Anglo-vernacular schools were established in
outlying
districts of
Bengal, and in 1844 some vernacular village schools were started
which ended in failure.
Bengal, and in 1844 some vernacular village schools were started
which ended in failure.
Cambridge History of India - v4 - Indian Empire
”
Kaye, Life of Metcalfe, 11, 229. Cf. Mahmud, op. cit. p. 39.
: Article, “Hindu Medicine and Medical Education", Calcutta Review, 1866, XLII,
106–25.
; Article by Duff on “Indigenous education in Bengal and Bihar," Calcutta Review, 1844.
Cf. Adam, op. cit. pp. 10–13.
• Paton, Life of Duff, p. 66.
>
26
## p. 110 (#146) ############################################
110
EDUCATION AND MISSIONS TO 1858
> >
Unlike Carey, Duff was no Orientalist, but he took pains to learn Ben-
gali and arranged that his pupils should study their mother-tongue.
These, then, were the issues which pressed for decision at Calcutta
in the early 'thirties.
(a) Should anything be done for mass-education; or should it be
left to unaided indigenous schools ?
(6) Should all idea of grafting the modern learning of the West on
the ancient learning of the East be abandoned as impracticable?
(c) Should the filtration theory be adopted and all available funds
be devoted to advancing Western knowledge among the upper classes
through the medium of English? No one at Calcutta argued that the
Bengal vernaculars would serve as a medium, although the govern-
ments of Bombay and Madras were disposed to use their own very
different vernaculars for the diffusion of general knowledge. The
Calcutta Government, too, had recently substituted vernaculars for
Persian in the law courts of the Bengal Presidency.
The filtration theory and the virtual supersession of the classical
languages by English were advocated by advanced Hindus in
Calcutta, by the followers of Hare and Ram Mohan Roy, by Duff
and his missionary supporters, and by “the English party” on the
Committee of Public Instruction. It is important to notice that the
strongest influences in bringing this “English party" into existence
were the petition of Ram Mohan Roy and the practical experience of
the committee. In this way a policy was shaped which contemplated
the eventual use of the vernaculars for the diffusion of Western know-
ledge, but the immediate employment of English for this purpose,
and of English alone. It commended itself to the directors who,
from motives of economy as well as for reasons of policy, wished to
see a substantial contingent of Western-educated Indians in the
public services. Their interest in indigenous schools had long since
evaporated; and on 8 February, 1829, they had reminded the
governor-general that the one lakh grant was to be placed at the
disposal not of one alone, but of all three presidencies, and that it was
only to be allotted “in the event of there being a surplus revenue after
defraying all the expenses of government”,3
Ram Mohan Roy had gone to England in 1830, where he was
received with honour and gave evidence on Indian affairs before a
select committee of the House of Commons; but, to the bitter loss of
his country, he died at Bristol in 1833. 4 In the same year parliament,
See Prinsep's Diary, ap. Sharp, op. cit. 1, 133. It appears, however, from circular 220
of the nizamat adalat dated 27 January, 1837, that while the depositions of parties or
witnesses were to be taken down in the languages in which they were delivered, Persian
translations were to be annexed to the records if the latter were called for by the nizamat
court (Circular orders of the Calcutta Nizamal Adawlat, 1846, p. 268).
2 Dispatch, 29 September, 1830.
• Howell, op. cit. p. 20. Cf. Mahmud, op. cit. p. 47.
• See The Last Days of Ram Mohan Roy, especially pp. 9o and 94, also Reports, Com-
mittees, E. I. C. 1831-2 (4), viII, 391.
8
## p. 111 (#147) ############################################
MACAULAY
III
after prolonged enquiry, decided when renewing the charter of the
East India Company to dissociate that body altogether from trade,
to add a “legal member” to the governor-general's council, and to
declare that no native of India would in future be debarred from
office or employment by reason of religion, place of birth, descent or
colour. 1 On 10 December, 1834, the directors informed Bentinck's
government that every effort must be made to enable natives of India
to compete for the public service with fair chance of success, “whether
by conferring on them the advantages of education or by diffusing
on them the treasures of science, knowledge and moral culture”.
In the autumn of 1834 Thomas Babington Macaulay, who had been
appointed to the legal membership of the governor-general's council,
arrived at Calcutta and was appointed president of the Committee of
Public Instruction, which he found hopelessly divided between the
Orientalist and the English parties. The Orientalists had lost a strong
champion in H. H. Wilson, who had left India in January, 1833.
Macaulay declined to take an active part in its proceedings until the
government had passed judgment on the main issue in dispute; but
on 2 February, 1835, he presented a lengthy minute to Bentinck in
support of the English party. In some passages he poured scorn on
Oriental literature, of which he knew nothing. In others, while
asserting that he would strictly respect all existing interests, he pro-
posed not only to stop the printing of Arabic and Sanskrit books, but
to abolish the Muhammadan Madrasa which had been founded by
Warren Hastings and the Calcutta Sanskrit College. No stipends, he
urged, should in future be given to students at the Benares and Delhi
colleges. The funds thus set free would be given to the Vidyalaya at
Calcutta and to the establishment of English schools in the principal
cities of Upper India. With the limited means available it was im-
possible to educate the body of the people, Endeavours should be
made to form a class of persons “Indian in blood and colour, but
English in tastes, in opinion, in morals and in intellect". These would
refine the vernaculars, enrich them with Western terms of science and
render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the
great mass of the population.
Bentinck promptly noted his “entire” concurrence with Macaulay's
views. In the previous month he had placed William Adam, editor
of a popular Calcutta journal and ex-missionary, under the orders
of the Committee of Public Instruction to conduct enquiries into
the state of indigenous education in Bengal. In a minute dated
20 January, 1835, 2 he had observed, when appointing Adam, that a
true estimate of the Indian mind and capacity could not be formed
without the information which Adam was to collect. Adam, however,
had barely begun when Macaulay's minute was laid before Bentinck's
1 C. pp. 3 sqq. , supra.
· Adam, op. cit. pp. 10-13.
## p. 112 (#148) ############################################
II2
EDUCATION AND MISSIONS TO 1858
colleagues with the governor-general's note of concurrence and an
adverse memorandum drawn up by H. T. Prinsep, a civil servant
of twenty-six years' service, Persian secretary to the government
and member of the Committee of Public Instruction. But already
the news had leaked out that the Sanskrit College and the Muham-
madan Madrasa were to be abolished, and petitions against such
proceedings, signed by thousands of Hindus and Muhammadans, had
been presented. After a hot debate in council between Macaulay and
Prinsep, it was decided on 7 March, 1835, that
a
the great object of the British Government ought to be the promotion of European
literature and science among the natives of India, and that all the funds appro-
priated to education would best be employed on English education alone.
But no college or school of Indian learning, which enjoyed any
popularity, would be abolished. Existing professors and students at
such institutions as were under the committee's superintendence were
to go on receiving their stipends. No more students, however, were
to be supported during the period of their education and no money
should be employed on printing Oriental works. All funds thus
released should be employed “in imparting to the native population
a knowledge of English literature and science through the medium of
the English language".
Prinsep's memorandum,2 dated 15 February, 1835, was by
Bentinck's order excluded from the record on the ground that its
author was a secretary and not a member of council. But it survived
and still gives the case for the Orientalists. The weightiest passages
were those in which the author urged the veneration in which Sanskrit
and Arabic were still held by Hindus and Muslims as communities.
Bounties to students were, he contended, really scholarships, and in
the Muhammadan Madrasa had been given for proficiency in English.
"Undoubtedly”, ran the memorandum, “there is a very widely spread anxiety
at this time for the attainment of a certain proficiency in English. The sentiment is
to be encouraged by all means as the source and forerunner of great moral improve-
ment to those who feel its influence; but there is no single member of the Education
Committee who will venture to assert that this disposition has yet shown itself
extensively among the Mussalmans. It is the Hindus of Calcutta, the sirkars
(accountants and commercial managers) and Kulin (Brahman) connections, and
the descendants and relations of the sirkars of former days, those who have risen
through their connexion with the English and with public offices, men who hold
that a knowledge of English is a necessary qualification. These are the classes of
persons to whom the study of English is as yet confined; and certainly we have no
reason yet to believe that the Mussalmans in any part of India can be reconciled
to the cultivation of it, much less give it a preference to the polite literature of their
race or to what they look upon as such. ”
1 Brother of the remarkable James Prinsep, F. R. S. , sometime secretary of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal (see James Prinsep, Essays on Indian antiquities, ed. by Edward Thomas,
John Murray, 1858, 1, iii).
2 Sharp, op. cit. I, 117.
## p. 113 (#149) ############################################
MACAULAY
113
This passage elicited the following marginal note from Macaulay:
“There is no good English scheme for the Mussalmans; and one of
our first duties is to establish one". No such scheme was, however,
established. The Muhammadans were opposed to the whole project,
looking upon the exclusive encouragement of English as a step toward
religious conversion. 1
In a minute dated 20 May, 1835, laid before the council after
Bentinck's departure, Prinsep called the resolution of 7 March "a rash
act". The natives should (he said) be left to choose their own courses
of education, and all should equally be encouraged by the govern-
ment, who should however arrange “to give them the direction to
true science and good taste in literature which the superior lights of
Europe enable us to bestow”. Any deviation from this principle of
free choice and equal encouragement could only do mischief by
exciting feelings of distrust and perhaps irritation.
