Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/324

264 as a means of throwing a strong light upon the moral and intellectual condition of native society, I trust they will be continued, pari passu, with every attempt to extend vernacular instruction. If the suggestions offered, or to be offered, in this report possess any value, it is derived from these inquiries conducted under the authority of Government, without which a whole life’s residence in India would not have given me the inwrought conviction I now possess of the unparalledunparalleled [sic] degradation of the native population, and the large and unemployed resources existing in the country applicable to the improvement of their condition and character; and it is only by the unwearied prosecution of such inquiries, and by the detailed publication of their results, that this conviction can be wrought out of the minds of the actual observers into the minds of the community at large, and especially into the minds of those members of the community who wield the powers and direct the measures of Government. I long entertained an opinion of the importance of such inquiries before I had undertaken, or had any prospect of undertaking, such a duty in person. In 1829 or 1830, at the request of Lord, I sent him a Memorandum on the subject of education, in which I pointed out an educational survey of the country as an indispensable preliminary to every other measure, and four years afterwards the adoption of the suggestion showed that the utility of such a course was appreciated by his Lordship’s Government. Experience has confirmed the opinion I then expressed, and in perusing the Revenue and Judicial Selections during the past year, I have discovered with pleasure that the advantage of inquiries into the actual state of native education is still further supported by the high authority of that truly great and good man Sir, the late Governor of Madras, and by that of the Court of Directors. The importance of this branch of the subject and the weight due to these authorities induce me to embody their views in full in this report from the Selections, Vol. III., page 588, omitting only the tabular form in which Sir Thomas Munro directed the information to be collected:—

“Much has been written, both in England and in this country, about the ignorance of the people of India and the means of disseminating knowledge among them; but the opinions upon this subject are the mere conjectures of individuals, unsupported by any authentic documents, and differing so widely from each other as to be entitled to very little attention. Our power in this country, and the nature of its own municipal institutions, have