Stack
Annex
LF
795
H41M3
1817
STATEMENTS
RESPECTING THE
EAST INDIA COLLEGE,
REFUTATION OF THE CHARGES
LATELY BROUGHT AGAINST IT,
CTourt of
BY
THE REV. T. R. MALTHUS,
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE EAST-INDIA
COLLEGE, HERTFORDSHIRE, AND LATE FELLOW OF
JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
2LonDon :
PRINTED FOR JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET.
1817.
Printed by W. Clowes,
Northumberland-court, Strand, London.
STACK
ANNEX
Lf
(817
PREFACE.
THE following statements, with the exception
of the last head, were written some time since, on
account of a rumour then prevailing of charges
being meditated in the Court of Proprietors, which
I thought were likely to be founded in an igno-
rance of the real state of the college ; — of what it
had clone, and what it was doing, towards the ac-
complishment of the specific objects for which it
was founded.
The silence of the Court of Proprietors on this
subject, the quiet and good order of the college
during the last year, and a great reluctance on my
VI
own part to appear before the public on such an
occasion, without a very strong necessity, withheld
me from publishing. But it is impossible to be
silent, under the uncontradicted imputations
brought forward in the Court of Proprietors, on
the 18th of December, when I know them to be
unfounded. I no longer hesitate, therefore, to send
what I had written to the press, with the addition
of a more specific refutation of the charges brought
against the college, in the Court of Proprietors
and elsewhere, at the present moment.
The reader will, I hope, excuse a few partial re-
petitions under the last head ; as I think it pro-
bable that this part will be read by persons who
may not have leisure or inclination to read the
whole.
I have put my name to the following statements,
to shew that I pledge my character to the truth of
what I have asserted, according to the best of my
Vll
knowledge and belief. It would be but fair, there-
fore, that those writers who may attempt to con-
trovert them, and continue their attacks upon the
college in the public prints, should adopt the same
candid and manly mode of proceeding. If they do
not, the inference will be pretty strong, that they
cannot reveal their names without discovering to
the public some probable motives for the.ir attacks,
different from a desire to promote the welfare and
good government of India.
T. ROBERT MALTHUS.
January 4th, 1817.
STATEMENTS,
L HE disturbances which have occasionally taken
place at the East India-college, together with the
virulent attacks lately made upon it in the Court of
Proprietors, have excited the attention of the public, and
given rise to some very unfavourable opinions respect-
ing its utility and efficiency. It has been even sur-
mised that a petition might be presented to Parlia-
ment to withdraw that legislative sanction which was
given to it at the time of the renewal of the East-
India Company's Charter.
The abolition of an extensive establishment, the
object of which is to give an improved education to
those who are to be sent from this country to govern
sixty millions of people in India, ought not, certainly,
to be determined on without much consideration.
Whatever measures may be dictated by the feelings of
temporary disappointment and irritation experienced
by some who are immediately connected with the
institution, either as its patrons, or as parents and
B
friends of those who are educated there, the great
object that must be kept in view by the legislature and
the public is, the good government of India. Unless
it can be clearly made out, that the education neces-
sary for the furtherance of this object can be given in
some other and better way than in the college actually
established, they will certainly hesitate, and be very
sure of the ground on which they go, before they con-
sent to its abolition, or withdraw from it that support
and countenance which are necessary to preserve it
from ultimately perishing. Every part of the subject,
therefore, should be thoroughly well considered pre-
viously to the taking of any new step, either with a view
to the suppression of the existing institution, and a
return to the former system of casual education, or
with a view to the formation of any new establish-
ment, which may appear to promise a more successful
accomplishment of the object. The whole subject
may, perhaps, be advantageously resolved into the
following questions ; and the answers to them are in-
tended to furnish some materials for the determination
of the important points to which they refer.
I. What are the qualifications at present necessary
for the. civil service of the East-India Company,
in the administration of their Indian territories ?
page 4.
II. Has any deficiency in those qualifications been
actually experienced in such a degree as to be in-
jurious to the service in India ? page 12.
III. In order to secure the qualifications required for
the service of the Company, is an appropriate esta-
blishment necessary? — and should it be of the
nature of a school, or a college ? page 24.
IV. Should such an establishment be in England or
in India ? or should there be an establishment in
both countries f page 32.
V. Does it appear that the college actually established
in Hertfordshise is upon a plan calculated to sup-
ply that part of the appropriate education of the
civil servants of the Company which ought to be,
completed in Europe ? page 46.
VI. Are the disturbances which have taken place in
the East-India College to be attributed to any ra-
dical and necessary evils inherent in its constitution
and discipline ; or to adventitious and temporary
causes, which are likely to be removed ? page 65.
VII. Art the more general charges which have lately
been brought against the college in the Court of
Proprietors founded in truth ? or are they capable
of a distinct refutation, by an appeal to facts?
page 82.
SECTION I.
I. What are the qualifications at present necessary
for the civil service of the East-India Company, in
the administration of their Indian territories ?
TO the first question, and parts of the others, it
will be impossible to give an answer at once so able
and so conclusive as by quoting largely from the
" Minute in Council of the Marquis Wellesley,
dated August 18,1 800, containing the reasons which
induced him to found a collegiate institution at Fort
William.
He begins with a masterly view of the gradual
change which has taken place in the number, import-
ance, and responsibility of the trusts confided to the
civil servants of the Company, and the high qualifica-
tions necessary to fill them : after which he proceeds as
follows : —
" The British possessions in India now constitute one
" of the most extensive and populous empires in the
" world. The immediate administration of the govern-
" ment of the various provinces and nations composing
" this empire is principally confided to European civil
5
" servantsofthe East-India Company. Those provinces,
" namely, Bengal, Behar, Orissa, and Benares; the
" Company's Jaghire in the Carnatic, the Northern
" Circars, the Baramhal, and other districts ceded by
" the peace of Seringapatam in 1792, which are under
" the more immediate and direct administration of
' the civil servants of the Company, are acknowledged
" to form the most opulent and flourishing part of
" India; in which property, life, civil order, and re-
" ligious liberty, are more secure, and the people enjoy
" a larger portion of the benefits of good government,
" than in any other country in this quarter of the
" globe. The duty and policy of the British govern-
" ment in India require that the system of confiding
" the immediate exercise of every branch and depart-
" ment of the civil government to Europeans educated
" in its own service, and subject to its own direct con-
" troul, should be diffused as widely as possible ; as
" well with a view to the stability of our own interests,
" as to the happiness and welfare of our native sub-
" jects. This principle formed the basis of the wise
" and benevolent system introduced by Lord Corn-
" wallis, for the improvement of the internal govern-
" ment of the provinces immediately subject to the
" presidency of Bengal.
" In proportion to the extension of this beneficial
" system, the duties of the European civil servants of
" the East-India Company are become of greater
6
" magnitude and importance. The denominations
" of writer, factor and merchant, by which the seve-
" ral classes of the civil service are still distinguished,
" are now utterly inapplicable to the nature and
" extent of the duties discharged and of the occu-
" pations pursued by the civil servants of the Com-
" To dispense justice to millions of people of various
" languages, manners, usages, and religions ; to ad-
" minister a vast and complicated system of revenue,
<l through districts equal in extent to some of the
" most considerable kingdoms in Europe ; to maintain
" civil order in one of the most populous and litigious
" regions in the world ; these are now the duties of the
" larger portion of the civil servants of the Company.
" The senior merchants, composing the Courts of
" Circuit and Appeal under the presidency of Bengal,
" exercise in each of these courts a jurisdiction OT
" greater local extent, applicable to a larger population,
" and occupied in the determination of causes infi-
" nitely more intricate and numerous, than that of any
" regularly constituted courts of justice in any part of
" Europe. The senior or junior merchants employed
" in the several magistracies and Zillah courts, the
" writers or factors filling the stations of registers
" and assistants to the several courts and magistrates,
" exercise, in different degrees, functions of a nature
" either purely judicial, or intimately connected with
" the administration of the police, and with the main-
" tenance of the peace and good order of their re-
" spective districts. Commercial and mercantile
" knowledge is not only unnecessary throughout every
" branch of the judicial department ; but those civil
" servants, who are invested with the powers of ma-
" gistracy, or attached to the judicial department
" in any ministerial capacity, although bearing the
" denomination of merchants, factors, or writers, are
" bound by law, and by the solemn obligation of an
" oath, to abstain from every commercial and mercan-
" tile pursuit. The mercantile title which they bear
" not only affords no description of their duty, but is
" entirely at variance with it.
" The pleadings in the several courts, and all im-
" portant judicial transactions, are conducted in the
" native languages. The law which the Company's
" judges are bound to administer throughout the
" country is not the law of England, but that law to
" which the natives had been long accustomed under
" their former sovereigns, tempered and mitigated by
" the voluminous regulations of the Governor-Ge-
" neral in Council, as well as by the general spirit of
" the British constitution.
" These observations are sufficient to prove, that
" no more arduous or complicated duties of magi-
" stracy exist in the world, no qualifications more
" various or comprehensive can be imagined, than
8
" those which are required from every British
' subject who enters the seat of judgment within the
' limits of the Company's empire irf India.
" To the administration of revenue many of the
" preceding observations will apply with equal force.
" The merchants, factors, and writers, employed in
" this department, also, are bound to abjure the mer-
" cantile denomination appropriated to their respective
" classes in the Company's service ; nor is it possible
" for a collector of the revenue, or for any civil ser-
" vant employed under him, to discharge his duty
" with common justice either to the state or to the
" people, unless he shall be conversant in the lan-
" guage, manners, and usages of the country, and
" in the general principles of the law, as administered
" in their courts of justice. • In addition to the or-
" dinary judicial and executive functions of the judges,
" magistrates, and collectors, the judges and ma-
" gistrates occasionally act in the capacity of governors
" of their respective districts, employing military,
" and exercising other extensive powers. The judges,
" magistrates, and collectors, are also respectively re-
" quired by law to propose, from time to time, to
" the Governor-General in Council, such amend-
" ments of the existing laws, or such new laws, as
" may appear to them to be necessary to the welfare
" and good government of their respective districts.
" In this view the civil servants employed in the de-
9
" partments of judicature and revenue constitute a
" species of subordinate legislative council to the
" Governor-General in Council, and also a channel
" of communication by which the government ought
" to be enabled, at all times, to ascertain the wants
" and wishes of the people. The remarks applied
" to these two main branches of the civil service, viz.
" those of Judicature and Revenue, are at least
" equally forcible in their application to those branches
" which may be described under the general terms of
" political and financial departments, comprehending
" the office of Chief Secretary, the various stations
" in the Secretary's office, in the Treasury, and in
" the office of Accountant-General ; together with all
" public officers employed in conducting the current
" business at the seat of government. To these must
" be added the diplomatic branch, including the se-
" veral residencies at the Courts of our dependent and
" tributary princes, or other native powers of India.
" It is certainly desirable that all these stations
" should be filled by the civil servants of the Com-
" pany ; it is equally evident that qualifications are
" required in each of these stations, either wholly
" foreign to commercial habits, or far exceeding the
" limits of a commercial education."
" Even that department of the empire, which is
" denominated exclusively commercial, requires know-
" ledge and habits different in a considerable degree
10
" from those which form the mercantile character in
" Europe. Nor can the Company's investment
" ever be conducted with the greatest possible ad-
" vantage and honour to themselves, or with ade-
" quate justice to their subjects, unless their com-
" mercial agents shall possess many of the qualifica-
" tions of statesmen enumerated in the preceding
" observations. The manufacturers, and other in-
" dustrious classes, whose productive labour is the
" source of the investment, bear so great a propor-
" tion to the total population of the Company's do-
" minions, that the general happiness and prosperity
" of the country must essentially depend on the
" conduct of the commercial servants employed in
" providing the investment. Their conduct cannot
" be answerable to such a charge, unless they be
" conversant in the native languages, and in the cus-
" toms and usages of the people, as well as in the
" laws by which the country is governed. The peace,
" order, and welfare of whole provinces, may be ma-
" terially affected by the malversations, or even by
" the ignorance and errors of a commercial resident,
" whose management touches the dearest and most
" valuable interests, and enters into the domestic
" concerns of numerous bodies of people, active and
" acute from habitual industry, and jealous of any
" act of power injurious to their properties, or con-
" trary to their prejudices and customs.
11
" The civil servants of the East-India Company,
" therefore, can no longer be considered as the agents
" of a commercial concern: they are, in fact, the
" ministers and officers of a powerful sovereign: they
" must now be viewed in that capacity with a re-
" ference not to their nominal, but to their real oc-
" cupations. They are required to discharge the
" functions of magistrates, judges, ambassadors, and
" governors of provinces, in all the complicated and
" extensive relations of those sacred trusts and ex-
" alted stations, and under peculiar circumstances,
" which greatly enhance the solemnity of every pub-
" lie obligation, and the difficulty of every public
" charge. Their duties are those of statesmen in
" every other part of the world ; with no other cha-
" racteristic differences than the obstacles opposed by
" an unfavourable climate, a foreign language, the
" peculiar usages and laws of India, and the man-
" ners of its inhabitants."
Nothing can be added to these statements which
can be expected to render them more clear, or to give
them greater weight. They are quite decisive with re-
gard to the qualifications required for the civil service
of the East-India Company in India.
SECTION II.
Has any deficiency in these qualifications been
actually experienced in such a degree as to be in-
jurious to the service in India ?
ON the second question, also, it will be most ad-
vantageous to hear the opinion of the Marquis
Wellesley. He observes in the minute of August 1 8,
1800, " It may be useful in this place to review the
" course in which the junior civil servants of the East-
" India Company now enter upon the important duties
" of their respective stations; to consider to what
11 degree they now possess or can attain any means of
" qualifying themselves sufficiently for those stations ;
" and to examine whether the great body of the civil
' ' servants at any of the Presidencies can now be deemed
" competent to discharge their arduous and compre-
" hensive trusts in a manner correspondent to the in-
" terests and honour of the British name in India, or to
" the prosperity and happiness of our native subjects.
