Page:The despatch of 1854, on General education in India.djvu/20

Rh men will be directed to the studies which are necessary to success in the various active professions of life. We shall, therefore, have done as much as a Government can do to place the benefits of education plainly and practically before the higher classes in India.

41. Our attention should now be directed to a consideration, if possible, still more important, and one which has been hitherto, we are bound to admit, too much neglected; namely, how useful and practical knowledge, suited to every station in life, may be best conveyed to the great mass of the people, who are utterly incapable of obtaining any education worthy of the name by their own unaided efforts; and we desire to see the active measures of Government more especially directed, for the future, to this object, for the attainment of which we are ready to sanction a considerable increase of expenditure.

42. Schools—whose object should be, not to train highly a few youths, but to provide more opportunities than now exist for the acquisition of such an improved education as will make those who possess it more useful members of society in every condition of life—should exist in every district in India. These schools should be subject to constant and careful inspection; and their pupils might be encouraged by scholarships being instituted at other institutions which would be tenable as rewards for merit by the best of their number.

43. We include in this class of institutions those which, like the zillah schools of Bengal, the district Government Anglo-vernacular schools of Bombay, and such as have been established by the Raja of Burdwan and other native gentlemen in different parts of India, use the English language as the chief medium of instruction; as well as others of an inferior order, such as the Tahsili schools in the North-western Provinces, and the Government vernacular schools in the Bombay Presidency, whose object is, however imperfectly it has been as yet carried out, to convoy the highest class of instruction which can now be taught through the medium of the vernacular languages.

44. We include these Anglo-vernacular and vernacular schools in the same class, because we are unwilling to