Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/107

Rh tions of a barbarous age will not satisfy a people whose eyes have been opened, and who are craving after true knowledge.

After the committee had confessed that “a taste for English had been widely disseminated, and independent schools, conducted by young men reared in the Hindu college, were springing up in every direction ,” it might have been expected that they would have modified their plan of proceeding. It was admitted, that to give instruction in European science was their ultimate object; it also appears from their report that this was the only part of their operations which was propagating itself, and proceeding with an independent spring of action; why, therefore, was scope not given to it?

For some time after this, however, we continued to prop up barbarism by the power of civilization, and to avail ourselves of the enormous influence of the English government to press on the people decayed and noxious systems, which they themselves rejected. That we did not succeed in giving to those systems a more effectual impulse was not owing to any want of exertion on our