" The age at which the writers usually arrive in
13
" India is from sixteen to eighteen. Their parents
" and friends in England, from a variety of con-
" siderations, are naturally desirous not only to ac-
" celerate the appointment at home, but to despatch
" the young men to India at the earliest possible
" period. Some of these young men have been edu-
" cated with an express view to the civil service in
" India on principles utterly erroneous, and inappli-
" cable to its actual condition. Conformably to this
" error, they have received a limited education, con-
" fined principally to commercial knowledge, and
" in no degree extended to those liberal studies which
" constitute the basis of education at public schools
" in England. Even this limited course of study is
" interrupted at the early period of fifteen or seven-
" teen years.
" It would be superfluous to enter into any argu-
" ment to demonstrate the absolute insufficiency of
" this class of young men to execute the duties of
" any station whatever in the civil service of the
" Company, beyond the menial, laborious, unwhole-
" some duty of a mere copying-clerk. Those who
" have received the benefits of a better education
" have the misfortune to find the course of their studies
" prematurely interrupted at the critical period when
" its utility is first felt, and before they have been
" enabled to secure the fruits of early application.
' On the arrival of the writers in India, they are
14
" either stationed in the interior of the country, or
" employed in some office in the presidency. If
" stationed in the interior of the country, they are
" placed in situations which require a knowledge of
" the language and customs of the natives ; or of the
" regulations and laws ; or of the general principles
" of jurisprudence; or of the details of the established
" system of revenue; or of the nature of the Com-
" pany's investment ; or of many of these branches
" of information combined. In all these branches of
" knowledge the young writers are totally uninformed,
" and they are consequently totally unequal to their
" prescribed duties. In some cases their superior
" in office, experiencing no benefit from their ser-
" vices, leaves them unemployed. In this state
" many devote their time to those luxuries and enjoy-
" ments which their situation enables them to com-
" mand, without making any effort to qualify them-
" selves for the important stations to which they are
" destined. They remain sunk in indolence, until,
" from their station in the service, they succeed to
" offices of high public trust.
" Positive incapacity is the necessary result of
" these pernicious habits of inaction ; the principles
" of public integrity are endangered, and the suc-
" cessful administration of the whole government ex-
" posed to hazard. This has been the unhappy course
" of many, who have conceived an early disgust in
15
" provincial stations against business to which they
" have found themselves unequal, and who have
" been abandoned to the effects of despondency and
" sloth."
The Marquis goes on to say, that " even the
" young men whose dispositions are the most pro-
" mising, if stationed in the interior of the country,
" at an early period after their arrival in India, labour
" under such disadvantages, that they can scarcely
" establish those foundations of useful knowledge in-
" dispensably necessary to enable them afterwards to
" execute the duties of important stations with ability
" and credit. And that, with regard to the young
" men attached to the offices of the presidency, the
" most assiduous of them, being occupied in the close
" and laborious application to the hourly business of
" transcribing papers, are seldom able to make ad-
" vances in any other branch of knowledge, and at
" the close of two or three years they have generally
" lost the fruits of their European studies, without
" having gained any useful knowledge of Asiatic
" literature or business ; while those, whose disposi-
" tions lead them to idleness and dissipation, finding
" greater temptations to indulgence and extravagance
" in the presidency than in the provinces, fall into
" courses which destroy their health and fortunes ;
" and some of them succeeding in the ordinary pro-
* gress of the service to employments, their incapacity
16
' or misconduct becomes conspicuous to the natives,
1 disgraceful to themselves, and injurious to the
" State.
" Under all these early disadvantages," the Marquis
says, "it is highly creditable to the individual cha-
" racters of the civil servants of the East-India Com-
{ pany, that so many instances have occurred in va-
' rious branches and departments of the civil service,
" at all the presidencies, of persons who have discharged
" their public duties with considerable respect and
" honour.
" It has been justly observed, that all the merits of
" the civil servants are to be ascribed to their own
" character, talents, and exertions ; while their defects
" must be imputed to the constitution and practice of
" the service, which have not been accommodated to
" the progressive changes of our situation in India, and
" have not kept pace with the growth of this empire,
" or with the increasing extent and importance of the
" functions and duties of civil servants.
" The study and acquisition of the languages have,
" however, been extended in Bengal, and the general
" knowledge and qualifications of the civil servants
" have been improved. The proportion of the civil
" servants in Bengal who have made a considerable
" progress towards the attainment of the qualifications
" requisite in their several stations appears great, and
" even astonishing, when viewed with regard to the
17
" early disadvantages, embarrassments, and defects of
" the civil service. But this proportion will appear
" very different when compared with the exigencies of
" the state, with the magnitude of these provinces,
" and with the total number of the civil servants
" which must supply the succession to the great
" offices of the government.
" It must be admitted that the great body of the
" civil servants in Bengal is not at present sufficiently
" qualified to discharge the duties of the several ar-
" duous stations in the administration of this empire ;
" and that it is particularly deficient in the judicial,
" Jiscal, financial, and political branches of the go-
" vernment.
" The state of the civil services of Madras and
" Bombay is still more defective than that of Ben-
" g*1-"
Nothing can be more clear and convincing than
this statement of deficiency in the great body of the
civil servants of the Company, before any efforts were
made, either in India or in England, to give them a
superior education. It is sufficiently well known,
though no written documents may remain on the
subject, on account of no specific remedy having
been proposed, that Lord Cornwallis found the same
difficulty in filling the important offices of the state
with proper persons as the Marquis Wellesley. Many
of the older civil servants were passed over in the
c
search for the qualifications required, and, even with
the greatest range that the rules of the service would
admit, the search was not always successful.
.Mr. Edmonstone, in his excellent speech at the
public disputation, held at the College of Port-William
on the 27th of July, 1815, strongly notices the former
defects in the education of the civil servants, and ad-
verts particularly to the argument adduced by some
persons in favour of the sufficiency of the old system,
founded on the progressive prosperity and power of
the British dominion in India, and on the success
which attended the administration of the concerns of
this great empire.
" When we contemplate," he says, " our situation
" in this country ; when we reflect that we are go-
" veming a population of many millions, to whom our
" language is unknown ; whose religion, habits, man-
" ners, usages and prejudices, wholly differ from our
" own ; no argument would seem requisite to prove
" that the diffusion of the benefits and blessings of a
" British administration among these our subjects
" must essentially depend on the degree in which the
" power of communication with the natives of India
" is possessed by the public officers employed in the
" various branches of this great and complicated go-
" vernment. Splendid as has been the career of our
" dominion, prosperous as has been the conduct of
" our internal concerns, who will allege that no ad-
19
" vantages have been lost, no evils have been incurred,
" which a skilful use of the powers of language might
" -not have secured and prevented ?
" Who will say that improved means of direct in-
' tercourse witli our subjects are not indispensably
" required to co-operate with the enactment and ad-
1 ministration of salutary laws for the purpose of
; diffusing the knowledge and! the practice of those
1 principles of conduct which have a tendency to
" exalt the standard of national character, to diminish
" the prevalence of immorality and crime, and to
' promote the general welfare and happiness of the
" inhabitants of these territories ? Who will maintain
" that far greater advances in the attainment of such
" important purposes might not long since have been
" made, if the existing facilities of Oriental study and
" acquirement had in early times enabled the Com-
" pany's servants to arrive at that proficiency which
" is now so generally attained?"
These observations are perfectly just, but something
further might be added on the subject. The pro-
gressive extension and prosperity of the British domi-
nions in India has been founded mainly on its military
and political power ; but, in the military line and the
highest departments of government, circumstances
rarely fail to generate the qualifications required. All
ages and countries have produced warriors and states-
men. A few great and illustrious individuals, such as
c 3
20
we may suppose might be formed out of the number of
Englishmen sent to the east, might be sufficient so to
animate the whole body of their countrymen, and so
skilfully to manage the natives, as to acquire and
maintain enormous possessions against Mahometan
and Indian competitors. But it is a very different
thing when the question is no longer about the ac-
quisition and maintenance of empire, but the admi-
nistration of justice and of a good internal government
to sixty millions of subjects. Here the few men of
great talents, who will always be found among a cer-
tain number, are comparatively without power. They
cannot act without instruments. These instruments
must necessarily be a considerable body of civil ser-
vants, not only possessing the means of easy com-
munication with the natives, but of improved under-
standings, of acquired knowledge, and of habits of
steady application and industry. When it is recol-
lected that there is no judge on the bench in England
who is not of mature age, and has not shewn himself
for many years eminent among a number of eminent
competitors, it is difficult to conceive that the judicial
department in India should be in any degree ade-
quately filled. And though it might be allowed that
out of the number supplied from England in the civil
and military line, according to the former system,
India would never be deficient in persons fit to com-
mand in the field, or advise in the cabinet ; yet that
21
such a body, so collected, should furnish a sufficient
number of persons competent to conduct ably and
efficiently the whole internal administration of so
great and populous a country, seems next to an im-
possibility. Nothing, then, can be more futile than
the argument in favour of the former system, derived
from the progressive extension of our power in the
east. In fact the past and present internal state of
India directly contradict the arguments. Before the
period of the establishment of the Board of Controul
and the commencement of the government of Lord
Cornwallis, however wonderful might have been the
progress of our power, the internal prosperity of the
provinces in our possession was generally considered
to be on the decline ; and, even since that period, the
commercial, financial, and territorial prosperity of
British India, has certainly not kept pace with the
brilliant career of its arms and councils. Considering
the long peace which Bengal has enjoyed under the
protection of these arms, its cultivation, wealth, and
population, have not increased so much as might
naturally have been expected; and not only would
it be rash to affirm, as Mr. Edmonstone intimates,
that no advantages have been lost in consequence of
the deficient knowledge of the Company's servants,
but it would probably be quite safe to assert, that the
interests of the Company and the happiness and pro-
sperity of their Indian subjects must have suffered
22
materially from this cause; that they suffer in some
degree still ; but that they suffered much more, ante-
cedently to the commencement of the improved system
of education, when the number of those who attained
to any degree of proficiency in the languages was ex-
tremely confined ; when, according to Mr. Edmon-
stone, the Arabic and Sanscrit could boast only of a
few occasional votaries ; when the proportion of the
servants of the Company who acquired a knowledge
of the Persian language was comparatively incon-
siderable, and the general standard of proficiency in
that language was extremely low ; when, unassisted by
a Moonshee, few were capable of executing the ordi-
nary business of translating from Persian into English,
and still fewer were able to perform the converse of
that operation with any grammatical correctness, with-
out the same assistance ; when the number of those
who were adequately conversant in the Hindoostance
was extremely limited, and the language of Bengal
was almost generally neglected and unknown. Mr.
Edmonstone then adds, " how essential, how ex-
" tensive, has been the change in all these respects !"
It might naturally be expected that the defects of
the former system would be the least conspicuous in
the acquisition of the languages; and that an early re-
moval to India, and an early employment in some
subordinate official situation, would not have been very
disadvantageous in this respect, however disadvanta.
23
geous it would be, as directly stated by Lord Wellesley,
with a view to the attainments necessary in the higher
departments of the service.
But it appears, that even in the languages, with the
exception of a few self-taught individuals, the deficiency
was very great. What then must it have been in the
other qualifications necessary for the internal admini-
stration of a great country ?
When to these statements of Mr. Edmonstone, and
the inferences which follow from them, we add the
distinct declaration of the Marquis W'ellesley, before
quoted, respecting the insufficient qualifications of the
great body of the civil servants, it is abundantly evi-
dent that an improved education for the civil service
of the Company was not an imaginary and theoretical,
but a real and practical want — a want which, in some
way or other, required unquestionably to be supplied.
24
SECTION III.
In order to secure the attainment of the qualifica-
tions necessary for the civil servants of the Com-
pany, is an appropriate establishment necessary ?
and should it be of the nature of a school, or
a college ?
THE Marquis Wellesley, after dwelling upon the
qualifications necessary for the civil service of the
Company, observes that it is unnecessary to enter into
an examination of facts to prove that no system of
education, study, or discipline, now exists either in
Europe or India, founded on the principles or directed
to the objects which he had described; and his opi-
nion of the necessity of an appropriate institution was
fully evinced by the grand collegiate establishment
which he founded at Fort William.
It is well known that this establishment, in its full
extent, was not sanctioned by the Court of Directors.
The main ground of their rejection of it they stated
to be the enormous and indefinite expense in which it
must involve the Company, which they considered as
25
too great for the actual state of their affairs. They
paid high compliments to the liberal and enlightened
spirit and great ability of the Marquis, though they
only expressed their approbation of parts of his plan.
They acknowledged, however, the necessity of an im-
proved education for their civil servants, but seemed
to think that this object might be effectually accom-
plished by an enlarged seminary for Oriental learning
at Calcutta, combined with an improved system of
education in Europe, suitable to the sphere of life in
which their civil servants were intended to move.
None of the old establishments in England offered
such a system of education. The great public schools,
which, upon the Marquis Wellesley's plan of an uni-
versity education in Calcutta, would have answered
perfectly well for the European part of the education
till fifteen or sixteen, were evidently insufficient when
the Indian part of the education was to be confined
exclusively to the Oriental languages, and conducted
without any system of discipline.
A regular course of study at Oxford and Cambridge
would evidently detain the young men too long in
England, and would defer the commencement of their
Indian career till the age of twenty-two or twenty-
three; a period, which is considered as decidedly
objectionable, both with respect to the greater diffi-
culty they would find in accommodating themselves
to Indian manners and habits, and to the necessarily
26
later period of life at which they could expect to re-
turn to their native country with a competency.
Whatever difficulties or objections, therefore, might
attend an institution exclusively applied to the edu-
cation of the young persons destined to go out to
India as writers, such an appropriate institution seemed
to be necessarily required by the specific wants of the
Company.
But if an appropriate establishment was necessary,
the nature of the object to be attained obviously dic-
tated the propriety of its assuming a collegiate form.
