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1
UNIVERSITY
EVERAL
MICHIGAN
hiversity of
LIBRARY
IN ENGLAND
FOR
EDUCATION
NATIVES OF INDIA.
CONSIDERED WITH
AND
A VIEW TO QUALIFY THEM FOR THE LEARNED
PROFESSIONS OR THE PUBLIC SERVICE;
TO CREATE A CLASS WHO SHALL MEDIATE BETWEEN
THE INDIAN PEOPLE AND THEIR ENGLISH RULERS.
BY HODGSON PRATT,
BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE.
19095-

LONDON:
JAMES RIDGWAY, PICCADILLY, W.
1860.
Price Sixpence.
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND
FOR
NATIVES OF INDIA.
THERE is an important question connected with
the future administration of India which was brought
into prominent notice during the discussions on the
Rebellion in 1857, but which is in danger of being
lost sight of in the onward march of events. I am
anxious to recal attention to this subject, and to con-
nect with it a definite proposal and practical scheme,
which I have long had under consideration. The
subject I refer to is the importance of having in-
creased resort to native agency in the civil adminis-
tration of India.
Neither justice nor true policy will permit us to
overlook the wide-spread discontent which has been
occasioned by the levelling system of our rule and
the monopoly of place, authority, and social rank
practically secured to our own countrymen. It
was the prominent topic put forward in the mani-
festo of the King of Delhi-the complaint that we
had destroyed the native aristocracy, that we had
deprived the able and the well-born of all worthy
4
objects of ambition; that there were no great prizes
of life, no high social position to which the natives
of India could attain. "It is not a secret thing,"
said this proclamation, "that under the British Go-
66 vernment, natives employed in the civil and mili-
tary services have little respect, low pay, and no
manner of influence; and that all the posts of dig-
66 nity and emolument in both the departments are
"exclusively bestowed upon Englishmen." I believe
there is no one who has associated with the natives
of India, so as to know their true feelings, who will
not agree with me, that there is a wide and deep-
felt dissatisfaction on this ground. I have lived
among the most loyal and the least self-dependent of
the Indian populations, that of Lower Bengal. Here
more than elsewhere the native population are alive
to the advantages of our rule, in the security which
it gives to property, and in the impulse which it
gives to trade. Here almost alone we have preserved
the landed aristocracy from destruction, and here,
more than elsewhere, have educated men received
some share in the honours and emoluments of the
public service. But, even here, I know that there
is a very general discontent at the narrow bounds
within which we have confined the natural ambition
of the able and the well-born-at the utter hopeless-
ness of rising, by any amount of distinguished ser-
vice or high attainments, beyond a certain rank in
the public service and that rank below what any
young English civilian of five years' standing may
66
66
5
generally attain.* Is this feeling likely to diminish
among the growing generation in whom we rightly
take such pains to awaken a sympathy with the best
lessons of history-with the glory of national free-
dom, independence, and self-government? Is the
feeling likely to diminish under a system which has
now enabled the youth of India to take degrees in
Arts at properly constituted Universities, and to ob-
tain high diplomas in Law and Medicine? It is ob-
vious that unless we intended to associate the natives
with us in the administration of their country to a far
greater extent than we have yet done, our educa-
tional institutions must be regarded as a most dan-
gerous mistake. We should have taken care not to
arouse any of those great sentiments which the study
of our national history, an acquaintance with the
* An English covenanted civil servant commences his career
with £480. a year, and hardly ever terminates his period of service
until he has for some years drawn an income of £3000. a year.
I do not believe that the Indian civil service can be kept up at
its present high standard of education, social standing, character,
and efficiency, at a lower rate of remuneration. But what is the
scale of remuneration to natives? It has been said, with perfect
truth, that a less sum than £360. a year will not enable a native
to maintain the status and dignity of a gentleman in his own
sphere. Yet throughout the province of Lower Bengal, having
a population of thirty-five millions, the number of offices in which
the emoluments are of this or greater amount, do not, I believe,
exceed one hundred and twenty; and in the North-West Pro-
vinces, with a population of thirty-three millions, only thirty-one
persons receive £360. a year, and upwards.
6
events and heroes of classical antiquity must neces-
sarily awaken. We ought to have discouraged all
education of a free and elevating kind; we ought
to have carefully put an end to anything like a
native press; and, in fact, to have cribbed, cabined,
and confined the national mind after the fashion of
an Austrian or Papal Government.
But of course our sense of duty to the people of
India-of the sacred trust we have to discharge to-
wards them, has prevented us from following any
such course. And we must accept the consequences.
Is it not in every way right, natural, and praise-
worthy that the educated and upper classes of native
society should keenly desire places of higher dignity
in the social scale, and some share in directing the
government and legislation of their own country?
Would it not be most unnatural and contemptible if
they were to acquiesce in seeing a foreign race mo-
nopolize all power, authority, and influence in the
conduct of their national affairs? Could there be
any fact which would more discourage us in our at-
tempts to raise the moral and intellectual character
of the people? Our educational efforts in India have
met with a degree of success which is most remark-
able. Nowhere have a people become more rapidly
alive to the advantages of education, or shewn a
greater aptitude for proficiency in every branch of
learning that has been opened to them. Nowhere
has education been followed by a more rapid im-
provement in moral character, social habits, and
7
intellectual strength. What, however, is all educa-
tion but the means of preparing for a sphere of ac-
tion? What is it, in fact, but a means to an end?
