Page:The despatch of 1854, on General education in India.djvu/32

Rh manner in which it may have been acquired, should be preferred to one who has not; and that, even in lower situations, a man who can read and write be preferred to one who cannot, if he is equally eligible in other respects.

76. We also approve of the institution of examinations where practicable, to be simply and entirely tests of the fitness of candidates for the special duties of the various departments in which they are seeking employment as has been the case in the Bombay Presidency. We confidently commit the encouragement of educated in preference to uneducated men to the different officers who are responsible for their selection; and we cannot interfere by any further regulations to fetter their free choice in a matter of which they bear the sole responsibility.

77. We are sanguine enough to believe that some effect has already been produced by the improved education of the public service of India. The ability and integrity of a large and increasing number of the native judges, to whom the greater part of the civil jurisdiction in India is now committed, and the high estimation in which many among them are held by tbeir fellow-countrymen, is, in our opinion, much to be attributed to the progress of education among these officers, and to their adoption along with it of that high moral tone which pervades the general literature of Europe. Nor is it among the higher officers alone that we have direct evidence of the advantage which the public derives from the employment of educated men. We quote from the last Report of the Dacca College with particular satisfaction, as we are aware that much of the happiness of the people of India depends upon the honesty of the officers of police:—“The possible evidence has been furnished,” say the local committee, “that some of the ex-students of the college of Dacca have completely succeeded in the arduous office of darogha. Krishna Chunder Dutt, employed as a darogha under the magistrate of Howrah, in particular, is recommended for promotion, as having gained the respect and applause of all classes, who, though they may not practise, yet know how to admire, real honesty and integrity of purpose.”

78. But, however large the number of appointments