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J. S. Mill and Indian Education*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2009

Lynn Zastoupil
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Extract

J. S. Mill's role in the Indian education controversy is well known, but scarcely well understood. That he drafted, in 1836, a despatch sharply critical of Macaulay's infamous Minute on Indian Education, is general knowledge now. That in drafting the despatch Mill drew upon the ideas of H. H. Wilson, a noted Orientalist and sharp critic of Macaulay and the Anglicists, has been adequately demonstrated. That the despatch was never sent to India, because of the objections of the President of the Board of Trade, John Hobhouse, a Whig with some utilitarian connections, has been common knowledge for several decades.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , May 1991 , pp. 69 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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Footnotes

*

Transcripts of Crown-Copyright records in the India Office appear by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

References

1 Sirkin, Gerald and Sirkin, Natalie Robinson, ‘John Stuart Mill and Disutilitarianism in Indian Education’, Journal of General Education, xxiv (1973), 231–85Google Scholar; Sirkin, and Sirkin, , ‘Mill in India House: A Little Bureaucratic Tale in Two Letters’, Mill Newsletter, ix (1974), 3–7Google Scholar; Sirkin, and Sirkin, , ‘The Battle of Indian Education: Macaulay's Opening Salvo Newly Discovered’, Victorian Studies, xiv (1971), 407–28.Google Scholar

2 Sirkin, and Sirkin, , ‘John Stuart Mill and Disutilitarianism’, 263–5.Google Scholar

3 Bearce, George, British Attitudes Towards India, 1784–1858, Oxford, 1961, pp. 282–6 (quote on p. 284).Google Scholar

4 Hilliker, J. F., ‘English Utilitarians and Indian Education’, Journal of General Education, xxvii (1975), 103–10.Google Scholar

5 Moore, R. J., ‘John Stuart Mill at East India House’, Historical Studies, xx (1983), 497–519.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Other accounts of Mill's role in the education controversy can be found in Ballhatchet, K. A., ‘The Home Government and Bentinck's Educational Policy’, Cambridge Historical Journal, x (1950–1952), 224–9Google Scholar; Ballhatchet, , ‘John Stuart Mill and Indian Education’, Cambridge Historical Journal, xi (1953–1954), 228Google Scholar; Harris, Abram L., ‘John Stuart Mill: Servant of the East India Company’, Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, xxx (1964), 185–202CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clive, John, Macaulay, New York, 1973, ch. 12Google Scholar; Pradhan, V. S., ‘Mill on India: A Reappraisal’, Dalhousie Review, lvi (1976), 5–22Google Scholar; and Garforth, F. W., Educative Democracy: John Stuart Mill on Education in Society, Oxford, 1980, pp. 54–6.Google Scholar Eric Stokes, in his pioneering study, The English Utilitarians and India, Oxford, 1959Google Scholar, basically ignores the issue, as does Michael, St. John Packe in his biography, The Life of John Stuart Mill, New York, 1954.Google Scholar

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7 Mill, J. S., Autobiography, ed. Robson, John M. and Stillinger, Jack, Toronto, 1981 (Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. i), i. 27–9Google Scholar; Mill, James, The History of British India, London, 1817 (reprint: New York, 1968), Bk. II.Google Scholar

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9 Mill, J. S., ‘List of Despatches’Google Scholar, Eur. MSS. B 405, India Office Library and Records (hereafter: IOLR), London. This list will appear soon in volume xxx of CW.

10 For comparisons, see James Mill, Revenue department despatch, 6 February 1824 (Bengal, E/4/710), IOLR (on the elder Mill's authorship of this and other educational despatches, see Stokes, , pp. 57–8Google Scholar and Note D, p. 324), and J. S. Mill, Public Department despatch, 16 April 1828 (Madras, E/4/935) [Mill, , ‘List of Despatches’, p. 149], IOLR.Google Scholar

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13 Zastoupil, , ‘J.S. Mill and India’, 50–4Google Scholar; Mill, J. S., ‘On Liberty’, ed. Robson, John M., Toronto, 1977, Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, [1859]Google Scholar, Essays on Politics and Society, xvii. 247–9.Google Scholar

14 Wilson, H. H., ‘Education of the Natives of India’, The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register of British and Foreign India, China, and Australasia, n.s., xix (1836), 1–2, 7, 9, 13–14.Google Scholar

15 Mill, J. S., ‘Recent Changes in Native Education’Google Scholar, P.C. 1828, L/P&J/1/92, IOLR, paras. 10–13 (quote in para. 13); Mill, , ‘List of Despatches’, p. 147Google Scholar [for another copy of the despatch, see Home Misc. Series, vol. 723, IOLR].

16 Mill, J. S., ‘Bentham’, and ‘Coleridge’, ed. John M. Robson, Toronto, 1969 (Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. x), x. 75–163Google Scholar; Coleridge, S. T., On the Constitution of the Church and State, ed. Colmer, John, London, 1976 (The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, vol. x).Google Scholar

17 McCully, , pp. 20–8Google Scholar; Kopf, , pp. 178–87.Google Scholar

18 Wilson, , 8–10.Google Scholar

19 Mill, , ‘Recent Changes in Native Education’, paras. 13, 16–19.Google Scholar

20 Mill, J. S., ‘The Right and Wrong of State Interference with Corporation and Church Property’, Dissertations and Discussions, 5 vols., New York, 1874, i. 64–5.Google Scholar

21 Mill, , ‘Coleridge’, CW, x. 150.Google Scholar

22 Garforth, ch. 4.

23 Wilson, , 9–13 (quote on p. 13).Google Scholar

24 Mill, , ‘Recent Changes in Native Education’Google Scholar, paras. 16–20 (quote in para. 20).

25 Macaulay, Thomas, ‘Minute on Indian Education’, and ‘The London University’, Thomas Babington Macaulay: Selected Writings, ed. Clive, John and Pinney, Thomas, Chicago, 1972, pp. 237–51 and 3–33Google Scholar; see also Clive, , Macaulay, pp. 377–8.Google Scholar

26 Wilson, , 11–13 (quote on p. 11).Google Scholar

27 Mill, , ‘Recent Changes in Native Education’, para. 14.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., paras. 16, 20 and 31.

29 Mill, , ‘Coleridge’, CW, x. 150–8.Google Scholar

30 Mill, J. S., ‘State of Society in America’, ed. John M. Robson, Toronto, 1977 (Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. xviii), xviii. 101–2.Google Scholar

31 Mill, J. S., ‘Civilization’, ed. John M. Robson, Toronto, 1977 (Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. xviii), xviii. 137–47.Google Scholar