it herself."

I 22 EDUCATION AND STATESMANSHIP IN INDIA

charged with being disaffected, or allied with disaffection,
is founded on an almost servile imitation of English
standards and methods. As regards forms of govern-
ment, it probably holds that men everywhere are well
affected towards a government which they clearly see
secures their welfare. Habit and sentiment are powerful
adjuncts. A government is strong when it appeals to
the national sentiment, and suits the traditional habits
of the people who dwell under it. These latter supports
have, from the circumstances, been almost wholly denied
to the British Government in India. It was certainly so
a hundred years ago, and it is doubtful whether these
forces have as yet been very successfully rallied to it.
That they might conceivably be rallied to it has not been
beyond the pitch of a few daring speculators like Sir
Theodore Morison.^ The support of the interest of the
people at large it has had, and the clearest thinkers
believe it has now in an even greater degree. It may be
asked whether education is or is not likely to produce in
men's minds a perception of their true interests. If, as
must almost certainly be answered, it does tend to
produce such a perception, the Government of India may
be reasonably assured (superficial appearances to the
contrary notwithstanding) of gaining strength from the
spread of education, so long as it does really what it
claims to do, secure the best interests of the Indian
peoples. This, it may still be believed, has on the whole
been the effect of the spread of education in British
India.

One of the questions answered by Raja Ram Mohan
Roy in 1831 was, ** What is the prevailing opinion of the
native inhabitants regarding the existing form of govern-
ment and its administrators, native and European?"

' " Imperial Rule in India," chap, x., cf. chap. iv.

THE POLITICAL MO VEMENT A ND ED UCA TION 1 2 3

His answer has interest, and even some relevance,
to-day : " The peasantry and villagers in the interior,"
he wrote, " are quite ignorant of, and indifferent about,
either the former or present government, and attribute
the protection they may enjoy, or oppression they may
suffer, to the conduct of the public officers immediately
presiding over them. But men of aspiring character,
and members of such families as are very much reduced
by the present system, consider it derogatory to accept
of the trifling public situations which natives are allowed
to hold under the British Government, and are decidedly
disaffected to it. Many of those, however, who engage
prosperously in commerce, and of those who are secured
in the peaceful possession of their estates by the per-
manent settlement, and such as have sufficient intelligence
to foresee the probability of future improvement, which
presents itself under the British rulers, are not only
reconciled to it, but really view it as a blessing to the
country." And then he concludes : " But I have no
hesitation in stating, with reference to the general feeling
of the more intelHgent part of the native community,
that the only course of policy wliich can ensure their
attachment to any form of Government u'ould he that of
making them eligible to gradual promotion according to
their respective abilities and merits, to situations of trust
and respectability in the State." Now these concluding
words express with very fair exactness what has actually
been both the aim and the outcome of the whole move-
ment for education, seen on its political side. We may
make again, now, the claim which the Commission of
1882 made in reporting on the effects of higher education,
" An estimate of the effect which collegiate instruction
has had upon the general education and enlightenment
of the people must in fairness be accompanied by a reference

I 24 EDUCATION AND STATESMANSHIP IN INDIA

to the objects which it sets before itself." Now, what were
these objects? They reached, no doubt, to general
moral and intellectual enlightenment; but they were
also expressly directed to the well-defined and Umited
object of fitting men by education for the public service.
Thus, a letter from the Court of Directors, dated
September 5th, 1827 (eight years, be it noticed, before
Macaulay's Minute), has these words: "In conclusion it
is proper to remark to you, though we have no doubt
that the same reflection has already occurred to you,
that, adverting to the daUy increasing demand for the
employment of natives in the business of the country,
and in important departments of the Government, the
first object of improved education should be to prepare
a body of individuals for discharging public duties. It
may, we trust, be expected that the intended course of
education will not only produce a higher degree of
intellectual fitness, but that it will contribute to raise the
moral character of those who partake of its advantages,
and supply you with servants to whose probity you may,
with increased confidence, commit offices of trust. To
this, the last and highest object of education, we expect
that a large share of your attention will be applied."
Sir Charles Trevelyan, writing in 1838, says : " Another
great change has of late years been made in our Indian
administration, which ought alone to excite us to
corresponding exertions for the education of the natives.
The system established by Lord Cornwallis was based
upon the principle of doing everything by European
agency. . . . The plan which Lord William Bentinck
substituted for it was to transact the public business by
native agency, under European superintendence, and
this change is now in progress in all the different
branches of administration. We have already native