Macaulay remained president of the Committee of Public Instruc-
tion till 1838. His writings show how seriously he took his voluntary
and unpaid duties, and how earnestly he tried to lead the young
generation to a knowledge of the best English literature, which he
relied on as a strong cultural and religious influence. Unlike Grant,
he took no particular thought for science or agriculture. European
knowledge would soon, he thought, be exhibited in the vernacular
languages. As things were going, in thirty years there would not be
a single idolater among the respectable classes of Bengal. ? His com-
mittee began to establish Anglo-vernacular schools at the head-
quarters of various districts. These were first known as “zillah”
(district) schools and afterwards as "high" schools. The courses of
study therein were mainly literary, an arrangement which accorded
with Macaulay's own taste and with the inclinations of people whose
traditional systems of learning were chiefly literary and religious.
It is regrettable that such important issues as those involved in the
decision of 7 March, 1835, had become "a watchword for violent
discussion and personal feeling”. : Had there been less heat in the
whole contention, Macaulay would have been persuaded that he
really had something to learn from the Orientalists, and that the
whole past and present of the great religious and social systems, which
he did not care to understand, forbade even the remotest possibility
of their collapse within any measurable period of time. That in any
case the new education would leave women untouched, that the
Muhammadans were strongly averse to it, these and other obvious
considerations were dismissed by him as negligible. It was unfor-
tunate too that the results of Adam's enquiries were not available for
Bentinck and his council. Had they been aware of the extent of self-
supporting indigenous education, they might have cut the Gordian
· Mahmud, op. cit. p. 54.
· Trevelyan, Life and Lelters, p. 464.
• Lord Auckland, ap. Sharp, op. cit. 1, 147.
CHIVI
8
## p. 114 (#150) ############################################
114 EDUCATION AND MISSIONS TO 1858
knot in less trenchant a fashion. But their funds were extremely
limited, and in view of the ideas prevalent both in parliament and in
Leadenhall Street, they naturally made a strong effort to push the
kind of education for which there was evidently a clamant local
demand. Macaulay and his minute precipitated a decision which was
hardly avoidable. Yet the views recorded by Bentinck in his minute
of 20 January, 1835, show that, after writing it, he was completely
carried away by Macaulay's vigorous eloquence. 1
Duff was better informed than Macaulay, for he viewed the situa-
tion with some degree of Indian experience. He approved of the
decision of 1835, but considered that the exclusion of religious teaching
from the government schools would leave a void which the mis-
sionaries must labour-to fill: modern knowledge was like the ocean
seen to roll its waters from shore to shore. But if like the ocean it had
its gentle breezes, might it not have its storms and quicksands too? 2
He returned to his work as a Christian educationist and achieved
remarkable success. Believing his own creed to be true, he believed
that it could be reconciled with everything else which is also true.
With the power of a great personality he influenced the lives of many.
In spite of Bentinck's very definite declaration and Macaulay's
prompt action, in Bengal only was the teaching of English con-
tinuously preferred to all other educational objectives. Even there
the pendulum swung back in some small degree. The decision to
spend no more money on Oriental works was modified in 1838 and
a grant of 500 rupees a month was allotted to the Asiatic Society of
Bengal which enabled it to carry on the valuable Bibliotheca Indica
series of Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian texts. The directors hesitated
to make English a medium of teaching; and had not the rage for
learning English spread rapidly in Calcutta, the history of education
in after years might have taken a somewhat different course.
In March, 1836, Lord Auckland became governor-general and was
faced by an attempted renewal of the controversy of 1835. Before his
arrival restrictions on the press had been removed by Metcalfe, and
journalism had thus been greatly stimulated. Now Adam's reports
began to come in and afforded food for much reflection. Accurate
information regarding the indigenous systems was at last provided;
there were no vernacular textbooks; the miserable condition of the
schools was emphasised; the possibility of converting them into some-
thing better was insisted on. They should be left in the hands of the
1 Adam, op. cit. p. 10. We may note that on 28 December, 1855, Max Müller was given
an interview by Macaulay when the Professor, “primed with every possible argument in
favour of Oriental studies, had to sit silent for an hour while the historian poured out his
diametrically opposite views, and then dismissed his visitor who tried in vain to utter a
single word. I went back to Oxford', he said, 'a sadder and a wiser man'”. Life of Max
Müller, edited by his wife, 1, 162, Longmans, Green, 1902.
2 Duff, op. cit. p. 265.
3 See Paton, op. cit.
* Centenary Review of Asiatic Society of Bengal (1784-1883), p. 59.
1
## p. 115 (#151) ############################################
ADAM'S REPORTS
115
people, but assisted in various ways. This should be the supreme
objective. Western knowledge was much needed, but nowhere should
English be a medium of instruction. At present a class of men was
being produced who stood apart from both their fellow-countrymen
and the British, and found inadequate scope for their attainments.
The masses were left in ignorance; so industry languished; crime
flourished; the support of the people for salutary measures could not
be counted on. The press was now free; the civil and political rights
of the people had been enlarged; but the government should, by a
general system of instruction, timely established, teach the people
“the proper use of the mighty instrument which had been placed in
their hands and of the various franchises that had been and might be
from time to time bestowed”. ? Auckland was impressed by Adam's
arguments but saw that to accept them would mean delay and open
up vistas of heavy expenditure; the filtration theory must now be
fully tested. Money too was scarce. Only £24,000 was annually
available for the whole Bengal Presidency. So the governor-general
wrote a minute of prodigious length, adhering to the filtration theory
but emphasising the importance of providing a larger number of good
vernacular class-books. Orientalist colleges must be kept in funds;
but nothing could be done at present for the indigenous schools. In
a dispatch of 20 January, 1841, the directors agreed with him; but
abandoning to some extent the views of Macaulay and Bentinck, they
stated that the diffusion of European knowledge need not necessarily
be through English. Vernacular translations of English books would
serve for the purpose.
In 1842 the Committee of Public Instruction was superseded by
a Council of Education composed partly of Indian gentlemen. This
body's activities were mainly limited to Calcutta. Outside the capital
the government was responsible; and in April, 1843, the control and
management of educational institutions in the Upper Bengal or the
North-Western Provinces were made over to the lieutenant-governor,
Sir G. Clerk, who in August attacked the accepted policy, laying
stress on the difference between the habits and customs of the in-
fluential classes in the upper and the lower provinces. In the former
the native gentry neither countenanced nor supported the govern-
ment schools. In 1844 Lord Hardinge's government announced that
candidates qualified by a knowledge of English would be preferred
for the public service. 3 Examinations were instituted by the Council
of Education and students who qualified therein were enrolled as fit
for (although not necessarily entitled to) employment. The distinction
1 Adam, op. cit. pp. 341-2.
Sharp, op. cit. I, 160.
3 In 1830 the government of the Bengal Presidency had notified that in the nomination
of government vakils (agents) in the native courts and of agents with the Commissioners”,
familiarity with English would constitute a recommendation to preference unless on special
grounds this rule was disregarded. It is, however, doubtful if it was ever acted nr. History
of the Benares Sanskrit College, p. 73.
2
8-2
## p. 116 (#152) ############################################
116
EDUCATION AND MISSIONS TO 1858
was not appreciated, and those who were unsuccessful in obtaining
such posts as they desired resented the disappointment. Western
education, however, had been clearly declared a passport to govern-
inent service, the most coveted of all professions.
Anglo-vernacular schools were established in outlying districts of
Bengal, and in 1844 some vernacular village schools were started
which ended in failure. The indigenous vernacular schools were left
out in the cold; they neither improved in quality nor declined in
number. From considered reluctance to infringe in any way on social
custom and on long-standing ideas regarding the seclusion or sub-
jection of women, the government stood aside from the efforts of the
missionaries, of David Hare, and of a few private societies and in-
dividuals, to promote female education. The missionaries started day-
schools for girls, boarding establishments for orphans and domestic
instruction in the families of the middle and higher classes. The results
were small; but the main credit of a great initiative rests with them. 1
From Leitner's Report it appears that there was far more indigenous
female education in the Panjab than there was in the older provinces.
A school for girls was in 1849 established and maintained in Calcutta
by J. E. D. Bethune, member of the governor-general's council and
president of the Council of Education, who spent his money freely on
the undertaking. 2 Dalhousie considered that this generous example
was likely to be followed by Indian gentlemen and that schools for
girls could be promoted by district officers. The directors, however,
threw cold water on this idea as they were unwilling to alarm con-
servative Indian opinion. After Bethune's untimely death, the ex-
penses of his school were borne first by Dalhousie and afterwards by
a fund raised by public subscription to carry on Bethune's work.
While Western education was acquiring increasing momentum
among the Hindus of Bengal, it progressed very slowly in inland
provinces where government servants were practically the only
European residents. James Thomason, lieutenant-governor of the
North-Western Provinces from 1843 to 1853, was anxious to promote
rural education: “enlisting the persons whom the people may them-
selves select as teachers, and support for that purpose". Enquiries
had disclosed the fact that in these provinces only 64,335 (50,026
Hindus and 14,309 Muhammadans) out of a population of 21,630, 167
were in receipt of any education. Eventually a halqabandi (circle)
school system was devised whereby villages were grouped in circles
of five, the land-holders of each group undertaking to pay for a school
by a voluntary cess of i per cent. on the land-revenue. This system
was in 1852-3 introduced into eight districts and was afterwards
1 Richey, Selections from the Educational Records, p. 34; Adam, op. cit. pp. 335–7.
• Calcutta Review, xxi, 513.
