Page:Calcutta Review Vol. II (Oct. - Dec. 1844).pdf/379

374 hood and youth—which systematically aims at making its subjects moral and virtuous as well as learned—which habitually inculcates the great truth, that a conquest over the evil passions and desires of the heart is a mightier achievement far than any triumphs over the ignorance of the head—which studiously and decidedly prefers purity of life, and integrity, and sincerity of conduct to all the merely bookish knowledge in the world—which, taking the word of the ever-living God for its guide, lays its foundations deep in religious culture, and, by imbuing the youthful mind with the love and fear of the true God, teaches most effectually the love of our neighbour, together with all due respect for his personal rights and social privileges.

In the present article, we have restricted ourselves to the subject of education and its kindred or collateral topics. But though we have done so, it has been purposely, and not because we are ignorant of, or indifferent to, other subjects which are intimately linked with it, or inseparably interwoven with its effective operation and success. We allude particularly to the reign of terror and insecurity that is abroad under the tyranny and oppression of the zemindars, the guilty connivance of a corrupt and unprincipled police, and the briberies, perjuries, and law-form mockeries of our Mofussil court of justice. We not only admit, but solemnly record, our deliberate conviction that the whole of this system—most iniquitous in its results though not in the intention of our rulers—demands revision, reform, remodelling. Moreover, we candidly admit that, without such revision and reconstruction of the Zemindary, Police, and Judicial systems, education itself, however vigorously set on foot and prosecuted, will be, in a thousand ways, baulked, thwarted, neutralized, and evacuated of its legitimate fruits. True it is, most true, that if an enlightened education could everywhere be communicated, it would eventually tear off, and “flutter into rags,” a vast deal of the present external organism, that is wielded in crushing and prostrating the energies of the people. In this respect we fully concur in the sentiments so honourably and creditably expressed by a young native gentleman—himself a zemindar—at a public meeting of the Native inhabitants recently held in the hall of the Free Church Institution, to vote an address of thankful acknowledgment to the Governor-General, on account of his enlightened educational enactment of the 10th October last. “Educate the people,” said he,“ and you will find them manfully resisting the oppressions of the zemindar. Educate the people, and they will cease to be victimized by the Darogah. Educate the people, and they will burst asunder those fetters by which they are now bandaged and trampled on.”

That such would be the ultimate effects of a sound and whole-