Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/319

 aspects, and in what follows I shall endeavour impartially to point out the difficulties, as well as the advantages, of the measure which, on the whole, I venture to recommend.

The leading idea, that of employing existing native institutions as the instruments of national education, has been already suggested; and if their adaptation to this purpose had not been so much overlooked, it would have seemed surprising that they were not the very first means adopted for its promotion. Their importance, however, has been recognized, at least in words, by some of those who have been most distinguished for their intimate practical acquaintance with the details of Indian administration. Of these, I may cite here, on account of the comprehensive although cursory view it presents of the subject, the opinion expressed by Mr. Secretary in his report of September 22nd 1809, on the general state of the Police of Bengal, contained in Appendix No. 12 to the Fifth Report on East India affairs. At the close of his report Mr. Dowdeswell says—“I have now stated all the measures which suggest themselves to my mind for the improvement of the Police, without entering into minute details, or deviating into a course which might be thought foreign to the subject. I am satisfied that if those measures be adopted they will be attended with considerable benefit in the suppression of the crimes most injurious to the peace and happiness of society,—an opinion which I express with the greatest confidence, as it is founded on practical experience of the system now recommended so far as the existing regulations would permit. I am, at the same time, sensible that a great deal more must be done in order to eradicate the seeds of those crimes,—the real source of the evil lies in the corrupt morals of the people. Under these circumstances, the best laws can only have a partial operation. If we would apply a lasting remedy to the evil, we must adopt means of instruction for the different classes of the community, by which they may be restrained, not only from the commission of public crimes, but also from acts of immorality by a dread of the punishments denounced both in this world and in a future state by their respective religious opinions. The task would not, perhaps, be so difficult as it may at first sight appear to be. ''Some remains of the old system of Hindu discipline still exist. The institutions of Mohammadanism of that description are still better known. Both might be revived and gradually moulded into a regular system of instruction for both those great classes of the community''; but I pretend not to have formed any digested plan of that nature, and at all events it would be foreign, as above noticed, to the immediate object of my present report.“ It does not appear what institutions Mr. Dowdeswell meant to describe, and confessedly his views were general and not very defined. A closer attention will show that Hinduism and Mohammadanism have certain institutions