No More Learning

In 1900 the revenue account drawn up on
the above method showed a small gain, which by 1901–2 had risen
to three-quarters of a million and in 1904-5 to two millions. The
profits, as in all operations of a commercial character, varied with the
season, and in 1907-8 a loss again was incurred, largely owing to
increased working expenses. In the following year there was a re-
covery and from that time the net receipts became an important item
in the national revenue.
The greatly improved condition of its finances after 1901–2 enabled
the Government of India to allot funds on a largescale to the provincial
governments for the purposes of education, sanitation and agricultural
development, as well as to reduce taxation. The salt-tax was reduced
by successive stages from Rs. 2} per maund to Ri. Incomes
under Rs. 1000 per annum were exempted from income-tax, and, as
a relief to the agricultural population, certain cesses on the land were
abolished. When the periodical settlements with the provinces were
revised in 1904-5, definite shares in the incomes realised within the
provinces were permanently surrendered. This was the first step
towards the grant of fiscal independence to the provincial legislative
councils, some measure of which was essential if any genuine system
of local self-government were to be set up. But in 1907–8 there was
a turn in the tide. The monsoon was poor and the sources of income
which varied with the prosperity of season declined: exports fell off
and an exchange crisis supervened. The Government of India was
further faced with the problem of losing the greater part of its opium
revenue under the terms of the Indo-Chinese agreement of 1907. 1
As three-quarters of the opium revenue was derived from the China
trade, this meant that by 191° a sum of about £3,000,000 would have
to be made good from other sources. To provide for future losses in
revenue, the customs-duties on a number of articles, such as tobacco,
beer, spirits and petroleum, were raised and a higher ad valorem duty
imposed on silver bullion. The seasons following, up to the outbreak
of the war, were prosperous. Revenues from almost all sources showed
increases, and speculative purchases of the exportable opium greatly
reduced the losses anticipated in the receipts from sale of the drug.
In the financial year ending March, 1911, there was a budget surplus
of nearly £6,000,000, and in 1913 an even larger surplus of £7,600,000.
These large balances excited some criticism of under-estimation of the
revenue; but they left India in a strong financial position when the
Strachey, India, note to chap. x.
1


## p. 327 (#365) ############################################

REVENUES AND DEBT
327
war broke out, and enabled the government to meet successfully some
of the difficulties which arose during its early stages.
Figures of revenue have hitherto been sparingly quoted. The rupee
has varied so greatly in value that it is impossible to adopt any fixed
standard for conversion into sterling. Apart from this, owing to
alterations in the system of keeping the public accounts, no compari-
sons of any accuracy can be instituted between the figures of different
periods. But by 1913–14 the rupee had become comparatively stable,
and the figures of that year may usefully be quoted to illustrate
generally the increase in revenues since 1860 and the main sources
from which they were derived.
. . .
. . .
. . .
5,318
Revenues of India, 1913-14 (in thousands of pounds sterling)
£
Land-revenue
21,391
Opium
1,624
Salt . . .
3,445
Stamps
Excise
8,894
Customs
7,558
Income-tax
1,893
Forests
2,220
Interest
1,352
Post Office and Telegraphs (net receipts) 3,598
Railways (less working expenses)
17,625
Irrigation
4,713
Military receipts
1,369
Other heads. . .
4. 307
. . .
. . .
. . .
Total . . .
£85,307
. . .
The gross revenue of the country had nearly doubled, but, though
the sources remained much the same, there had been a material
change in their relative importance. The contribution of land-revenue
to the total had fallen to 24 per cent. , while the commercial services
were yielding a steadily increasing surplus. The opium revenue had
become unimportant. Though excise and customs had increased in
productiveness, the proportion of economic to tax revenues was still
high. But the pressing demands of the state in war time could only
be met by resort to taxation, and, consequently, in the following years
there was a great expansion in the receipts from excise, customs and,
above all, income-tax.
The total debt after the Mutiny amounted to some £98,000,000,
the whole of which had been borrowed for unproductive purposes and
the interest was a dead weight on the revenues. There were additions
to the debt in 1877-8, as a consequence of the famine of that year and
the military operations in Afghanistan which followed the famine.
Some further debt was incurred in 1896 to 1898, again to meet deficits
caused by famine and war, but, with these exceptions, the great bulk
of the rupee and sterling debt was incurred in connection with the


