Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/58

44 large educated class, abounding with persons fit to serve the state in the highest functions, and in nowise inferior to the most accomplished men who adorn the best circles of Paris and London. There is reason to hope that this vast empire, which in the time of our grandfathers was probably behind the Punjab, may in the time of of our grandchildren be pressing close on France and Britain in the career of improvement. And how was this change effected? Not by flattering national prejudices; not by feeding the mind of the young Muscovite with the old women’s stories which his rude fathers had believed; not by filling his head with lying legends about St. Nicholas; not by encouraging him to study the great question, whether the world was or was not created on the 13th of September; not by calling him ‘a learned native’ when he had mastered all these points of knowledge; but by teaching him those foreign languages in which the greatest mass of information had been laid up, and thus putting all ,that information within his reach. The languages of western Europe civilized Russia. I cannot doubt that they will do for the Hindoo what they have done for the Tartar.”

The literary epoch of the Arabians dates from the time at which they commenced the study of the