• Richey, op. cit. p. 61; also a memorandum by R. Burn, Census Superintendent North-
Western Provinces and Oudh (unpublished).
## p. 117 (#153) ############################################
LACK OF A UNIFORM POLICY
117
6
extended as other districts came under land-revenue settlement. The
scheme, as sanctioned by the directors, involved the levy of a cess of
i per cent. on the rent, which was deducted before the revenue was
calculated, so that payment was shared by the government and the
land-holder. In Bombay the government ignored the filtration theory,
and endeavoured primarily to promote education through the ver-
nacular, admitting to education in English those who sought it and
“had the capacity to acquire European learning”. Throughout the
southern presidency missionary enterprise was busy. English, Scotch,
Americans and Irish Presbyterians vied with each other in honourable
rivalry. 2 In 1839 Lord Elphinstone, governor of Madras, advocated
the establishment of a university open to students who possessed some
knowledge of English. The institution came into existence as a school
which in 1852 bore the title of the “Madras University High School”.
It was then the only state or state-controlled school or college in the
presidency. But the gap left by the government had been filled by
missionaries of various denominations, Jesuit fathers, Wesleyans and
the English, Scottish and American Churches. The number of mis-
sionary schools in Madras exceeded those in all other presidencies put
together. 3
Kaye tells us that the state educational expenditure in 1853
amounted to about £70,000. For many years, as Dalhousie observed,
the public finances had been “in a condition which clogged the action
of the government”. 4 In Bengal the government was maintaining
thirty colleges and schools in which English was taught, but only
thirty-three vernacular schools against Bombay's 233. Among the
most successful government institutions were the Medical College
started by Bentinck in Calcutta, and the Thomason Engineering
College at Rurki in the North-Western Provinces. Throughout India
the Hindu aristocracy held aloof from the new learning. Their literary
tastes were satisfied by the poetry of their race; and they had no
inclination to send their sons to schools where social contact with boys
of a lower order would mean contamination. The Muhammadans, as
a body, also stood outside. They had never felt disposed to do anything
else. Proud of an imperial past, attached to their own classics, they
held that religious and secular instruction should go together. Their
young men were freely employed in administrative posts, but despised
clerical and office work.
As the time approached for another revision of the Company's
charter, it became more and more apparent that uniformity and
constancy of aim were lacking in the educational policies of the various
provincial governments. The situation was reviewed by Dalhousie,
· Richey, p. 18.
* Report of the Education Commission of 1882, pp. 12–13.
* Madras Administrative Report, 1855-6; Richey, op. cit. p. 183. See also Satthianadhan,
History of Education in Madras, pp. 38-9, and Report of the Education Commission of 1882, p. 10.
• Richey, op. cil. p. 113.
Report of ihe Education Commission of 1882, p. 483.
## p. 118 (#154) ############################################
118 EDUCATION AND MISSIONS TO 1858
66
who forwarded proposals to the directors. A parliamentary com-
mittee was appointed and examined a number of witnesses, including
such veterans as Trevelyan and Duff. Sir Charles Wood, president of
the Board of Control, after much deliberation, forwarded a scheme to
India through the court of directors (dispatch 49 of 19 July, 1854)
which imposed upon the government the task of creating a properly
“
articulated scheme of education, from the primary school to the
university". As state schools and colleges were intended to benefit
the general population, the instruction which they gave must ob-
viously be "exclusively sccular”; but
every honest educational agency, whether religious or not, should be encouraged
to the utmost, under the inspection and direction of a government department, and
with the encouragement and assistance of the local officers of government, upon
the value of which emphasis was laid. 1
The filtration theory was unsatisfying. The indigenous schools were
no longer to be left to themselves, but “made capable of imparting
correct elementary knowledge to the great mass of people”. The
methods adopted in the North-Western Provinces for promoting rural
education were commended for general imitation. A regular system
of scholarships must be instituted to connect lower schools with higher,
and higher schools with colleges. Voluntary effort must be supported
by grants-in-aid from the state awarded with entire impartiality.
Female education must be frankly and cordially supported. It might
be anticipated that eventually state education would become educa-
tion supported where necessary by state grants-in-aid.
Universities would be established at Calcutta? and Bombay and
would be allowed at Madras or elsewhere provided a sufficient number
of colleges were forthcoming. They would be examining bodies on
the model of the London University, depending, so far as teaching
was concerned, upon the various colleges, whether maintained by
government or voluntary effort. But professorships should be insti-
tuted for instruction in such subjects as law and civil engineering. It
would greatly encourage the cultivation of the vernaculars if chairs
were also founded for promoting the study of these languages and
perhaps also of Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian. The acquisition of
degrees would bring highly educated young men to the notice of the
government and facilitate selections for the public services.
The particular attention of the government should be given to the
diffusion through the schools of useful and practical knowledge
among the people generally. So far state energies had been too ex-
clusively directed toward "providing a very high degree of education"
for classes who were often able and willing to bear at least a con-
siderable portion of the cost themselves. More could be done to
i Calcutta University Commission Report, 1, 40.
: A scheme for a university at Calcutta had been proposed in 1845 by the Council of
Education, but had remained in abeyance.
## p. 119 (#155) ############################################
WOOD'S SCHEME AND THE MUTINY
119
prepare good vernacular class-books containing European informa-
tion. Teaching of English, where there was a demand for it, should be
combined with careful attention to the vernaculars, but English alone
possessed a sufficiently supple and extended vocabulary for conveying
the elements of Western sciences. This exhaustive dispatch concluded
with the observation that no sudden or speedy results could be
expected from the adoption of the wide measures prescribed. The
outcome depended far more on the people themselves than on the
government.
No time was lost in acting on these orders, which, in Dalhousie's
1
words, "set forth a scheme of education for all India far wider and
more comprehensive than the supreme or any local government could
have ventured to suggest". Departments of public instruction were
organised; and in 1857 examining universities were established at
Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. But work had hardly begun when
the Mutiny intervened; and it is natural to enquire whether British
educational policy had contributed to produce that great struggle
Kaye replies in the affirmative, pointing out inter alia that the policy
of the dispatch of 1854, relying partly on missionary aid, and aiming
at penetrating even to the zenanas, was in fact a challenge to Brah-
manism, and that the tendency of educational measures from 1835
onwards had been to curtail Muhammadan emoluments and Muham-
madan dignity. Outram considered that the crusading, improving,
spirit of the past twenty-five years was bound to cause a resounding
clash. 3 It certainly gave the instigators of rebellion one of the prin-
cipal texts from which they preached. But features in various outbreaks
revealed unmistakably the full extent of the dangers which spring from
unbounded and credulous ignorance. Lord Canning had received
a disagrecable shock from the attitude of the Bengali press at the very
crisis of the empire's fate;' but he never faltered in pursuing the
educational policy laid down in 1854.
Among many subjects of importance none can have a stronger claim on our
attention than that of education. It is one of our most sacred duties to be the means,
as far as in us lics, of conferring upon natives of India those vast moral and material
blessings which flow from the diffusion of useful knowledge, and which India may,
under Providence, derive from her connection with England.
So ran the preamble of the dispatch of 1854. The pioneers of this
policy were Grant and Carey. Wilberforce lent his powerful aid; the
unremembered Robert Smith suggested the clause which proved the
starting-point for a great undertaking; Hare by his devoted labours
earned the lasting gratitude of Bengali Hindus;5 Ram Mohan Roy
i See Calcutta Review, 1860, XXXV, 401–26.
· History of the Indian Mutiny, I, 131-43.
• Lee-Warner, Dalhousie, 11, 355,
• Donogh, Law of Sedition in India, p. 182; Kaye and Malleson, History of the Mutiny,
III, 13.
Banerjee, A Nation in the Making, pp. 1-2.
## p. 120 (#156) ############################################
1 20 EDUCATION AND MISSIONS TO 1858
prepared the way for Bentinck and Macaulay. A Hindu movement
in Calcutta, due largely to the persevering efforts of the missionaries,
combined with the general trend of political thought in England, with
the eloquent pen of Macaulay and with the inclinations of the governor-
general to produce the decision of 1835 which was in the circumstances
natural but broke violently with the past, took no account of the
indigenous vernacular schools or of the importance of preserving as
far as possible their self-supporting character, and encouraged ten-
dencies which, as years went on, passed beyond control. The new
policy was carried into effect in Bengal by a brilliant Whig politician
who possessed no knowledge of the history of Indian thought and no
understanding of the Indian mind. The years which followed 1835
were years of varying opinion, uneven direction, and scanty expendi-
ture. Then a great governor-general found time to consider education
and corresponded with a president of the Board of Control, who, con-
vinced of the supreme importance of the subject, gave it elaborate
attention, and pricked out a chart for future guidance. His chief
desire was that England should do her duty by those many millions
for whose welfare she had undertaken responsibility, that they should
be less and less cramped and plagued by the evils which spring from
ignorance and tyrannical superstitions, that while the ancient learning
of India should still be held in honour, her peoples should no longer
be penned behind those barriers of stationary thought which for long
centuries had been so powerfully restrictive. But he saw clearly that
whatever the government might attempt, the eventual issues lay with
the people themselves.