## p. 328 (#366) ############################################

328
THE FINANCES OF INDIA, 1858–1918
construction of railways and other public works. By a system in-
stituted in 1880-1, an amount of the ordinary debt, equivalent to the
capital expenditure on public works supplied from ordinary revenues,
or from the famine insurance grant, was transferred to the public
works portion of the debt. As the state of finances improved after
1901-2, larger allotments were made to public works, resulting in a
corresponding reduction of the ordinary debt. In 1881–2, reckoning
the rupee at is. 4d. for purposes of comparison, the ordinary debt
stood at £74,000,000 and the public works debt at £48,000,000. By
1898–9, the figures were £63,000,000 and £169,000,000 respectively.
There were subsequent changes in the method of distributing the debt
between the productive and unproductive heads, but the net result
of the transactions up to the outbreak of the war was that by far the
greater portion of the debt stood invested in public works which more
than repaid the interest due on the capital outlay, while that portion
of the debt which imposed an actual burden on the country had been
reduced to very small limits. The position was summed up by the
finance minister as follows:
Out of a total debt equivalent to £274,000,000 outstanding at the end of March,
1914, only about £13,000,000 represented ordinary, or unproductive debt. Our
total annual interest charges amounted to some £9,250,000. Railways and irriga-
tion works in the same year yielded us a return of £15,250,000. Thus we had still
left some £6,000,000 of clear revenue from our great undertakings after meeting
interest charges on our entire public debt. "
During the years between 1900 and the opening of the war the
currency system was undergoing further developments, and assuming
a shape somewhat different from that contemplated at the time of the
closing of mints. When that measure came into effect, India's trade
balance could be defrayed, either through the secretary of state's bills,
or remittance of gold to be exchanged into rupees, the only currency
medium which circulated freely throughout the country. The govern-
ment being under an obligation to give rupees or notes in exchange
for gold, a succession of favourable trade balances led to an incon-
venient accumulation of gold in the reserve treasuries. By 1904 it
became apparent that the secretary of state's drawings could not be
limited to his own requirements and must be expanded to meet trade
demands, and council bills were accordingly offered for sale at a
fixed rate without limit. These drafts were met in India in rupees or
notes from the cash balances or reserves. As the latter became de-
pleted, the outgoings were replaced by fresh coinage of rupees. Under
this system the increase of coinage became more or less automatically
regulated, for, so far as practicable, it was undertaken only when trade
demands called for it and to the extent necessary to make good the
depletion of silver in the currency reserves. The profits on coinage,
which, owing to the low bullion value of silver, were considerable,
1 The Financial Statement and Budget, 1915-16.


## p. 329 (#367) ############################################

THE GOLD EXCHANGE STANDARD
329
were remitted to London to strengthen the gold standard reserve. To
maintain exchange there were thus cash balances in London, gold
reserves in the paper currency reserve, held partly in London but
mainly in India, and, finally, the gold securities in the special
reserve.
These resources were fully called upon in the exchange crisis of
1907. The harvest of that year was a partial failure and the volume
of exports declined; a financial crisis in America had resulted in a
stringency in the London money market. Exchange began to drop
ominously and the situation showed no improvement when the sale
of council bills was altogether suspended. The Government of India
at first showed some reluctance to part with its gold, but, as ex-
change further weakened, the expedient was adopted of selling in
India sterling bills on the secretary of state in London at a fixed rate.
The secretary of state met these bills by drawing on the branch of the
paper currency reserve in London, and then on the gold standard
reserve, and by temporary loans. This method of maintaining a stable
exchange by the issue of what is known as “reverse councils” has since
become an integral part of the currency system. With the return of
normal seasons, the gold reserves in England were replenished by the
sale of council drafts against the rupees which had accumulated in the
Indian treasuries during the period of weak exchange. The experience
of the year 1907-8, which had drained their gold assets to the extent
of some £18,000,000, had impressed on those responsible for the
finances of India the necessity of large, fluid reserves in London to
meet similar emergencies. Heavy council drawings and the resump-
tion of coinage of rupees on a large scale enabled them to carry this
policy into effect. But the working of the gold exchange standard was
imperfectly understood both in England and India, and the magnitude
of the balances, their utilisation and location became subjects of
criticism from somewhat different points of view in both countries.
A royal commission was appointed to enquire into these matters and
generally into the working of the currency system. The commission
reported in 1914, and in the main found in favour of the system which
had been built up, since it had successfully and at a comparatively
cheap cost established what was of essential importance to India,
viz. a stable exchange. It arrived at the definite conclusion that a
gold standard could be worked without a gold currency and that it
was not advantageous to encourage the use of gold in active circula-
tion. In view of the necessity of strong gold reserves to maintain
exchange, it did not propose that any present limit should be
placed on the gold standard reserve, the location of which it agreed
should be in London. The principal modifications suggested were in
the direction of making the paper currency system more elastic and
Keynes, Indian Currency and Finance, chap. vi; Findlay-Shirras, Indian Finance and
Banking, chap. vi.