It is now our plain and most pressing duty to put
that end within reach of the people we have edu-
cated for it; to see that we do not deprive them of
the object which we have indirectly held out as an
encouragement to exertion. To deprive them of it
would be to tempt them to pervert the weapons we
have put into their hands to our and their injury, to
inflict upon them a cruel wrong, to damage irre-
trievably our character for justice and right-doing,
to deprive the people of India of the most certain
means of moral and mental growth.
Under a foreign Government, a people can never
rise above a certain amount of material prosperity,
and but to a very low point in mental and moral
character. The essential conditions of the highest
growth, viz., self-government, independence, and
patriotism, the strongest motives to exertion,-
are denied them. To my countrymen, so deeply
interested in the liberation of foreign nations,
oppressed by alien Governments (though infinitely
more allied by race and religion than Hindoos
and Englishmen), I need say no more on this
head. I am far from alleging that the people of
India are as yet fit for self-government, or that, if
left to themselves from this time forth, the higher
civilization now inaugurated would not be utterly
lost and general anarchy inevitably result.
But I
8
do say, that without a larger share in the adminis-
tration of their country, the natives of India never
can become fit for self-government; that the re-
sponsibilities of office and administration are essen-
tial to the higher education of a nation, to the proper
growth of all that is noble and elevating in national
character
This duty of gradually training the people of India
for their own self-government has been wisely and
frankly acknowledged by statesmen at home and in
India.* It will be sufficient here to quote from the
evidence given before the House of Commons in
1853, by Sir Frederick Halliday, late Lieutenant-
Governor of Bengal:-" I go the full length of say-
ing that I believe our mission in India is to qualify
them for governing themselves; I say also that
"the measures of the Government for a number of
66 years past have been advisedly directed to so qua-
66 lifying them, without the slightest reference to
any remote consequences upon our administra-
❝tion."
66
66
66
The abstract injustice of the policy of exclusion,
and the indirect dangers thence arising, are by no
means the only arguments against it. The Govern-
ment of an immense empire by a handful of foreign-
ers whose home is 7,000 miles distant, alien in
blood, religion, and speech, is an anomaly necessa-
rily involving much danger, difficulty, and mis-
* See Appendix.
:
9
government. No amount of superiority in wisdom,
virtue, or civilization, can obviate the evils that arise
out of such an arrangement. Rulers so placed must
always be liable to fall into grievous errors and to
commit cruel wrongs, simply from ignorance and
misinformation.
English officials in India, arduously engaged for
many years in working for the benefit of the people,
occupied with details of administration conceived
in the most beneficent spirit, are apt to overrate the
importance of what they have done, and cannot see
from the point of view occupied by the masses. They
forget how very differently these latter view their
experiments, and how very little real progress has
been effected. Their efforts being depreciated and
assailed with violent and undiscriminating abuse,
they are the less able to judge impartially of the
real character of our rule. They may think it
an exaggeration to speak of our rule in India
as necessarily involving serious wrong and error.
If so, let them call to mind the degraded con-
dition of the Madras rural population, produced by
the land settlement of that Presidency; the wide-
spread alienation of feeling produced by the treat-
ment of the talookdars in the North-West Pro-
vinces; the defects in the perpetual settlement of
Lower Bengal; the practical denial of justice aris-
ing out of the expense and delay attending all suits
in the civil courts; the objectionable mode of taking
and recording evidence in our criminal courts; and
UgrM
10
the infamous state of the police. Let them remem-
ber how utterly ignorant we have always been of the
real state of feeling among the population previous
to the terrible outbreaks that have from time to time
taken place; and how little we were aware of the
grievances which led to those movements. We do
not know the people and they do not know us.
The insurrection of 1857 was a terrible warning
of the results which may at any time arise out of
such an anomaly in administration as the govern-
ment of 170,000,000 by a few thousand foreigners.
Nor is it to be supposed that the catastrophe of
1857 is the only instance in which our rule has been
endangered. The history of British India is the
history of ever present danger, and of conspiracies
suppressed. Notwithstanding that our best and
wisest men have, for more than half a century, en-
deavoured to make this anomalous administration as
good as possible; notwithstanding that the British
Government, both here and in India, have most
ardently desired to do justice to the natives-has even
incurred the charge of treating with injustice their
own countrymen the English settlers in India-in
their desire to consult the welfare of the people ;-
notwithstanding that we have given them the best
civil service in the world, statesmen of the first class
from our own Senate, the Sepoy mutiny and re-
bellion of the population in the North-Western Pro-
vinces shewed but too clearly the failure of the ex-
periment. Notwithstanding our schools, our mission-
Mol
"
11
aries, our newspapers, our good intentions, and our
proclamations, the native army, according to Sir
John Lawrence,* so little understood the character,
motives, or policy of the Government, that, long be-
fore the mutiny, a belief had grown up that it was
our intention to destroy their caste and religion by
violence or fraud!
The great difficulty of our position, indeed, is to
be found in the wide gulf between the rulers and the
ruled; so that the former are ignorant of the true
wants and condition of the latter, and the latter are
ignorant of the true motives and character of the
former. The great problem is how to create a
sympathy in aims and feelings between the rulers
and the ruled, for this is the absolute condition of
any real or extended benefit to the people-of any
permanent security for ourselves. How to bridge
over this terrible chasm is the question which it is
the duty of the British Government to solve as soon
and as thoroughly as possible. I see no means of
accomplishing this object so efficacious, as the crea-
tion of a class in India who shall act as "inter-
preters" between the people and the Government—
a class who, while bound by ties of birth, language,
and kindred to India, shall, by education and by
intimate association with Englishmen, acquire a
hearty sympathy with England. The growth of an
educated class of natives, holding a high social posi-
-
* See his Report on the causes of the mutiny in connection with
the trial of the King of Delhi, dated Lahore, 29th April, 1858.
