Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/106

92 attempt to reproduce the feelings and habits of thought of past ages in the midst of a comparatively enlightened community. By establishing the Hindu college at their own expense, the Hindus had seven years before given a decisive proof that it was instruction in English and not in Sanskrit which they required. But, in spite of this evidence, the act with which we signalised the commencement of our educational operations was the establishment of a Brahminical college, in which false science and false religion are systematically taught, in which the priestly domination and monopoly of learning are maintained both by practice and precept, and the members of which, although they reside at the head quarters of British Indian civilization, are always present in spirit with the founders of the Hindu system, with whom they daily converse, and to whose age they really belong. Can we wonder that the young men educated at such a seminary are, according to their own confession, burdens to the public, and objects of contempt to their countrymen? It might have succeeded if it had been established a thousand years ago; but the institu-