## p. 330 (#368) ############################################

330
THE FINANCES OF INDIA, 1858–1918
of 1915
encouraging the use of notes as an alternative to the more costly issue
of silver coin. 1
Though no moratorium was found necessary in India on the out-
break of the war, there was a general feeling of insecurity which was
reflected in a run on the savings bank and an abnormal demand for
the conversion of currency notes into rupees. To restore confidence,
the government offered special facilities for the withdrawal of de-
posits and the encashment of notes. There was a shrinkage of some
£11,000,000 in the gross note circulation, but, as the fears of invasion
proved groundless, the drain on government resources diminished
and by 1916 normal circulation was resumed. It was, however,
found impossible to continue the issue of gold in exchange for rupees
and notes, a sum of nearly £2,000,000 having been paid out in the
first few days of August, 1914. The weakness of exchange which
developed was met by the now accepted policy of offering reverse
council bills for sale and by an undertaking by government to support
exchange to the extent of its resources. The sale of some £8,000,000
reverse council bills sufficed to steady exchange and by the beginning
the rate was approaching its former level. The balances which
had accumulated both in India and in London, where the assets of
the gold standard reserve exceeded £25,000,000, were strong enough
to meet the strain, and it was no small tribute to the soundness of the
currency system which had been established that it successfully stood
the test of the initial difficulties of the war.
The subsequent problems arose from the larger share India was
called upon to take in financing the outlay on the war, and the in-
creasing demand for her products in allied countries at a time when
the customary methods of paying for her exports had become com-
pletely dislocated. In the five years preceding the war, the balance
of exports over imports, averaging some £50,000,000 per annum, had
been met, partly by the secretary of state's council drafts and partly
by the import of bullion and gold coin. The strain of the war on her
finances made it impossible for England to part with her gold, while
the production of silver, as the war proceeded, fell off and its price
rose materially. The necessary consequence was to throw in an in-
creasing degree on the secretary of state's council drafts the burden
of defraying the trade balance, with the resultant depletion, in the
absence of sufficient supplies of silver for fresh coinage, of the silver
reserves. As it became impracticable to meet all the trade demands,
the council drafts had to be limited in amount to the rupee resources
of the Government of India, in order to preserve sufficient rupees to
maintain convertibility of the note issue. Coinage was continued so
far as silver was procurable, but its price rose to a point at which the
Report of the Royal Commission on Indian Finance and Currency (Parl. Papers, 1914,
Returns, etc. , c. 7236-7).
? Findlay-Shirras, Indian Finance and Banking, chap. vii.


## p. 331 (#369) ############################################

CURRENCY AND THE WAR
331
bullion value of the rupee appreciated beyond its face value. The
combined result of the insistent demands for his bills and the rise in
the world's price of silver compelled the secretary of state in August,
1917, to abandon the is. 4d. standard of the rupee and raise the price
of his bills to is. 5d. As silver soared upwards, the rate had to be
raised in proportion, to avoid coinage at a loss and as a safeguard
against rupees being melted down and smuggled out of the country
for their bullion value.
With the expansion of military operations in the East, larger forces
were recruited and equipped in India and there was an ever-growing
demand for material of all descriptions and foodstuffs for the armies
in the field. The disbursements for war supplies and services were
made in India, but the corresponding payments were made to the
secretary of state in England, whose only means of remittance of the
funds locked up in London was by purchase of silver when obtainable.
A stage was thus reached when the balances in London were very
large, while those in India were subject to constant strain and diminu-
tion. The financial history of the later years of the war is one of con-
tinued struggle on the part of the Government of India to raise the
funds necessary to meet the obligations undertaken, and to stave off
inconvertibility of the note issue which was threatened by the absorp-
tion of rupees and the steady depletion of the silver reserves.
Fortunately the country was prosperous; its industries were
flourishing and expanding; its agricultural and mineral products were
realising high prices. The government was able to raise loans in India
on an unprecedented scale, a new departure being made in the offer
of short-dated treasury bills. In the year 1917-18 the rupee bor-
rowings reached the high figure of £62,000,000, though hitherto the
total rupee debt had amounted only to some £98,000,000. In com-
tion with other belligerent countries, the government was compelled
to finance itself to some extent by the expansion of the note issue.
As a consequence of the rise in prices and stagnation of the rupee
circulation, due partly to the decline in imports checking the normal
down-flow of silver from the agricultural districts, the currency
became inadequate to the demands of trade and efforts were made,
with a considerable degree of success, to encourage the use of notes
as a circulating medium. The paper currency reserves in London
were increased by the purchase of British treasury bills and an issue
of notes in India was made against this holding. The note circulation
rose from some £44,000,000 to £58,000,000 by 31 March, 1917, and
the necessities of the situation compelled a still larger increase in the
following year. Issues were made of notes of small denominations of
Rs. 2 and R. I, which gradually came into use for smaller transactions
as rupees decreased in circulation. In 1917, and even more in 1918,
the moving of the big jute and cotton crops was largely financed by
1 Acts XI and XIX of 1917.


## p. 332 (#370) ############################################

332
THE FINANCES OF INDIA, 1858–1918
notes. The restrictions that government was obliged to impose on
encashment led to notes changing hands at a discount, and full
confidence was not restored until the receipt of large quantities of
silver from America.
In 1914 the paper currency reserve had consisted of £14,000,000
in silver, £21,000,000 in gold and £9,000,000 in securities to back
a corresponding note issue. By March, 1918, the silver portion had
been reduced to £6,000,000, while securities had risen to £40,000,000,
or 60 per cent. of the reserve. The government had been driven to
war-time expedients to maintain the metallic portion of the reserve.
An ordinance issued in June, 1917,' required that all gold imported
into India should be sold to government at the exchange rate. Later
on, the import of silver on private account was prohibited so as not
to interfere with the secretary of state's purchases, while the export
of silver coin and bullion was further declared illegal. In spite of these
and other temporary measures, inconvertibility, which would have
been attended by serious financial and political dangers, seemed
inevitable when the silver balance sunk in June, 1918, to £3,000,000.
At this juncture the situation was relieved by the arrival of the first
consignment of silver from America, The United States Government
had been requested some time previously to release a portion of the
large silver reserve stored in its currency vaults. The negotiations took
time and an agreement was not finally reached until April, 1918, in
which month an act was passed in congress authorising the breaking
up and sale to allied governments of a large quantity of silver dollars,
of which some 200 million fine ounces were allotted to India. To
further relieve the strain on the silver balances, the coinage of gold
was undertaken in India. As part of the gold acquired was not in
sovereigns, but in bullion or foreign currency, a branch of the Royal
Mint was established at Bombay for the coinage of sovereigns. The
issue did not remain long in circulation, but, as an emergency
measure, it served its purpose of relieving the pressure on the silver
balances.
The embarrassments of the Government of India during the war
were those incidental to an economically backward country in which
the banking system was undeveloped and the people wedded by their
customs to a metallic currency. Intrinsically, the financial position
was sound: the revenues were generally adequate to meet expenditure
and large balances had accumulated with the secretary of state in
London. In the first two years of the war, the dislocation of trade
affected customs and railway receipts, and a falling off of revenue
combined with higher expenditure for frontier defence resulted in
small deficits. In 1916–17 the general tariff was raised to 7) per cent.
1 Under the Gold (Import) Act, XXII of 1917.
2 Act No. CXXXIX, 65th Congress, 1918.
3 Bombay Mint Proclamation of 1917.


## p. 333 (#371) ############################################

WAR FINANCE
333
and there were considerable increases in the duties on liquor and
tobacco. In the following year, the import duty on cotton fabrics was
raised to the general tariff level, the excise duty on articles manu-
factured in Indian mills remaining at the previous 31 per cent.
Export duties were also levied on jute and tea. In 1916–17 the income-
tax was graduated and raised to a maximum of 1 anna in the rupee
(about is. 3d. in the pound) on higher incomes. This was followed by
a super-tax which might run up to 3 annas in the rupee on incomes
in excess of Rs. 50,000 per annum. As the demands for Indian products
increased, a trade boom set in, which was reflected in increased
receipts from the more elastic sources of revenue. In 1917–18 receipts
from customs rose to £11,056,000, from excise to f10,161,000 and
from income-tax to £6,308,000. The railway receipts of that year
broke all previous records. The surplus of the year ending March,
1917, amounted to nearly £10,000,000, and that of the following year
exceeded this figure. Meanwhile the gold standard reserve had risen
to £34,000,000 in securities and cash at short notice. Though India
prospered during the war, her financial contribution was no less
generous and whole-hearted than her military, for in 1917 she
proffered a sum of £100,000,000 as a war gift to the home government,
and part of the taxation imposed was to meet the interest
on the loans
raised for the purpose of making this subvention.
The revenues at the end of the financial year 1917–18 amounted
to £113,000,000, a large advance on the figures of the first regular
budget. In spite of this increase, there was no considerable source of
central taxation, excluding the super-tax levied at a late stage of the
war,
which had not already been imposed in 1860, and in many cases
the rate of assessment had been lowered. The salt-tax had been con-
siderably reduced, and customs duties were levied at a lower rate.
Though the income-tax on higher incomes was somewhat heavier,
the minimum taxable limit had been raised and agricultural incomes
excluded from direct taxation. The incidence of the land-revenue per
cultivated acre was lower and, in view of the great rise in the prices
of produce, it imposed a far lighter burden on the occupier of the land.
The increase in total receipts was due mainly to the greater wealth
and prosperity of the country, and the development of the commercial
services which accounted for over 25 per cent. of the gross revenues.
The unproductive debt, which had sunk to the low figure of
£3,000,000 in 1915, had risen under the stress of war to £67,000,000;
but the greater part of the debt, viz. £283,000,000, had been incurred
on works of a productive character. When the period under review
opened, India was almost unequipped with the public utility services
of a modern state, while its finances were liable to be paralysed by the
frequent occurrence of disastrous famines. Without its system of rail-
ways and canals, the commercial and industrial development of the
i Finance and Revenue Accounts.


