Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/171

Rh tirely on the fitness of the natives for the exercise of the new functions to which they have been called. It is easier to dub a person collector or magistrate, than to secure in him the possession of the qualities which those offices require; and the lowest imbecility as well as the highest efficiency may be found under the same official title. Measures have been adopted for educating native physicians; and is it of less importance that native judges should be professionally trained? Care is taken that the young Englishmen destined to hold office in India are properly instructed; and is no exertion necessary to secure integrity and mental cultivation in the native service, which now forms at least as important a part of the general administration as the European officers themselves? When the comparative state of morals and education in the classes from which the European and native servants are respectively taken, is considered, it will appear that we could much better do without the interference of the state with the previous training of the former than of the latter. The native functionaries have acquitted themselves extremely well, considering the corrupt school to which most of them belonged and the suddenness with which they were called to the performance of new and important duties; but enough instances