Page:The despatch of 1854, on General education in India.djvu/31

Rh ary to this is the consideration how far they may be so distributed as to encourage popular education.

73. The resolutions of our Governor-general in Council of the 10th of October, 1844, gave a general preference to well educated over uneducated men in the admissions to the public service. We perceive, with much satisfaction, both from returns which we have recently received of the persons appointed since that year in the Revenue Department of Bengal, as well as from the educational reports from different parts of India, that a very considerable number of educated men have been employed under Government of late years; and we understand that it is often not so much the want of Government employment as the want of properly qualified persons to be employed by Government, which is felt, at the present time, in many parts of India.

74. We shall not enter upon the causes which, as we foresaw, have led to the failure of that part of the resolutions which provided for the annual submission to Government of lists of meritorious students. It is sufficient for our present purpose to observe that no more than forty-six persons have been gazetted in Bengal up to this time, all of whom were students in the Government colleges. In the last year for which we have returns (1852), only two persons were so distinguished; and we can readily believe, with the Secretary to the Board of Revenue in Bengal, that young men who have passed a difficult examination in the highest branches of philosophy and mathematics, are naturally disinclined to accept such employment as persons who intend to make the public service their profession must necessarily commence with.

75. The necessity for any such lists will be done away with by the establishment of universities, as the acquisition of a degree, and still more the attainment of university distinctions, will bring highly educated young men under the notice of Government. The resolutions in question will, therefore, require revision so as to adapt them practically to carry out our views upon this subject. What we desire is, that where the other qualifications of the candidates for appointments under Government are equal, a person who has received a good education, irrespective of the place or