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 344 EARLIER INDIAN SPEECHES

under such a system. The harm done goes mmch further. A gulf has been created between the educated classes and the uneducated masses. The latter do not know us. We do not know the former. They consider us to be 1 Saheblog.' They are afraid of us. They do not trust us. If such a state of things were to continue for any length of time, a time may come for Lord Curzon's charge to be true, viz., that the literary classes do not represent the masses.

Fortunately the educated class seems to be waking up from its trance. They experience the difficulty of contact with the masses. How can they infect the masses with their own enthusiasm for the national cause ? They cannot do so through English. They have not enough ability or none for doing so through Gujarati. They find it extremely difficult to put their thoughts into Gujarati. I often hear opinion expressed about this difficulty. Owing to tho barrier thus created the flow of national life suffers impediment.

Macaulay's object in giving preference to the Eng- lish language over the vernaculars was pure. He had a contempt for our literature. It affected us and we for- got ourselves and just as a pupil often outdoes the teacher so was the case with us. Macaulay thought that we would be instrumental m spreading western civilisation among the masses. His plan was that some of us would learn English, form our character and spread the new thought among the millions. (It is not necessary here to consider the soundness of this vew. We are merely examining the question of the medium.) We, on the other hand, discovered in English education a medium for obtaining wealth and we gave that use of it predo- minance. Some of us found in it a stimulus for our

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