Page:The Modern Review Vol 01 (Jan.-June 1907).djvu/8

 THE MODERN REVIEW

Vol. 1         JANUARY, 1907          No.1

WESTERN LITERATURE AND THE EDUCTAED PUBLIC OF INDIA

BY THE LATE PRINCIPAL W. KNOX JOHNSON

I BEGIN with one word of personal explanation. Nothing short of an absolute command could have induced me, as a junior member of the University, and one also whose business lies rather with the ink-pot and the pen, to be standing in this place to-day. I will not say more about the circumstances which bring me here, but perhaps the Vice-chancellor will allow me to say, the responsibility, if you are much wearied, is not mine.

However, now that I must stand here; let me say that the subject announced is only an approximation. It sounds so large that many persons may have smiled at it. My purpose is only to say a few words, if possible, which may be of some practical assistance to Indians with an inquiring mind. I have an imaginary Indian in view who has acquired some competence in English, and who may be sometimes inclined to make a closer acquaintance with the modern literature, historical and imaginative, of our West. If I can contrive to say anything of practical use to any single Indian here, I am quite content to be told both that my title is pretentious, and that I am guilty of & rambling and ill-ordered discourse.

Some persons in this room have received a certain key to European thought, that is, the English language—one of the four great modern literary languages. The door, however, which that key can open, the door into the world of modern European ideas in general, remains closed. Wherever this is the case, the original acquisition of English was a mere bread-study, and, so far as the culture of the intellect and the object of a University are concerned, had no meaning. I often think now-a-days that it might be well a so, when we have time, as we all really have time, to see what lies on the other side of that closed door.

To-day we are considering modern western literature. By “modern”, I do not mean modern in the sense in which everything since the Renaissance is modern ;— and we ourselves indeed are still in the Renaissance. We are still in Europe struggling to free ourselves, still marching in our exodus from the last or