12
*
tion, and admitted to an equal footing with our Eng-
lish civil service in India, is essential to our security
and their welfare, to good government, progress,
and peace. The evidence given by Mr. Raikes, the
Judge of the Chief Court of Agra, agrees with that
of every one who witnessed the troubles of 1857.
He says:-"I found it to be a general rule, that
"where you had an official well educated at our
"English Colleges, and conversant with our
English tongue, there you had a friend, upon
"whom reliance could be placed." It was well
said by the Times, that "the sympathising natives
"have rescued our empire; with more of them, per-
"haps it would never have been jeoparded. No
"empire has ever been established without the ad-
"mission of the conquered to high rank and office.
"It must be admitted that, with more natives in
"our confidence, and in the confidence of their own
countrymen, we should have had a better chance
"of escaping the late calamity." An eminent mis-
sionary in Calcutta, writing to me on the subject of
the scheme I am now about to put forward, says:
"We need a native aristocracy in India, both an
"intellectual one and one of rank; we need a class
"of men who will serve as "buffers" to their
"countrymen against the insolence of the Euro-
"peans."
66
The growth of a class who should owe their ele-
66
* Notes on the Revolt in the North-Western Provinces of
India, by C. Raikes.
13
vation in the social scale, and a high position in the
administration, to their intellectual attainments and
moral worth, would gradually lead the whole people
insensibly to give to education and character the
respect they now pay to caste; it would act as a
most powerful incentive on the wealthy and highly-
born to keep up their position with Government and
the masses by submitting to the unavoidable condi-
tions of education and good citizenship, just as in
the case of our own aristocracy. Their increased
social intercourse with Europeans, and the elevation
of their tastes and habits resulting from this state of
things, would create an ever-increasing demand for
European productions. Wealth would be spent in
improvement, taste, philanthropy, and literature, in-
stead of in superstitious observances and sensual
grossness. This middle class of educated men,
whether engaged in mercantile undertakings or in
the service of Government, would act as a centre of
moral progress, which would extend itself alike
below and above, among the lower and the upper
classes.
Inseparably connected with this subject is another
of very great and pressing importance. I allude to
the great cost of civil expenditure in India. There
has been every desire to reduce still further the
scale of salaries in the Indian civil service, but it is
generally admitted by every one who has gone into
* See chapter on "Employment of Natives," in Captain Evans
Bell's work on "The English in India."
12
14
*
¿
?
=
the subject, that nothing more can be done in this
direction without seriously impairing its present
efficiency and high character. As Lord Stanley re-
marked, in his financial statement of 14th February,
1859, "even with appointments in the well paid civil
"service, thrown open to competition, there has not
"been that eagerness to compete which might have
"been expected. You can hardly get professional
"men who are doing well in this country to go to
66 India, unless they have the inducement of a double
"rate of remuneration." On the other hand, when
Mr. Ricketts, a member of the Indian Council, was
commissioned a short time since to draw up a scheme
having the double object of reducing civil salaries,
and of improving the administration, he found that
to effect the latter object a large aggregate increase
of expenditure would be inevitable, notwithstand-
ing a reduction of individual allowances. Indeed,
it is notorious that the numerical insufficiency of
the various departments is a constant source of
weakness. On every side, reforms of the most
urgent kind have been demanded for years, alike by
the public and the authorities, but have been denied,
because they involved increased agency. Every
conscientious officer in India is hopelessly over-
whelmed with work. He has not merely to dis-
charge certain defined duties, or to attend for a
certain number of prescribed hours at his office:
from morning until late at night, in office or out of
office, the people of his district have claims. upon his
-
15
exertions. He must seek to correct the corrupt
evidence which comes before him in court by length-
ened and careful inquiries in the interior. He must
make personal acquaintance with every locality, with
every person of influence. He must pass much time
in the villages and fields if he is to understand the
true nature of the cases that come before him for de-
cision. The people depend upon him to assist in the
decision of disputes beeween rival landowners by
friendly arbitration,-to promote their welfare by ad-
vice and assistance in the construction of public
works, hospitals, and schools. Able to rely on none
of his lower subordinates, surrounded by fraud on
every hand, he must be ready to hear every com-
plaint, to receive every kind of intelligence, however
conveyed to him, to anticipate disturbances and high-
way robberies, so far as he can; to enquire into
charges against his own police and immediate instru-
ments. For some years I never retired to rest at
the close of the day without feeling that there were
opportunities which ought if possible to have been
taken up, but for which there was no time, and
which would have to be left for still more pressing
duties on the morrow. There is hardly a civil officer
in India who does not find his hands tied at every
step by the want of more subordinates of a high
class, men sufficiently well paid and placed to be
trustworthy and intelligent. In a country where
the English officers are surrounded by difficulties of
every kind, by fraud and perjury, corrupt and ill-
16
paid subordinates, and the worst police in the world,
-the extent of their jurisdiction is at least ten times.
greater than what would be considered manageable
in Europe. In almost every district there are many
thousands who are so situated with reference to the
few and widely separated courts, that if they have a
complaint to make, or a suit to prefer, it must be at
a cost of several days' journey, perhaps a week there
and back. There is only one mode of meeting this
double difficulty,-the enormous cost of European
agency, and the insufficient number of European
employés. We must resort more and more to
native agency. But now comes the important ques-
tion, "Can this be done consistently with the para-
mount object of all Government-efficiency in the
administration ?" I have endeavoured to shew what
great evils must necessarily be occasioned by exclud-
ing the natives from a larger share than they at
present hold in the administration of their country-
the injustice and the impolicy of such exclusion.
