Page:Report on public instruction in the lower provinces of the Bengal presidency (1850-51).djvu/30

xviii I stand here, is far less bounded. The Government of India have in view a purpose more worthy the rulers of a mighty empire: they seek, and it is my joy and pride to be allowed to act under their orders in that good work, to raise the moral and intellectual character of the people of India. From the time when these questions first came to be discussed, they have clearly explained their designs and wishes in a series of consistent enlightened despatches. I have not here the means of referring to all that has been written on this important subject; but I find some extracts, quoted in one of our reports, from which I will read to you a few passages, which will clearly show that my view of the matter is in strict conformity with theirs, in all that I have said to you to-day. In a despatch sent to the Government of Madras so far back as the year 1830, I find these words:

By the measures originally contemplated by your Government no provision was made for the instruction of any portion of the natives in the higher branches of knowledge. A further extension of the elementary education which already existed, and an improvement of its quality by the multiplication and diffusion of useful books in the native languages, was all that was then aimed at. It was indeed proposed to establish at the Presidency a central school for the education of teachers; but the teachers were to be instructed only in those elementary acquirmentsacquirements [sic] which they were afterwards to teach in the Tuhsildaree and Collectorate schools. The improvements in education, however, which most effectually contribute to elevate the moral and intellectual condition of a people, are those which concern the education of the higher classes of the persons possessing leisure and natural influence over the minds of their countrymen. By raising the standard of instruction among these classes, you would eventually produce a much greater and more beneficial change in the ideas and feelings of the community, than you can hope to produce by acting directly on the more numerous class. You are, moreover, acquainted with our anxious desire to have at our disposal a body of natives, qualified by their habits and acquirements to take a larger share, and occupy higher situations in the civil administration of their country, than has hitherto been the practice under our Indian Governments. The measures for native education, which have as yet been adopted or planned at your Presidency, have had no tendency to produce such persons. Measures have been adopted by the Supreme Government for placing within the reach of the higher classes of natives under the Presidency of Bengal instruction in the