Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/158

144 garded only as an amusement for the leisure hours of benevolent persons. It must now be taken up as a great public question, with that seriousness and resolution to make the necessary sacrifices which the interests at stake require.

Till lately the use of the Persian language in all official proceedings bound down the educated classes of the natives, in the Bengal and Agra presidencies, to the study of a thoroughly debasing and worthless literature, and the effect was the exclusion and degradation both of English and of the vernacular languages. This spell has been dissolved: the vernacular language has been substituted for the Persian throughout the revenue department; and the same measure is now in progress in the judicial department. The extraordinary ease and rapidity with which this change was effected in the revenue administration, proves that this event took place in the fullness of time, and furnishes a happy prognostic of future improvement. In Bengal, the Persian language had disappeared from the collectors’ offices at the end of a month almost as completely as if it had never been used. It melted away like snow. This measure has so many important bearings on the welfare of the people, and the character of our government, that I shall be excused for making a few remarks on it, although they will be