Page:The despatch of 1854, on General education in India.djvu/33

Rh under Government may be, the views of the natives of India should be directed to the far wider and more important sphere of usefulness and advantage which a liberal education lays open to them; and such practical benefits arising from improved knowledge should be constantly impressed upon them by those who know their feelings, and have influence or authority to advise or direct their efforts. We refer, as an example in this respect, with mingled pleasure and regret, to the eloquent addresses delivered by the late Mr., when President of the Council of Education, to the students of the Kishnagur and Dacca Colleges.

79. There are some other points connected with the general subject of education in India upon which we will now briefly remark. We have always regarded with special interest those educational institutions which have been directed towards training up the natives of India to particular professions, both with a view to their useful employment in the public service, and to enable them to pursue active and profitable occupations in life. The medical colleges in different parts of India have proved that, in despite of difficulties which appeared at first sight to be insurmountable, the highest attainments in medicine and surgery are within the reach of educated natives of India: we shall be ready to aid in the establishment and support of such places of instruction as the medical colleges of Calcutta and Bombay, in other parts of India. We have already alluded to the manner in which students should be supplied to these colleges, as well as to those for the training of civil engineers.

80. The success of the Thomason College of Civil Engineering at Roorkee has shown that, for the purpose of training up persons capable of carrying out the great works which are in progress under Government throughout India, and to qualify the natives of India for the exercise of a profession which, now that the system of railways and public works is being rapidly extended, will afford an opening for a very large number of persons, it is expedient that similar places for practical instruction in civil engineering should be established in other parts of India, and especially in the Presidency of Madras, where works of irrigation are so C