## p. 121 (#157) ############################################
CHAPTER VII
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
By the charter of 1698 parliament provided for the maintenance of
ministers and schoolmasters in all the Company's garrisons and
superior factories. The ministers must learn Portuguese within one
year of their arrival in India and must apply themselves to acquire
knowledge of the native languages in order to be able “to instruct
the gentoos that shall be servants or slaves of the Company or of their
agents in the Protestant religion”. In 1700 the directors communi-
cated to their “commanders of ships and agents of factories” a form
of prayer, sanctioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop
of London, which contained the supplication
that we adorning the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour in all things, these Indian
nations among whom we dwell, beholding our
good works may be won over to love
our most holy religion, and glorify thee, our Father which art in Heaven. "
Forty years before, when asking certain doctors of Oxford and Cam-
bridge for assistance in procuring the services of a chaplain for their
settlements, the directors had expressed a vague desire “to endeavour
the advance and spreading of the Gospel in India”;a but whatever
might be the views of the day in Leadenhall Street, the governors and
councils at Madras, Calcutta and Bombay were by no means inclined
to missionary enterprise. The records of the India Office contain a
bitter complaint written about 1702, by Benjamin Adams, chaplain
of “the Bay” (of Bengal), emphasising the great discouragement and
disadvantage under which the “missionary clergy” abroad were
living, and the opposition which they met from their own chiefs. 3 The
majority of the scanty staff of chaplains who were sent out were
engaged for periods of three, five, or seven years; they were often
incapacitated by illness; they often refrained from learning Portu-
guese, and in the ordinary course of their duties they had small
occasion to learn thoroughly any Indian language. A more pressing
care was the religious instruction of the “children of mixed parents
among their congregations. In Madras these would largely have been
left to French or Portuguese Roman Catholic priests, had not other
teachers come forward. For political and religious reasons the governor
and council were glad to obtain assistance from the Lutheran mis-
sionaries of Tranquebar, Danish and German, who received generous
financial support from the British Society for Promoting Christian
1 Hyde, Parochial Annals, Appendix A, and Penny, Church in Madras, 1, 125.
· Sainsbury, Court Minutes, 1655-9, p. 227.
• Hyde, op. cit. p. 75.
## p. 122 (#158) ############################################
I 22
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
1
Knowledge. In gratitude for services, both in teaching the children
of the Portuguese, Tamils and Eurasians employed by the Company's
merchants and factors, and in ministering to the Company's soldiers,
British, Swiss, Hanoverians and other Germans, these men received
free passages to India from the directors, and their goods were con-
veyed free of charge. The most notable among them was the German
Pietist, Christian Swartz, who was employed by Sir Thomas
Rumbold on a secret mission of peace to Hydar Ali in 1779, and
afterwards accepted a chaplaincy, continuing all his missionary
activities. 1 A monument erected after his death in the fort church at
Madras at the expense of the Company testifies that for fifty years he
'went about doing good”, and that in him "religion appeared not
with a gloomy aspect or forbidding mien, but with a graceful form
and placid dignity”.
While German and Danish missionaries were thus honoured in the
comparatively small presidency of Madras, the problems of managing
vast territories peopled by multitudes of various religions were pressing
heavily on the rulers of Bengal. By the regulations of 1793 the
governor-general in council promised to "preserve the laws of the
Shaster and the Koran, and to protect the natives of India in the free
exercise of their religion”. All rites and customs were to be tolerated;
all endowments were left untouched; all religious liabilities created
by former rulers were accepted as trusts. As we saw in our last chapter,
when in 1793 the Company's charter came up for renewal, Wilber-
force failed to persuade parliament to impose missionary responsi-
bilities on the court of directors, and William Carey and his coadjutors
made their way to India without licences from that body. Once at
Serampur they could claim protection from the Danish flag. But they
owed their subsequent success very largely to Lord Wellesley's favour,
for he not only appointed Carey teacher of languages in the new
college for young civil servants, but personally subscribed £8002 to
the building of a church at Serampur, subsidising too the translation
of the Christian Scriptures into Indian languages, “to give the learned
natives access to the sacred fountain of divine truth”. He “thought
that a Christian governor could not have done less, and knew that a
British governor ought not to do more". 3
In religion as in other matters Wellesley pursued a policy of his
own; but he left India in 1805 and his successors were inclined to
reverse this policy. The Serampur missionaries, too, had been greatly
encouraged and conducted their operations with less discretion.
Friction with the government began, and was intensified by the news
of the mutiny at Vellore in 1806. There was no apparent connection
between this event and any missionary activities, but the Madras
authorities stated that malicious reports had been current that it
1 See v, 282, supra.
2 Marshman, Carey, Marshman and Ward, p. 170.
3 Hansard, xxv, 697-8.
• Mill and Wilson, History of British India, vii, 101.
1
a
4
## p. 123 (#159) ############################################
MISSIONARY ENTHUSIASM
123
was the wish of the British Government to convert the people of the
country to Christianity by forcible means. From 1807 to 1813 mission
work was an object of nervous apprehension to the government at
Calcutta; and missionaries without licences from the directors were
on various occasions deported from or refused permission to land in
British India. Meantime, however, Methodists and Evangelicals
were vigorously stimulating religious enthusiasm in England. The
“Particular Baptist Society” which supported Carey and his col-
leagues had received subscriptions from Christians of other de-
nominations and a remarkable testimonial from the Quarterly Review;a
Wilberforce and the Clapham sect had procured the stoppage of the
slave-trade. The Church Missionary Society, the Bible Society, the
London Missionary Society and other religious associations, new and
old, were gathering increased support. Charles Grant's influence was
powerful in Leadenhall Street. When Lord Minto's government sent
home an account of its differences with the Serampur missionaries,
it had been told that the directors were not averse to the introduction
of Christianity, but to any imprudent or injudicious attempt to
introduce it by methods which irritated other religious prejudices.
It was enjoined to abstain from all unnecessary and ostentatious
interference with the proceedings of the missionaries.
“On the other land”, wrote the court, “it will be your bounden duty vigilantly
to guard the public tranquillity from interruption, and to impress upon the minds
of all the inhabitants of India, that the British faith, upon which they rely for the
free exercise of their religion, will be inviolably maintained. ”3
When the Company's charter came under revision in 1813 the tide
in England was flowing in favour of the missionaries. It was urged
that the real question was not whether the natives of India should
continue to enjoy complete religious toleration, but whether that
toleration should be extended to the teachers of Christianity. Quite
apart from any doctrinal considerations, the spread of Christianity
had always meant moral progress; and the existence of such customs
as widow-burning and female infanticide showed that moral progress
was urgently required in the interests of humanity. It had been said
that the British empire in India was insecure and might easily be
upset by religious agitation. Indeed it was—a column upon sand
was but a feeble emblem of its insecurity. But even worldly policy
demanded that India should be "trained up in civilisation and
Christianity, like a child by its guardian, till such tutelage was no
longer needed”. At present
if England were dispossessed of its dominion in India nothing would be retained of
all we could have taught but that improved discipline which the people would
i Stock, History of the Church Missionary Society, 1, 99.
2 “Baptist Missions", Quarterly Review, February, 1809, 1, 225.
• Dispatch, 7 September, 1808; Kaye, History of Christianily in India, pp. 513-18;
Quarterly Review, March, 1813, ix, 236. .
## p. 124 (#160) ############################################
124
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
exercise first to our destruction and then to their own. Not a trace of our language
would remain; and for our religion the Hindoo historians would argue that we
had none.
Such were the arguments on one side. With variations they were
pushed so vehemently that petitions loaded the tables of the houses
of parliament from religious bodies of all kinds. 1 On the other hand
it was argued that in the matter of religion the natives of India were
peculiarly sensitive. Evidence on this point, taken by a committee
of the Commons so far back as 1781, had elicited the unanimous
opinion that “any interference with the religion of the natives would
eventually insure the total destruction of the British power". On no
account should missionaries be employed or maintained by the
government. They might go to India as they had gone heretofore or
under new restrictions; they might preach, translate and teach at
their own risk; but no sanction should be given by government to
their proceedings, and no attempt should be made to tie the hands of
government from restraining their activities.
As has been shown in the last chapter, Wilberforce had abated the
demands of 1793, and now gained his main point, for not only were
missionaries allowed to appeal to the Board of Control against refusals
by the directors to allow them to proceed to India, but resolutions
were incorporated in the new charter act which favoured the adoption
of a policy of promoting religious and moral improvement. The
Company's Anglican establishment was placed under the super-
intendence of a bishop and three archdeacons, for whose maintenance
adequate provision was to be made from Indian territorial revenues.
On 8 May, 1814, the first bishop of Calcutta was consecrated in
Lambeth Palace privately in order to avoid offending Indian religious
susceptibilities, which were in fact totally unruffled by this event. 2
Between the years 1813 and 1833 Christianity gained converts;
missionaries of various denominations considerably increased and
maintained friendly relations with the people and with the authorities.
When the charter was again renewed in 1833, arrangements were
made for the establishment of the episcopal sees of Madras and
Bombay. Missionaries were enabled to proceed to India without
licence from any authority, and rendered invaluable assistance to the
government in educational enterprise. Under the scheme of 1854
their schools became eligible for grants-in-aid. While, moreover, the
directors declared that education must be purely secular in state
schools and colleges, they understood that bibles were placed in the
libraries of these institutions, and had no desire to prevent any
explanations which pupils might spontaneously ask from teachers on
this subject provided that such information was given out of school
hours.
