Page:Calcutta Review Vol. II (Oct. - Dec. 1844).pdf/380

Rh some system of education, we have not the shadow of a doubt. Our only doubt is, as to how, or in what way, such a system could be generally established, with hopeful prospects of efficiency and success, in the face of the all-pervading, all-grinding demon of oppression that now stalks forth in all the lordliness of unchallenged supremacy, over the length and breadth of the land. Some would, consequently, have us wholly to suspend educational operations, until this evil demon in its multiplex forms is exorcised and fairly expelled from our borders. Others, on the contrary, would have us wholly to refrain from agitation on the subject of oppression, and proceed exclusively with educational measures. Now, in our sober judgment, both these extremes are wrong, and both equally to be avoided. Why should not administrative reforms, in the police and judicial departments, advance hand in hand with reform and extension in the educational departments? Why should the one be done and the other left undone? Rather, why should not both be prosecuted simultaneously? If both systems have, in point of fact, been allowed to grow up to a full maturity of evil—if both, acting and reacting on each other in a mutually strengthening process of mischief and misery—are leagued together in a terrible conspiracy against the welfare and prosperity of unhappy millions, why should we, in such an emergency, keep dallying and loitering in blank unprofitableness, or waste precious time in tracing their respective genealogies—in settling antiquarian questions as to which may be regarded as the cause and which the effect, which the antecedent and which the consequent, which the parent and which the child? Be the primary source or origin what it may, it is but too palpable that both systems now are inextricably blended in reciprocal influences for evil. And ought not this to be enough to persuade us to seek earnestly for the rectification of both, and plead unweariedly for the expansion of both in rectified and improved forms? Administrative reform can come from Government alone. Let us, then, unceasingly refresh the memory and stimulate the conscience of a not unwilling Government; let us accept, with cheerfulness and candour, any reformational instalment as a pledge of sincerity and good-will on its part; and let us ever wisely view such instalment as a stepping-stone of facility towards the ultimate attainment of more beneficial measures, under the ascendancy of more auspicious circumstances. Educational reform, on the other hand, is, to a certain extent, within reach of every member of the community at large. Each one, who has a will, may find a way of doing something; and that something, under whatever drawbacks or discouragements, each one is sacredly bound to attempt to do. However insignificant the result of individual