Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/208

194 worked out under our protection, will naturally cling to us. They even now do so. There is no class of our subjects to whom we are so thoroughly necessary as those whose opinions have been cast in the English mould: they are spoiled for a purely native regime; they have every thing to fear from the premature establishment of a native government; their education would mark them out for persecution: the feelings of independence, the literary and scientific pursuits, the plans of improvement in which they indulged under our government, must be exchanged for the servility and prostration of mind which characterise an Asiatic court. This class is at present a small minority, but it is continually receiving accessions from the youth who are brought up at the different English seminaries. It will in time become the majority; and it will then be necessary to modify the political institutions to suit the increased intelligence of the people, and their capacity for self-government.

The change will thus be peaceably and gradually effected: there will be no struggle, no mutual exasperation; the natives will have independence, after first learning how to make a good use of it: we shall exchange profitable subjects for still more profitable allies. The present