THE POLITICAL MOVEMENT AND EDUCA TION 1 2 5

judges, collectors, and opium and salt agents ; and it is
now proposed to have native magistrates. . . . The
success of this great measure depends entirely on the
jBtness of the natives for the exercise of the new functions
to which they have been called." ^ In 1844 came Lord
Hardinge's resolution, raising selection for employment
under Government on educational grounds into a re-
cognized principle. The Despatch of 1854, besides
referring back in one of its opening paragraphs to the
letter of September, 1827, and later on to the resolution
of 1844, definitely puts increased fitness for employment
in the public services as one of the chief aims of
the educational system to be inaugurated : " We have
always been of opinion that the spread of education in
India will produce a greater efficiency in all branches of
administration, by enabling you to obtain the services
of intelligent and trustworthy persons in every depart-
ment of Government, and, on the other hand, we believe
that the numerous vacancies of different kinds, which
have constantly to be filled up, may afford a great
stimulus to education." Further, the Despatch claims
that a measure of success has already been won : " We
are sanguine enough to believe that some effect has
already been produced by the improved education of the
public service of India. The ability and integrity of a
large and increasing number of the native judges, to
whom the greater part of the civil jurisdiction in India
is now committed, and the high estimation in which
many among them are held by their fellow-countrymen,
is, in our opinion, much to be attributed to the progress
of education among these officers, and to their adoption,
along with it, of that high moral tone which pervades

* Trevelyan (Sir Charles), " On the Education of the People in India,"
p. 156.

1 26 EDUCA TION AND ST A TES MANS HIP IN INDIA

the general literature of Europe." This judgment is
re-affirmed by the Commission of 1882, with stronger
assurance. After the words already quoted, the report
continues : ** The reformers of 1835, to whom the system
is due, claimed that only by an education in English and
after European methods could we hope to raise the
moral and intellectual tone of Indian society, and supply
the administration with a competent body of pubUc
servants. To what degree, then, have these objects been
attained ? Our answer is in the testimony of witnesses
before this Commission, in the thoughtful opinion de-
livered from time to time by men whose position has
given them ample opportunities of judging, and the facts
obvious to all eyes throughout the country, and that
answer is conclusive ; if not that collegiate education has
fulfilled all the expectations entertained of it, at least
that it has not disappointed the hopes of a sober
judgment." This was in 1883, It remains to consider
whether, on a careful balance, the same verdict may not
be pronounced in 1911.

The process so well known to us all, to which the quo-
tations above refer, namely, the substitution of Indian
for European agency in higher and ever higher positions
of responsibility, has gone on continuously since 1883,
sometimes with increasing momentum, and so far the
favourable verdict has not been reversed. The consum-
mation, the legitimate consummation, the consummation
which was deliberately aimed at from the beginning, is
the reformed Councils and the eloquent speeches of the
leaders of Indian opinion, which we read daily when the
Imperial and Provincial Councils are in session. The
aims which are now being realized are, perhaps, even better
expressed by statesmen of the type of Mountstuart
Elphinstone and Sir Thomas Munro than by the public

THE POLITICAL MO VEMENT AND EDUCA TION 1 2 7

documents which have been quoted. In 1826 Elphinstone
wrote in a private letter : " It has always been a favourite
notion of mine that our object ought to be to place ourselves
in the same relation to the natives as the Tartars are in
to the Chinese ; retaining the government and military
power, but gradually relinquishing all share in the civil
administration, except that degree of control which is
necessary to give the whole an impulse and direction.
This operation must be so gradual that it need not even
alarm the directors for their civil patronage ; but it ought
to be kept in mind, and all our measures ought to tend
to that object. The first steps are to commence a syste-
matic education of the natives for civil offices, to make
over to them at once a larger share of judicial business,
to increase their emoluments generally, and to open a
few high prizes for the most able and honest among
them. The period when they may be admitted into
Council (as you propose) seems to be distant. . . ." ^ To
Sir Thomas Munro he had written in 1822 : " Besides
the necessity for having good native advisers in govern-
ing natives, it is necessary that we should pave the way
for the introduction of the natives to some share in the
government of their own country. It may be half a
century before we are obliged to do so ; but the system
of Government and of education which we have already
established must some time or other work such a change
on the people of this country, that it will be impossible to
confine them to subordinate employments. . . .'"^ Of
Sir Thomas Munro his biographer. Sir Alexander
Arbuthnot, writes: "Munro attached little value to
schemes for improving the education of natives unless
pari passu, steps were taken for extending to them a

• Colebrooke : " Life of Mountstuart Elphinstone, vol. ii., p. 186.
» lb., vol. ii., p. 143.