At the time that the establishment in Hertfordshire
was founded, the plan of general education projected
by the Marquis Wellesley at the college in Calcutta
had been given up, and the lectures were confined
exclusively to the Oriental languages. It was neces-
sary, therefore, with a view to the qualifications ac-
knowledged to be required in the service, to commence
a plan of more general study in England; and for
this purpose a school was unfit.
At a school which the boys would leave at an
early age, little more could be learnt with advantage
than at the usual seminaries of the country. If the
age of proceeding to India wras in general not later
than sixteen, there would certainly be ample time for
the acquisition of the Oriental languages in that country
before a writer could be employed, or, at least, before
he ought to be employed, in any official situation
27
beyond that of copying-clerk ; and the advantage which
he would gain by commencing the Oriental languages
at school would be so trifling as not nearly to coun-
terbalance the time employed on them.
It will hardly be contended, that boys under the
age of sixteen are fit to commence that course of ge-
neral reading which may be considered as appropriate
to their future destination ; and an attempt to intro-
duce such a system would inevitably occasion the
complete sacrifice of classical studies, with scarcely a
possibility of substituting any thing in their stead but
that mercantile education, so strongly reprobated by
Lord Wellesley.
With regard to conduct, — the strict discipline and
constant superintendence of a school would be but a
bad preparation for the entire independence, and com-
plete freedom from all restraint, which would await
them on their arrival at Calcutta ; and as long as they
continue to proceed to India at the age of school-boys,
whether they are taken from an appropriate establish-
ment, or from the common schools of the country,
nothing is done to\vards removing or mitigating the
dangers arising from this cause.
If to these considerations be added the objections
which have been made to an appropriate establishment
for India, as tending to generate something like an
Indian caste (objections which might have some weight
if the exclusive education commenced as early as
28
twelve or thirteen), it may safely be concluded that
any expenditure of the Company in an appropriate
school would not only be entirely wasted, but would
probably be the means of giving them servants of less
powerful minds, and inferior general abilities, than if
they had been taken promiscuously from the common
schools of the country.
To accomplish the particular object proposed some
institution was required, \vhich was adapted to form
the understandings of persons above the age of mere
boys, where a more liberal system of discipline might
be introduced; and where, instead of being kept to
their studies solely by the fear of immediate observa-
tion and punishment, they might learn to be influenced
by the higher motives of the love of distinction and
the fear of disgrace, and to depend for success upon
their own diligence and self-controul ; upon the power
of regulating their own time and attention ; and on
habits of systematic and persevering application, when
out of the presence of their teachers. Nothing but
an institution approaching in some degree to a college,
and possessing some degree of college liberty, could
either generate such habits, or properly develop the
different characters of the young persons educated in
it ; and mark with sufficient precision the industrious
and the indolent, the able and the deficient, the well-
disposed and the turbulent. Nothing, in short, but an
institution at which the students would remain till
eighteen or nineteen, could be expected properly to
prepare them for the acquisition of those high quali-
fications, which had been stated from the best authority
to be necessary for a very large portion of the civil
servants of the Company, in order to enable them to
discharge their various and important duties with
credit to themselves and advantage to the service.
Yet, in spite of these obvious reasons, which seemed
to settle the question at once in favour of a college,
there were many who preferred a school, as there
were many who would have greatly preferred the
having neither the one nor the other. The motives for
this latter preference were sufficiently intelligible.
Besides the argument for leaving things as they are,
which so many persons are always ready to apply on
all occasions, it was certain that any system of educa-
tion at a particular establishment, which was made a
necessary qualification for an appointment to India,
must tend rather to diminish the value of the pa-
tronage of the Directors. In the first place, the ex-
pense of the education would generally be considered
by the parents and guardians of the young person
appointed as a drawback upon the advantage received.
And, secondly, the chance that, from inability or mis-
conduct, the appointment might not be confirmed,
would be a consideration of a nature to have great
weight with those who, it is to be feared, sometimes
wish to send out a son, or other connexion, to India,
30
whose conduct and attainments do not promise a very
fortunate career at home.
It is evident that most of the reasons which would
determine many persons to prefer the old system to
any kind of establishment whatever, for the education
of the civil servants of the Company, would determine
them to prefer a school to a college, if it were neces-
sary to choose between the two evils. They would
be aware that a young person must be educated some-
where, before he reaches the earliest age at which he
can be sent to India, and it would not make much
difference in expense whether he was educated at a
common school or one established by the Company.
The early conclusion of his education, and the early
period of his proceeding to India, would remove,
either wholly, or in a great degree, the objections on the
score of expense. They would probably presume also,
that as, at a school, the boys would be kept in order
by the birch, there would be much less danger of the
loss of an appointment. In this, however, they would
probably find themselves mistaken. Birch supports
discipline, only because it is itself supported by the
fear of expulsion : remove this fear, and the effect of
the rod will soon cease. In almost all cases, the physical
force is on the side of the governed ; and few youths of
sixteen would submit to be flogged if they did not
know that immediate expulsion would be the conse-
quence of their refusal. If the East-India Company
31
had an establishment for the education of boys from
thirteen to sixteen, there is great reason to believe that
without the usual gradation of ages from nine and ten
upwards, and with any hesitation in resorting to the
punishment of expulsion on all the usual occasions, it
would be scarcely possible to enforce proper obedience ;
and the rod itself would probably be one of the prin-
cipal causes of resistance and rebellion.
A school therefore, besides excluding at once the
great object in view — an education fitted for the higher
offices of the government — seemed to present no one
intelligible advantage over a college, but that of dimi-
nishing, in a smaller degree, the patronage of the
Directors. This advantage, to the honour of the Court,
was not regarded, in comparison of the advantages
which ,their Indian territories might derive from the
improved education of their civil servants; and a
college was determined upon.
One of the great objections urged by Adam Smith
against the government of an exclusive Company is,
that their interests, as a sovereign, are generally con-
sidered as subordinate to their interests as individuals,
or as a body of merchants. In the establishment of
the East-India college, the feelings of the sovereign
conspicuously predominated ; and the public did justice
to the disinterested motives and the enlarged and en-
lightened views which prompted the decision.
32
SECTION IV.
Should the appropriate establishment formed by the
East-India Company be in England or India ? or
should there be establishments in both countries ?
.THE practical part of this question has been already
decided in the Court of Directors by their establish-
ment of an appropriate college in England for the
education of their civil servants, and by their resolution
to confine the object of their college in Calcutta ex-
clusively to the Oriental languages. But the question
may at any time be revived. Eeeling present incon-
veniencies and evils from the establishment in England,
the Court may again think of reverting to a system of
general education in Calcutta. And it may be useful
to state, preparatory to any such experiment, the evils
and inconveniencies which are likely to result from a
regular college in India.
In the first place, it is well known that the expense
would be beyond all comparison greater than in Eng-
land, probably, at the least, six or seven times as
great; and though the object of an improved educa-
tion is of such paramount importance that it is the
last quarter in which expense should be considered,
yet, if this object can be effectually accomplished upon
a more economical plan, there can be no doubt of
the duty and propriety of adopting it.
In England the most able instructors may be ob-
tained in all the departments of knowledge and lite-
rature at salaries quite moderate, compared with those
which would be necessary to induce men of the same
attainments to afford their assistance in India ; and if
to these superior salaries be added the much heavier
Pension List that would inevitably accompany them,
the difference would be still farther increased.
In England every part of a collegiate establishment,
the buildings, the table, the attendance, &c. &c. may
be kept within very moderate bounds ; but in India,
where a certain style of living seems to be expected
from all the Company's servants, this would be ex-
tremely difficult, and the expenditure under all these
heads would be upon a much larger and more ex-
tended scale.
In England, at the college now established, not
only the personal expenses of the students are sup-
ported by their parents and friends, but a hundred
guineas a year are paid towards their education. If
the two years from sixteen to eighteen were spent at a
D
34
college in India, the students would of course be paid
the salaries of writers from the time of their arrival ;
and, reckoning the average of the yearly admissions at
forty, eighty persons more than at present would be
living upon the Indian revenue. The salaries of the
junior writers are 300 rupees a month, or about 450/.
a year ; and on this article alone, therefore, the pre-
sent system saves 36,000/. a year to the Company.
It may be said, perhaps, that it is not to be wished
that the expenses of the necessary education of the
Company's servants should fall so heavily upon their
parents and connexions, and that it would sometimes
be desirable to give appointments to persons whose
families could not easily support such an expense.
That such instances may occur there can be no doubt ;
but, as a general rule, there can be as little doubt that
the preparatory education for official situations not
only usually is, but ought to be, supported by the fa-
milies of the candidates themselves, and in the parti-
cular case in question it is highly beneficial to the
Company's service that the candidates for writerships
should be taken almost exclusively from that class of
society which may be supposed capable of paying the
expenses of a good common education. There is
reason to believe, from the information of residents in
India, and from the qualifications of some of the
students who even now present themselves for ad-
35
mission to the college in Hertfordshire, that before its
establishment persons were occasionally sent out to
India so extremely ill-suited to the situations in which
they were likely to be placed, both from their previous
habits, and the kind of education they had received,
that it was scarcely possible to employ them without
injury to the service.
The college in India, established upon the Marquis
Wellesley's plan, cost in the first year about 76,000/.
For the two following years the estimates were about
48,000/., but the change of plan prevented the cor-
rectness of them from being ascertained. In neither
calculation, however, were the additional salaries of
eighty students included. These salaries, it was
considered, would be paid equally, whether the writers
resided in the college, or were less usefully employed
in some subordinate offices; and this was certainly
true ; but the whole of this expense would of course
be saved upon the supposition that the two years
from sixteen to eighteen were spent in England.
The expense of the college in England, beyond
what is paid by the students, and independently of
the building, may be estimated at between nine and
ten thousand a year, so that the expenses of the col-
lege in India would altogether at the least be six or
seven times as great as that in England.
Secondly, in point of regularity of conduct and
personal expenses, the advantage possessed by the
D 2
36
college in England will scarcely appear less marked
than its advantage in point of economy *.
It is generally acknowledged that the young men
who go out as writers to India have the power of
borrowing money almost to any extent from natives,
whp speculate upon their future rise in the service ;
and during the early part of their residence in Cal-
cutta it is but too common to indulge in an ex-
penditure greatly beyond their incomes. They find
themselves besides the members of a privileged cast ;
and the almost arbitrary controul which they exercise
over the persons whom they chiefly see about them
must have a necessary tendency to foster their ca-
prices, and render them impatient of authority. If to
these causes of irregularity we add the seductions of
a luxurious climate, and consider at the same time
the critical age from sixteen to nineteen at which they
are at first exposed to these temptations, it is difficult
to conceive a more dangerous ordeal. The deficient
discipline of our schools and universities in England has
often been the subject of complaint ; but it may safely
be- pronounced, that if our youth from sixteen to nine-
teen were exposed to the same temptations as they
* I say this with confidence, notwithstanding the clamour that
has lately been made in the Court of Proprietors, and in the public
prints, about the irregularities prevailing in the East-India
college.
37
would be during a three-years' residence at a college in
Calcutta, their discipline would not admit of a com-
parison with what it is at present.
But it is not only to be expected, according to all
general principles, that violations of any regular system
of academical discipline in India would be much more
frequent than in a similar institution in England,' but
the means of punishment, when such offences had
been committed, would be much more difficult and
embarrassing.
It is well known that in all places of education for
gentlemen the efficacy of minor punishments is only
supported by the final appeal to expulsion. Even in
military seminaries, where strict personal confinement
is frequently applied, expulsion and dismission from
the service are the punishments for continued acts of
contumacy and rebellion; and in civil institutions,
where the intermediate punishments can scarcely be
made so effective, this final appeal is still more abso-
lutely necessary. But in India the expelled students,
though not perhaps subsequently promoted to any lu-
crative situation, would still continue to receive the
salaries of writers according to their standing ; and if
the old plan of sending youths to India without any
kind of previous selection or examination were reverted
to, and they were never sent back, the number might
in time become so considerable as to be a serious
weight on the Company's finances.
38
At a preparatory institution in England, if a young
man, either from absolute want of capacity, from de-
termined idleness, or any violent act of contumacy,
loses his promised appointment to a writership, and is
excluded from the service, there are various other
lines of exertion open to him. Some employments may
be found at home even for a very feeble capacity ;
the most determined academical idleness till nineteen
or twenty may yield to the pressure of strong necessity
and real business ; and a young man of talents, who
from temper, caprice, or any other cause, had been
guilty of some violent act of contumacy, might rise to
the top of his profession as a lawyer, a soldier, a sailor,
or a merchant.
In India there is only one line of employment, and
that is the Company's service. A youth, who is expelled
from a college in India for any of the causes above
enumerated, is expelled by the same authority which
disposes of all Indian appointments. If this same
authority, after a short interval, promotes him to office
even on the supposition that he is then fit for it, an
expulsion from the college would come to be con-
sidered as of little importance, and its discipline would
soon be destroyed.
In the last public examination at the college in
India, of which the account has arrived, five students
were expelled. Notwithstanding the opportunities
of instruction afforded to them, and the repeated
39
warnings they had received during a protracted
stay at Calcutta, they had not acquired such a know-
ledge of two Oriental languages as would enable them
to pass the examination necessary to qualify them for
any official situation.
If a test be established any where, either in
India or England, and the examination be conducted
conscientiously, it may be laid down as a certain con-
sequence that some, out of a considerable number of
young men, taken without any selection, will fail. If,
besides the passing of such a test, obedience be
required to a code of academical regulations, however
mildly administered, a greater number will undoubt-
edly fail. And the question is, whether it is not very
much better that these failures should take place in
England, where various other lines of life besides the
Company's service are open, than in India, where they
must remain unemployed, a burden to themselves
and the Company, or be sent back to Europe at a
very heavy expense, and at a more advanced age ;
or, what is much the worst of the three, be employed
when not properly qualified, to the manifest injury
of the Company's service and the interest of their
Indian dominions ; or even, if qualified, to the utter
subversion of that code of academical laws which had
been established as necessary to the proper training
and education of their civil servants ?
