Page:Henry Derozio, the Eurasian, poet, teacher, and journalist. With appendices (IA henryderozioeura00edwarich).pdf/55

 himself protested against the founding of a Sanscrit College, though himself a Sanscrit scholar; and in a letter addressed to His Excellency Lord Amherst in 1823, he declared, that the teaching of Sanscrit would completely defeat the object of the Government, and waste the sum set apart for the instruction of the natives of India. A seminary of this sort, he says, "can only be expected to load the minds of youth with grammatical niceties and metaphysical distinctions, of little or no use to their possessors or to society. The pupils will acquire what was known two thousand years ago, with the addition of vain and empty subtleties since then produced by speculative men. The Sanscrit system of education would be the best calculated to keep this country in darkness, but as the improvement of the native population is the object of the Government, it should consequently promote a more liberal and enlightened system of instruction, embracing Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Anatomy, with other useful sciences, which may be accomplished with the sums proposed, by employing a few gentlemen of talents and learning educated in Europe, and providing a college furnished with necessary books, instruments, and other apparatus."

The unremitting devotion and energy of David Hare, backed by the leaders of Hindoo Society, had secured the possibility of an English education, and