128 EDUCA TION AND STATESMANSHIP IN INDIA

greater share in the honours and emoluments of office.
His view was that the two things, education and higher
employment, should go together." ^ The inner signifi-
cance of the whole process was expressed in 1821 by Sir
Thomas Munro himself with a force and truth which
could not be surpassed : " Our present system of Govern-
ment by excluding all natives from power and trust and
emolument is much more efficacious in depressing than
all our laws and school-books can do in elevating their
character. We are working against our own designs, and
we can expect to make no progress while we work with a
feeble instrument to improve and a powerful one to
deteriorate. The improvement of the character of a
people and the keeping them at the same time in the
lowest state of dependency on foreign rulers to which
they can be reduced by conquest, are matters quite in-
compatible with each other." ^ Again he wrote in 1824 :
" No conceit more wild and absurd than this was ever
engendered in the darkest ages ; for what is in every age
and every country the great stimulus to the pursuit of
knowledge, but the prospect of fame, or wealth, or power ?
Or what is even the use of great attainments, if they are
not to be devoted to their noblest purpose, the service of
the community, by employing those who possess them,
according to their respective qualifications, in the various
duties of the public administration of the country."^
The very oddity and irrelevance of these quotations now
is a measure of the distance travelled since 1820. It is
not amiss that these earlier forms of thought should be
called to mind for those, on the one hand, w-ho are apt to
ignore what advance has been made in admitting educated

» Arbuthnot, " Major General Sir Thomas Munro," p. 154.
* lb., p. 148.
» lb., p. 160.

THE POLITIC A L MO VEMENT A A'D ED UCA TION 1 2 9

Indians to posts of high responsibility and for those on
the other who are ignorant of the 'great results which
higher education has actually achieved. Even Lord
Morley himself misses this, when the best he can find to
say for higher education in India is that it has not wholly
failed.^ Not only has higher education not failed to
achieve what in 1835 it set out to do, but it has triumph-
antly succeeded ; perhaps it has even succeeded too well.
For though its success in training well-qualified candidates
for public service is the most direct fulfilment of the
original aim and purpose, it is by no means the whole
achievement, or even the greatest part of it. Trevelyan
writes in the monograph: "On the education of the
People of India," from which quotation has already been
made: "The same means which will secure for the
Government a body of intelligent and upright native
servants will stimulate the mental activity and improve
the morals of the people at large. The Government
cannot make public employment the reward of dis-
tinguished merit without encouraging merit in all who
look forward to public employ; it cannot open schools
for educating its servants, without diffusing knowledge
among all classes of its subjects." ^ These predictions
also have been abundantly fulfilled. The renewed pro-
ductivity of half a dozen literatures, the revival of art and
letters, alert and critical interest in the past history and
literature of Indian races (voiced as it was, for instance,
eloquently but with unflinching recognition of present
" shortcomings," by Dr. Ashutosh Mukhopadhyaya, Vice-
Chancellor of Calcutta University, at this year's Convoca-
tion) bear witness to the stimulation of mental activity.

» " British Democracy and Indian Government," by the Right Hon.
Viscount Morley, O.M. Nineteenth Century for February, 1911, p. 209.
« '« On the Education of the People of India," p. 159.

K

1 30 EDUCA TION A.YD STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

The capacity for combination shown by numerous
associations for social, literary and recreative purposes
is a moral endowment. All these new capacities and
powers education has conferred on the classes who
have been able to profit by it. The bounds of legitimate
aspiration are also herein clearly settled. This edu-
cation was instituted by the British Government to
enable the peoples of India to take a larger and more
important share in the work of administration. This
larger share of responsibility and employment has been
accorded to them. The process is in mid-career. That
there should be differences of opinion as to the ultimate
limits of the process and as to the extent which is the
due limit at any given time, is only natural. The aspira-
tion for a larger share than that already gained is
perfectly legitimate, and Indians may combine to secure
this larger share by constitutional means : it is equally
legitimate to hold the contrary view and oppose further
extension. The bounds of legitimate aspiration are the
limits consistent with the stability of British rule.

