LETTER XII - EDUCATION IN INDIA SINCE 1835 ; WITH A MINUTE OF LORD MACAULAY

Summary

Mofussilpore, July 20, 1863.

Dear Simkins,– You will be glad to hear that I passed my second examination some three weeks ago, and have since been settled here as an assistant to Tom Goddard. He set me to work at first upon the Government School, which was not in a satisfactory state; and I have gained some valuable experience about the operation of our system of public instruction. The natives of India do not seem willing to adopt Christianity as a compensation for the loss of national independence; but there can be no question whether or not they appreciate the blessings of a sound European education. That we have been enabled to offer to our subjects in the East a boon so acceptable, is due mainly to the exertions of a great man, who, for the space of more than three years, laboured to direct the whole course of instruction into the channels which it at present occupies. To describe with my feeble pen the nature of the change which he introduced would be vain and presumptuous indeed, when he has left a monument of that change in his own immortal words. Strange it is, while rummaging among the dusty records of the Public Offices at Calcutta, to light upon a yellow bundle of foolscap, tied up with frayed and faded tape, and honeycombed by the ravages of generations of white ants.