## p.
334 (#372) ############################################

334
THE FINANCES OF INDIA, 1858-1918
country, reflected in the increase of its revenues, would have been
impossible; and by the protection they ensured, these undertakings
had so far mitigated the effects of the uncertainty of the weather thai
famines in their former severity had become things of the past. The
two outstanding achievements of the era were the financing of these
great public works during a period of great monetary stress and the
stabilising of the currency by the setting up of the gold exchange
standard. The latter not only served its immediate purpose by rescuing
the finances of the state from the depths of depression into which they
had fallen, but, when perfected, permitted of the building up of a
substantial gold reserve without trenching on the ordinary income.
The best evidence of its success was its wide imitation throughout the
East. Commenting on this, Mr J. M. Keynes wrote: “I believe it con-
tains one essential—the use of a cheap local currency artificially
maintained at par with the international currency or standard of
value (whatever it may ultimately turn out to be)-in the ideal
currency of the future”'1
· Keynes, op. cit. chap. ii.


## p. 335 (#373) ############################################

CHAPTER XIX
THE GROWTH OF EDUCATIONAL POLICY
1858–1918
The Mutiny threw back large tracts of Northern India into anarchy.
In important provinces the law courts were closed for months. When
reorganisation began, the finances of the country were in grave
disorder. Large expenditure was required in all directions; and a
succession of famines occurring at intervals of no long duration
impressed very strongly upon the government the urgent need of
railways, roads and a large extension of canals. Profit from such
reproductive works did not come in at once and meantime various
military needs constantly asserted themselves. Sufficient funds for
education were difficult to find; but had they been abundant, it would
still have been a most arduous task to cause a stream of useful know-
ledge to percolate through the innumerable strata of immense popu-
lations rooted in institutions immemorial in their antiquity and unique
in the complex character of their framework. The contrast between
conditions in England and conditions in India had been clearly
pointed out by Sir Charles Wood in 1853. In the former country
there was every possible stimulus to active exertion, both public and
private, public ambition, private rivalry, large capital, general educa-
tion, and every motive which could make an energetic race urge on
progressive improvements and suffer no prejudices to interfere.
"In India", said Wood," you have on the contrary a race of people slow to change,
bound up by religious prejudices and antiquated customs. There are there in fact
many—I had almost said all—the obstacles to rapid progress, whereas in this
country there exist every stimulus and every motive to accelerated advance. ''
Lord Stanley, the first secretary of state for India, lost no time in
turning his attention to the subject of education. In a dispatch dated
7 April, 1859, he summarised all information up to that time received
regarding the results of the policy laid down in 1854 and asked for
more. But his term of office was short; and his letter had hardly
reached India when he was succeeded by Wood, the chief author of
the policy proclaimed in 1854. Stanley's dispatch® had dealt with all
the main points in issue, laying down that as a general rule appoint-
ments in the department of education should be filled by individuals
unconnected with the civil or military service of the government.
Grants-in-aid for Anglo-vernacular schools had evidently been much
1 Napier, Life of Lord Napier of Magdala, pp. 260–2.
• Hansard, 3 June, 1853, CXXVII, 101.
• Richey, Selections, p. 426; Satthianadhan, History of Education in Madras, Appendix
D, p. xliii.


