Page:Macaula yʼs minutes on education in India, written in the years 1835, 1836 and 1837 (IA dli.csl.7615).pdf/47

Rh If I could see any reason for being liberal in this case which would not be found in a very large number of cases, my opinion might be different.—[Book N. page 99.] 8th June, 1837.

Pension to the Family of Moulvie Soleyman of the Hooghly College.—I understood the Committee to have voted against the proposition in favour of Mahomed Soleyman’s family. What is now proposed is, except as a precedent, unobjectionable: and I will not, as several members seem very desirous to do something for these people, refuse to refer the question to Government.—[Book N. page 169.] 30th November, 1837.

Promotion in the Educational Department.—I would certainly hold out nothing like a promise. Whoever takes office under us ought to take it with the knowledge that we bind ourselves to nothing as to promotion.—[Book L. page 117.] 5th May, 1837.

Infant Schools.—I do not think that it would be expedient for us to employ any of our funds in the manner proposed. As to employing the Agency of the Infant School Society the fact that the Society gives religious instruction is alone sufficient to render such a course objectionable.

In England no person of the higher or middle classes—no person who is in a situation to give his children a liberal education, ever—to the best of my belief, sends a child to the Infant School. The use of such institutions is to provide a place where the children of the poor may be safe, cheerful, and harmlessly, if not profitably, employed while their parents are at work. What they learn, I imagine, is not much. But instead of being locked up in close rooms or abandoned to the society of all the idle boys in the street, they play, and pick up a little smattering of knowledge, under a very gentle discipline, which is yet sufficient to keep them out of harm’s way.

This is, I believe, a correct account of the Infant Schools of England. We do not at present aim at giving education directly to the lower classes of the people of this country. We have not funds for such an undertaking. We aim at raising up an educated class who will hereafter, as we hope, be the means, of diffusing among their countrymen some portion of the knowledge which we have imparted to them. I should consider it therefore as quite inconsistent with our whole plan to set up an Infant School resembling those of England, an Infant School for the children of coolies and tailors. And before I listen to any proposal for establishing an Infant School of a higher kind, I should be glad to know whether respectable Hindoo and Mahomedan parents would be inclined to send their young children just beginning to walk and talk from under their own roof. I am most friendly to Infant Schools