Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/179

Rh examination of it, greatly contributed to this result. All are now more or less interested and well informed on the subject; and what is of still more importance, all are of one mind about it, and have a settled and well understood plan to pursue. Whatever differences of opinion may linger among retired Indians in England, there are none now in India; or, at least, the adherents of the old system form such an exceedingly small minority, that it is unnecessary to mention them when speaking of the general sense of the European community.

The Missionaries, taking advantage of the prevailing feeling, have established numerous excellent seminaries, at which many thousand native youth are receiving a sound, and in some cases a liberal English education. English, Scotch, Americans, and Germans, concur in availing themselves of the English language as a powerful instrument of native improvement. English priests, lately sent from Rome to take charge of the Roman Catholic Christians of Portuguese and native descent, have had recourse to the same means for enlightening their numerous and degraded flocks. The Portuguese language (another instance of the confusion of tongues which has so long distracted and dissipated the mind of India) has been discarded from the churches and schools: