Page:Macaula yʼs minutes on education in India, written in the years 1835, 1836 and 1837 (IA dli.csl.7615).pdf/95

Rh can there be any harm in sending the globes. They will be useful hereafter, if not now; and the institution can well afford the expense.

It must be distinctly understood that any arrangement about teachers is merely provisional.—[Book J. page 80.] December 1st, 1835.

The first Scheme proposed for the organization of the Hooghly College.—I now wish to state what appear to me to be the best arrangements for rendering the Hooghly fund as extensively useful as it can be made, compatibly with the direction of Government and with the intentions of the founder.

The Mahomedan department must of course be kept up in a liberal manner. Whatever encouragements, whatever facilities we give in this institution to the study of English, we are bound also to give to the study of Arabic. If we act otherwise we shall be guilty of a gross violation of the founder’s will; we shall give just cause of discontent to the Mahomedan population; and we shall discourage wealthy natives of all persuasions from making similar dispositions of their property.

I am not competent to frame a plan for the Mahomedan department of the College. I have therefore begged Mr. Shakespear to furnish a sketch of what he thinks desirable.

In the English College there ought, I think, to be two professors: a professor of English literature and a professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. The professor of English literature ought to be a person competent to direct the studies of young men who are able to read our language with facility, to advise them as to the choice of books, “to correct their crude opinions, to accustom them to write English in a manly and unaffected style. The professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy ought to be, if possible, a person of extensive acquirements. At all events he ought to know accurately whatever he knows.

Under these two professors, there must be masters capable of teaching the elements of English, the common rules of arithmetic, and a little geography.

One of the two professors ought to be Principal of the College with a general power to superintend the discipline of the whole institution, Oriental as well as English. He would of course be subject to our control, and, if it should be thought advisable, we might appoint some of the English functionaries at Hooghly to visit the College as our deputies. I doubt, however, whether it would be expedient to delegate our power over an establishment situated so near to Calcutta; and at all