But I now hasten to declare that I do not think the
Government in India has been at all blind to their
duty in this respect. I do not think they could have
advanced farther or faster than they have done. The
feeling on the part of the Government in India has
been, that, however qualified the natives may gra-
dually become, under the influence of religion and
education, for the highest offices of trust in the public
service, they are not so yet. By the liberal pro-
vision made for English schools and colleges, and by
-
17
the influence of individual Englishmen, a higher sense
of honour is growing up; but we must wait until
principles of conduct are more fixed, and character
more stable, before any large proportion of the more
important offices can be placed in the hands of na-
tives. I do not mean that we have to contend with
prevalent and gross corruption, but that the native
employés are still too much under the influence of
personal bias, party feelings, the fear of offending
persons of rank, and the dread of public clamour.
There is as yet too little strength of character,-a
want of self-reliance and fertility of resource in un-
expected difficulties,-and an inability to act where no
rule or order has been prescribed beforehand. As I
have already said, I most cordially admit the im-
mense progress that has taken place in the character
and tone of feeling in the native judicial service, and
among the educated classes generally; but I think
that the Government in India has shewn itself alive
to that progress, and most anxious to keep pace with
that growing fitness by introducing distinguished
native servants from time to time to posts of dignity
and trust which were before exclusively filled by
Englishmen. Even some of the offices formerly re-
served for members of the civil service have been
lately thrown open to natives. * We are, then, in
* I would not, however, be supposed to assert that the allow-
ances assigned to native officials are adequate. I speak only of the
question of admitting them to offices not at present held by them,
B
18
this dilemma. There are the most urgent rea-
sons for throwing open the public service more
widely to natives of rank and education; the ad-
ministration is suffering because we do not more
largely employ this economical agency; our own
popularity with the people is suffering, and the
policy of exclusion is full of danger. Yet, on the
other hand, we have gone as far as is consistent with
administrative efficiency. We cannot place in the
hands of natives posts of higher responsibility than
those they now occupy, without a certain degree of
risk. The offices at present filled by natives are
such as admit of constant and minute control and
supervision. It is felt that there are very few natives
who could be implicitly trusted to carry on duties of
a more difficult nature, in a position where they
would have to be left much to themselves, to their
own sense of what was right and necessary,—
in a position of independence and self-reliance. Then
what is to be done? Are we to wait until these
schools, colleges, and universities, have had the
effect of gradually bringing into existence a higher
type of character than we have yet obtained, not-
withstanding all the progress actually effected? I
believe not. I believe there is a limit to what we
can bring out by such educational agency as we
which involve a greater share of power and responsibility. The
native judges and the clerks in the Courts of Law are noto-
riously underpaid-an opinion for which I have the authority of
all Indian statesmen.
1
19
have in India. I believe that influences of a kind
different from any yet tried must be brought to bear
upon the upper and educated classes of Hindostan,
in order to produce the growth we desire. We want
something higher than mere scholastic influences
and the teaching of books. These last are too faint
to bring out strength of character, to produce a
vigorous mental and moral constitution, especially
when the scholars and students live habitually in a
social atmosphere which counteracts the work of
the school and class room. What would our Eng-
lish boys and young men be if all the moral and
mental influence they received were confined to the
class room;—while at home, in the play-ground, in
society and the world, they dwelt amid the tradi-
tionary customs and habits of thought of a cor-
rupt and decaying civilisation? We all know
that the best part of the education of an English
youth is what he derives from his home, his play-
ground, the cricket field, the debating club, the
healthful society in which he moves after his college
days are over, the vigorous, high-toned, free and
generous life of England. Englishmen in India
complain that the educated natives, however superior
to their predecessors, are conceited, shallow and
pedantic, unable to carry out the higher principles
they bring from college when placed in the way of
temptation, mere copyists of English modes of
thought, without a spark of originality or creative
talent, without resource in difficulty, or moral
20
1
courage in danger. There may be exaggeration
here, but, granting it to the full, could we expect
any
other result when we look at the circumstances
in which they are placed? Can a few years of
Shakespere and Milton taught in the school-room
neutralize the inheritance of generations,-caste, po-
lytheism, practical atheism, corrupt and degrading
social customs, physical weakness, the habits of
servitude, social and political inferiority? It will
be asked, perhaps, whether the educated young men
of India do not already possess the benefit of Eng
lish society on the spot, whether our countrymen in
India do not take them by the hand and make them
feel what home-life is among Englishmen, by invit-
ing them to their houses, by directing, advising, and
befriending those who shew promise of character and
ability. Alas, the habits of Indian life are against
it. Too many Englishmen look with undisguised
contempt upon the inferior race among whom they
live, and neither care nor hope for their improvement.
Those most fitted, and most inclined to associate with
young natives for the purpose of friendly guidance,
are the best men of the official class, but they are
overwhelmed with work, and never having an hour's
leisure until night. They are then too wearied to
bear the irksome task of conversing with young men
who, while too often conceited and affected, can have
but few ideas or interests in common with them.
There is much less community of thought and feel-
ing between them than there would be between a
21
number of mechanics and highly educated gentle-
men in England.
