Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/115

Rh mon, of attributing them to things to which they do not belong. Those who would impart to abuses the sanctity of property are in truth imparting to the institution of property the unpopularity and the fragility of abuses. If the government has given to any person a formal assurance,—nay if the government has excited in any person’s mind a reasonable expectation, that he shall receive a certain income as a teacher or a learner of Sanskrit or Arabic, I would respect that person’s pecuniary interests. I would rather err on the side of liberality to individuals than suffer the public faith to be called in question. But to talk of a government pledging itself to teach certain languages and certain sciences, though those languages may become useless, though those sciences may be exploded, seems to me quite unmeaning. There is not a single word in any public instrument from which it can be inferred that the Indian government ever intended to give any pledge on this subject, or ever considered the destination of these funds as unalterably fixed. But, had it been otherwise, I should have denied the competence of our predecessors to bind us by any pledge on such a subject. Suppose that a government had in the last century enacted, in the most solemn manner, that all its subjects should to the