Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/191

Rh couraging mediocrity, give direct aid to the growth of a national literature. The consumption of books in the native languages, in the Government schools, is already great, and is daily increasing as the schools become more numerous and better billed. The adoption of any book as a class-book in the Government seminaries also establishes its reputation, and creates a general demand for it. Here then is a certain and perfectly unobjectionable mode of encouraging the production of good books: only the best books of each kind are bought, and they are bought only as they are actually wanted; the pupils themselves pay for them, and a large number of useful books thus annually pass into the hands of the people. When particular books are required for the use of the Government schools, it would be advisable to make the want publicly known, in order that all native authors may have an opportunity of supplying it. The best among many competitors is likely to produce something better worth having than any single writer who could be selected.

A good law of copyright, embracing the whole of British India, would now be of great use. The want has only lately begun to be felt. Nothing was to be made by works in manuscript; and printed books were not in sufficient demand to