Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/125

Rh class was established in the upper provinces, a few old fashioned English spelling books were with difficulty procured from the neighbouring stations. Nine years hence it is probable that an English education will be every where more cheaply and easily obtained than an Arabic or Sanskrit one. It is an error to anticipate the march of events, but it is not less so to neglect to watch their progress, and to be perpetually judging the existing state of things by a standard which is applicable only to past times. “This, too, will acquire the authority of time; and what we now defend by precedents will itself be reckoned among precedents.”

Native children seem to have their faculties developed sooner, and to be quicker and more self-possessed than English children. Even when the language of instruction is English, the English have no advantage over their native class-fellows. As far as capability of acquiring knowledge is concerned, the native mind leaves nothing to be desired. The faculty of learning languages is particularly powerful in it. It is unusual to find, even in the literary circles of the Continent, foreigners who can express themselves in English with so much fluency and correctness as we find in hundreds of the rising generation of Hindus.