Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/90

76 the attainment of it could be pointed out to us; but we apprehend that the plan of the institutions, to the improvement of which our attention is now directed, was originally and fundamentally erroneous. The great end should not have been to teach Hindu learning or Mohammedan learning, but useful learning. No doubt, in teaching useful learning to the Hindus or Mohammedans, Hindu media or Mohammedan media, as far as they were found the most effectual, would have been proper to be employed, and Hindu and Mohammedan prejudices would have needed to be consulted, while every thing which was useful in Hindu or Mohammedan literature it would have been proper to retain; nor would there have been any insuperable difficulty in introducing, under these reservations, a system of instruction from which great advantage might have been derived. In professing, on the other hand, to establish seminaries for the purpose of teaching mere Hindu or mere Mohammedan literature, you bound yourselves to teach a great deal of what was frivolous, not a little of what was purely mischievous, and a small remainder, indeed, in which utility was in any way concerned.

“We think that you have taken, upon the whole, a rational view of what is best to be done.