1 Mill and Wilson, op. cit. VII, 389-96, 401.
? Kaye, British India, pp. 646-7.
Kaye, Life of Metcalfe, 11, 229. Cf. Mahmud, op. cit. p. 39.
: Article, “Hindu Medicine and Medical Education", Calcutta Review, 1866, XLII,
106–25.
; Article by Duff on “Indigenous education in Bengal and Bihar," Calcutta Review, 1844.
Cf. Adam, op. cit. pp. 10–13.
• Paton, Life of Duff, p. 66.
>
26
## p. 110 (#146) ############################################
110
EDUCATION AND MISSIONS TO 1858
> >
Unlike Carey, Duff was no Orientalist, but he took pains to learn Ben-
gali and arranged that his pupils should study their mother-tongue.
These, then, were the issues which pressed for decision at Calcutta
in the early 'thirties.
(a) Should anything be done for mass-education; or should it be
left to unaided indigenous schools ?
(6) Should all idea of grafting the modern learning of the West on
the ancient learning of the East be abandoned as impracticable?
(c) Should the filtration theory be adopted and all available funds
be devoted to advancing Western knowledge among the upper classes
through the medium of English? No one at Calcutta argued that the
Bengal vernaculars would serve as a medium, although the govern-
ments of Bombay and Madras were disposed to use their own very
different vernaculars for the diffusion of general knowledge. The
Calcutta Government, too, had recently substituted vernaculars for
Persian in the law courts of the Bengal Presidency.
The filtration theory and the virtual supersession of the classical
languages by English were advocated by advanced Hindus in
Calcutta, by the followers of Hare and Ram Mohan Roy, by Duff
and his missionary supporters, and by “the English party” on the
Committee of Public Instruction. It is important to notice that the
strongest influences in bringing this “English party" into existence
were the petition of Ram Mohan Roy and the practical experience of
the committee. In this way a policy was shaped which contemplated
the eventual use of the vernaculars for the diffusion of Western know-
ledge, but the immediate employment of English for this purpose,
and of English alone. It commended itself to the directors who,
from motives of economy as well as for reasons of policy, wished to
see a substantial contingent of Western-educated Indians in the
public services. Their interest in indigenous schools had long since
evaporated; and on 8 February, 1829, they had reminded the
governor-general that the one lakh grant was to be placed at the
disposal not of one alone, but of all three presidencies, and that it was
only to be allotted “in the event of there being a surplus revenue after
defraying all the expenses of government”,3
Ram Mohan Roy had gone to England in 1830, where he was
received with honour and gave evidence on Indian affairs before a
select committee of the House of Commons; but, to the bitter loss of
his country, he died at Bristol in 1833. 4 In the same year parliament,
See Prinsep's Diary, ap. Sharp, op. cit. 1, 133. It appears, however, from circular 220
of the nizamat adalat dated 27 January, 1837, that while the depositions of parties or
witnesses were to be taken down in the languages in which they were delivered, Persian
translations were to be annexed to the records if the latter were called for by the nizamat
court (Circular orders of the Calcutta Nizamal Adawlat, 1846, p. 268).
2 Dispatch, 29 September, 1830.
• Howell, op. cit. p. 20. Cf. Mahmud, op. cit. p. 47.
• See The Last Days of Ram Mohan Roy, especially pp. 9o and 94, also Reports, Com-
mittees, E. I. C. 1831-2 (4), viII, 391.
8
## p. 111 (#147) ############################################
MACAULAY
III
after prolonged enquiry, decided when renewing the charter of the
East India Company to dissociate that body altogether from trade,
to add a “legal member” to the governor-general's council, and to
declare that no native of India would in future be debarred from
office or employment by reason of religion, place of birth, descent or
colour. 1 On 10 December, 1834, the directors informed Bentinck's
government that every effort must be made to enable natives of India
to compete for the public service with fair chance of success, “whether
by conferring on them the advantages of education or by diffusing
on them the treasures of science, knowledge and moral culture”.
In the autumn of 1834 Thomas Babington Macaulay, who had been
appointed to the legal membership of the governor-general's council,
arrived at Calcutta and was appointed president of the Committee of
Public Instruction, which he found hopelessly divided between the
Orientalist and the English parties. The Orientalists had lost a strong
champion in H. H. Wilson, who had left India in January, 1833.
Macaulay declined to take an active part in its proceedings until the
government had passed judgment on the main issue in dispute; but
on 2 February, 1835, he presented a lengthy minute to Bentinck in
support of the English party. In some passages he poured scorn on
Oriental literature, of which he knew nothing. In others, while
asserting that he would strictly respect all existing interests, he pro-
posed not only to stop the printing of Arabic and Sanskrit books, but
to abolish the Muhammadan Madrasa which had been founded by
Warren Hastings and the Calcutta Sanskrit College. No stipends, he
urged, should in future be given to students at the Benares and Delhi
colleges. The funds thus set free would be given to the Vidyalaya at
Calcutta and to the establishment of English schools in the principal
cities of Upper India. With the limited means available it was im-
possible to educate the body of the people, Endeavours should be
made to form a class of persons “Indian in blood and colour, but
English in tastes, in opinion, in morals and in intellect". These would
refine the vernaculars, enrich them with Western terms of science and
render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the
great mass of the population.
Bentinck promptly noted his “entire” concurrence with Macaulay's
views. In the previous month he had placed William Adam, editor
of a popular Calcutta journal and ex-missionary, under the orders
of the Committee of Public Instruction to conduct enquiries into
the state of indigenous education in Bengal. In a minute dated
20 January, 1835, 2 he had observed, when appointing Adam, that a
true estimate of the Indian mind and capacity could not be formed
without the information which Adam was to collect. Adam, however,
had barely begun when Macaulay's minute was laid before Bentinck's
1 C. pp. 3 sqq. , supra.
· Adam, op. cit. pp. 10-13.
## p. 112 (#148) ############################################
II2
EDUCATION AND MISSIONS TO 1858
colleagues with the governor-general's note of concurrence and an
adverse memorandum drawn up by H. T. Prinsep, a civil servant
of twenty-six years' service, Persian secretary to the government
and member of the Committee of Public Instruction. But already
the news had leaked out that the Sanskrit College and the Muham-
madan Madrasa were to be abolished, and petitions against such
proceedings, signed by thousands of Hindus and Muhammadans, had
been presented. After a hot debate in council between Macaulay and
Prinsep, it was decided on 7 March, 1835, that
a
the great object of the British Government ought to be the promotion of European
literature and science among the natives of India, and that all the funds appro-
priated to education would best be employed on English education alone.
But no college or school of Indian learning, which enjoyed any
popularity, would be abolished. Existing professors and students at
such institutions as were under the committee's superintendence were
to go on receiving their stipends. No more students, however, were
to be supported during the period of their education and no money
should be employed on printing Oriental works. All funds thus
released should be employed “in imparting to the native population
a knowledge of English literature and science through the medium of
the English language".
Prinsep's memorandum,2 dated 15 February, 1835, was by
Bentinck's order excluded from the record on the ground that its
author was a secretary and not a member of council. But it survived
and still gives the case for the Orientalists. The weightiest passages
were those in which the author urged the veneration in which Sanskrit
and Arabic were still held by Hindus and Muslims as communities.
Bounties to students were, he contended, really scholarships, and in
the Muhammadan Madrasa had been given for proficiency in English.
"Undoubtedly”, ran the memorandum, “there is a very widely spread anxiety
at this time for the attainment of a certain proficiency in English. The sentiment is
to be encouraged by all means as the source and forerunner of great moral improve-
ment to those who feel its influence; but there is no single member of the Education
Committee who will venture to assert that this disposition has yet shown itself
extensively among the Mussalmans. It is the Hindus of Calcutta, the sirkars
(accountants and commercial managers) and Kulin (Brahman) connections, and
the descendants and relations of the sirkars of former days, those who have risen
through their connexion with the English and with public offices, men who hold
that a knowledge of English is a necessary qualification. These are the classes of
persons to whom the study of English is as yet confined; and certainly we have no
reason yet to believe that the Mussalmans in any part of India can be reconciled
to the cultivation of it, much less give it a preference to the polite literature of their
race or to what they look upon as such. ”
1 Brother of the remarkable James Prinsep, F. R. S. , sometime secretary of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal (see James Prinsep, Essays on Indian antiquities, ed. by Edward Thomas,
John Murray, 1858, 1, iii).
2 Sharp, op. cit. I, 117.
## p. 113 (#149) ############################################
MACAULAY
113
This passage elicited the following marginal note from Macaulay:
“There is no good English scheme for the Mussalmans; and one of
our first duties is to establish one". No such scheme was, however,
established. The Muhammadans were opposed to the whole project,
looking upon the exclusive encouragement of English as a step toward
religious conversion. 1
In a minute dated 20 May, 1835, laid before the council after
Bentinck's departure, Prinsep called the resolution of 7 March "a rash
act". The natives should (he said) be left to choose their own courses
of education, and all should equally be encouraged by the govern-
ment, who should however arrange “to give them the direction to
true science and good taste in literature which the superior lights of
Europe enable us to bestow”. Any deviation from this principle of
free choice and equal encouragement could only do mischief by
exciting feelings of distrust and perhaps irritation.