What then is to be done? I propose that measures
should be adopted for bringing to this country every
year a small number of young natives of superior
capacity, for the purpose of giving them a university
education and the influences of English life and so-
ciety. They would be men who had already completed
the rudimentary part of their education in our Indian
schools and colleges, and who would be ready at once
to enter upon the special studies requisite for the
learned Professions, the Bar, Medicine, or Divinity,
as well as for Civil Engineering, while some might de-
vote their time to the study of Commerce and Manu-
factures. They would, before leaving India, have
received such an education as would enable them at
once, on their arrival in England, to derive benefit
from cultivated English society and from travel, as
well as from lectures and public institutions. It
will be said by objectors that there are already
Universities in India by which the natives are enabled
to enter upon the profession of medicine, law, or civil
engineering. That is true, but what I desire to point
out is that education in India is merely the education
of the lecture room, and what I want is the educa-
tion of English life out of the lecture room. In Eng-
land natives of India would have not only a higher
kind of competition than in their own country, where
their class-fellows are men of their own race and
standing, not only the higher teaching of an English
22
University as compared with that of a Colony; not
only the higher standard of attainment so requisite ;
but,-what I would chiefly lay stress upon,-the free
association with professors and fellow students, with
the first minds in the world. Besides, many may
like to associate themselves for a time with mercan-
tile houses and commercial undertakings, and in
other ways to obtain experience and knowledge
altogether beyond the sphere of a University.
It is a constant complaint in India, that although
the native students learn quickly and accurately
every thing we teach them, and pass the most care-
fully conducted examinations with credit, and although
the standard of instruction has been raised so high
as to admit of the establishment of a University
with power to confer degrees in Arts, yet, with all
this, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is
almost unknown. It is complained that books and
study are almost wholly neglected by the most dis-
tinguished students when the college is left, and the
degree is once obtained; that there is a singular
want of original power and creative talent; that the
Arts and Sciences have not yet taken such a root as
to yield their proper fruit in their influence on the
minds of the growing generation; that the know-
ledge imparted at the colleges does not appear to
possess a living vitality, leading men to develope
and apply it as if it were a real power. Even the
ablest students, it is said, can do little more than
repeat what they have gained from books, almost
23
in the very words of the books; and never use their
knowledge as an instrument of thought and action.
I cannot gainsay this assertion, and I attribute it,
in part, to the fact that there is nothing in the daily
life of these students to keep up an interest in their
studies; they have no one outside the college gate
to lead their minds onwards to the highest self-
culture; they see in actual life no application of the
facts they have acquired; they have none of the
advantages which come from associating with minds
superior to their own, which might keep alive and
cultivate the knowledge they have acquired. Their
studies are a thing wholly apart from their daily
experience and the world in which they live. It is
just as if one were to be engaged for ever in learning
the mere rules of arithmetic or formulæ of mathe-
matics without ever having an opportunity of seeing
their application. As regards the great mass of the
population, we can extemporize no remedy for this
state of things: we must trust to the gradual progress
of the native mind during a long course of time; but
we can greatly hasten that progress by raising a class
of pioneers, a mental aristocracy, a body of social re-
formers, from among the most promising minds, by
some such scheme as that I now desire to propose.
That their studies may have vitality and be imbued
with their true meaning, not an exotic artificially
stuck on outside their minds, but grafted upon
them-my desire is that a select number of these
young men should come to Europe, the fountain
24
head of modern science. There alone will the veil
which must ever hang before their eyes in India
be torn aside. They will see clearly the value and
the application of what they have learnt; they will
see how each department of knowledge is connected
with every other, by an endless chain, will see how
the character of our daily life and civilisation is
affected by the subjects of their college studies.
I purposely say nothing as to Religion. These
will be men who can judge for themselves and will
occupy a position which should secure them from
any impertinent attempts at propagandism. People
who would resort to interference in this respect can
have but little faith in God, or in the indirect testi-
mony to the origin of our religion, which is afforded
by the whole aspect of European society as con-
trasted with that of the East. Any misplaced and
short-sighted interference in this matter would pro-
bably deter others from coming and neutralise the
whole scheme. It should be considered a point of
honour to leave these men to be perfectly free agents
in the formation of their own conclusions on this as
well as on all other points.
Of course, one great object which the Hindoos,
in their present state of feeling, would most eagerly
look forward to, would be preparation for the com-
petitive examinations for the Indian Civil Service.
There is no object of ambition so keenly and increas-
ingly desired by the youth of India as admission
into this highly honoured and privileged official
25
Guild, and only by coming to England, is the object
attainable. Here alone, by some such plan as that
now proposed, have we the means of making the
Queen's Proclamation something more than an empty
word, which the natives bitterly complain that it is at
present: "And it is our further will that so far as
66
may be, our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be
"freely and impartially admitted to office in our
"service, the duties of which they may be qualified,
"by their education, ability, and integrity, duly to
"discharge." To which effect also, Act 3 and 4
of William IV. "No native shall by reason of
"birth, religion, descent, or colour, be disabled from
❝ holding any place or office, or employment under
"the Crown." I believe that a few appointments
so gained in the Indian Civil Service would act like
an electric shock upon the national character. It
might be many years before a native civil servant
became Judge of the Chief Court of Appeal, or a
member of the Supreme Council, but it would be
within reach. Why do thousands of able men in
England willingly enter the Church and the Bar,
who could find better remuneration elsewhere than
in the lower ranks of those professions, but for the
hope that each has that one of the few great prizes
may be his? This gives life, energy,
This gives life, energy, and character,
to the whole body. So will it be in India when
there is the possibility of attaining the highest
honours in the gift of the Crown to stir every man
to exertion, something to hope for, when now there
is so very little worth hoping for.