But what then of the bugbear of anarchism and un-
rest ? Measured by this standard it shrinks marvellously.
These intellectual and moral results are the direct product
of higher education ; discontent and conspiracy, if to be
called products of education at all, are indirect products,
like some harmful bi-product of a useful chemical process.
The causes of unrest in the sinister sense are foreign
domination, racial prejudice, ignorance, misunderstanding,
narrowness, want of education, lack of sympathy. Edu-
cation is not directly a cause at all : indirectly it may,
perhaps, be called a cause as putting these latent forces
into activity. Education could never in any sound sense
of the term lead to anarchist crime. A depraved and
perverted nature may use the powers that education

THE POLITICAL MO VEMENT AND EDUCA TION 1 3 1

gives to evil purpose. A radically unsound education
might help to produce criminals, but even so it must
rather be from failure to supply deterrents than from
positively supplying incentives. The education being
given in Indian schools and colleges only contributes to
the morbid condition of things that has produced political
conspiracy and crime by its defects, by its unwholesome
surroundings, by its failure to educate in any true sense
at all. For want of foresight in allowing education to
spread beyond the limits of effective control those in
various degrees responsible for its organization must
bear the blame. But the education itself must not be
blamed : only the failure to make it effective. For the
direct purpose of education in primary schools, in
secondary schools, and in colleges alike, has been to train
the will in obedience and in good habits, as well as to
train the intellect. So far as the schools and colleges
have failed in this, the purpose of education has
been missed. All violence and breach of law are con-
trary to the very idea of education. The higher the
education the greater the incompatibility of its influences
with cruelty, treachery, physical violence and secret
murder. Enlightenment must and does hate these
things, and must still do so, even if it proclaimed the
ultimate right of insurrection for national freedom. But
in India enlightenment cannot proclaim the right of
insurrection at all. For that enlightenment itself comes
from the central power which holds together the congeries
of races and creeds and peoples which make up modern
India and alone gives unity alike to education and to
political aspiration. The aim to destroy that central
power would be not murder only but suicide as well
Success in that aim would inevitably throw back all
the advance towards liberty made in the last hundred

\ 2,2 ED UCA TION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

years, to which even the revolutionary aim itself owes
such life and power as it has. It is just because all
hopes of peaceful development and prosperity really are
bound up with the maintenance of the one strong and
stable government, that education must in proportion
as it is true and thorough strengthen the forces that
make for cohesion, not for disruption. The greater the
independence of judgment, the deeper the insight that
education gives, the clearer must be the perception of
these truths.

It is not meant in anything that has been said to
question that the political developments of the last
twenty years have given grave cause for anxiety and
that their association with higher education in any
sense is deeply to be regretted. We can no longer
speak with the confidence of Sir Roper Lethbridge in
defending " High Education in India " in 1882, when
he wrote : " And for contradiction of the vague and un-
authenticated aspersions on the character of the highly-
educated section of the Indian community for loyalty,
for morality, for religion generally, we need only look
to the tone and character of that portion of the peri-
odical press that is conducted and written by such men."
This we certainly can no longer say: but here in the
rapid depravation of an uncontrolled press, we have
(as I think Mr. Chirol himself shows) the real propa-
gating agency of the gathering mischief, and not in
education : and the regulation of the press, now that it
has been firmly taken in hand, is already working a
remedy.

XVI

CONCLUSIONS

The endeavour has now been made to follow the history
of the educational system established in India from its
beginnings and the verdict on the whole, with plain and
specific deductions, is favourable. At every critical stage
weight has been given to opposing considerations and the
conclusion at every stage is that practically no other
course was possible than that which was taken. When
enlightened Bengali gentlemen started the Hindu College
and a little later on asked for the help and support of
Government, Government did rightly in giving the
financial aid asked for and could not consistently with
its position and responsibilities have done otherwise.
When the question was raised whether it was more
expedient for higher education that the study of English
should be encouraged or whether State aid should be
confined to Arabic and Sanskrit, the decision given in
1835 in favour of English was the right decision. When
twenty-two years later universities were founded, though
plausible reasons were given at the time for considering
such a high enterprise premature, the practical economic
success of the universities and the effects produced
intellectually and morally in the course of a generation
prove that the fears expressed before 1857 were mistaken,
that universities met a real want and that the progress
attained justified their institution. A more doubtful