Macaulay remained president of the Committee of Public Instruc-
tion till 1838. His writings show how seriously he took his voluntary
and unpaid duties, and how earnestly he tried to lead the young
generation to a knowledge of the best English literature, which he
relied on as a strong cultural and religious influence. Unlike Grant,
he took no particular thought for science or agriculture. European
knowledge would soon, he thought, be exhibited in the vernacular
languages. As things were going, in thirty years there would not be
a single idolater among the respectable classes of Bengal. ? His com-
mittee began to establish Anglo-vernacular schools at the head-
quarters of various districts. These were first known as “zillah”
(district) schools and afterwards as "high" schools. The courses of
study therein were mainly literary, an arrangement which accorded
with Macaulay's own taste and with the inclinations of people whose
traditional systems of learning were chiefly literary and religious.
It is regrettable that such important issues as those involved in the
decision of 7 March, 1835, had become "a watchword for violent
discussion and personal feeling”. : Had there been less heat in the
whole contention, Macaulay would have been persuaded that he
really had something to learn from the Orientalists, and that the
whole past and present of the great religious and social systems, which
he did not care to understand, forbade even the remotest possibility
of their collapse within any measurable period of time. That in any
case the new education would leave women untouched, that the
Muhammadans were strongly averse to it, these and other obvious
considerations were dismissed by him as negligible. It was unfor-
tunate too that the results of Adam's enquiries were not available for
Bentinck and his council. Had they been aware of the extent of self-
supporting indigenous education, they might have cut the Gordian
· Mahmud, op. cit. p. 54.
· Trevelyan, Life and Lelters, p. 464.
• Lord Auckland, ap. Sharp, op. cit. 1, 147.
CHIVI
8
## p. 114 (#150) ############################################
114 EDUCATION AND MISSIONS TO 1858
knot in less trenchant a fashion. But their funds were extremely
limited, and in view of the ideas prevalent both in parliament and in
Leadenhall Street, they naturally made a strong effort to push the
kind of education for which there was evidently a clamant local
demand. Macaulay and his minute precipitated a decision which was
hardly avoidable. Yet the views recorded by Bentinck in his minute
of 20 January, 1835, show that, after writing it, he was completely
carried away by Macaulay's vigorous eloquence. 1
Duff was better informed than Macaulay, for he viewed the situa-
tion with some degree of Indian experience. He approved of the
decision of 1835, but considered that the exclusion of religious teaching
from the government schools would leave a void which the mis-
sionaries must labour-to fill: modern knowledge was like the ocean
seen to roll its waters from shore to shore. But if like the ocean it had
its gentle breezes, might it not have its storms and quicksands too? 2
He returned to his work as a Christian educationist and achieved
remarkable success. Believing his own creed to be true, he believed
that it could be reconciled with everything else which is also true.
With the power of a great personality he influenced the lives of many.
In spite of Bentinck's very definite declaration and Macaulay's
prompt action, in Bengal only was the teaching of English con-
tinuously preferred to all other educational objectives. Even there
the pendulum swung back in some small degree. The decision to
spend no more money on Oriental works was modified in 1838 and
a grant of 500 rupees a month was allotted to the Asiatic Society of
Bengal which enabled it to carry on the valuable Bibliotheca Indica
series of Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian texts. The directors hesitated
to make English a medium of teaching; and had not the rage for
learning English spread rapidly in Calcutta, the history of education
in after years might have taken a somewhat different course.
In March, 1836, Lord Auckland became governor-general and was
faced by an attempted renewal of the controversy of 1835. Before his
arrival restrictions on the press had been removed by Metcalfe, and
journalism had thus been greatly stimulated. Now Adam's reports
began to come in and afforded food for much reflection. Accurate
information regarding the indigenous systems was at last provided;
there were no vernacular textbooks; the miserable condition of the
schools was emphasised; the possibility of converting them into some-
thing better was insisted on. They should be left in the hands of the
1 Adam, op. cit. p. 10. We may note that on 28 December, 1855, Max Müller was given
an interview by Macaulay when the Professor, “primed with every possible argument in
favour of Oriental studies, had to sit silent for an hour while the historian poured out his
diametrically opposite views, and then dismissed his visitor who tried in vain to utter a
single word. I went back to Oxford', he said, 'a sadder and a wiser man'”. Life of Max
Müller, edited by his wife, 1, 162, Longmans, Green, 1902.
2 Duff, op. cit. p. 265.
3 See Paton, op. cit.
* Centenary Review of Asiatic Society of Bengal (1784-1883), p. 59.
1
## p. 115 (#151) ############################################
ADAM'S REPORTS
115
people, but assisted in various ways. This should be the supreme
objective. Western knowledge was much needed, but nowhere should
English be a medium of instruction. At present a class of men was
being produced who stood apart from both their fellow-countrymen
and the British, and found inadequate scope for their attainments.
The masses were left in ignorance; so industry languished; crime
flourished; the support of the people for salutary measures could not
be counted on. The press was now free; the civil and political rights
of the people had been enlarged; but the government should, by a
general system of instruction, timely established, teach the people
“the proper use of the mighty instrument which had been placed in
their hands and of the various franchises that had been and might be
from time to time bestowed”. ? Auckland was impressed by Adam's
arguments but saw that to accept them would mean delay and open
up vistas of heavy expenditure; the filtration theory must now be
fully tested. Money too was scarce. Only £24,000 was annually
available for the whole Bengal Presidency. So the governor-general
wrote a minute of prodigious length, adhering to the filtration theory
but emphasising the importance of providing a larger number of good
vernacular class-books. Orientalist colleges must be kept in funds;
but nothing could be done at present for the indigenous schools. In
a dispatch of 20 January, 1841, the directors agreed with him; but
abandoning to some extent the views of Macaulay and Bentinck, they
stated that the diffusion of European knowledge need not necessarily
be through English. Vernacular translations of English books would
serve for the purpose.
In 1842 the Committee of Public Instruction was superseded by
a Council of Education composed partly of Indian gentlemen. This
body's activities were mainly limited to Calcutta. Outside the capital
the government was responsible; and in April, 1843, the control and
management of educational institutions in the Upper Bengal or the
North-Western Provinces were made over to the lieutenant-governor,
Sir G. Clerk, who in August attacked the accepted policy, laying
stress on the difference between the habits and customs of the in-
fluential classes in the upper and the lower provinces. In the former
the native gentry neither countenanced nor supported the govern-
ment schools. In 1844 Lord Hardinge's government announced that
candidates qualified by a knowledge of English would be preferred
for the public service. 3 Examinations were instituted by the Council
of Education and students who qualified therein were enrolled as fit
for (although not necessarily entitled to) employment. The distinction
1 Adam, op. cit. pp. 341-2.
Sharp, op. cit. I, 160.
3 In 1830 the government of the Bengal Presidency had notified that in the nomination
of government vakils (agents) in the native courts and of agents with the Commissioners”,
familiarity with English would constitute a recommendation to preference unless on special
grounds this rule was disregarded. It is, however, doubtful if it was ever acted nr. History
of the Benares Sanskrit College, p. 73.
2
8-2
## p. 116 (#152) ############################################
116
EDUCATION AND MISSIONS TO 1858
was not appreciated, and those who were unsuccessful in obtaining
such posts as they desired resented the disappointment. Western
education, however, had been clearly declared a passport to govern-
inent service, the most coveted of all professions.
Anglo-vernacular schools were established in outlying districts of
Bengal, and in 1844 some vernacular village schools were started
which ended in failure. The indigenous vernacular schools were left
out in the cold; they neither improved in quality nor declined in
number. From considered reluctance to infringe in any way on social
custom and on long-standing ideas regarding the seclusion or sub-
jection of women, the government stood aside from the efforts of the
missionaries, of David Hare, and of a few private societies and in-
dividuals, to promote female education. The missionaries started day-
schools for girls, boarding establishments for orphans and domestic
instruction in the families of the middle and higher classes. The results
were small; but the main credit of a great initiative rests with them. 1
From Leitner's Report it appears that there was far more indigenous
female education in the Panjab than there was in the older provinces.
A school for girls was in 1849 established and maintained in Calcutta
by J. E. D. Bethune, member of the governor-general's council and
president of the Council of Education, who spent his money freely on
the undertaking. 2 Dalhousie considered that this generous example
was likely to be followed by Indian gentlemen and that schools for
girls could be promoted by district officers. The directors, however,
threw cold water on this idea as they were unwilling to alarm con-
servative Indian opinion. After Bethune's untimely death, the ex-
penses of his school were borne first by Dalhousie and afterwards by
a fund raised by public subscription to carry on Bethune's work.
While Western education was acquiring increasing momentum
among the Hindus of Bengal, it progressed very slowly in inland
provinces where government servants were practically the only
European residents. James Thomason, lieutenant-governor of the
North-Western Provinces from 1843 to 1853, was anxious to promote
rural education: “enlisting the persons whom the people may them-
selves select as teachers, and support for that purpose". Enquiries
had disclosed the fact that in these provinces only 64,335 (50,026
Hindus and 14,309 Muhammadans) out of a population of 21,630, 167
were in receipt of any education. Eventually a halqabandi (circle)
school system was devised whereby villages were grouped in circles
of five, the land-holders of each group undertaking to pay for a school
by a voluntary cess of i per cent. on the land-revenue. This system
was in 1852-3 introduced into eight districts and was afterwards
1 Richey, Selections from the Educational Records, p. 34; Adam, op. cit. pp. 335–7.
• Calcutta Review, xxi, 513.