66
26
1
I believe that the arrival in India, every year,
of even four or five natives who have had the advan-
tage of three years of such education and such in-
fluences, as they would thus receive, would give a
valuable impetus to native society. In time these
men would form a powerful class, the pioneers of
all progress, affording a higher standard of life,
and gradually changing the whole social aspect of
native society.
It will very likely be imagined by persons in
England not well acquainted with the great change
in ideas which has taken place of late years among
the higher and educated classes, that it will be diffi-
cult to find persons willing to come to England, on
account of the loss of caste which such a visit would
involve. Those however, who are well acquainted
with the state of feeling prevalent among the class I
speak of, will know how very general a desire exists
among the young men to visit this country,-how
little any supposed difficulties on the subject of caste
would interfere with the object: During the last
three years, four native gentlemen have come from
Calcutta to this country, and at their own ex-
for the purpose of completing their education,
pense, for the
and many others have expressed to me their desire
to adopt the same course, but have been kept back by
the expense-the want of friends in England who
would receive them, and enable them to prosecute
their objects, and the vague assumption of difficulty
which necessarily, in their imagination, surrounds
such an undertaking. Some time ago I wrote to a
H
27
native gentleman, asking him for information on this
question of caste, in reference to a residence in
England. He is a Hindoo holding a very
high and responsible situation in the Educa-
tional Department, one who has not adopted the
social habits of the "Young Bengal" class, but has
preserved his caste, and knows intimately the feel-
ings of the orthodox as well as of the radical party
among his countrymen. His accurate habits of
mind, his high culture and fine character, enable
me to place the fullest confidence in the value of any
opinion on a subject such as that I am now consi-
dering. His reply was :-"As for
"As for your main ques-
"tion, whether young men of family and education
"in this country will be found in sufficient number
"willing to avail themselves of the opportunity for
"self-improvement to be thus afforded them, I think
"there will scarcely be any difficulty in the beginning,
"and increasing facility every succeeding year. The
"ties of caste are strong. To renounce caste is not
"only to renounce a system of effete idolatry, but
"also to break asunder the tenderest ties by which
“human beings are united to one another. Still I
"believe, and the enquiries I have been able to
"make prove to me beyond the shadow of a doubt,
"that young men less scrupulous or more courage-
66
ous, will not be found wanting in our colleges who
"will gladly avail themselves of the opportunity
66
you propose to open for them, of starting in the
career of ambition from that advanced stage to
66
28
"which Europeans owe their present superiority."
So convinced is this gentleman of the value and im-
portance of the scheme which I am now proposing,
that he has offered to give a donation of fifty pounds
towards the object, though his own income is little
more than three hundred a year.
TH
There is an impression in some quarters, that so
far as the experiment has been tried of educating
natives of India in England, it has been a failure.
I do not think that this can be said. The facts are
as follows:-About fifteen years ago the native
students of the Medical College at Calcutta were in-
formed that four students would be sent to England,
and their professional education completed in this
country, free of all expense, and volunteers were in-
vited to offer themselves. At that time prejudices
were much stronger than they are now, and the
Government was obliged to take those who came
forward rather than those who were the most likely
to do credit to the experiment. Two of the four thus
selected turned out badly; two turned out well; and
one of these latter, Dr. Dwarkanath Chuckerbutty,
obtained, five years ago, on the occasion of a second
visit to England, an appointment in the Indian Me-
dical Service, at the competitive examination. More
recently, others have visited this country at their
own expense, for the purpose of obtaining the ad-
vantages of a professional education, and have, I
understand, distinguished themselves in their own
country.
29
This is not the place for detail. My object is now
to invite opinions and suggestions from those who
agree with the importance of the scheme generally,
and are inclined to assist me in working it out. I
ask all such to favour me with an intimation that
they are willing to co-operate for the purpose, and
to form an association for this express object.
When I have received such intimation from a suf-
ficient number of persons, I propose to ask them to
fix a day for meeting to organise a society, and to
take such measures as may seem desirable for the
accomplishment of the object in view.
At present, my idea is that when an association
has been fairly organised in England for this pur-
pose, the natives and such Europeans as are in-
terested in their progress at the Presidency towns
of India should be invited to co-operate with us. I
believe that if the Society in England were to
raise by subscription one half of the necessary
expenses, the parents and friends of promising
young men in India, and persons interested in the
progress of their country, would raise the other half.
As the progress of ideas advanced, and as the scheme
produced its proper fruits, an increasingly larger
support might be expected from India, until the
Society in England would have to do little more
than superintend the expenditure of the funds re-
mitted to them, appoint proper persons to the charge
of the young men, and generally see that their
interests were advanced.
30
1.
But, at first, while the experiment is a new one, a
large share of the expense must be met here. Con-
sidering the great public and national importance of
the object, perhaps it is not altogether out of the
question to hope that in some shape the Government
itself will afford aid to the undertaking. I pur-
posely abstain now from entering on the question
as to the University or College which may be found
best suited to the position and requirements of these
young men. It may be thought that the constitution
of the University of London is the one best adapted
for Hindu or Mahomedan students. I believe that
arrangements might be made for their residence in
London at an expense not exceeding £200. a year,
including board, lodging, and college fees, &c. To
this must be added the expense of the voyage to
and from India.
I conclude with commending this proposal to the
best consideration and earnest support of that large
portion of the English public, which is animated
by a hearty desire to see England fulfilling her
highest duties to the people of India. I trust that
I may receive early assurances that there are many
who are ready to take an active part in promoting
the undertaking, if placed in the hands of men whose
names and character shall be a guarantee for its
success.
