Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/376

316 which speak only through that medium. The inference is obvious. If we would avail ourselves of this vast and various literature, for the moral and intellectual regeneration of India, we must stretch out the right hand of fellowship to those who can alone effectually wield its powers, and by patronage and conciliation obtain their willing co-operation.

Sixth.—The patronage of Government bestowed on schools of learning would be most gratefully received both by the learned themselves and by the native community. It would entirely coincide with the customs of native society. Sanscrit schools have been frequently endowed by wealthy Hindus; the teachers are constantly invited, feasted, and dismissed with presents on occasions of important domestic celebrations; and both teachers and students, independent of all other considerations of castes and condition, are held in the greatest respect by the community. In the opinion of the learned themselves—an opinion which they have frequently expressed to me—it is the duty of rulers to promote learning, by which they, of course, mean Sanscrit learning. If common schools and their teachers are encouraged as I have proposed, while Sanscrit schools are neglected, it may be feared that the hostility of the learned will be often incurred, and that, through their all-penetrating influence, they will raise serious obstacles to the spread of popular instruction. On the contrary, if their schools, as well as the vernacular schools, are patronized, their own interests will be identified with the success of the Government plan, and we may confidently rely on their co-operation. It is not, however, on the ground of expediency only that this recommendation is offered. Sanscrit schools and teachers may be made to conduce as effectually to the spread of sound and useful knowledge as vernacular schools, with only this difference that each class of institutions will operate in a field from which the other is excluded. In Sanscrit schools we shall gain access to a large and influential class which by any other means we shall be unable to reach, and which it is of the utmost importance to the welfare of society should advance as the rest of society advances. There is no class of persons that exercises a greater degree of influence in giving native society the tone, the form, and the character which it actually possesses, than the body of the learned, not merely as the professors of learning, but as the priests of religion; and it is essential to the success of any means employed to aid the moral and intellectual advancement of the people, that they should not only co-operate, but also participate, in the progress. If we leave them behind, we shall be raising obstacles to our own success, and retarding the progress of the whole country.

Learned Hindus will gratefully receive all the encouragement which we are willing to bestow, but it may still be made a question whether they would introduce books of useful knowledge on science and the arts into the regular course of their instruction.