134 EDUCATION AND STATESMANSHIP IN INDIA

judgment must be passed on the adoption of one of the
recommendations of the Commission of 1882, that,
namely, for the withdrawal of Government from the
direct control of higher education : but as that has been
materially modified since, especially by the operation of
the Universities Act of 1904, less need be said about the
error. Well-intentioned as was the recommendation to
encourage educational progress mainly through grants-
in-aid, the actual result undoubtedly was to bring into
existence numbers of institutions imperfectly staffed,
equipped and financed, with the further result of a ten-
dency to pull down educational standards. Effort has been
made in the years since 1901 to correct this .tendency.
The complaint that moral and religious education has
been neglected is partly unjustified by the facts, because
it has from the first been a part of the educational aim
to train character as well as to impart knowledge, and
further Government has not failed to call special
attention to the importance of this side of education.
It is partly due to misapprehension of the circumstances
and failm'e to recognize the inevitable limitations
imposed by the conditions under which the work of
education in India is carried on.

The grand charge against education now is that the
system as a whole is mainly responsible for the embitter-
ment of political feeling in recent years and for the
rancorous expression of disaffection in speech and
writing : finally that the responsibility for revolutionary
crimes is to be added to the account. Keason has been
shown for thinking this charge to be grossly misstated
and in this unqualified form inadmissible. Political dis-
affection is due to political causes, not primarily to
education. There is confusion between disaffection and
the effective expression of disaffection. Education enables

CONCLUSIONS 135

the disaffected to express themselves more effectively,
but it is not except in a minor degree itself a cause of
disaffection. Revolutionary crime has been recklessly
ascribed to the " student class " ; but this is a very loose
and careless ascription. If inquiry be made into the
histories and antecedents of youths who have figured as
the leading actors in the wretched conspiracies and out-
rages which have troubled the peace of the two Bengals
and of Bombay, it will be found that only a small
proportion of them are to be characterized as ** students "
in the sense ordinarily recognized by those connected
with education. Students in the strict sense are under-
graduates who have passed the Matriculation examination
of one of the universities and are actually studying in
some affiliated college. The name may with some
propriety be extended to include boys in the upper
classes of high schools who are undergoing a training
which leads to university study. Not every youth who
has been to school and knows a little English is to be
reckoned a student, nor should the evil doings of young
men who draw ill lessons from mis- study of the Gita be
put to the account of English education. A great wrong
has in public opinion been done in this matter. The
great body of students, whatever the precise temperature
of their loyalty, and whatever their occasional readiness
to flock to listen to public speakers of repute, are neither
revolutionaries, nor conspirators ; nor are colleges hotbeds
of sedition, unless the frequent absence of a warm
affection for English things and persons and a weak
tendency to compare Western " materialism " to its
disadvantage with the assumed ** spirituality " of the
East merit such a designation. So far as I know, not a
single trained chemist has had a hand in the manufacture
of a bomb ; nor are the leaders of fancy dacoit bands

1 36 EDUCATION AND STA TESMANSHIP IN INDIA

men who have won scholarships, or who aspire to
university Honours. No, the whole force of real educa-
tion is opposed to violence and crooked methods. Culture
— and after all education in India aims at culture — as
Matthew Arnold says, "hates hatred; culture has but
one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light."

It is not true, then, it cannot be true, that education,
the cultivation of intellectual excellence and the endeavour
to give efficacy in conduct to the highest motives, tends
in India to produce virulent enemies of a just and
righteous administration, still less reckless fanatics, ripe
for any crime in the name of revolution. If there is any
truth at all in the ascription of some hurtful effects to
the educational system in working, it is true only in a
carefully qualified sense and in strictness due not to
education, but to defect of education. Yet even were the
charge truer than it is, education must go on, because
(as all agree) it cannot now be stopped ; and must go on
mainly on the lines already laid ; so that the practical
problem would be how to make the best of it ; not how to
change it radically, but how to remove imperfections,
amend and strengthen. The moral in the end is that
the effort to promote the true ends of education must not
be slackened, but redoubled. The remedy lies not in
coming to a stop and beginning again, but in steady and
more careful advance on the lines laid. In one sense a
new departure is called for. Such a putting forth of
effort is required as would practically raise the whole
work of education to a higher plane. Aims and motives
have not been high enough, not sincere enough, not
thorough enough. In particular is this true of the side
of education which touches character.