It is certainly conceivable that parents in narrow
40
circumstances may wish to get their children off their
hands as early as possible, with little regard of the
consequences to the Company. But even such views
would, probably, be defeated on the establishment of
a college for a three-years' course of academical edu-
cation in Calcutta. As it has appeared that, accord-
ing to all general principles, more failures might be
expected in India than in England, it would soon be
found necessary to send back those who failed to
their friends in England. It is understood that this
measure was once proposed by Lord Minto, in the
case of some students who had resided nearly three
years in the college without making a progress in
any language. The proposition, it is said, was re-
jected by the Court at home. But if the number of
writers so situated were to accumulate in a consider-
able degree, the proposition for returning them could
not be rejected without obviously and grossly sacri-
ficing the Company's interests, and they would then
be sent back at a later age, and under much less
favourable circumstances for the commencement of a
new career of life, than if they had failed at a college
in England. But whether this measure would be
adopted or not, it must be allowed that those who look
solely to a provision for their children cannot be con-
sidered as disinterested judges in a question of this
kind. And it is scarcely conceivable that any really
disinterested friend to the good government of India.
41
and the prosperity and credit of the Company, should
not say that, if failures must be calculated upon, it is
far better, under all the circumstances of the case, that
they should take place in England than in India.
Thirdly, in point of efficiency, it can hardly be
doubted, that the foundation of a general education
would be better laid in England than in India. The
most important period in the education of a young
man is the period in which he commences a more
general course of reading than that which is pursued
at schools ; and it is of the utmost consequence that
this period should be passed under circumstances-
favourable to habits of study and industrious exertion.
But it is not easy to conceive a more unfavourable
time for the formation of these habits, and the com-
mencement of new and difficult studies, than the two
or three years immediately succeeding the transition
from a common school in England to an university in
India, at the age of sixteen. Suddenly possessed of
an unusual command of money, surrounded by
natives devoted to his will, tempted to indulgences of
all kinds by the novel forms in which they present
themselves, and discouraged from severe application by
the enfeebling effects of the climate, he must possess a
very steady and unusual degree of resolution to begin
a course of law, history, political economy, and
natural philosophy, and to continue his classical studies,
at the very same time that he is required as his
42
paramount duty, and the immediate passport to an
official situation, to make himself master of two or
three Oriental languages. Such a course of general
reading may, undoubtedly, be pursued in India at a
future time by individuals, during the intervals of
official occupation ; but it may be considered as certain
that, except, perhaps, in a few rare instances, little or no
attemion would be paid to these studies in a three-
years' residence at Calcutta from sixteen to nineteen,
and that, if such a general education be necessary, the
foundation of it must be laid in England.
The Marquis Wellesley's college in India had not,
it must be allowed, a fair trial. It is hardly just,
therefore, to quote it as an example : but, as far
as a judgment might be formed of the effects of
such an establishment from the manner in which it
commenced, it tends strongly to confirm what has
been said of the great difficulty of establishing a regular
system of discipline, and beginning with success a plan
of more general study in an university at Calcutta. The
state of the college with regard to discipline is well
known, and need not to be entered upon ; and, though
other lectures besides those in the Oriental languages
were given, they were scarcely ever attended. It has
been stated, indeed, by those who have acted as pro-
fessors at the college in Calcutta, as well as by those
who have gone through it as students, that, however
great are the advantages it affords in the study of the
43
Oriental languages, they see no prospect of its ever
becoming a place of regular collegiate discipline, and
of efficient general education.
But a general course of study, however necessary
to the education of those who are to fill the judicial,
the financial, and the diplomatic departments in
India, or assist in the administration of the Govern-*
ment as Members in Council, is not alone sufficient :
and the highest intellectual endowments would be
of little avail without a knowledge of the Oriental
languages. A certain knowledge, therefore, of these
languages, must always be considered as a sine qua
non in the appointment to official situations. This
knowledge will, indeed, do little without any other
combined with it ; but no knowledge can do any thing
without the means of communication with the natives.
Two objects therefore are to be kept in view ; one of
the highest utility, and the other of paramount ne-
cessity. As a foundation of general knowledge is best
laid in the West, and the necessary languages are best
acquired in the East, it seems highly probable that
two establishments, one in England, and the other in
India, may be required to accomplish most effectively
the objects in view : — the English establishment to
give as good a general education as can be commu-
nicated within the age of 18 or 19, with some instruc-
tion in the rudiments of the Oriental languages ; and
the Indian establishment to be confined exclusively
to these languages, and particularly to act as a final test,
as far as languages go, of qualification for office.
It has been found, by experience, that those young
men, who go out to India tolerably well grounded in
the rudiments of the Oriental languages, can, without
difficulty, pass the necessary test within the year, and
many of them pass it in six months. Upon this plan,
therefore, the time taken up in the preparatory educa-
tion for the civil service would scarcely be greater
than upon the Marquis Wellesley's plan. But, even
if it were somewhat greater, it is probable that the
interests, both of the service and of individuals, would
be promoted by this change. It is certainly the opinion
of some of the writers themselves, that, even since the
establishment of both the colleges, they are advanced
to important situations in the judicial line at too early,
rather than too late an age. And it by no means
»/
follows that the going out to India a year or two later
implies a proportionally later return.
The period in which a fortune is made, ought not to
be dated from the time of arrival in India, but from
the time at which accumulation commences. And, if
a year or two more spent in Europe be employed in
such a manner as to send the young writer out, not
only with superior qualifications for office, but with a
greater degree of general prudence, he is likely to
begin saving sooner, and will, perhaps, return with a
fortune at an earlier age than if he had been exposed
45
from the age of fifteen or sixteen to a three-years1 re-
sidence at Calcutta, and the heavy debt which too
frequently accompanies it.
No time therefore is really lost either to the service
or to individuals by the period devoted to education in
England. And, as the expenses of the Indian college,
in its present state, without buildings, without a table,
without a Principal and Professors of European lite-
rature, and general management, and with the limited
number arising from only a year, or a year and a half s
residence, may be kept within very moderate bounds,
there can be no doubt, on the whole, that the present
system of education in the two colleges, compared
with a regular university course in India, is much
more economical, most efficient with regard to general
knowledge, and exposed to fewer difficulties in point
of discipline and personal dissipation and extra-
vagance.
SECTION V.
Does it appear that the College actually established
in Hertfordshire is upon a plan calculated to
supply that part of the appropriate education of
the civil servants of the Company which ought to
be completed in England ?
WHEN the Court of Directors declined sanctioning
the collegiate establishment proposed by the Marquis
Wellesley, they did not hesitate to acknowledge the
necessity of an improved education for their civil ser-
vants ; and it was for the specific purpose of securing
to them such an improved education before they left
England, without detaining them till the usual age
at which an university course finishes (to which de-
tention the Marquis had objected), that the Court of
Directors founded the institution in Hertfordshire.
At this institution the students commence a course
of more general instruction than is to be found at
schools, nearly at the same period that they were to
commence it in India according to Lord Wellesley's
47
plan, and yet proceed to their destination at eighteen
Oi nineteen, an age at which the constitution is bet-
ter fortified against the Indian climate than two or
three years earlier, but not sufficiently advanced to
be open to those objections urged by Lord Wellesley
against a detention till twenty-one or twenty-two.
In the East-India college, so constituted, the plan
upon which the system of discipline and instruction
is conducted seems to be well calculated to answer the
purpose in view. Every candidate for admission into
the college is required to produce a testimonial from
his schoolmaster, and to pass an examination in
Greek, Latin, and arithmetic, before the Principal
and Professors. This previous examination at once
prevents persons from offering themselves who have
not received the usual school-education of the higher
classes of society; and those who offer themselves,
and are found deficient, are remanded till another
period of admission.
The lectures of the different Professors in the col-
lege are given in a manner to make previous prepara-
tion necessary, and to encourage most effectually
habits of industry and application. In their substance
they embrace the important subjects of classical li-
terature, the Oriental languages, the elements af
mathematics and natural philosophy, the laws of
England, general history, and political economy.
At the commencement of the institution it wae
48
feared by some persons that this variety would too
much distract the attention of the students at the age
of sixteen or seventeen, and prevent them from
making a satisfactory progress in any department.
But instances of distinguished success in many de-
partments at the same time have proved that these
fears were without foundation ; and that this variety
has not only been useful to them in rendering a me-
thodical arrangement of their hours of study more
necessary, but has decidedly contributed to enlarge,
invigorate, and mature their understandings.
On all the important subjects above enumerated,
examinations take place twice in the year, at the end
of each term. These examinations last above a fort-
night. They are conducted upon the plan of the
great public and collegiate examinations in the uni-
versities, particularly at Cambridge, with such further
improvements as experience has suggested. The
questions given are framed with a view to ascertain
the degree of progress and actual proficiency in each
particular department on the subjects studied during
the preceding term ; and the answers, in all cases
which will admit of it, are given in writing, in the pre-
sence of the professors, and without the possibility of
a reference to books. After the examination in any
particular department is over, the Professor in that
department reviews at his leisure all the papers that
he has received, and places, as nearly as he can,
49
each individual in the numerical order of his relative
merit, and in certain divisions implying his degree of
positive merit. These arrangements are all subject to
the controul of the whole collegiate body. They re-
quire considerable time and attention, and are exe-
cuted with scrupulous care and strict impartiality.
Besides the classifications above mentioned, medals,
prizes of books, and honorary distinctions, are awarded
to those who are the heads of classes, or as high as
second, third, fourth, or fifth, in two, three, four, or
five departments.
These means of exciting emulation and industry
have been attended with great success. Though there
are some, unquestionably, on whom motives of this
kind will not, or cannot, operate, and with whom,
therefore, little can be done; yet, a more than usual
proportion seem to be animated by a strong desire,
accompanied by corresponding efforts, to make a
progress in the various studies proposed to them.
Those who have come to college tolerably good
scholars, have often, during their stay of two years,
made such advances in the classical department as
would have done them great credit, if they had de-
voted to it the main part of their time ; while the
contemporary honours which they have obtained in
other departments have sufficiently proved that their
attention was not confined to one study : and many,
who had come from public and private schools at
E
50
sixteen, with such low classical attainments as ap-
peared to indicate a want either of capacity or ap-
plication, have shewn by their subsequent progress,
even in the classical department, and still more by
their distinguished exertions in others, that a new field
and new stimulants had wrought a most beneficial
change in their feelings and habits, and had awakened
energies of which they were before scarcely con-
scious.
There are four or five of the Professors thoroughly
conversant with University examinations, who can
take upon themselves to affirm that they have never
witnessed a greater proportion of various and success-
ful exertion in the course of their academical expe-
rience than has appeared at some of the examina-
tions at the East-India college.
With regard to the discipline of the establishment,
it will be readily allowed that it has not been, in all its
parts, so successful. It is well known that disturbances
have occasionally taken place, which, at the moment,
have shewn, in a considerable body of the students,
a total disregard of the rules and regulations of the
college. The principal causes of these disturbances
will be the subject of inquiry in the next section ; but it
is proper to observe here, that the public would form
a most incorrect notion of the general state and cha-
racter of the discipline, and the general conduct of
the students, if they were to draw hasty inferences
51
from these temporary ebullitions. When they have
subsided, few traces of their past existence are to be
found ; and in common times the whole business of
the college proceeds with a degree of decency, order,
and decorum, which has often been the admiration of
strangers, and would be perfectly satisfactory to every
competent judge.
In their moral conduct, the students of the East-
India college may be advantageously compared with
those of either University, or the senior part of any
of our great public schools ; and they are rather sin-
gularly free, than otherwise, from the prevailing
vices which beset young men of seventeen, eighteen,
and nineteen, particularly when collected together in a
large body.
It is from such comparisons, and the general results
which appear in after-life, and not from individuals,
or individual offences, that any rational judgment
can be formed of a place of education.
On the whole, perhaps it is not too much to
assert, that, taking literary and moral character to-
gether, a considerable proportion of the students of
the East-India college, who have proceeded to India,
have left it with more improved understandings, a
greater quantity of useful knowledge, fitted for the
early discharge of public business, and more steady
habits of application and good conduct, than could
be found among any set of young men taken in the
E 2
52
same way, and at the same age, from any place of
public education in Europe : and some of them with
such distinguished attainments already acquired, such
means of acquiring more, and such fixed habits of
honour and integrity, that no situation, however
high, would be above their powers or beyond their
deserts.
It will be asked, however, as the main question,
whether the good effects which may be presumed to
result from the establishment in England have prac-
tically been perceived and acknowledged by com-
petent judges in India ? To this question an answer
may be decidedly given in the affirmative. The young
men who arrive at the Calcutta college from the
college in England are not examined respecting their
progress in general knowledge. On this point, there-
fore, there can be no specific testimony. But with
regard to general conduct and character, and such a
knowledge of the Oriental languages as greatly to
abridge the period of study at Calcutta, the testi-
mony is most explicit, and from the highest au-
thority.
In 1810, Lord Minto, after having noticed parti-
cularly a certain number of students who had greatly
distinguished themselves, adds, "It is with peculiar
" pleasure that I do a further justice to the Hertford
" college, by remarking, that the official reports
" and returns of our college will shew the students
53
" who have been translated from Hertford to Fort
" William to stand honourably distinguished for re-
" gular attendance, — for obedience to the statutes
" and discipline of the college, — for orderly and
" decorous demeanour, — for moderation in expense,
' and consequently in the amount of their debt; —
" and, in a word, for those decencies of conduct
" which denote men well born, and characters well
" trained. I make this observation with the more
" satisfaction, as I entertain an earnest wish to find
" it proved that the preliminary tuition and general
" instruction afforded to the succeeding generations
" of the .Company's servants at Hertford will be
" found of more extensive (I should be disposed to
" say, more valuable} influence even for India, than a
" greater or smaller degree of proficiency in a lan-
" guage or two of the East can prove at that early
" period."
