Page:Macaula yʼs minutes on education in India, written in the years 1835, 1836 and 1837 (IA dli.csl.7615).pdf/93

Rh of converting, a newspaper writer who has quarrelled with the editor, a shopkeeper who has failed, a clerk in a public office who has lost his place, are the sort of people whom we are forced to look to. Even of these the supply is so limited and uncertain, that we can hardly venture to reject any man who can read, write, and work a sum. And, even when our masters chance to be people of respectable attainments, it scarcely ever happens that they have had the smallest experience in teaching. Teaching is an art to be learned by practice. I have known people of the greatest genius and learning who could teach nothing; and we have scarcely appointed a single person of whom we knew that he was experienced in the art of teaching.

I am satisfied that it will soon be found necessary to import from England, or rather from Scotland, a regular supply of masters for the Government Schools. But this subject, though brought strongly to my mind by our present embarrassment is too important to be discussed in this parenthetical manner. 26th August.

In the present state of the supply of Schoolmasters, I think Mr. Melville a decided prize, and I would on no account let him slip. I agree to what Mr. Sutherland proposes.—8th September, 1837.

I like the gentleman’s performance little, and the temper which he shews still less. I have no objection however, in the great scarcity of masters, to the guarded answer which our Secretary proposes to return.—7th December, 18571837 [sic].

I would give him no copies, and would have no more to say to him.

I should like to know something more about the newspaper which this person edits. What is its name? What character does it bear? and what are the general views which it takes of moral and political matters?—4th January, 1838.

''Minutes of the Hooghly College. The dismissal of Wasib Ali’s claim for the curator ship of the Hooghly endowment''.—There can be no objection to communicating the state of the case to Government. But, until the great questions about which the Committee is divided have been decided by authority, nothing can be settled I apprehend, as to the constitution of the future College.—[Book F. page 33.] 12th January, 1835.

Hooghly College.—It is to be observed that the letter received from the Government, though it directs that the Hooghly institution shall be essentially Mahomedan, declares at the same time that it was not the intention of the testator, and is not the intention of the Governor General in Council to exclude persons of other religious persuasions from the advantages which