Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/194

180 was no demand, were translated at a heavy expense; and as the vernacular language only was taught in the schools, a fixed and narrow limit was placed to the acquisitions of the pupils. This plan has since been modified; and, while proper attention is still paid to the vernacular language, English is also extensively cultivated: the taste for it is said to be rapidly increasing; and as the youth of the Bombay Presidency have every thing at their disposal which the English language contains, they have now an open career before them.

It is a striking confirmation of the soundness of the prevailing plan of education, that the Bengal and Bombay Presidencies, although they set out from opposite quarters, and preserved no concert with each other, settled at last on exactly the same point. In Bengal we began by giving almost exclusive attention to the native classical languages, as they did in Bombay to the vernacular languages; and in both cases experience has led to a conviction of the value of English, and to its having had that prominent place accorded to it which its importance demands. It is time that these partial efforts should give place to a general plan, embracing the whole of British India. The constitution given to it by the late charter has es-