ORIENTAL CLUB: June, 1860.
C
$
APPENDIX.
Opinions of eminent public men on the subject of employ-
ing the Natives of India in the administration of that
country.
"His Lordship cannot contemplate the arrival of a
period at which it will be safe or wise to place the great
executive and administrative powers in the hands of any
other than British officers. At the same time, it is a cause
of constant regret that there do not exist in the public
service some offices of large emolument and high position,
to which native gentlemen of ability and character might
rise, so that the office and the pay of Principal Sudder
Ameen should no longer be the boundary of a native gen-
tleman's ambition in the British service."-(The Marquis
of Dalhousie.)
"All that we can give the natives without endangering
our own ascendancy should be given. All real military
power must be kept in our own hands, but they might with
advantage hereafter be made eligible to every civil office
under that of a member of government. The change
should be gradual because they are not yet fit to discharge
properly the duties of a high civil employment, according
to our ideas, but the sphere of their employment should
be extended in proportion as we find that they become
capable of filling properly higher situations.”—(Sir Thos.
Monro, 1821.)
"Various measures might be suggested which might in
all probability be more or less useful to improve their cha-
racter, but no one appears to me so well calculated to
insure success as that of endeavouring to give them a higher
opinion of themselves by placing more confidence in them,
by placing them in important situations, and perhaps by
rendering them eligible to almost every office under
government."-(Sir Thos. Monro, 1824.)
-
"We ought to look forward to the time when natives
may be employed in almost every office however high, and
we ought to prepare them gradually for such a change by
32
entrusting them with higher duties from time to time, in
proportion as experience may prove them to be qualified
to discharge them."—(Sir Thos. Monro, 1827.)
"I regret as deeply as you or any man can, that there
is no opening for natives. The system of depression
becomes more alarming as our power extends, but the re-
medy is not in raising to rank or influence our servants,
moonshees, &c. however good. We must, or we cannot
last, contrive to associate the natives with us in the task
of rule, and in the benefits and gratifications which accrue
from it."-(Sir John Malcolm.)
Mr. A. J. M. Mills, late a Member of the Legislative
Council of India, states in his evidence before the Com-
mittee on Indian Colonization, that the character of the
native Judges had very much improved of late years, in
consequence of their higher education and better remunera-
tion."They are extremely acute in their reasoning as
Judges: I think the native character has improved, and
is improving, and as you pay them higher, it will improve
still further. I was specially appointed to ascertain the
fitness of the natives for the offices they hold, and to see
how they administered justice. I visited every court that
I could. I examined the proceedings; sat with the native
Judge, and made him decide cases in my presence. I
on the whole very much satisfied with the quality of the
work done."
was
;
Sir C. Trevelyan, in his evidence before the Committee
on Indian Territories (1853): "I used to take great plea-
sure in conversing with the natives of all ranks and classes
and I used to dilate, perhaps in too boastful a spirit, upon
the superior civilisation of the European; our navy, our
superior military discipline, our manufactures, our steam-
boats and so forth: and I observed to my surprise, that
they gave me a cold and indifferent hearing, and they often
ended by making an observation something of this sort:
'Yes, you are a wonderful people; you speak the truth;
you keep to your word; when you have promised a thing,
however injurious it may be to you, you observe it; you
hold by it generation after generation:' and by degrees, I
discovered that the object of their admiration was neither
our arts, our arms, nor our science, but our moral qualities;
and that to speak the truth from the heart, to promise
even to our own hurt and not to disappoint was the real
10:30
33
object of their respect. It is this superior morality which
enables every young Writer, although very inferior to many
of the natives both in point of experience and intelligence,
to command attention and confidence in his decisions. It
is the absence of this quality which unfits the native at
present from taking part in the actual government of
India; I mean in the capacity of Member of Council.
The government of India requires a standard of elevation
and disinterestedness and single-mindedness which is rare
even among Europeans, and would be still more difficult to
find among natives. * * But the natives have very
considerable administrative qualities; they have great
patience, great industry, great acuteness, and intelligence.
They have a perfect knowledge of the country and of the
people, and acting under European superintendence they
acquit themselves extremely well. Native agency and
European superintendence should therefore be fully estab-
lished as the principle of our Government in India. This
principle was first officially recognised and established by
Lord Wm. Bentinck, and since which time it has been
continually growing and extending. This is proved by the
fact that notwithstanding the growth of our territory, the
number of the civil servants has decreased."
"The European civil service and the native civil service
are divided by an elastic impalpable line, which is continu-
ally extending, as the natives shew themselves more fit
for responsible employment.'
در
"Two things are necessary to the success of the plan of
employing natives: one is that they shall be properly
educated, first by an adequate system of general educa-
tion, vernacular and English, and next by a special
professional education adapted to their future employ-
ment; and the other thing is that they shall be sufficiently
paid."
"I contemplate ultimately the almost entire super-
cession of Europeans in the judicial and revenue depart-
ments. When our dominion ceases to be of advantage to
the natives, it ought to end; but if it terminates in the
way I contemplate, it will end in a manner extremely
happy and beneficial for both parties.'
""
"The satisfactory manner in which on the whole they
have acquitted themselves [in the judicial department] is
a decided support of the opinion which I entertain of their
capacity for office."
