Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/137

Rh Milton or, they will not require us to guide them in this respect.

All we have to do is to impregnate the national mind with knowledge. The first depositaries of this knowledge will have a strong personal interest in making themselves intelligible. They will speak to, and write for, their countrymen, with whose habits of mind and extent of information they will be far better acquainted than it is possible for us to be. They will be able to meet each case as it arises far more effectually than it can be done by laying down general rules before-hand. Those who write for the educated classes will freely avail themselves of English scientific terms. Those who write for the people will seek out popular explanations of many of those terms at a sacrifice of precision and accuracy. By degrees, some will drop out of use, while others will retain their place in the national language. Our own language went through this process. After a profuse and often pedantic use of Latin and Greek words by our earlier writers, our vocabulary settled down nearly in its present form, being composed of words partly of indigenous, and partly of foreign, origin, to which occasional additions are still made, as they are required, from both sources. The only safe general rule which can be laid down