Page:The despatch of 1854, on General education in India.djvu/8

Rh hereditary veneration to those ancient languages, and whose assistance in the spread of education is so valuable, from the honourable and influential position which they occupy among their fellow-countrymen. But such attempts, although they may usefully co-operate, can only be considered as auxiliaries, and would be a very inadequate foundation for any general scheme of Indian education.

10. We have also received most satisfactory evidence of the high attainments in English literature and European science which have been acquired of late years by some of the natives of India. But this success has been confined to but a small number of persons; and we are desirous of extending far more widely the means of acquiring general European knowledge, of a less high order, but of such a character as may be practically useful to the people of India in their different spheres of life. To attain this end it is necessary, for the reasons which we have given above, that they should be made familiar with the works of European authors, and with the results of the thought and labour of Europeans on the subjects of every description upon which knowledge is to be imparted to them; and to extend the means of imparting this knowledge must be the object of any general system of education.

11. We have next to consider the manner in which our object is to be effected; and this leads us to the question of the medium through which knowledge is to be conveyed to the people of India. It has hitherto been necessary, owing to the want of translations or adaptations of European works in the vernacular languages of India, and to the very imperfect shape in which European knowledge is to be found in any works in the learned languages of the East, for those who desired to obtain a liberal education, to begin by the mastery of the English language as a key to the literature of Europe; and a knowledge of English will always be essential to those natives of India who aspire to a high order of education.

12. In some parts of India, more especially in the immediate vicinity of the Presidency towns, where persons who possess a knowledge of English are preferred to others in many employments, public as well as private, a very mode-