## p. 336 (#374) ############################################

336
THE GROWTH OF EDUCATIONAL PCLICY
appreciated, but it was generally impossible to procure local support
for the establishment of any new elementary (vernacular) schools.
Educational officers should apparently be relieved of the invidious
task of soliciting contributions for the support of such institutions from
classes whose means were generally extremely limited and whose
appreciation of the advantages of education did not dispose them to
make sacrifices for obtaining it. The means of elementary education
should be provided by the direct instrumentality of the officers of
government according to one or other of the plans in operation in
certain provinces. Teaching in state schools must be entirely secular.
In spite of grave financial difficulties, both Wood, who held office
till 1866, and the governor-general in council were anxious to spare
money for education. The new department in each province con-
sisted of a director, an establishment of inspecting officers, and a
teaching staff rising from masters of primary schools to professors and
principals of colleges. In 1871 control of these departments was made
over to provincial governments, who were given fixed assignments
from central revenues. But the central government kept in touch with
all provincial proceedings and granted additional funds from time to
time. The superior officers were classified in four grades, in Bengal in
1865and in other provinces afterwards. The average value of a
graded post was about Rs. 900 a month, comparing poorly with the
salary of the average civil servants of a corresponding position; but
the work attracted distinguished university men from Great Britain. a
Graded officers were appointed by the secretary of state, and ungraded
inspectors and teachers by the provincial authorities. Each provincial
government shared its responsibility for higher education with one of
the universities.
These were purely examining bodies. The affairs, concern and
property of each were managed by a senate which consisted of a
chancellor, vice-chancellor and fellows, who were chiefly government
servants. The senate drew up by-laws and regulations for the approval
of the governor-general in council in the case of Calcutta, and of the
governors in council in the case of Bombay and Madras. The universi-
ties awarded “academical degrees as evidence of attainments and
marks of honour proportioned thereto", admitting to their examina-
tions students from colleges affiliated by permission of the local
governments concerned. Each university had its separate sphere of
influence. Calcutta presided over higher education in Northern
India, the Central Provinces and British Burma; Bombay and Madras
rendered the same service to their respective presidencies and to the
native states of Western and Southern India.
1 Howell says 1864. But see Report of the Education Commission, 1882, para. 346.
3 Fraser, Among Indian Rajas and Ryots, p. 44. See also Howell, Education in British India,
p. 92.
3 Report of the Indian Education Commission, 1882, para. 340.