• Richey, op. cit. p. 61; also a memorandum by R. Burn, Census Superintendent North-
Western Provinces and Oudh (unpublished).
## p. 117 (#153) ############################################
LACK OF A UNIFORM POLICY
117
6
extended as other districts came under land-revenue settlement. The
scheme, as sanctioned by the directors, involved the levy of a cess of
i per cent. on the rent, which was deducted before the revenue was
calculated, so that payment was shared by the government and the
land-holder. In Bombay the government ignored the filtration theory,
and endeavoured primarily to promote education through the ver-
nacular, admitting to education in English those who sought it and
“had the capacity to acquire European learning”. Throughout the
southern presidency missionary enterprise was busy. English, Scotch,
Americans and Irish Presbyterians vied with each other in honourable
rivalry. 2 In 1839 Lord Elphinstone, governor of Madras, advocated
the establishment of a university open to students who possessed some
knowledge of English. The institution came into existence as a school
which in 1852 bore the title of the “Madras University High School”.
It was then the only state or state-controlled school or college in the
presidency. But the gap left by the government had been filled by
missionaries of various denominations, Jesuit fathers, Wesleyans and
the English, Scottish and American Churches. The number of mis-
sionary schools in Madras exceeded those in all other presidencies put
together. 3
Kaye tells us that the state educational expenditure in 1853
amounted to about £70,000. For many years, as Dalhousie observed,
the public finances had been “in a condition which clogged the action
of the government”. 4 In Bengal the government was maintaining
thirty colleges and schools in which English was taught, but only
thirty-three vernacular schools against Bombay's 233. Among the
most successful government institutions were the Medical College
started by Bentinck in Calcutta, and the Thomason Engineering
College at Rurki in the North-Western Provinces. Throughout India
the Hindu aristocracy held aloof from the new learning. Their literary
tastes were satisfied by the poetry of their race; and they had no
inclination to send their sons to schools where social contact with boys
of a lower order would mean contamination. The Muhammadans, as
a body, also stood outside. They had never felt disposed to do anything
else. Proud of an imperial past, attached to their own classics, they
held that religious and secular instruction should go together. Their
young men were freely employed in administrative posts, but despised
clerical and office work.
As the time approached for another revision of the Company's
charter, it became more and more apparent that uniformity and
constancy of aim were lacking in the educational policies of the various
provincial governments. The situation was reviewed by Dalhousie,
· Richey, p. 18.
* Report of the Education Commission of 1882, pp. 12–13.
* Madras Administrative Report, 1855-6; Richey, op. cit. p. 183. See also Satthianadhan,
History of Education in Madras, pp. 38-9, and Report of the Education Commission of 1882, p. 10.
• Richey, op. cil. p. 113.
Report of ihe Education Commission of 1882, p. 483.
## p. 118 (#154) ############################################
118 EDUCATION AND MISSIONS TO 1858
66
who forwarded proposals to the directors. A parliamentary com-
mittee was appointed and examined a number of witnesses, including
such veterans as Trevelyan and Duff. Sir Charles Wood, president of
the Board of Control, after much deliberation, forwarded a scheme to
India through the court of directors (dispatch 49 of 19 July, 1854)
which imposed upon the government the task of creating a properly
“
articulated scheme of education, from the primary school to the
university". As state schools and colleges were intended to benefit
the general population, the instruction which they gave must ob-
viously be "exclusively sccular”; but
every honest educational agency, whether religious or not, should be encouraged
to the utmost, under the inspection and direction of a government department, and
with the encouragement and assistance of the local officers of government, upon
the value of which emphasis was laid. 1
The filtration theory was unsatisfying. The indigenous schools were
no longer to be left to themselves, but “made capable of imparting
correct elementary knowledge to the great mass of people”. The
methods adopted in the North-Western Provinces for promoting rural
education were commended for general imitation. A regular system
of scholarships must be instituted to connect lower schools with higher,
and higher schools with colleges. Voluntary effort must be supported
by grants-in-aid from the state awarded with entire impartiality.
Female education must be frankly and cordially supported. It might
be anticipated that eventually state education would become educa-
tion supported where necessary by state grants-in-aid.
Universities would be established at Calcutta? and Bombay and
would be allowed at Madras or elsewhere provided a sufficient number
of colleges were forthcoming. They would be examining bodies on
the model of the London University, depending, so far as teaching
was concerned, upon the various colleges, whether maintained by
government or voluntary effort. But professorships should be insti-
tuted for instruction in such subjects as law and civil engineering. It
would greatly encourage the cultivation of the vernaculars if chairs
were also founded for promoting the study of these languages and
perhaps also of Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian. The acquisition of
degrees would bring highly educated young men to the notice of the
government and facilitate selections for the public services.
The particular attention of the government should be given to the
diffusion through the schools of useful and practical knowledge
among the people generally. So far state energies had been too ex-
clusively directed toward "providing a very high degree of education"
for classes who were often able and willing to bear at least a con-
siderable portion of the cost themselves. More could be done to
i Calcutta University Commission Report, 1, 40.
: A scheme for a university at Calcutta had been proposed in 1845 by the Council of
Education, but had remained in abeyance.
## p. 119 (#155) ############################################
WOOD'S SCHEME AND THE MUTINY
119
prepare good vernacular class-books containing European informa-
tion. Teaching of English, where there was a demand for it, should be
combined with careful attention to the vernaculars, but English alone
possessed a sufficiently supple and extended vocabulary for conveying
the elements of Western sciences. This exhaustive dispatch concluded
with the observation that no sudden or speedy results could be
expected from the adoption of the wide measures prescribed. The
outcome depended far more on the people themselves than on the
government.
No time was lost in acting on these orders, which, in Dalhousie's
1
words, "set forth a scheme of education for all India far wider and
more comprehensive than the supreme or any local government could
have ventured to suggest". Departments of public instruction were
organised; and in 1857 examining universities were established at
Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. But work had hardly begun when
the Mutiny intervened; and it is natural to enquire whether British
educational policy had contributed to produce that great struggle
Kaye replies in the affirmative, pointing out inter alia that the policy
of the dispatch of 1854, relying partly on missionary aid, and aiming
at penetrating even to the zenanas, was in fact a challenge to Brah-
manism, and that the tendency of educational measures from 1835
onwards had been to curtail Muhammadan emoluments and Muham-
madan dignity. Outram considered that the crusading, improving,
spirit of the past twenty-five years was bound to cause a resounding
clash. 3 It certainly gave the instigators of rebellion one of the prin-
cipal texts from which they preached. But features in various outbreaks
revealed unmistakably the full extent of the dangers which spring from
unbounded and credulous ignorance. Lord Canning had received
a disagrecable shock from the attitude of the Bengali press at the very
crisis of the empire's fate;' but he never faltered in pursuing the
educational policy laid down in 1854.
Among many subjects of importance none can have a stronger claim on our
attention than that of education. It is one of our most sacred duties to be the means,
as far as in us lics, of conferring upon natives of India those vast moral and material
blessings which flow from the diffusion of useful knowledge, and which India may,
under Providence, derive from her connection with England.
So ran the preamble of the dispatch of 1854. The pioneers of this
policy were Grant and Carey. Wilberforce lent his powerful aid; the
unremembered Robert Smith suggested the clause which proved the
starting-point for a great undertaking; Hare by his devoted labours
earned the lasting gratitude of Bengali Hindus;5 Ram Mohan Roy
i See Calcutta Review, 1860, XXXV, 401–26.
· History of the Indian Mutiny, I, 131-43.
• Lee-Warner, Dalhousie, 11, 355,
• Donogh, Law of Sedition in India, p. 182; Kaye and Malleson, History of the Mutiny,
III, 13.
Banerjee, A Nation in the Making, pp. 1-2.
## p. 120 (#156) ############################################
1 20 EDUCATION AND MISSIONS TO 1858
prepared the way for Bentinck and Macaulay. A Hindu movement
in Calcutta, due largely to the persevering efforts of the missionaries,
combined with the general trend of political thought in England, with
the eloquent pen of Macaulay and with the inclinations of the governor-
general to produce the decision of 1835 which was in the circumstances
natural but broke violently with the past, took no account of the
indigenous vernacular schools or of the importance of preserving as
far as possible their self-supporting character, and encouraged ten-
dencies which, as years went on, passed beyond control. The new
policy was carried into effect in Bengal by a brilliant Whig politician
who possessed no knowledge of the history of Indian thought and no
understanding of the Indian mind. The years which followed 1835
were years of varying opinion, uneven direction, and scanty expendi-
ture. Then a great governor-general found time to consider education
and corresponded with a president of the Board of Control, who, con-
vinced of the supreme importance of the subject, gave it elaborate
attention, and pricked out a chart for future guidance. His chief
desire was that England should do her duty by those many millions
for whose welfare she had undertaken responsibility, that they should
be less and less cramped and plagued by the evils which spring from
ignorance and tyrannical superstitions, that while the ancient learning
of India should still be held in honour, her peoples should no longer
be penned behind those barriers of stationary thought which for long
centuries had been so powerfully restrictive. But he saw clearly that
whatever the government might attempt, the eventual issues lay with
the people themselves.
