Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/160

146 ment to the study of the English language, which it is necessary and desirable for the Government to hold out independently of providing books, teachers, and the ordinary means of tuition. Your Committee has observed, that unless English be made the language of business, political negotiation, and jurisprudence, it will not be universally or extensively studied by our native subjects. Mr. Mackenzie, in the note annexed to your Report, dated the 3rd instant, urges strongly the expediency of a declaration by Government, that the English will be eventually used as the language of business; otherwise, with the majority of our scholars, he thinks, that all we ‘do to encourage the acquisition must be nugatory;’ and recommends, that it be immediately notified, that, after the expiration of three years, a decided preference will be given to candidates for office, who may add a knowledge of English to other qualifications. The Delhi Committee have also advocated, with great force and earnestness, the expediency of rendering the English the language of our Public Tribunals and Correspondence, and the necessity of making known that such is our eventual purpose, if we wish the study to be successfully and extensively prosecuted.

“Impressed with a deep conviction of the importance of the subject, and cordially disposed to promote the great object of improving India, by spreading abroad the lights of European knowledge, morals, and civilisation, his Lordship in Council, has no hesitation in stating to your Committee, and in authorising you to announce to all concerned in the superintendence of your native seminaries, that it is the wish and admitted policy of the British Government to render its own language gradually and eventually the language of public business throughout the country; and that it will omit no opportunity of giving every reasonable and practicable degree of encouragement to the execution of this project. At the same time, his Lordship in Council, is not predared to come forward with any distinct and specific pledge as to Another party advocated the use of the vernacular language; and argued, that the substitution