C
i
:
34
"It is not my opinion that the intellectual faculties of
the natives decay after a certain age: we take the native
youths from the midst of a very inferior and corrupt state
of society; we introduce them to a pure and elevated
literature, and after they leave our schools they return to
their old state of society." "The main thing is to open
up to them a proper field of mental and moral activity in
after-life."(Sir C. Trevelyan)
"Native agency has been adopted in every department
with the greatest success."-(W. Wilberforce Bird).
"The admission of the natives of India to the highest
offices of state is simply a question of time.”- (W. Kaye).
(Evidence of Sir Frederick Halliday, late Lieut.-Governor
of Bengal, before the Committee of the House of Com-
mons on Indian Territories, 1853.)
Đ
Mr. Cobden. "I gather from your answers that you do
not despair but that with proper encouragement and judici-
ous treatment, the natives may at some future time be
rendered capable of filling any offices of trust."
Mr. Halliday. "I do not in the least despair. I go the
full length of saying that I believe OUR MISSION IN INDIA
I say
IS TO QUALIFY THEM FOR GOVERNING THEMSELVES;
also that the measures of the Government for a number
of years past have been advisedly directed to so qualifying
them, without the slightest reference to any remote con-
sequences upon our administration.”
"I think the admission of natives to high judicial func-
tions would be a great means of attaching the intellect of
the country to our rule. I think we should make friends
of them, instead of giving their intellect an incentive to
spread into disaffection. I would wish to see them more
extensively employed. I think their morality to be highly
improved by contact with us and by education." -Sir
Erskine Perry.)
"The new race of men would make independent judges
when sitting with Europeans; they would have perhaps
* * At the
even too strong an opinion of their own.
time of our assuming the administration, the native Zemin-
dars, who were armed with police or magisterial powers,
were entirely broken down in that respect, and deprived
of their authority. They naturally felt this, as they were
thereby humiliated in the eyes of their dependents, and the
35
change tended to drive them into various lawless courses."
* * "The natives do at times not unreasonably feel it
to be a grievance that laws are passed affecting their in-
terests without their being sufficiently consulted upon them.
In the judicial department, the natives have shewn very
great aptitude, and ultimately I believe there would be
found natives who would be fit to occupy any position,
even the highest, not only in that but in every depart-
ment. To a fair share of these higher offices the natives
on every ground of equity and true policy are fully en-
titled, in proportion as they prove themselves to be
thoroughly qualified for them, not only by talents and
attainments but also by integrity of character." (Dr.
Duff, Free Church of Scotland Missionary.)
"I would observe how very easily the natives all acquire
the requisite qualifications for the duties which we are
pleased to entrust to them. I would ask who can doubt
that they would very shortly, if not depressed and dis-
pirited, become at least equal to the functions they per-
formed before we came among them. I confess it is my
wish, though possibly I may be blamed for expressing it,
not only to have the authority of the native judges extended,
but to see them, if possible, enjoy important and confi-
dential situations in other departments of the state."-(Sir
Henry Strachey, 1802.)
"Another effect of our system, was the disgust which it
gave to the higher classes of natives in the loss of all pros-
pects of respectable provision under the economical scale
of our native establishments. The door to official emolu-
ments, and to stations of dignity, was necessarily closed
against the natives by the exclusive employment of the
covenanted servants of Government."(Lord Moira,
1815.)
"It must otherwise probably be a source of disquiet and
intrigue among the community, for unless Government
shall open some door for the employment of the talents
which their own liberality has, in many instances, elicited,
and, to a certain extent, fostered, by making natives of
education and respectability of character eligible to higher
grades of the public service than are at present open to
their fair and honourable ambition, the gift of superior
knowledge, with whatever other advantages attended, can
scarcely fail to aggravate the discontent of the educated
classes."-(Lord Amherst, 1826.)
36
"It has frequently been objected to the employment of
the natives of India in judicial offices, that they cannot
safely be trusted with the administration of justice. Το
this objection it might, perhaps, be a sufficient answer to
say that they are already so trusted. But one principal
reason for noticing the objection is, that we may impart to
you our decided conviction, that when we place the
natives of India in situations of trust and confidence, we
are bound under every consideration of justice and policy,
to grant them adequate allowances; we have no right to
calculate on their resisting temptations to which the
generality of mankind in the same circumstances would
yield."(The Court of Directors of the East India Com-
pany, 1824.)
"In many respects the Mahometans surpassed our rule.
They settled in the countries which they conquered; they
intermixed and intermarried with the natives, they ad-
mitted them to all privileges; the interests and sympathies
of the conquerors and conquered became identified. Our
policy, on the contrary, has been the reverse of this, cold,
selfish, and unfeeling: the iron hand of power on the one
*side, monopoly and exclusion on the other."-(Lord Wm.
Bentinck.)
"The ancient Hindoo aristocracy, who felt both pride
and pleasure in promoting native arts, and encouraging
native learning, having nearly dwindled and vanished
wherever the British have planted their rule in Hindostan,
as the inevitable result of a system which excludes the
children of the soil from all high offices of trust and
emolument in the State which formerly belonged to them,
the Brahmins lost the patrons who enabled them to main-
tain the many thousands of schools which provided gra-
tuitous education to the poor."-(Dukhina Runjun
Mookerjea, a loyal and distinguished native, rewarded by
Government for his services in 1857.)
Macu
All we
"However rich or powerful or ambitious a native in
our dominions may be, there is no sphere of action for
him, except plotting against the Bengal Government. If
he is on our side there is nothing for him to do.
ask of him is to sit quiet, to grow rich, to be in fact, a
fatted hog."-(Friend of India, 1859.)
Sh
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