Page:History, Design and Present State of the Religious, Benevolent and Charitable Institutions.djvu/144

Rh foregoing sketch, is the cultivation of Sanscrit learning. Whatever may be the defects of that system, it possesses merits, which, to say the least, must always render it an object of liberal and enlightened curiosity; and it cannot be at variance with the duty of a great Government to preserve from decay and degradation, a system of science and literature held in pious veneration by the great body of it’sits [sic] subjects, deeply interwoven with their domestic habits and religious faith, and containing the only authentic records, (clouded as they are by the romance and fable of their ancient history) of a people from whom the enlightened nations of Europe have remotely derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of civilization. But it is infinitely desirable to combine with this object, the still more important one of opening new sources of intellectual and moral improvement, by the gradual admission of the lights of European science and learning, and thus to repay the debt of Europe to the East.

The most substantial benefits to general knowledge in this country maybe expected from the encouragement to be given to the attain-