For there are, on the other hand, very manifest
imperfections, which incidentally this inquiry has brought

CONCLUSIONS 137

out, in the system of education as it now is ; imperfections
which may be remedied and which it should be the
business of statesmanship to remedy as far as carefully
thought out measures can find remedy.

First and most important is the strengthening of the
moral side of education in colleges and schools. Moral
education has not been overlooked. It has been the
direct concern of Government policy all along, and it has
latterly exercised the anxious thought of all taking part in
the work of education. Yet certainly enough has not
been done. For this the surpassing difficulties of the
task attempted is very largely responsible. But along
with that, and all the more because of that, it must be
realized that the attempt has failed partly because it has
been made on too low a plane. The potent aid of
religion is denied as we have concluded, in Indian edu-
cation. But the moral relations themselves are sacred
and the teacher's calling is a sacred calling. Have we
made all that is possible of positive duty, of the personal
influence of the teacher, of the restraints and impulses of
school and college discipline ? The well-organized college
or school, that image of a state in miniature, founded as
it should be in righteousness, regulated in all its parts for
the general good and the attainment of high ends outside
self, is a capital instrument of moral education. Loyalty
to the teacher, loyalty to the school, loyalty to the
college, these are motive forces with great potency for
moulding and strengthening character, if rightly wielded.

Secondly, it is clear from what has just been said, that
only through the personal influence of the teacher can
these great moral results be attained. A high moral
tone cannot be communicated to an institution by any
rescript, decree or ordinance of State. Rightly devised
rules of hfe will do a great deal, but even these must be

1 3 8 -£•£> VCA TION AND STA TESMA NSHIP IN INDIA

informed by the right spirit ; a mere lifeless conformity
will effect little ; even the conformity is sure to be lax
without a desire to conform. The right spirit must grow
up among the body of students and can be communicated,
so far as it is capable of communication, only by the
teachers. So the ideals of the teachers and the faithful-
ness with which they live by them are the real source of
moral vitality in school and college.

But how, thirdly, in soberness can the policy of the
State affect the ideals of teachers appointed for work in
schools and colleges ? Is not this to ask something that
belongs to quite a different category from departmental
machinery ? It might be asked in reply what effort has
ever been made to raise the men engaged in England for
educational work in India to a consciousness of the
greatness of the task to which they are invited and the
character of the responsibilities to be laid upon them.
Is any history of that work, any account of its claims
and opportunities and difficulties, ever put before
applicants? This might at least be considered before
it is concluded that all that is possible has been done
towards securing the right attitude of mind in the men
brought by the State to India to take the lead in edu-
cational work.

In India still more, fourthly, might a genuine desire
to raise the status of the teacher manifest itself actively.
It may seem inconsistent to talk of emoluments and
prospects, when the question is of ideals and character.
Yet emoluments and status are certainly closely connected
in India (perhaps even more than in other countries)
and it might be well on grounds other than commercial
to improve the emoluments and prospects of all classes
of educational workers. Is the status of the teacher
satisfactory now ? For answer consult heads of colleges

CONCLUSIONS 139

and professors, headmasters and inspectors of schools, as
to the social recognition publicly accorded to them.
Indian dutifulness once held teachers venerable and
worthy of the highest respect. Does it do so now ?
There is room for amendment both of State policy and
public demeanour in this matter; and amendment in
this matter would strengthen the hands of teachers for
the work they are told to do.