## p. 337 (#375) ############################################

THE NEW SYSTEM
337
The senates committed executive authority to subordinate syn-
dicates which consisted of small bodies of fellows sitting together with
the vice-chancellors; they also appointed members of the various
faculties, which were four in each university: (1) arts (or general
education) including science, (2) law, (3) medicine and (4) en-
gineering. The faculties elected members to the syndicates and recom-
mended examiners. The dispatch of 1854 had advised the institution
of certain chairs, but Dalhousie had rejected this suggestion, observing
that the universities would be ill qualified to superintend actual
tuition. ' Teaching therefore devolved wholly upon the widely
scattered colleges, government, missionary and private. Proprietary
colleges were being established by private enterprise mainly in Bengal.
Many colleges held classes in school-courses and had been originally
"high" or Anglo-vernacular schools. Some high schools possessed
college classes. The great majority of colleges throughout our period
were “arts” colleges, giving a literary education to students whose
inherited tastes inclined them toward literary courses with govern-
ment service, the bar or teaching as the eventual goal. Two govern-
ment Sanskrit colleges, originally organised as “tols”,? had also
"
started English departments. There were two colleges of engineering,
established one at Rurki in the North-Western Provinces in 1847, and
the other at Sibpur near Calcutta in 1856; and others were in con-
templation. A class for instruction in engineering and surveying had
been opened in Elphinstone College, Bombay, as far back as 1844.
Medical colleges at Calcutta, Madras and Bombay were doing most
useful work. Law colleges followed later.
For admission to a college or to a college class in a high school,
a. candidate must satisfy examiners appointed by the university to
conduct a matriculation or "entrance” examination. An under-
graduate who passed the entrance and wished to proceed to the
degree of bachelor of arts must first for two years read up to a “first
arts" or "intermediate” examination. This test satisfied, he must go
through a course of more specialised study and might then present
himself for the bachelors' examination. The degree of master of arts
was conferred after a further examination, the conditions of which
varied at the different universities. The ordinary age for matriculation
varied from about fourteen to seventeen. Students sometimes gra-
duated at eighteen or nineteen. The great majority did not proceed
to a degree for the course was long, and a certificate of having passed
the entrance qualified a youth to be a candidate for clerical posts in
government service which required some knowledge of English, while
a certificate of having passed the intermediate or first arts was a still
more useful credential.
Colleges were of the first or second grade according as they gave
i Richey, Selections, p. 402.
• Cf. p. 101, supra.
a
OHIVI
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338
THE GROWTH OF EDUCATIONAL POLICY
a
instruction for the full university course or only for that part ofit
which led up to the intermediate. Teaching therein was conducted
in English mainly by lectures and to a far smaller degree by tutorial
assistance. It was presumed that a student admitted to a college after
matriculation came from his high school equipped with a knowledge
of English sufficient to enable him to follow and understand the
lectures. If therefore he was to benefit really from college he must
matriculate with a substantial knowledge of that language. The
entrance must be a real test. If the whole collegiate training were not
to fail in a vital point, the teaching of English in the high (Anglo-
vernacular) schools must be thorough and good. And as these schools
were managed and owned by various authorities, the only hope of
bringing school-teaching up to a satisfactory standard lay in securing
frequent visits from competent inspectors.
Schools admitted within the pale of the system devised in 1854 were
“recognised” by the government and inspected by its officers. There
were various stages in school education, each averaging from two to
three years, and ending in an examination. The schools corresponded
in grade to each of these stages. Those which prepared pupils for the
matriculation were high schools. Teaching here tended, in areas
subject to the Calcutta University, toward neglect of the vernacular
largely because the senate, after first allowing all answers to questions
in geography, history and mathematics to be given in any living
language, ruled in 1861–2 that all answers in each subject should be
given in English except when otherwise specified. The object was to
ensure that all matriculates should be able to follow college lectures
satisfactorily, but while this object was by no means achieved, study
of the vernaculars materially suffered. In the high schools boys might
be taught in either English or the vernacular. The courses were
predominantly literary, according to the tastes and inclinations of
teachers and taught, and affording large scope for memorising, of
which full advantage was taken. High schools often contained
classes usually associated with schools of a lower grade. Below them
were preparatory “middle English” schools; and there were vernacu-
lar middle schools which did not lead up to any of the openings
provided by university credentials, but afforded opportunities for
further study to boys who were not content with an elementary
education and wished to qualify for vernacular clerical or teaching
posts. Last came the primary schools, either “upper”, more ele-
mentary editions of the vernacular middle school, or "lower”, which
varied from the old indigenous patshala or maktab, assisted now by a
government grant, to a modern institution. The cost of maintaining
a primary school was met only partly by fees, which were everywhere
extremely low.
Schools of higher and lower grades were connected by a system o
1 Report of the Calcutta University Commission, pt I, chap. xviii.
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EARLY DEVELOPMENT
339
1
state scholarships. "Normal" schools were provided for the training
of teachers in vernacular schools.
Such were the main features of an elaborately organised system.
Outside its pale were many indigenous institutions, of the varieties
described in a previous chapter, where masters and pupils walked in
the old ways asking for nothing from the state. Outside, too, were
denominational and endowed schools for the children of the com-
munity of domiciled Europeans and Eurasians.
The system took time to develop; and even in the middle 'sixties
British Burma had no regularly organised department of public
instruction. Some idea of early progress in India generally may be
gathered from a "note” on the state of education in 1865–6 prepared
under governmentorders by A. M. Monteath, secretary to the Govern-
ment of India, which was laid before parliament together with some
critical observations by Sir A. Grant, director of public instruction at
Bombay. 1
The universities, it was said, had supplied reliable tests and stimu-
lated educational institutions. In higher education Bengal stood first.
The largest number and the best specimens of colleges and schools
were to be found there, filled by pupils whose appreciation of the
education received was attested by the considerable amount of fees
paid. In no other province of India were the literary or professional
classes so closely interwoven with the landed classes; and in no other
province were university credentials so valuable to a bridegroom. So
far Bengal arrangements had prospered; but here their success ter-
minated. The great mass of the people, the labouring and agricultural
classes, had hardly been touched. The old indigenous schools retained
their ground. Various efforts were being made with indifferent success
to mould these into efficient institutions, although some of their gurus
or teachers were induced by stipends to undergo courses of training
at normal schools. In the North-Western Provinces, on the other
hand, while arrangements for education for the higher and middle
classes were meagre and received with moderate enthusiasm, village
schools under government direction, established on the plan devised
by Thomason and assisted by a i per cent. school-rate on all newly
settled land-revenue, were working well and ousting the indigenous
schools the teachers of which were set against reform, desiring "no
assistance which should involve the trouble of improvement”.
In British India generally higher instruction was making way, but
primary education was advancing very slowly. It was possible for
zealous educational officers to procure promises of contributions for
the upkeep of village schools, but difficult to collect such contributions,
as interest soon flagged. Missionary help was highly valued. In
Burma the Buddhist monasteries imparted a knowledge of reading
and writing to three-quarters of the juvenile male population, and
· Parl. Papers, 1867-8, 1, 1 sqq. Cf. Calcutta Review, XLV, 414-50.
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340
THE GROWTH OF EDUCATIONAL POLICY
>
.
the chief commissioner was endeavouring to induce the monks to
accept ordinary school-books for the instruction of their pupils.
Monteath described university conditions. The directors had ordered
in 1854 that the standards for common degrees should be fixed so as
"to command respect without discouraging the efforts of deserving
students”, while in the competition for honours care was to be taken
to maintain "such a standard as would afford a guarantee of high
ability and valuable attainments”. Colleges affiliated to the Calcutta
University numbered eighteen in Bengal, ten of which were private,
seven in the North-Western Provinces, three of which were private,
one in the Panjab, one in the Central Provinces, two in Ceylon. In
1861 candidates for the Calcutta entrance examination had num-
bered 1058, of whom 477 obtained admission to colleges. In 1866,
the corresponding figures were 1350 and 638. Of these a solid pro-
portion were assisted in pursuing their university careers by scholar-
ships contributed by the state. Bachelors of arts numbered fifteen in
1861 and seventy-nine in 1866. In Madras affiliated colleges and
schools educating up to and beyond the matriculation standard num-
bered nineteen, eleven of which were conducted by missionary
societies, but the senate admitted students to its examinations without
compelling them to produce certificates from affiliated institutions.
Candidates for the entrance numbered eighty in 1860-1, and 555 in
1865-6, of whom 229 passed. In Bombay higher education had
progressed slowly. Even in 1866 only 109 candidates passed the
entrance and bachelors of arts were only twelve. There were four
affiliated colleges, three of which were situate in Bombay. But a strong
stimulus had been recently applied by very liberal private donations
from Indian gentlemen totalling Rs. 20,000 in 1862-3, Rs. 471,000
in 1863-4 and Rs. 401,200 in 1864-5.
The education of Muhammadan boys was relatively backward. In
Bengal particularly the Muhammadan community was falling behind
and losing influence. 1 There was very little education of girls either
Hindu or Muhammadan. In Bengal English was too freely employed
as the medium of instruction, and this to such an extent as seriously
to retard the progress of the pupils in their acquisition of general
knowledge; while as regards quality the English taught was not only
rudimentary but curiously faulty in idiom and accent. In the North-
Western Provinces and Panjab English was merely studied as a
language. The neglect of vernacular studies for the purpose of learning
it was strictly prohibited. In Madras the result of attempts made to
carry on instruction through English before pupils had obtained
sufficient grasp of that language had been “failure more or less
complete”. In Bombay English education had been starved in the
interest of vernacular education; but the desire for the knowledge of
English was increasing through a desire to acquire superior qualifica-
i Calcutta Review, XLV, 441.


