Page:The despatch of 1854, on General education in India.djvu/42

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“The Indian educational code is contained in the despatches of the Home Government of 1854 and 1859. The main object of the former despatch is to divert the efforts of the Government from the education of the higher classes, upon whom they had up to that date been too exclusively directed, and to turn them to the wider diffusion of education among all classes of the people, and especially to the provision of primary instruction for the masses. Such instruction is to be provided by the direct instrumentality of Government, and a compulsory rate, levied under the direct authority of Government, is pointed out as the best means of obtaining funds for the purpose. The system must be extended upwards by the establishment of Government schools as models, to be superseded gradually by schools supported on the grant-in-aid principle. This principle is to be of perfect religious neutrality, defined in regular rules adapted to the circumstances of each province, and clearly and publicly placed before the natives of India. Schools, whether purely Government institutions or aided, in all of which (excepting Normal schools) the payment of some fee, however small, is to be the rule, are to be in regular gradation from those which give the humblest elementary instruction to the highest colleges, and the best pupils of one grade are to climb through the other grades by means of scholarships obtained in the lower school and tenable in the higher. To provide masters, Normal schools are to be established in each province, and moderate allowances given for the support of those who possess an aptness for teaching and are willing to devote themselves to the profession of schoolmasters. By this means it is hoped that, at no distant period, institutions may be in operation in all the presidencies calculated to supply masters for all classes of schools, and thus in time greatly to limit, if not altogether to obviate, the necessity of recruiting the educational service by means of engagements made in England. The medium of education is to be the vernacular languages of India, into which the best elementary treatises in English should be translated. Such translations are to be advertised for, and liberally rewarded by Government as the means of enriching vernacular literature. While, therefore, the vernacular languages are on no account to be neglected, the English language may be taught where there is a demand for it, but the English language is not to be substituted for the vernacular dialects of the country. The existing institutions for the study of the classical languages of India are to be maintained, and respect is to be paid to the hereditary veneration which they command. Female education is to receive the frank and cordial support of Government, as by it a far greater proportional impulse is imparted to the educational and moral tone of the people, than by the education of men. In addition to the Government and aided colleges and schools for general education, special institutions for