Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/46

32 Institute at Allyghur or Bareilly, representing the learned natives of the North-western Provinces. The reply of the Government of India to that application recognised the necessity for aiding Oriental learning by honours and rewards. At present all that our University does is to insist that graduates shall add to a sound and extensive knowledge of the English language and literature, and of European history, science and philosophy, all taught and acquired through the medium of English, familiarity with one learned language, which may be Latin or Greek as well as Sanskrit or Arabic.

“This seems to me not enough. It fails, and will always fail, to reach the learned class of Pundits and Moulvies whom, for political as well as social reasons, it is so desirable to influence, and it has not the remotest effect on the progress of Vernacular Education. If our University is to be true to its name and functions, and to develop not after a London pattern, but naturally and with a healthy and varied fulness, it must recognize the wants, absorb the intellectual life, and guide the literature and language of all classes. The University is in a new position, and has made a noble beginning. The question is, how will it best represent and elevate the full and varied intellectual life of India?

“(a.) That the University of Calcutta be empowered to affiliate Colleges in which true science, true history and true metaphysics are taught only through the Oriental languages, and in which such languages and their literature are scientifically studied.

“(b.) That the University be permitted to grant degrees for purely Oriental attainment of an honorary character to distinguished Oriental Scholars, and after examination to others. If the University of London could meet the growing interest of Englishmen in physical science by creating the degree of Doctor of Science; why should not that of Calcutta adopt itself to India by conferring such degrees as Doctor of Sanskrit or Master of Arabic?”

The Calcutta University, has, however, given a great impulse to Sanskrit studies by the important position they hold in the University Examination, but it does not affect the class of Tol Pundits who, according to the Government Inspector of Schools in the Dacca Division, “exercise more supremacy over the minds of the people than any other class.”

The following are some of the objects set forth by the proposed Lahore University:—

“While the revival of Eastern learning and the creation of a good vernacular literature will be the primary object of the University, yet English will be still considered at the natural complement of education, and of the highest value to the Native student whose mind has been thoroughly disciplined by a study of his national classics.

“The Government Schools and Colleges, whether high or low, should be regarded, not as permanent institutions, but only as a means for generating a desire and demand for education, and as models meanwhile for imitation by private institutions. In proportion as the demand for education in any given locality is generated, and as private institutions spring up and flourish, all possible aid and encouragement should be afforded to them; and the Government, in place of using its power and resources to complete with private parties, should rather contract and circumscribe its measures of direct education, and so shape its measures as to pave the way for the abolition of its own schools.