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WESTERN INFLUENCES
341
1
tions for government and other employ. This desire was everywhere
the powerful influence which, more rapidly in some provinces than
in others, was moulding the future. Education was in demand mainly
as a channel for employment, and a knowledge of English was the
royal road which led to the most lucrative positions and professions.
The total cost of education in 1865-6 was estimated at Rs. 8,217,669,
but of this sum Rs. 4,529,580 only came from imperial funds. The
rest was supplied by local sources "such as education cesses, school
fees, private endowments, subscriptions". But information regarding
expenditure on private institutions was neither exhaustive nor re-
liable. Special rules had been framed to regulate grants-in-aid to
schools designed for the instruction of European and Eurasian
children.
In this connection we may just now particularly recall Lord
Canning's words:
The Eurasian class have a special claim upon us. The presence of a British
government has called them into being;. . . and they are a class which, while it
draws little or no support from its connection with England, is without that deep
root in and hold of the soil of India from which our native public servants, through
their families and relatives, derive advantage. "
The state educational system was only one side of a process which
was rapidly spreading abroad Western culture and ideas. The scene
had indeed changed since the days when crowds assembled, with
the law's permission, to see widows burnt alive, and missionaries
sought refuge in Danish territory, when dacoits exercised a “horrid
ascendancy” over large tracts of country, and “thags” were able to
"glory in their achievements as acts pleasing to a deity”. 2 Elaborate
and carefully considered codes of substantive law and procedure,
criminal and civil, were coming gradually into force and were begin-
ning to exercise a powerful influence over thought. In the seaports,
in the provincial capitals, in the historic cities inland, a new India
was growing up, an India of railways and telegraphs, of law courts
and lawyers, of newspapers and examinations. Extending communi-
cations, widening commerce, developing industries were increasing
the European population. The railways were mainly manned by
European officials; road-surveyors, contractors, tradesmen, custom-
house officers were multiplying. Assam and the slopes of the Hima-
layas abounded with tea-planters, Tirhut and Lower Bengal with
indigo-planters. The Indus, the Brahmaputra, the Irawadi, the
Ganges to some extent, and the whole coast from Calcutta to Persia
on the one side, and to the Straits on the other, were navigated by
steamers under British commanders. The seaports and large cities
contained many families of mixed race, many European and Eurasian
>
· Quoted ap. Croft, Review of Education in India, p. 294. Cf. Calcutta Review, xLU, 57-93.
• Cf. chaps. ii and vii, supra.


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THE GROWTH OF EDUCATIONAL POLICY
children whose minds needed rescue from the perils of unrelieved
materialism. 1
The new times were better than the old; but they had brought many
problems of their own. While the demand for Western education was
widening rapidly among the Hindu professional classes, it continued
to run almost invariably into literary courses, particularly in Bengal;
and the avenues to government service, the bar, teaching and jour-
nalism were gradually becoming thronged. The land-holders, on the
other hand, who had hitherto been the natural leaders of the people,
were slow to grasp new opportunities; the martial classes, who had
always been held in high social estimation, were equally indifferent;
and the masses themselves, in spite of much earnest effort on the part
of educational officers, up to the very end of our period, remained
chiefly and persistently illiterate.