Fifthly, another direction in which we may look with
great hopefulness is the development of college and
school as institutions. When fully developed the
sentiment called forth by the institution may be even
more powerful in its sway over conduct than the
influence of individual teachers. Here a departmental
system is to some extent a hindrance, because to a
department a college or school is necessarily not a self-
contained whole, but one member of a group. Recent
tendencies, however, have all been in the direction of
giving fuller recognition to the organic unity of the
institution and a measure of autonomy is already
attained by the colleges within the bounds of the depart-
ment. It is on this ground as well as on the ground
that students living uncared for and insufficiently
supervised in " messes " are exposed to dangers, physical
and moral, that the immediate prospect of a large pro-
vision of hostels in Calcutta is so greatly a matter of
congratulation. In order that the full benefit may be
realized, it is essential that this provision of hostels
should be based on the unity of the college as an institu-
tion. This is indeed part of the ideal of the complete
residential college, now fully accepted by the University.
The members of the college not only study in the same
class rooms, but share a social Hfe which extends to all
three sides of education, intellectual, physical and moral.

140 EDUCATION AND STATESMANSHIP IN INDIA

Lastly, the greatest need and the greatest hope for
higher education in a broad sense lies in a recognition in
the near future of the comparative neglect from which
school education has long suffered and the adoption of a
systematic policy of giving the schools their rightful
place in national education. The hopefulness consists in
this, that so much more can be done with school-boys. The
habits, intellectual and moral, formed in the earlier years
count more than later influences. If the schools lay the
foundations of character and intellectual life wrongly,
hardly can four or even six years at college repair the
mischief ; but if the schools do their work adequately
and well, the chief obstacles in the way of success in
college education will have been cleared away.

The whole problem of education in India is so vast
that only some of its aspects have been treated in these
papers, and that cursorily. On the main question, I
venture to think the answer is complete. The work of
Government and of the Education departments is
vindicated. This vindication holds as against the
impatience of advanced political thinkers who complain
that too little has been done and grasp at a hasty
realization of the ends towards which the educational
process is working before the work of training is
sufficiently advanced; and also against the one-sided
condemnation of critics who pay disproportionate
attention to the morbid products of a vast intel-
lectual and moral transmutation and decline to see to
what extent these are merely incidental to a process in
itself essentially healthy and beneficial. It appears that
the policy of the Government of India from the begin-
ning of the nineteenth century to the present day has in
the main been justified by its results as well as in its
inception ; that no startling reversal of policy is called

CONCLUSIONS 141

for, not even any radical change in the direction of its
leading activities. Improvement in the details, expansion
all along the line, more liberal employment of funds,
these are wanted, as they always have been wanted.
For the rest, the watchword is "Forward" and not
" Back " ; " Courage " and not words of doubt and
despondency. The movement is greater than the men
who have taken part in it. Individuals may doubt and
repine at what has been done in their name and by their
means. But this work of education is the work of the
British in India. The spirit of it is in the race and
works in spite of the individuals who do not understand
it and cavil at it. It has spoken out from time to time
in the words of some master mind, and stands recorded
in the great public documents which express the avowed
policy of the State.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Trcvdyan (Sir Charles Edward). On the Education
of the People of India. Longman, Orme, Brown, Green
& Longmans. 1838.

Kerr (James). A Review of Public Instruction in
the Bengal Presidency. W.H.Allen. 1853.

Howell (Arthur). Education in British India. Cal-
cutta. 1872.

Lethhridge (Sir Roper). High Education in India.
W. H. Allen & Co. 1882.

Mahmood (Syed). A History of English Education
in India (1781 to 1893). Aligarh. 1895.

Satthianadhan. History of Education in the Madras
Presidency. Srinivasa, Varadachari & Co. Madras.
1894.

Reports of Public Instruction in Bengal from 1831.

Minutes of the Calcutta University from 1857.

Quinquennial Reviews of the Progress of Education
in India from 1886.

Educational Despatch of 1854.

Report of the Education Commission of 1882.

Report of the Universities Commission of 1902.

Resolution of the Government of India, March, 1904.

Colehrooke (Sir T. E.). Life of the Honourable
Mountstuart Elphinstone. 2 vols. Murray. 1884.

Arhutlmot (Sir A. J.). Life of Major-General Sir
Thomas Munro. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 1889.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 1 43

Monson (Sir Theodore). Imperial Rule in India.
Constable. 1899.

Craik (Sir Henry). Impressions of India. Mac-
millan. 1908.

Mitra (S. C). Indian Problems. Murray. 1908.

Arhuthnot (Sir A. J.). Memories of Rugby and India.
Fisher Unwin. 1910.

Chirol (Valentine). Indian Unrest. Macmillan.
1910.

Monson (Sir Theodore). The Economic Transition
in India. Murray. 1911.

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