In 1812, the following passage occurs in a letter
from the College Council of Fort William to the
Governor-General in Council, dated December 29,
and recorded in the Bengal Public Consultations of
the 1st of April, 1814:—
" We take the liberty of repeating in this place
" the observations made by the Right Honourable
{C the Visitor, in his speech, pronounced at the Dis-
" putation, holden 22d September, 1810, that the
" improvement (a very great and general one) which
54
' we have thought ourselves warranted in asserting,
" has been very conspicuous in the conduct of the
' students who have passed through the college
" at Hertford. We trust and believe that this is no
" accidental circumstance; but at all events the fact
" is,' in our opinion, certain, that, due regard being
" paid to numbers, no similar institution can afford
" a greater proportion of young men more distin-
" guished by the manners of gentlemen, and general
" correctness and propriety of deportment, than the
" present students of the college at Fort William."
At nearly the same period this improvement in the
general conduct of the students is spoken of as an
acknowledged fact, in a letter from Captain Roebuck
to the College Council, at Fort William, dated Nov.
10, 1812, and recorded on the Consultations before
mentioned : — " As I believe (he says) it is generally
" admitted as a fact that the students now in college,
" compared with former years, are much steadier in
" every respect (which is, perhaps, owing to their
" previous education at Hertford college), I can ac-
" count," &c. £c.
At the Public Disputation in 1 8 1 5, Mr. Edmonstone,
who acted as Visitor in the absence of Lord Moira,
after adverting to the objections that had sometimes
been made to the college, on the ground of the
conduct of the students, observes — " To whatever
" extent the change might have been justly appli-
55
" cable at some period of the institution, I have the
" satisfaction to know that, at the present time, in-
" stances of deviation from the maxims and rules of
" prudence and propriety (for such must always
" exist in every large association) are exceptions to
" the general system of conduct observable among
" the students of the college." He then goes on to
say- — " This gratifying improvement may, perhaps,
" be traced to sources beyond this establishment" —
evidently alluding to the acknowledged effects of the
institution in England.
These public testimonies from the college at Cal-
cutta are confirmed by the accounts of individuals
who have returned from India within the last six or
seven years, who agree in stating that what has been
sometimes called the New School of Writers at Cal-
cutta is very superior indeed, both in conduct and
attainments, to those who were sent out upon the old
system.
The period when the conduct of the junior servants
of the Company appears to have been most marked
with dissipation and irregularity was in the interval be-
tween 1801 and 1808 or 1809, when great numbers
were collected together in Calcutta at the early ages of
sixteen and seventeen, without being subjected to a
regular system of discipline, as intended by Lord
Wellesley ; and the marked improvement so generally
acknowledged may fairly be attributed to the esta-
56
blishment of an intermediate place of education in
England, which prevents the sudden removal of a
boy of fifteen or sixteen from the strict restraints of a
school to the dangerous liberty of a residence at
Calcutta.
At the college in England each student has a se-
parate room, in which he breakfasts, drinks tea, and
prepares his lectures. This mode of living gives him
the opportunity of choosing his own society, and
teaches him the habit of regulating his own time ;
while the discipline is still suited to an age two or
three years younger than the average age at the
universities ; and industry and application are en-
couraged by every moral incitement which can stimu-
late the youthful mind. A habit of study so acquired
must be the best possible preparation for a residence
at Calcutta., and the best preservative against its al-
lurements. And, though it cannot be expected that
all should acquire these invaluable habits, yet much is
done if they are acquired by a considerable body.
Besides, all will be detained in England till eighteen
or nineteen — an age when they may be fairly supposed
to know better how to conduct themselves in a situa-
tion in which they are subjected to no discipline. And,
owing to this same detention, all will reside a much
shorter time at the college in Calcutta, and find them-
selves surrounded by a much smaller number of asso-
ciates. These are causes calculated to operate
57
favourably on the whole mass, and not only to lessen
the shock of the first transition, but to diminish both
the duration and amount of the dangers to which they
are exposed.
Under these circumstances it cannot be a matter
of surprise that the general conduct of the students
at Calcutta should have greatly improved since the
establishment of the college in England.
On the effect of the college in England in abridging
the period of stay at the college in Calcutta, the
testimonies are equally satisfactory.
At the public disputation of 1810, before adverted
to, Lord Minto says, " That the studies of Hertford
" will abridge those of Fort William cannot be
" doubted. This has already been proved." — He had
before indeed observed, that the college of Fort
William had already derived some of its most distin-
guished ornaments from Hertford. " I do not speak,"
he says, " of the merit to which I now allude in
" comparison only with that of contemporaries of the
" present year, but I would place it confidently in
" parallel with the best and brightest period of our
" college." To warrant this homage, justly and im-
partially paid to the early fruit of the new (not rival,
but associate) institution, he names eight students from
Hertford, who had eminently distinguished themselves.
Of these the average period of stay at the college of
Fort William was about a year, although some of
them had delayed their going longer than was neces-
58
sary ; and three had acquired a proficiency in no less
than four Oriental languages.
In 1811, the documents furnish the means of a
more accurate comparison. In that year the num-
ber of students which left the Calcutta college quali-
fied for official situations was twenty, of whom the
number from the college in Hertfordshire was
twelve, viz.
Six who left the college after six months' residence.
Two after eight months.
One after nine months.
One after two years.
Two after three years.
The number of students who left the Calcutta col-
lege at the same time, but never were at the college
in Hertfordshire, was eight, viz.
Three after a residence of two years and a quarter.
One of three years.
One of three years and a quarter.
Two of four years.
One of four years and a half.
In the one case, the average stay is about ten
months ; in the other, three years and two months.
It will be unnecessary to go through all the dif-
ferent years ; indeed, the means for so doing are not
at hand. They will, of course, be subject to consider-
able variations, arising from the natural variations to
59
be expected at different times in the mass of talent
and industry in the college, and probably in some
years the average period of stay may be as much as
a year and a half. The summary of the last year of
which the account has arrived is as follows : Of
eighteen students who left the college, six had resided
only six months ; two, ten months ; eight, about a
year and a half; and the other two, three and a half
and four and a half years.
In most years one or two are to be found, who,
either from inability or idleness, make no progress in
the languages. They are detained in consequence a
considerable time, and are generally involved deeply
in debt. It would unquestionably, be much better for
the service, and probably for the individuals them-
selves, if they had never gone out; and, as their cha-
racters are generally pretty well known previous to
the natural time of their departure, the authorities of
the college in England ought to be allowed, quietly,
and without clamour and opposition, as a regular
and very important part of their duty to the Com-
pany, to refuse their certificates.
Such cases, however, appear to be quite as rare as
could possibly be expected; and the very short period in
which the great body of the students from Hertford
college acquire the requisite proficiency in two lan-
guages, and many, of them high distinctions in three or
four, sufficiently proves that a foundation in these
languages laid in England, and a power thus given of
pursuing the study of them during the passage, has
a most marked effect in abridging the period of
stay at Calcutta.
Lord Moira, at the public disputation of 1814,
alludes to the considerable progress made by Mr. Stir-
ling in the Oriental languages prior to his entry at
the college by studying at Hertford, and during his
voyage to India : and to this, in part, he says, is to
be attributed the extraordinary short, period in which
such extensive knowledge and attainments seemed to
have been gained. Mr. Stirling had only resided in
India six months ; and in fact it appears, that in
almost every year a considerable proportion of the
students of Fort William, who have passed through
the East-India college at home, attain the required
qualifications in that short time; and among these are
generally to be found some of the most distinguished
proficients in the Oriental languages. Lord Moira
afterwards observes, — " This is not a seminary, at
" which the students in general are to be taught the
" first rudiments of the Eastern languages. It has
" become, like our Universities at home, a public in-
" stitution, affording those advantages necessary
" to perfect the knowledge of the different branches
" of Oriental literature." These expressions cer-
tainly imply a tolerable foundation in the Ori-
ental languages brought from England. An ideas
61
seems to have prevailed at Calcutta that the col-
lege of Fort William might be superseded by the
establishment in England ; but it may fairly be allowed
that the attention paid to the Oriental languages in
England neither can, nor ought, to be such as, gene-
rally speaking, to prevent the necessity of a mtfch
farther progress after the arrival in India, as a quali-
fication for office. When it is considered that the
period of residence at the college in England is only
two years, it is quite obvious that the whole of that
time exclusively devoted to Oriental study would be
insufficient for the purpose in question, while, in the
attempt to attain it, the main object of the English
institution (which unquestionably is, or ought to be,
to lay the foundation of a sound and enlarged Eu-
ropean education) would be entirely sacrificed.
Lord Minto, at the public disputation of 1813,
speaking of the insufficient knowledge of the Oriental
languages acquired at the Hertford college, observes,
" It is not to be concluded from thence that the
" time allotted to attendance on that institution has
" been unprofitably spent; because most wisely, in
" my opinion, the preliminary education of the Com-
" pany's young servants is not confined to studies
" merely Oriental ; but, together with the classical
" instruction of the West (without which no English
" gentleman is on a level with his fellows), I under-
" stand that a foundation of polite literature is laid,
62
" and that the door is opened at least, and the pu-
" pil's mind attracted, to the elements of useful
" science; the seeds of which being sown, a taste
" for intellectual exercise and enjoyment is implanted,
" which seldom fails to develop and mature these
" first germs of knowledge at the appointed season."
If, instead of being employed in this way, so
justly approved of by Lord Minto, the students at
the college in England were to devote their whole at-
tention to the acquisition of an imperfect knowledge
of two or three Oriental languages, and, as soon as
they arrived in India, were immediately employed up
the country in subordinate official situations, it is not
easy to conceive a species of education less cal-
culated to improve and enlarge the understanding, and
to produce men able and willing to infuse the prin-
ciples of British justice into a government over sixty
millions of Asiatics.
There is nothing, then, which the enlightened friends
of good government in India should less wish to see,
than the attempt so much deprecated by Lord Minto,
in his last speech, of substituting an English educa-
tion in the Oriental languages for the genuine and
practical instruction which is obtained in India ; and
the English college itself will be perfectly ready to
acquiesce in the final opinion given of it by Lord
Minto, — that the elementary knowledge acquired there
operates sensibly in accelerating the progress of
63
Oriental studies, and abridging the period necessary
for a full qualification at the college of Fort William;
but that the institution of Hertford college cannot
be expected ever to supersede the necessity of ma-
turing and perfecting Oriental knowledge at the col-
lege of Fort William.
o
The true friends of the college in England will be
perfectly satisfied that it fully answers its purpose,
and supplies that part of the appropriate education of
the civil servants of the Company which ought to be
completed at home, — if it effects an essential im-
provement in the conduct and character of the young
men sent out to India ; — if it considerably shortens
the period of their residence in the college at Calcutta,
devoted to the acquisition of the Oriental languages; —
and if it lays such a foundation of general knowledge
as will greatly facilitate the subsequent pursuit of it,
and qualifies a much greater proportion of the civil
servants of the Company to discharge with adequate
ability the increased and increasing number of high
and important trusts which must necessarily be con-
fided to them.
That the college has actually accomplished, in a
very considerable degree, the two first of these ob-
jects, is clearly proved, it is conceived, by the direct
testimonies contained in the foregoing pages. The
last object can hardly be the subject of direct testi-
mony; but it may fairly be presumed that this purpose
64
is accomplished, if an enlarged and improved under-
standing be considered as useful in conducting the
administration of a great empire, and if it is known
that the studies in the East-India college are of a
nature calculated to attain this qualification, and that
a progress has been made in these studies fairly
proportioned to the time employed upon them.
SECTION VI.
Are the disturbances which have taken place in the
East-India college to be attributed to any radical
and necessary evils inherent in its constitution and
discipline, or to incidental and temporary causes,
which are likely to be removed?
SOME of the difficulties which have been expe-
rienced in the government of the college are, perhaps,
to a certain extent, inherent in its constitution.
In the first place, an attempt to give a collegiate
education, and to place under collegiate discipline
persons of an age from two to three years younger
than the average age of admission at our universities,
may not be in its nature easy. It is generally allowed
that the age from fifteen or sixteen to eighteen is the
most difficult to govern. It is precisely that period
when the character makes the most rapid change in
the shortest time. Two or three years at this critical
era convert a boy into a man ; and any system of dis-
F
66
cipline intended to apply to the time when this change
is taking place, which happens to be the very time
of the residence at the East-India college, is likely to
be exposed to various and very opposite objections,
according as the earlier or the later age is chiefly
considered.
At great schools, where boys sometimes stay till
they are eighteen, the seniors in age, who are gene-
rally at the same time in the highest classes, form a
kind of natural aristocracy, which not only may safely
and justly be allowed greater liberties and privileges
than others, but may be made, and, in fact, are
made, of the greatest use as an intermediate authority
to assist in the government of the rest.
In the East-India college, on the contrary, on ac-
count of the period of residence being only two years,
and some being admitted at eighteen or nineteen as
well as at fifteen and sixteen, there is no such natural
aristocracy of age, standing, and acquirements ; and
it is hardly possible either justly to separate the
seniors from the juniors, and allow them distinct pri-
vileges, or to make effective use of them, as at great
schools, in the administration of the discipline.
The second permanent difficulty which the college
has to contend with is the chance that some of the
young men, whose parents have obtained appoint-
ments for them, may be indisposed to the service,
and not really wish to go out to India. Such a
67
temper of mind will, of course, naturally indispose
them to submit to the discipline of the college, or to
profit by the education which it offers to them, and
will, at the same time, make them most pernicious
and dangerous examples to others.
The Directors have endeavoured to get rid of this
evil by exhorting all those who feel indisposed to the
service quietly to withdraw from the college. But it
is to be feared that this exhortation, though obviously
just and proper, will not often have the desired effect.