## p. 121 (#157) ############################################
CHAPTER VII
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
By the charter of 1698 parliament provided for the maintenance of
ministers and schoolmasters in all the Company's garrisons and
superior factories. The ministers must learn Portuguese within one
year of their arrival in India and must apply themselves to acquire
knowledge of the native languages in order to be able “to instruct
the gentoos that shall be servants or slaves of the Company or of their
agents in the Protestant religion”. In 1700 the directors communi-
cated to their “commanders of ships and agents of factories” a form
of prayer, sanctioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop
of London, which contained the supplication
that we adorning the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour in all things, these Indian
nations among whom we dwell, beholding our
good works may be won over to love
our most holy religion, and glorify thee, our Father which art in Heaven. "
Forty years before, when asking certain doctors of Oxford and Cam-
bridge for assistance in procuring the services of a chaplain for their
settlements, the directors had expressed a vague desire “to endeavour
the advance and spreading of the Gospel in India”;a but whatever
might be the views of the day in Leadenhall Street, the governors and
councils at Madras, Calcutta and Bombay were by no means inclined
to missionary enterprise. The records of the India Office contain a
bitter complaint written about 1702, by Benjamin Adams, chaplain
of “the Bay” (of Bengal), emphasising the great discouragement and
disadvantage under which the “missionary clergy” abroad were
living, and the opposition which they met from their own chiefs. 3 The
majority of the scanty staff of chaplains who were sent out were
engaged for periods of three, five, or seven years; they were often
incapacitated by illness; they often refrained from learning Portu-
guese, and in the ordinary course of their duties they had small
occasion to learn thoroughly any Indian language. A more pressing
care was the religious instruction of the “children of mixed parents
among their congregations. In Madras these would largely have been
left to French or Portuguese Roman Catholic priests, had not other
teachers come forward. For political and religious reasons the governor
and council were glad to obtain assistance from the Lutheran mis-
sionaries of Tranquebar, Danish and German, who received generous
financial support from the British Society for Promoting Christian
1 Hyde, Parochial Annals, Appendix A, and Penny, Church in Madras, 1, 125.
· Sainsbury, Court Minutes, 1655-9, p. 227.
• Hyde, op. cit. p. 75.
## p. 122 (#158) ############################################
I 22
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
1
Knowledge. In gratitude for services, both in teaching the children
of the Portuguese, Tamils and Eurasians employed by the Company's
merchants and factors, and in ministering to the Company's soldiers,
British, Swiss, Hanoverians and other Germans, these men received
free passages to India from the directors, and their goods were con-
veyed free of charge. The most notable among them was the German
Pietist, Christian Swartz, who was employed by Sir Thomas
Rumbold on a secret mission of peace to Hydar Ali in 1779, and
afterwards accepted a chaplaincy, continuing all his missionary
activities. 1 A monument erected after his death in the fort church at
Madras at the expense of the Company testifies that for fifty years he
'went about doing good”, and that in him "religion appeared not
with a gloomy aspect or forbidding mien, but with a graceful form
and placid dignity”.
While German and Danish missionaries were thus honoured in the
comparatively small presidency of Madras, the problems of managing
vast territories peopled by multitudes of various religions were pressing
heavily on the rulers of Bengal. By the regulations of 1793 the
governor-general in council promised to "preserve the laws of the
Shaster and the Koran, and to protect the natives of India in the free
exercise of their religion”. All rites and customs were to be tolerated;
all endowments were left untouched; all religious liabilities created
by former rulers were accepted as trusts. As we saw in our last chapter,
when in 1793 the Company's charter came up for renewal, Wilber-
force failed to persuade parliament to impose missionary responsi-
bilities on the court of directors, and William Carey and his coadjutors
made their way to India without licences from that body. Once at
Serampur they could claim protection from the Danish flag. But they
owed their subsequent success very largely to Lord Wellesley's favour,
for he not only appointed Carey teacher of languages in the new
college for young civil servants, but personally subscribed £8002 to
the building of a church at Serampur, subsidising too the translation
of the Christian Scriptures into Indian languages, “to give the learned
natives access to the sacred fountain of divine truth”. He “thought
that a Christian governor could not have done less, and knew that a
British governor ought not to do more". 3
In religion as in other matters Wellesley pursued a policy of his
own; but he left India in 1805 and his successors were inclined to
reverse this policy. The Serampur missionaries, too, had been greatly
encouraged and conducted their operations with less discretion.
Friction with the government began, and was intensified by the news
of the mutiny at Vellore in 1806. There was no apparent connection
between this event and any missionary activities, but the Madras
authorities stated that malicious reports had been current that it
1 See v, 282, supra.
2 Marshman, Carey, Marshman and Ward, p. 170.
3 Hansard, xxv, 697-8.
• Mill and Wilson, History of British India, vii, 101.
1
a
4
## p. 123 (#159) ############################################
MISSIONARY ENTHUSIASM
123
was the wish of the British Government to convert the people of the
country to Christianity by forcible means. From 1807 to 1813 mission
work was an object of nervous apprehension to the government at
Calcutta; and missionaries without licences from the directors were
on various occasions deported from or refused permission to land in
British India. Meantime, however, Methodists and Evangelicals
were vigorously stimulating religious enthusiasm in England. The
“Particular Baptist Society” which supported Carey and his col-
leagues had received subscriptions from Christians of other de-
nominations and a remarkable testimonial from the Quarterly Review;a
Wilberforce and the Clapham sect had procured the stoppage of the
slave-trade. The Church Missionary Society, the Bible Society, the
London Missionary Society and other religious associations, new and
old, were gathering increased support. Charles Grant's influence was
powerful in Leadenhall Street. When Lord Minto's government sent
home an account of its differences with the Serampur missionaries,
it had been told that the directors were not averse to the introduction
of Christianity, but to any imprudent or injudicious attempt to
introduce it by methods which irritated other religious prejudices.
It was enjoined to abstain from all unnecessary and ostentatious
interference with the proceedings of the missionaries.
“On the other land”, wrote the court, “it will be your bounden duty vigilantly
to guard the public tranquillity from interruption, and to impress upon the minds
of all the inhabitants of India, that the British faith, upon which they rely for the
free exercise of their religion, will be inviolably maintained. ”3
When the Company's charter came under revision in 1813 the tide
in England was flowing in favour of the missionaries. It was urged
that the real question was not whether the natives of India should
continue to enjoy complete religious toleration, but whether that
toleration should be extended to the teachers of Christianity. Quite
apart from any doctrinal considerations, the spread of Christianity
had always meant moral progress; and the existence of such customs
as widow-burning and female infanticide showed that moral progress
was urgently required in the interests of humanity. It had been said
that the British empire in India was insecure and might easily be
upset by religious agitation. Indeed it was—a column upon sand
was but a feeble emblem of its insecurity. But even worldly policy
demanded that India should be "trained up in civilisation and
Christianity, like a child by its guardian, till such tutelage was no
longer needed”. At present
if England were dispossessed of its dominion in India nothing would be retained of
all we could have taught but that improved discipline which the people would
i Stock, History of the Church Missionary Society, 1, 99.
2 “Baptist Missions", Quarterly Review, February, 1809, 1, 225.
• Dispatch, 7 September, 1808; Kaye, History of Christianily in India, pp. 513-18;
Quarterly Review, March, 1813, ix, 236. .
## p. 124 (#160) ############################################
124
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
exercise first to our destruction and then to their own. Not a trace of our language
would remain; and for our religion the Hindoo historians would argue that we
had none.
Such were the arguments on one side. With variations they were
pushed so vehemently that petitions loaded the tables of the houses
of parliament from religious bodies of all kinds. 1 On the other hand
it was argued that in the matter of religion the natives of India were
peculiarly sensitive. Evidence on this point, taken by a committee
of the Commons so far back as 1781, had elicited the unanimous
opinion that “any interference with the religion of the natives would
eventually insure the total destruction of the British power". On no
account should missionaries be employed or maintained by the
government. They might go to India as they had gone heretofore or
under new restrictions; they might preach, translate and teach at
their own risk; but no sanction should be given by government to
their proceedings, and no attempt should be made to tie the hands of
government from restraining their activities.
As has been shown in the last chapter, Wilberforce had abated the
demands of 1793, and now gained his main point, for not only were
missionaries allowed to appeal to the Board of Control against refusals
by the directors to allow them to proceed to India, but resolutions
were incorporated in the new charter act which favoured the adoption
of a policy of promoting religious and moral improvement. The
Company's Anglican establishment was placed under the super-
intendence of a bishop and three archdeacons, for whose maintenance
adequate provision was to be made from Indian territorial revenues.
On 8 May, 1814, the first bishop of Calcutta was consecrated in
Lambeth Palace privately in order to avoid offending Indian religious
susceptibilities, which were in fact totally unruffled by this event. 2
Between the years 1813 and 1833 Christianity gained converts;
missionaries of various denominations considerably increased and
maintained friendly relations with the people and with the authorities.
When the charter was again renewed in 1833, arrangements were
made for the establishment of the episcopal sees of Madras and
Bombay. Missionaries were enabled to proceed to India without
licence from any authority, and rendered invaluable assistance to the
government in educational enterprise. Under the scheme of 1854
their schools became eligible for grants-in-aid. While, moreover, the
directors declared that education must be purely secular in state
schools and colleges, they understood that bibles were placed in the
libraries of these institutions, and had no desire to prevent any
explanations which pupils might spontaneously ask from teachers on
this subject provided that such information was given out of school
hours.
1 Mill and Wilson, op. cit. VII, 389-96, 401.
? Kaye, British India, pp. 646-7.
