Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume I.).djvu/515

Rh blishment, and the rudiments of real knowledge which those whom I had visited the day before had acquired, in the very same city, and under circumstances far less favourable. I was informed that it had been frequently proposed to introduced an English and mathematical class, and to teach the Newtonian and Copernican system of astronomy; but that the late superintendent of the establishment was strongly opposed to any innovation, partly on the plea that it would draw the boys off from their Sanscrit studies, and partly lest it should interfere with the religious prejudices of the professors. The first of these arguments is pretty much like what was urged at Oxford, (substituting Greek for Sanscrit,) against the new examinations, by which, however, Greek has lost nothing. The second is plainly absurd, since the Ptolemaic system, which is now taught, is itself an innovation, and an improvement on the old faith of eight worlds and seven oceans, arranged like a nest of boxes.

The truth is, that even the pundit who read me this lecture, smiled once or twice very slily, and said, “our people are taught so and so,” as if he himself knew better. And Mr. Prinsep afterwards told me that learned Brahmins had sometimes said to him, that our system was the most rational, but that the other answered all their purposes. They could construct almanacs, and calculate eclipses tolerably by the one as well as the other, and the old one was quite good enough, in all conscience, to cast nativities with. Nor can we wonder at