Instances have not been uncommon of a persevering
opposition to the regulations of the college, which
could only be rationally accounted for by supposing a
positive disinclination to the service ; and yet, if the
student has, in consequence of his irregularities, been
sent home for a time to his friends, their influence
has generally produced letters containing expressions
of the greatest contrition for past offences, the most
solemn assurances with respect to future conduct, and
the most anxious desire to proceed to India — profes-
sions with which the conduct of the student after his
return to college has seemed in no respect to cor-
respond. It is to be feared that there are young
men who would prefer expulsion, on occasion of some
general disturbance, \vhen many are involved, to an
open and manly rejection of an appointment which
is considered by their parents as so valuable; and
these feelings, where they exist, are obviously of a
68
nature to produce a most unfavourable effect upon the
discipline.
The third inherent difficulty, which the college has
to contend with, is one which at first sight might be
thought an advantage, namely, the great interest that
each student has at stake, and the consequent severity
of the punishment of expulsion. This great severity
most naturally produces, both in the governing body
in the college, and in the Court of Directors, an ex-
treme unwillingness to resort to it. But the more this
unwillingness is perceived, the more advantage will be
taken of it, and the more instances will occur of acts
of insubordination. It is quite certain that neither
of our Universities, nor any of our great schools, could
support their discipline for a single year, if they were
to shew any hesitation in appealing to the punishment
of expulsion — if this punishment, in short, were not
always ready as an alternative on a refusal to do im-
positions in the one case, or to submit to corporal
correction in the other. But besides regular expul-
sions, which are resorted to occasionally in all places
of education, to support the discipline, it is still
more common to desire the parents of boys, whose
habits are bad, and who are doing mischief to
others, quietly to remove them. In the Universities,
and at great schools, such hints are always taken as
commands, and it is no doubt a most effectual mode
of breaking combinations, and preventing the spread
69
of mischief, without exciting public sensation. But
in the East-India college no parent can be per-
suaded to take a step which involves the loss of an
appointment. As valuable property is concerned, it
is considered that nothing but some great and overt
act of immorality or rebellion can justify such a
punishment ; and unless some such act can be brought
forward, which, of course, in many cases, must be
extremely difficult, neither a quiet removal nor re-
gular expulsion takes place ; and the unavoidable se-
verities of the penal code thus paralyze the arm of
authority. On this ground it may justly be doubted
whether the regulation not long since passed by the
Court, to exclude from the military, or any other
branch of the Company's service, those young men
who had been expelled from the college, can be con-
sidered as a wise one. The punishment of expulsion
at the college was too great before, and this regula-
tion has made it still greater ; and if the natural un-
willingness of all parties to resort to this punishment
should increase from this or any other cause, rather
than diminish from a sense of duty to India and to
the public ; the great power of the Directors over the
young men at their college, which, if properly ma-
naged, might secure the most beneficial results, will
be converted into a source of perpetual weakness and
inefficiency.
These are, no doubt, difficulties, to a certain extent
70
inherent in the institution ; and, in order to overcome
them, it is obvious that the discipline should have
every help that can be given to it ; that the powers
granted to those who are to administer it should be fully
as large and as little subject to cavil and controul as
those which are found necessary in other places of
education ; that the system pursued should be marked
by steadiness, uniformity, decision, promptness, and
impartiality ; and, particularly in reference to the two
last difficulties, that there should be no doubt or delay
in visiting with expulsion either such single acts as
would be so punished at great schools and the Uni-
versities, or such a persevering violation of the rules
of the college as either indicates an indisposition to the
service, or a presumption that patronage or mistaken
lenity \vould, under any circumstances, prevent the
entire loss of an appointment.
If it be asked, whether such have been the powers
possessed, and such the system pursued, the answer
must certainly be in the negative; and when it is
known that very great adventitious difficulties in the
government of the college have been added to the
natural difficulties already noticed, it may not be a
subject of surprise that those parts of the discipline
most likely to be affected by such causes should have
failed.
In the original constitution of the college, it was
not thought expedient by its Founders to intrust the
71
power of expulsion to the collegiate authorities. As
expulsion involved the loss of a very valuable appoint-
ment, the Directors wished to reserve it in their own
hands ; and, in all cases of great importance, the
Principal and Professors were directed to report to
the Committee of College, and to wait their decision.
It was in consequence believed by many students,
that, unless the offence was peculiarly flagrant, they
would run little risk of losing their appointments, and
that their powerful friends in the India-house would
make common cause with them in defeating the
decisions of the College Council. This opinion
seems to have commenced early, and to have
diffused itself pretty generally; and there is little
doubt that it contributed to facilitate the rise of that
spirit of insubordination which began to manifest itself
in the third year after the college was established. It
must be obvious that no steady system of discipline
could be maintained while the Principal and Pro-
fessors were, on every important occasion, to appeal
with uncertain effect to another body, where the
student hoped that his personal interest would prevent
any serious inconvenience. Yet this continued to be
the constitution of the college for a period of six
years, during which there were three considerable
disturbances. On these occasions, of course, the
Directors were called in ; and although the more en-
lightened and disinterested portion of them, who saw
72
the necessity of an improved education for their ser-
vants in India, were, unquestionably, disposed to do
every thing that was proper to support the discipline ;
yet, the proceedings respecting the college were marked
by an extraordinary want of energy, promptness, and
decision, and indicated in the most striking manner
the disturbing effects of private and contending in-
terests. On occasion of the last of these disturbances
in particular (that of 1812), the management of which
the Court took entirely into their own hands, they
detained a large body of students in town for above
a month; and after entering into the most minute
details, and subjecting all the parties to repeated ex-
aminations at the India-house, came to no final deci-
sion. The case was then referred back again to the
College Council, who were desired to select for ex-
pulsion a certain number of those concerned, who
should appear to them to have been the most deeply
engaged as ringleaders, and the least entitled to a
mitigation of sentence on the score of character.
When this was done, and a sentence of expulsion
passed in consequence on five students, a subsequent
Vote of the Court restored them all to the service,
and they were sent out to India without even com-
pleting the usual period of residence at the col-
lege!!!
If we consider the real difficulties belonging to such
an institution, in conjunction with the uncertain and in-
efficient system of government above described, and
recollect, at the same time, that, from the very com-
mencement of the college, there has been a large
party connected with India entirely hostile to it, the
gradual rise and prevalence of a spirit of insubordina-
tion in the college will appear Jo be vastly more na-
tural and probable than a contrary spirit.
But when a spirit of insubordination and resistance
to discipline has once deeply infected any collected
body of persons, it is well known how strong a tend-
ency it has to keep itself up ; how easy, and almost
certainly, the contagion spreads to fresh comers ; and
how extremely difficult it is effectually to eradicate it.
It is but a short time since the Principal and Pro-
fessors of the East-India college have been legally
invested with those powers in the management of the
discipline which are found necessary at great schools and
the Universities, and which ought therefore unquestion-
ably to have been given to them at the commence-
ment of the institution. They are called upon to
correct and rectify a system of government which it is
at length acknowledged has been essentially defective
for many years ; and, strange to say ! an inference
seems to be drawn against the whole establishment
because it is not already completed ! Yet what is the
task they have to accomplish, and under what cir-
cumstances have they undertaken it ? They have not
only to overcome by a steady and uniform system of
74
discipline the natural difficulties inherent in the insti-
tution, but, by an union of conciliation, firmness, and
the strictest impartiality, to mitigate and gradually ex-
tirpate the spirit of insubordination, which, by long
unskilful treatment, has infected the institution ; and
this is to be done, not only without the cordial co-
operation of all the natural patrons and protectors of
the college, but with a spirit of direct hostility in a
considerable body of the Directors and Proprietors,
and a disposition in the public to take part with those
from whom they hear most of the college, with little
or no inquiry into the real merits of the case. The
practical effect of this hostility is nearly the same as if
the authorities in the college did not yet possess full
powers in the management of the discipline ; and as no
sentence of importance has yet been passed without
occasioning a minute inquiry and investigation, which
puts the college, as it were, regularly upon its de-
fence, and very few, without giving rise to a most de-
termined and persevering opposition, it is quite im-
possible that the students should be fully impressed
with the idea that the power of punishing really rests
in that quarter, where all parties would agree that it
must be the most effectual in repressing acts of in-
subordination.
A further evil consequence of this hostility is, that
language is publicly used and reports generally cir-
culated, calculated to fill the minds of the students with
76
the most unfavourable prejudices. In general, when a
parent sends his son to a school or to the University, he
endeavours to impress him with a respect for the place
to which he is going, and the authorities to which he
will be subject. It is to be feared that some young men
come to the East-India college with very different
impressions ; — with the impression of having heard
the college abused, and its downfal prognosticated,
by those whom they must of course look up to as the
persons that ought to influence their feelings and direct
their conduct. It is scarcely possible that the students
who come to the college thus prejudiced should ever
feel that attachment to the place of their education,
the effects of which are on every account so desirable;
and it is difficult to conceive that an uniform spirit of
order and obedience should prevail among those who
have frequently heard that another row would destroy
the college, and effect that object which they had
been taught to consider as desirable. It is not meant
to be asserted that any of the patrons or friends of the
students have directly incited them to rebellion ; but
that the opinions which they have held, and the in-
cautious language which they have used, must upon
young minds necessarily have produced the same
effects.
Whether it is possible for any set of men contending
against such disadvantages, to make the college what it
ought to be, is a point on which it is difficult to pro-
76
nounce a decided' opinion. At all events, it will be
allowed that time is necessary as well as attention and
ability.
Independently of other difficulties, time alone can
overcome those that essentially and unavoidably belong
to every new institution. If the proper executive
powers had been given to the college at first, and it
had been at all times fully supported by its founders
and patrons, it would certainly have been rash to have
pronounced finally on its competence or incompetence
to fulfil its intended purpose, in a less time than
that which has now elapsed since its foundation —
about ten years. But these powers, though now
formally granted, cannot yet appear to the students
to be undisputed, and can scarcely have begun to
have their natural operation. Surely, therefore, it
would be still more rash to pronounce finally on what
may be done, in a less time than another ten years ;
as it will be allowed that a considerable portion of
that period must unavoidably be spent in correcting
the effects of past errors.
The main and almost single object to be accom-
plished, is to eradicate the tendency to occasional acts
of insubordination.
Notwithstanding the late virulent attacks, it may
be confidently asserted that this tendency, and the
unpleasant consequences which necessarily result from
it, form the only just ground for stating that *the col-
77
lege has not fairly answered the purpose for which it
was instituted.
When the general good order of the college is
considered, notwithstanding the natural difficulties ad-
verted to in the beginning of this section, it is scarcely
possible to conceive that this evil should not be suscep-
tible of cure. But, to produce this effect, it is necessary
that a full and perfect conviction of the stability of
the institution, and the steadiness with which the
collegiate authorities are able to maintain their de-
cisions, should by repeated experience be fully im-
pressed on the students.
That this has not yet been done, the persevering
efforts that have been made to shake some late de-
cisions, and the idea that has prevailed that an appli-
cation would be made to Parliament to withdraw its
legislative sanction from the establishment, afford suf-
ficient proofs. And till this has been done, it may
confidently be asserted, that nothing approaching to
a fair experiment, has been made of the practicability
of removing the only essential evil of which the col-
lege justly stands chargeable.
The supply of competent and well-disposed servants
to fill the high official situations of India is the object
to be accomplished; and that plan which, consist-
ently with the present legal and constitutional rela-
tions of the Company with the Government, most
78
effectually attains this object, is the plan which ought
to receive the sanction and support of the Legislature.
If the Legislature thinks that the institution of the
college was an error, and that the acknowledged and
glaring deficiency in the education of the Company's
civil servants upon the old system, may be supplied in
some other way more effective, and less subject to diffi-
culties, let it at once be abolished. But if no plan
presents itself which holds out a fair prospect of doing
what is specifically wanted better than the one actually
established, let the existing institution be supported in
such a manner as to put an end to all that doubt and
uncertainty which is so fruitful a source of offences.
If the statutes and regulations of the college are faulty,
there are legal means of altering them ; if the Principal
or Professors are from any cause whatever incompetent
to their situations, all or any of them may be removed :
but if the establishment itself be a proper one, and
destined to answer a very important purpose, it should
be so fully and cordially supported as not to be liable
to be shaken by the caprices of a few young men.
Such caprices it is impossible to answer for in an
establishment not as yet sufficiently sanctioned by
time, and to which the parents and friends of many of
the students are known to be hostile. But by steadiness
within, and strong support without, they may undoubt-
edly be rendered at first ineffectual, and by degrees
79
be prevented from shewing themselves in acts of in-
subordination.
It has been sometimes stated as extremely hard that
a young man and his parents should suffer so severe a
loss as that of an appointment to India on account of
a few irregularities in early youth ; but this argument,
if it were allowed, would be conclusive against all laws.
It is surely still harder that a man should sometimes
suffer capitally for irregularly supplying some of the
most pressing wants of nature.
But even, with reference solely to places of education,
the East-India college is by no means the only one
where valuable property may be lost by misconduct in
early youth. At Winchester, for instance, the boys
on the foundation succeed in a regular course to fellow-
ships at New College, Oxford, which may be con-
sidered almost in the light of a provision for life, and
are valued by parents accordingly ; yet on one occa-
sion, not many years since, a greater number was ex-
pelled, and lost this valuable provision, than has been
expelled during the course of the ten years that the
East-India college has been established, although in
the one case the institution was old, and in the other
new. Many other instances might be mentioned of
considerable loss of property incurred by misconduct
in an early age at our great public seminaries.
It will however very rarely happen that a young
man, whose habits and attainments would qualify him
80
to become an useful servant of the Company, should
be so unfortunate as to subject himself to the punish-
ment of expulsion. Such a case, however, may pos-
sibly happen, and, when it does, it must be considered
as a painful, but necessary, 'sacrifice to those general
rules, the gross violation of which cannot be passed
over without a sacrifice of much greater and more
general interests than those of an individual and his
connexions.
