Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/36

Rh “We are deeply sensible of the importance of encouraging the cultivation of the vernacular languages. We do not conceive that the order of the 7th of March precludes us from doing this, and we have constantly acted on this construction. In the discussions which preceded that order, the claims of the vernacular languages were broadly and prominently admitted by all parties, and the question submitted for the decision of government, only concerned the relative advantage of teaching English on the one side, and the learned eastern languages on the other. We therefore conceive that the phrases ‘European literature and science,’ ‘English education alone,’ and ‘imparting to the native population a knowledge of English literature and science through the medium of the English language,’ are intended merely to secure the preference to European learning taught through the medium of the English language, over oriental learning taught through the medium of the Sanskrit and Arabic languages, as regards the instruction of those natives who receive a learned education at our seminaries. These expressions have, as we understand them, no reference to the question through what ulterior medium such instruction as the mass of the people is capable of receiving, is to be conveyed. If Eng-