Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/189

Rh We must also give a liberal English education to the middle and upper classes, in order that we may furnish them with both the materials and the models for the formation of a national literature. In this way, the demand, and the means of supplying the demand, will grow up together. The class of people who, without knowing English, require some mental aliment, will become more and more extensive: the class who do know English, will be more and more induced by pecuniary interest, by ambition, by the desire of doing good, to supply this aliment. Out of their fulness, from minds saturated with English knowledge and tastes formed by the study of English masterpieces, they will produce, not dull translations, but original works, suited to the intellectual habits of their countrymen. Mediocrity will meet with no encouragement. Out of many attempts, few will succeed; but those few will lay the foundation of the mental independence of India, and will oblige even those who know English to regard their own literature with respect, and to consider it as worthy of cultivation for its own sake.

Latin was formerly upheld as the only proper medium for scientific and literary composition. expected to be known to posterity by his Latin poems, which nobody now reads: and of