With regard to young men of a very different de-
scription, it cannot surely be a matter of regret, in
any public view at least, that those who have shewn
headstrong, refractory, and capricious tempers, united
with habits of idleness and dissipation, should not be
allowed. to go out to India, and be furnished with an
opportunity of tyrannising over its suffering inhabitants,
and of bringing the English name into hatred and
disgrace. All the offices in India may not require
talents ; but all must require a certain degree of in-
dustry, good conduct, and inclination to the service.
And, beyond all question, one of the most important
uses that the college can answer, one of the means
by which it may confer the most extensive benefits
upon India, is, by separating from the service those
whose habits appear to be of a nature only to en-
cumber, impede, and injure it.
The collegiate authorities now legally possess the
power both of expelling, and of refusing certificates; but,
81
unfortunately, from the disposition shewn by the
founders and patrons of the college, and that part of
the public connected with India, in every case where
the loss of an appointment is in question, a full sup-
port in the exercise of this power cannot be de-
pended upon ; although there can be no doubt
that every act of collegiate punishment that is unop-
posed and unquestioned tends to render such acts in
future less necessary ; and every act that is so opposed
and questioned tends to increase the probability of
the recurrence of that conduct which had called it
forth.
If this difficulty could be removed, the best hopes
might be entertained of the result. And if the col-
lege were so supported, as to enable it gradually to
subdue the spirit of insubordination, by removing re-
fractory and vicious characters without clamour or
cavil, and to exercise its discretionary powers in re-
fusing certificates, according to the letter*and spirit of
its statutes, and with a view to the real interests of
the service and the good of India, there is the strongest
reason to presume, from the testimonies of what the
college has already done, and the further good effects ^
which might be confidently expected from the results
just adverted to, that it would answer, in no common
degree, the important purpose for which it was in-
tended.
o
SECTION VII.
Are the more general charges which have lately been
brought against the college in the Court of Pro-
prietors founded in truth ? or are they capable of
distinct refutation by an appeal to facts ?
IT has been stated already in Section VI. that the
only plausible grounds for saying that the college has
not fully answered its purpose are the occasional
disturbances which have taken place in it ; and these
disturbances have been traced to the difficulties which
have' been constantly thrown in the way of a firm and
uniform exercise of collegiate authority. But in the
Court of Proprietors, on the 1 8th of December, the
most unmeasured accusations of every kind were
heaped on the college. Mr. Hume is said to have
affirmed, that, instead of its being a place where young
83
men are formed in their morals, prepared in their cha-
racter, and qualified in their education, it was the dis-
grace of England, and of every person connected
with it ; that it was incessantly the scene of riot, dis-
order, and irregularity ; and that the inhabitants, who
lived in the neighbourhood, were in a state of perpetual
dread and alarm from the wanton excesses committed
by the students.
These are indeed most serious charges ; and if they
were true, or even approaching to the truth, such a
state of things must have produced a very marked de-
terioration of character in the young men who have
gone out to India from the college. But, instead of
this deterioration, what are the accounts from Calcutta?
They are, that Lord Minto, Governor-General, the
College Council of Fort William, Captain Roebuck,
the Secretary of the College and Examiner, and
Mr. Edmonstone, the first in Council, have all left
written testimonies that a very great and general im-
provement had been conspicuous in the conduct of
the students who had passed through the college at
Hertford, and that they stood honourably distinguished,
in the language of Lord Minto, " for regular attend-
" ance, for obedience to the statutes and discipline
tl of the college, for orderly and decorous demeanour,
" for moderation in expense, and consequently in the
" amount of their debts, and, in a word, for those
" decencies of conduct which denote men well born,
G 2
84
" and characters well trained." Now, it is well
known, that some little jealousy and fear of the col-
lege in England have occasionally prevailed among
the friends of the college in Calcutta, owing to the
idea, that the use of the latter might be superseded
by the establishment of the former. Such testi-
monies are therefore the more honourable to those who
gave them, and the more to be trusted by those who
really wish to know the practical effects of the college
in England on the conduct of the Company's junior
servants in India. And under these circumstance?
they must be considered as facts which furnish a di-
rect contradiction to the affirmation of Mr. Hume.
They shew that, in the judgment of the most compe-
tent and disinterested authorities, the students at the
East-India college are formed in their morals, pre-
pared in their character, and qualified in their edu-
cation^ for the important stations they are likely to
fill, and that the Hertford college, instead of being
the disgrace of England, has been rendering, and is
rendering, most essential service to India.
I certainly would have no connexion with an insti-
tution which could justly be considered as the disgrace
of England; but I should think it a pusillanimous
desertion of a good cause if I were to allow myself
to be driven away by a clamour which I know7 to be
founded either in interest and prejudice, or in an utter
ignorance of what the college really is.
86
The testimonies above alluded to*, and more
fully detailed in Section V., are really of the kind
to determine whether the college answers its pur-
pose or not ; but, instead of referring to any such
facts, or endeavouring to get information from
competent and disinterested judges, who have spent
some time in the college, and have been asto-
nished at the scene of order and regularity which
they witnessed, after the absurd rumours they had
heard on the subject, Mr. Hume seems to have
sought for the character of the college from fathers
irritated at the merited punishment of their sons,
and from some Hertfordshire country gentlemen,
tremblingly alive about their game, — two of the
most suspicious quarters from which information could
possibly be obtained.
Every man acquainted with our Universities and
public schools must know, that young persons may
come to them from a domestic education, apparently
innocent, and yet in less than two years richly de-
serve to be expelled. Instances of the kind have
fallen within my own observation at Cambridge, and
yet I mean to send my only son there, if I can afford
* These testimonies are further confirmed by the letters of all
the most distinguished students in India who have passed through
the college in England, and by all the civil servants I have met
with who have returned from India within the last five or six
years, without a single exception.
86
it, as the best place of education that I know. But,
in the instance about which Mr. Hume seems to
have made so silly a parade, I believe there
was never any question of innocence. Let Mr.
Hume candidly and manfully produce the name of
the person who is now become an outcast of society
from the contagion of the East- India college. Let
his previous character be traced ; and let it be seen,
by an appeal to facts, whether he was not much
more likely to corrupt others than to be corrupted
himself. His example indeed could hardly have
failed to produce a most pernicious effect, if the good
sense and moral feelings of the great majority of the
students had not induced them, from the very first
term of his residence, to shun his society.
It is utterly astonishing to me that a man of sense,
a man of the world, and a friend to the good go-
vernment of India, as I before thought Mr. Hume
was, should lend himself to retail the ebullitions of
disappointed fathers, who, however justly they may
be pitied, are the very last persons that should be
heard as authorities, particularly as it is known that
there have been persons of this description, who, after
having vainly attempted by misrepresentations and
menaces to intimidate the college authorities, have
most imprudently and rashly, as well as wickedly,
vowed to pursue them with the most determined
hatred and hostility.
87
With regard to the country gentlemen of Hertford-
shire, the other suspicious source from which Mr.
Hume appears to have derived his information, they
are of very high respectability, and I feel much in-
debted to them for the uniform personal kindness and
attention they have shewn me ; but I cannot conceal
from myself, nor can they conceal from me, that,
with one or two splendid exceptions *, they have been
from the very first inveterate enemies of the college.
They prophesied early that the building would be-
come a barrack, and their conduct has not been un-
favourable to the accomplishment of their prediction.
It would seem to be from this quarter, or some of
their friends, that the materials were furnished for the
querulous paragraph in the Times, about the Princi-
pal being made a justice of the peace without a
foot of land in the county "\. Now I would will-
ingly appeal to the most competent judges of the
persons who ought or ought not to be made justices
of the peace, with a view to the maintenance of the
* The most distinguished one is Lord John Townshend, the
nearest neighbour of the college, whose property almost sur-
rounds it.
f Dr. Batten, as a clergyman having a considerable benefice
in Lincolnshire, is as legally qualified to become a justice of the
peace as any magistrate on the bench, nor was his appointment
in any respect different from any other justice of the peace in the
county, as falsely asserted by the Times.
88
police of the country, whether the head of so large
an establishment as that of the East-India college,
situated two miles distant from any town, should not
be one. The appointment was recommended by the
President of the Board of Controul, Lord Bucking-
hamshire ; and though it has never been used, and
probably never will, in the maintenance of discipline,
as it relates to students, it was unquestionably a
highly proper one. Such observations, therefore, on
this subject, as those in the Times, only throw ridicule
on the persons who make them.
Having mentioned the Times, I cannot help no-
ticing the novel and strange doctrines promulgated in
a scurrilous paragraph about the college, on the 27th
of December, in answer to Maro, who has no con-
nexion with the college. I could not have conceived
it possible that any English writer, with the slightest
pretension to character, would have dared to avow
that a lad of seventeen or eighteen, who offends against
the criminal laws of his country, is not amenable to
those laws, because he happens to be a gentleman's
son, and to be resident at some school or college.
The editor of the Times has made this sentiment his
own by the manner in which he has inserted it ; other-
wise I should have thought that it could only have
come from the father of some worthless sons, who,
being conscious that they were likely to commit of-
fences deserving of imprisonment, pillory, and public
89
whipping, was very desirous, as he might well be, of
finding some plea for getting them off with a private
flogsing. With regard to the scandalous and libellous
OO D O
insinuation at the end of the paragraph in question,
let every inquiry be made on the subject, and the
more minute and accurate it is, the more agreeable it
will be to the college.
But to return to the country gentlemen of Hert-
fordshire ; I can most readily enter into their feelings,
in not liking an establishment of eighty young men,
from sixteen to twenty, in their immediate neighbour-
hood. Had I the choice of settling in a country
residence, I should certainly avoid the vicinity of
Oxford or Cambridge, Eton or Harrow. They may
be fairly allowed, therefore, to wish for the removal
of the college ; but on that very account they may
be legitimately challenged as witnesses against it, at
least till they come forward with their names, and
produce specific charges. Let some three or four of
them, and the same number of the respectable in-
habitants of Hertford, declare conscientiously, and on
their honour, " that the inhabitants in the neighbour-
" hood of the college live in a state of perpetual
" dread and alarm, from the wanton excesses com-
" mitted by the students," and I will then believe
what I have not the slighest ground for believing at
present ; but, till some such proof as this is offered,
I maintain that an appeal to facts would shew that
90
the asseveration of Mr. Hume is absolutely untrue,
and founded on some grossly false, and probably
anonymous, information.
Of the general conduct of the students, I can affirm,
from my own knowledge, that they are beyond all
comparison more free from the general vices that
relate to wine, women, gaming, extravagance, riding,
shooting, driving, than the under graduates at our
universities ; and, I really believe, more free than the
head classes of our great schools. If I were to send
my son to the East-India college, I should feel he was
in a safer situation in all these respects than either at
Eton or Cambridge. To those who will not judge on
these subjects by comparison, but, without any know-
ledge or experience of what can be done with young
people, have formed Utopian views of youthful inno-
cence and perfection, which they expect to see
realised, I have nothing to say.
Mr. Randle Jackson has been pleased to state, that
he does not mean to propose the abolition of the esta-
blishment, but merely its reformation, and conversion
into a school. He thinks that the education given at
the college is not of the right kind, and that it is not
necessary to make young men mount to the higher
rank in literature, in order to teach them " to weigh
" tea, count bales, and measure muslins."
If the main business of the great majority of the
civil servants of the Company really were to weigh
91
tea, count bales, and measure muslins,, something
might, perhaps, be said for Mr. Jackson's opinion ;
but what is the statement of the ablest Governor-
General that India ever saw? It is, " that com-
" mercial and mercantile knowledge is not only un-
" necessary throughout every branch of the judicial
" department (which includes much more than half of
" the service), but those civil servants who are in-
" vested with the powers of magistracy, or attached
" to the judicial department in any ministerial ca-
" pacity, although bearing the denomination of mer-
" chants, factors, or writers, are bound by law, and by
" the solemn obligation of an oath, to abstain from
" every commercial and mercantile pursuit." * * * *.
" No more arduous or complicated duties ofmagi-
tl stracy exist in the world, no qualifications more
" various and comprehensive can be imagined, than
" those which are required from every British subject
" who enters the seat of judgment within the limits
lf of the Company's empire in India" These are the
offices for which Mr. Randle Jackson, in a fine vein
of irony and eloquence, laughs at the absurdity of
sending out well-educated men, under the happy image
of a little army of Grotiuses and Puffendorfs.
But the judicial, though the largest, is far from
being the sole department quite unconnected with
trade. The financial and political departments employ
a considerable body of the civil servants,- and the
92
fact really is, that, out of four hundred and forty-two
persons in the civil service in India, only seventy-two,
including the collectors of the customs, have any
connexion with trade ; and even these, Lord Wel-
lesley says, should have many of the qualifications of
statesmen *. Such being the facts, according to the
testimonies of the Marquis Wellesley, and the India
Register, which, I presume, are better authorities
than that of Mr. Jackson, is it not perfectly obvious
that the education of the civil servants should be fitted
for the high and important stations held by the great
body of them, and that those who are comparatively
unsuccessful in the career of improvement should
supply the departments where less abilities are re-
quired ? To talk then, in the present state of India,
of an education fitted for weighing tea, counting bales,
and measuring muslins, betrays a degree of ignorance
and folly, of which I did not think Mr. Randle Jack-
son capable.
But Mr. Jackson is not satisfied with saying
that the education at the East-India college
does not accord with his own narrow views on the
subject. He joins lustily in the clamour about vio-
lence and licentiousness, and then, with a view to
give greater force to his next argument, he observes,
that it would be a great palliative of this general mis-
* See Sect, I. p. 10.
93
conduct if the friends of the college could come for-
ward, and refer to their progress in literature, as a
counterpoise to their boyish levities ; but that unfor-
tunately this could not be done, as would appear by
an extract he would read from a Report furnished by
the college itself. Now, notwithstanding this extract
and others, the false inferences from which I will pre-
sently advert to, I, as a friend of the college, and
with much better opportunities of information on the
subject than Mr. Jackson, do come forward and assert
that its literature has been on the whole eminently
successful ; that the papers produced at every public
examination shew no common degree of industry and
talent in the various branches of learning to which they
are applied ; and that the progress made in the Oriental
languages is clearly and irrefragably preyed by the
rapidity with which the students from the East-India
college are able to qualify themselves for the final exa-
mination at the college of Fort William ; and, conse-
quently, that an appeal to facts directly contradicts
Mr. Jackson's assertion. Let the Oriental Visitor,
Dr. Wilkins, be asked his opinion on the subject ; and,
though I well know he diffei Aom me on some points
relating to the form of the institution. I know he is
too honourable a man not to avow in public what he has
distinctly said to me in private ; namely, that the very
short time in which a large portion of the students
passed through the college at Calcutta was a clear
proof that they must have come from a good place of
education for the Oriental languages at home.
With regard to the extract first read by Mr. Jack-
son, it seems to have been taken from the Report of
the Oriental Visitor in December, 1815, in which it
appeared that a certain number of students (five, I be-
lieve, out of twenty-nine) had been unable to pass the
Oriental test. To draw from this circumstance an
inference that the Oriental languages had not been well
taught at the East-India college would be the same as
to infer that education at Cambridge was extremely ill
conducted, because some men almost every year are
refused their degrees; or that the classics were not
well taught at Eton or Westminster, because they
send forth every year into the world some incorrigible
blockheads. The proper inference, in general, ought
only to have been, that the students in question were
not proper persons to send out to India. But, in the
individual instance referred to, there really was some-
thing to be said for them. It was the very first time
that the Oriental test had been applied ; it was in some
respects an ex post facto law, not having been an-
nounced till the third term of the residence of those
students who were first subjected to it ; and they were,
further, not sufficiently aware of the nature and extent
of it. Whether this was a sufficient excuse for the
petition made to the Court, and the indulgence granted,
I will not venture to give an opinion, thinking it quite
95
immaterial to the question. In the next examination of
May, 1816, only one failed, and was detained another
term; and, in the one just passed, none failed. This last
examination indeed has been particularly distinguished
by extraordinary eminence in some departments of
Oriental literature, combined with the most successful
exertions in European studies.
The next document adverted to by Mr. Jackson, from
which he seems absurdly to have drawn very large infer-
ences, is a confidential Report, of May, 1816, made by
the College Council to the Committee of College in the
India-house, candidly describing those fluctuations in
the amount and direction of the mass of talent and in-
dustry in the college, which must necessarily take place
in every institution in which the studies are various. It
is a homely, but a true, saying, that you may bring a
horse to the water, but cannot make him drink ; and,
though all the students at the East-India college are
required to attend the stated lectures appointed for
them, on pain of impositions, yet no rational person
can suppose that their attention can be directed, at all
times, in the same measure and quantity, to each.
Could any thing on earth be more natural than that,
when a test was appointed in the Oriental languages
exclusively, the students should think that Oriental
literature was more highly appreciated by the Honour-
able Court of Directors than the other branches of
learning taught at the college, and that they ought,
96
therefore, to direct towards it a greater portion of
their time? And yet the relation of this simple fact
has been twisted into an inference that the students
at the East-India college are allowed to do just as
they like with regard to the choice of their studies.
What a prodigious ardour for misrepresentation does
this shew ! I will just add, in reference to the last
paragraph of the extract on which so much stress has
been laid, that if such a report was unhappily re-
quired from the great schools of the country, and
was given with the same frankness, it would appear
that no very inconsiderable proportion of the boys
might fairly be said, in spite of the rod, to have aban-
doned the only studies of the place.
The extraordinary part of this business is, not the
Report itself, but the place wrhere it is now to be found,
— the public newspapers ! ! ! It may shortly be ex-
pected that the monthly Reports of conduct, which
have lately been required, will be published in the
same way, and that the gentlemen of the college will
be subjected to prosecutions for libellous aspersions
on the characters of some of the students, by calling
them irregular. In point of fact, the formal threat
of a prosecution for a libel, through the channel of a
lawyer's letter, was really sent to the Registrar of the
College not long since, in conseqence of a detailed Re-
port being required of the character of a young man,
97
whose certificate it was impossible for the College
Council, consistently with'ftieii duty, to grant.
But to return to Mr. Randle Jackson. The great
weight and force of his eloquence seem to have been
directed to shew the use and advantage of flogging,
and the disadvantage of caps and gowns. He is re-
ported to have pronounced, with very great energy,
the following pithy maxim : " That those who did
" riot understand should be made to fed ;" and the
sentiment seems to have been received by repeated
and long-continued cheers.
Now flogging may be a very good thing in itself,
but I am totally at a loss to conceive what Mr. Randle
Jackson, and his friends in the Times, can mean by
considering it as a substitute for expulsion. Let any
master of a great school in the kingdom be asked
whether he could maintain discipline by mere flogging,
unsupported by the power of sending his boys away ;
and, unless his opinion is given in direct contradiction
to his practice, he will say, that it is perfectly impossi-
ble. Only the other day, four or five boys were expelled
from Harrow. Last year, five, I believe, or more,
were expelled from Eton. And experience shews that
even the black-hole and military discipline will not do *,
* No Englishman will, I trust, venture to propose a military
system for the education of the future administrators of justice
in India. This would be taking hints from the late Emperor of
France with a vengeance. But, after all, it appears, that it will
not supersede banishment and dismission.
H
98
At this present moment Jive are banished from the
military seminary of the Honourable the East-India
Company, at Addiscombe, of the merits and efficacy
of which so much has been said.
One would really think that the people who talk
about the wonderful effects of corporeal correction
had not only never been at a great school themselves,
but had never seen a man who had been at one. A
more chimerical project scarcely ever entered into
the brain of a visionary than that of superseding the
use of expulsion among youths of sixteen by mere
school-flogging. *
With regard to caps and gowns, they are evidently
useful in discipline, by rendering concealment more
difficult; and pointing out the individuals, who may
be occasionally seen without them, as bound upon
some expedition contrary to the regulations of the
college. And if, in addition to this obvious use, they
have, in the present case, contributed to inspire some
manly feelings rather earlier than usual, they have, in
* Not long after Dr. Keat became head master of Eton, he is
said to have flogged eighty boys in one day, most of them above
O * , • *•
sixteen. But what gave him the power of exercising this act of
discipline? Solely and exclusively the power of saying, " If you
" do not submit, you no longer belong to Eton school." Nor
would the threat have been sufficient, if it had not been known
that he could have put it in execution without the slightt-st oppo-
sition, and would unquestionably have done it if the boys had
not complied.
99
my view of the subject, been of service. The ob-
jections, which have been made by Mr. Jackson and
others to this innocent badge, are perfectly ridiculous.
As to the Universities, they must be much above feeling
the slightest jealousy on the subject ; and every ra-
tional man belonging to them must heartily laugh at
the laudable zeal of the London citizens, to inspire
them with a becoming dread of such a horrible
usurpation.
If the Honourable Court of Directors, sanctioned
by the Legislature, should determine to abolish the
establishment in Hertfordshire as a college, I do
O 7
most earnestly and most conscientiously recom-
mend to them not to have any appropriate institution
for the education of their civil servants. They
may entirely rely upon it that the main difficulty
attending the present establishment, instead of being
removed, will, in some respects, be aggravated by its
conversion into a school, and they will entirely fail in
accomplishing what ought to be the great objects of
an education for the Indian civil service. If I were
to describe a narrow education, one the least cal-
culated to infuse a " spirit of British justice into the
" government of sixty millions of Asiatics," it would
be the taking boys at thirteen from the common schools
of the country, placing them in a seminary where the
Oriental languages were considered as the only pass-
port to India till sixteen, and then sending them into
H 2
100
offices up the country to act as copying-clerks, with
only one or two, perhaps narrow-minded Europeans
to converse with, — a system expressly and specifically
reprobated by Lord Wellesley. When a youth is
reading Demosthenes and Cicero, or even Homer and
Virgil, he is unquestionably gaining something besides
mere words, something that will tend to invigorate,
enlarge, and improve his mind ; but, when he is ap-
plying to the Oriental languages, he is really getting
little more than the possession of an instrument. Of
the great importance, and indeed absolute necessity,
of this instrument for the service in India, it is im-
possible for any man to be more convinced than myself.
I believe even that I was the first that proposed
the present test in the Oriental languages, as the
absolute condition of a final appointment to India.
It is unquestionably true that no important station
in the East can or ought to be held by persons not
acquainted with these languages. It is equally true
that no important situation under the French govern-
ment ought to be held by a person who does not un-
derstand French. But it really appears to me that
it is taking as narrow a view of the subject to consider
the Oriental languages as all, or nearly all, that is
necessary in the education for the civil service, as to
say that any man who understands French is qualified
to be a French judge or a French minister of state.
Far better than such a narrow education, still em-
101
barrassed with all the difficulties about expulsion,
would be the taking boys from the common schools of
the country at about seventeen, and subjecting them to
a strict examination in classical literature, and in the
rudiments of the Oriental languages : the first to shew
that they had received the education of gentlemen,
and that their minds were improved and capable of
improvement ; and the second to ascertain that they
had made some progress in the languages absolutely
necessary to their future destination. These are spe-
cific qualifications which might be distinctly described,
and it might be left to the parents of those who were
likely to be appointed, to put their sons in a way to
acquire them wherever they might choose.
This system would, without doubt, be better calcu-
lated to give able servants to the Company, than the
narrow education just described. But still it would
be subject to great disadvantages ; and, independently
of the loss of the more general education which is
given in the present college, and seems to have had
the best effect in invigorating and improving the mind,
there would be nothing to break the sudden transition
from school discipline to the perfect liberty of a re-
sidence in India.
If I had no connexion with the college, or with
India, further than the interest which every Englishman
ought to feel in the good government of the Indian
territories, and yet could speak with the same know-
102
ledge of the subject as I can now, after an attention
to it for ten years, I am confident that I should say
that the specific object which ought to be aimed at by
the Honourable Company, in the education for the
civil service, is precisely that which is so much re-
probated by Mr. Jackson, and others in various
quarters, namely, that of endeavouring to inculcate,
gradually, manly feelings, manly studies, and manly
self-controul, rather earlier than usual. Those who
go out to India must and will be men the moment
they reach the country, at whatever age that may be ;
and there they will be immediately exposed to temp-
tations of no common magnitude and danger. To
prepare them for this ordeal, Mr. Jackson and the silly
writers in the Times recommend their being whipped
till the last hour of their getting into their ships. I own
it appears to me that the object is more likely to be
attained by a gradual initiation into a greater degree
of liberty, and a greater habit of depending upon them-
selves, than is usual at schools, carried on for two or
three years previously, in some safer place than
Calcutta.
The attempt is not without its difficulties, and may
be subject to partial failure ; but I am quite convinced
that it is mainly to the success of this attempt, notwith-
standing the tremendous obstacles which have been
opposed to it, that the great and general improvement
in the conduct of the students at Calcutta must be at-
103
tributed ; and if the college is destroyed, and boys
are sent out to India fresh from the rod, it will soon be
seen that this improved conduct will no longer be re-
markable.
The system of the college is, I really believe, not
far from what it ought to be*. That there are faults
in the administration of it will be readily allowed,
some perhaps within, (for what administration is fault-
less?) but many more and much greater without. Among
these are the multiplicity of its governors, consisting not
only of the Court of Directors, but of the Court of Pro-
prietors ; — the variety of opinions among them, some
being for a college in England, some for a college in Cal-
cutta, some for a school, and some for nothing at all ; — i
the constant discussion arising from this variety of
opinion, which keeps up a constant expectation of
change ; — the interest of individuals to send out their
* Little other change is wanting than that an appointment
should be considered, in spirit and in truth, not in gnere words,
as a prize to be contended for, not a property already possessed,
which may be lost. If the Directors were to appoint one-fifth
every year, beyond the number finally to go out, and the four-fifths
were to be the best of the whole body, the appointments would then
really be to be contended for, and the effects would be admirable.
Each appointment to the college would then be of less value, but
they would be more in number, and the patronage would hardly
suffer. A Director could not then indeed be able to send out an
unqualified son. But, is it fitting that he should? This is a fair ques-
tion for the consideration of the Legislature and the British Public.
104
sons as early, and with as-4ittle expense of educa-
tion, as possible, an interest too strong for public
spirit; — the very minute and circumstantial details,
in all the proceedings of the college which are re-
quired, to be seen by all the ladies and gentlemen
who are proprietors of India stock ; — the impossi-
bility of sending a student away without creating a
clamour from one end of London to the other,
greatly aggravated and lengthened by the power thus
furnished, of debating every step of the proceedings ;
— the chances that the details above adverted to will
enable some ingenious lawyer to find a flaw in the
proceedings, with a view to their reversal ; — the never-
ending applications made to the college, when a
student is sent away, for re-admission, assuming
every conceivable form of flattery and menace ; — the
opinion necessarily formed, and kept up in this way
among the students, that sentences, though passed,
will not be final ; — and, above all, the knowledge they
must have, from the avowed wish of many of the
proprietors of East-India stock to destroy the col-
lege, that a rebellion would be agreeable to them.
How is it possible to answer for the conduct of
young men, under such powerful excitements from
without ? For my own part, I am only astonished
that the college has been able to get on at all, under
these overwhelming obstacles ; and that it has got
on, and done great good too, (which I boldly assert it
105
has,) is no common prooffif its internal vigour, and its
capacity to answer its object.
The present virulent attack upon the college has
been meditated some time; and it could hardly fail
to be known to the students that a disturbance this
autumn would have been hailed by many of the
Court of Proprietors as the happiest omen of success.
Under these circumstances, the orderly conduct of the
students for the last year does them the highest honour.
And it is not a little discreditable to the character
of the present attack, and the motives which have
dictated it, that it was brought forward, not at
a time when an unhappy act of violence might
have given some plausible ground for it, but after a
period of great quiet and order, and at the conclusion
of a term eminently distinguished for great industry,
and successful literary exertion.
THE END.
Printed by W. CLOWES,
Northumberland-court, Strand, London.
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