Page:Report on public instruction in the lower provinces of the Bengal presidency (1850-51).djvu/32

xx by you: that every assistance and encouragement, pecuniary or otherwise, which the case may require, will be liberally afforded; and that no service, which it is in the power of a native to render to the British Government, will be more highly acceptable.'

"Again, in 1841, in a despatch to the Supreme Government of India.—'We cordially subscribe to one of the principal declarations of the resolution of 7th March 1835, that 'it should be the great object of the British Government to promote European science and literature among the natives of India,' and have no hesitation in sanctioning it, as a general principle for the conduct of our Indian Governments. Lord Auckland's suggestion to connect the provincial schools with a central college, so that the ablest scholars of the former may be transferred to the latter for the purpose of securing superior instructions, seems very judicious. We also entirely concur in His Lordship's proposal to render the highest instruction efficient in a certain number of central colleges, in preference to extending the means of inferior instruction, by adding to the number of ordinary zillah schools.'

"These extracts sufficiently show the enlarged and beneficent spirit in which the designs of the Government of India in this matter have been conceived; and this is a work in which any man may be proud to co-operate. But I at least would not have given a tithe of the time or pains I have bestowed on the subject of native education, since I came into this country, had I conceived that I was merely required to assist in training up a few clerks and writers in Government offices. True it is that, with our numerous students, among whom are seen by the side of the titled and wealthy, many from the middling and poorer classes of native society, such places are to many objects of desire; true it is that notwithstanding such assurances as I have read, notwithstanding the more recent and distinct pledge promulgated by the Government of India that, in the disposal of official patronage, a decided preference shall be shown to those who distinguish themselves in the annual examinations, and by which every officer responsible to that Government ought to feel himself as strongly bound, as if it had issued from his own lips, it is by many slightly regarded. But these are temporary matters of secondary importance. The great work we have in hand is steadily going on. The education imparted in our Colleges is gradually raising up in Bengal a new generation of independent minds and vigorous thinkers, whom the lapse of time is slowly but surely advancing to positions of increased influence and power. They are able to