examinations has been appreciably lightened; a commencement has been made in the reform of university and college organisation; and the grants from public funds to private institutions have almost doubled in the past nine years. These facts speak for themselves. Nor must the great benefits, which education has conferred on India, be ignored or minimised. Criticism based on imperfect analogies is often unjust. It is not just, for instance, to compare Indian systems still for the most part in their infancy with the matured systems of the modern western world, or to disregard the influences of social organization and mentality. Again the common charge that the higher education of India has been built up on a slender foundation of popular education and that its teaching agency is inefficient, is one that might have been levelled against every country in Europe at some period of its history. India is now passing through stages taken by other countries in their time. 4. In the forefront of their policy the Government

of India desire to place the forma

tion of the character of the scholars and under-graduates under tuition. In the formation of character the influence of home and the personality of the teacher play the larger part. There is reason to hope in the light of acquired experience that increased educational facilities under better educational conditions will accelerate social form, spread female education and secure better teachers. Already much attention is being given to religious and moral education in the widest sense of the term, comprising, that is, direct religious and

Formation of character the main objective,

re

moral instruction, and indirect agencies such as monitorial or similar systems, tone, social life, traditions, discipline, the betterment of environment, hygiene, and that most important side of education, physical culture and organised recreation.

5. The question of religious and moral instruction Direct religious and

was discussed at a local confermoral Instruction.

ence held in Bombay and subsequently at the imperial conference held in Allahabad in February 1911. Grave differences of opinion emerged as to the possibility or advantage of introducing direct religious instruction into schools generally, and apprehensions of difficulty in the working of any definite system were put forward. Doubts were also expressed as to the efficacy of direct moral instruction when divorced from religious sanctions. In the matter of moral teaching, however, the difficulties are undoubtedly less than in the case of religious teaching. The papers laid before the conference indicate that not a little moral instruction is already given in the ordinary text-books and in other ways. The Government of Bombay are engaged upon the preparation of a book containing moral illustrations, which will be placed in the hands of teachers in order to assist them in imparting moral instruction. Excellent materials for ethical teaching are available in the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, portions of Hafiz, Sadi, Maulana Rumi and other classics in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and Pali. The Government of India while bound to maintain a position of complete neutrality in matters of religion observe that the most thoughtful minds in India lament the tendency of existing systems of edu

Indirect agencies, e.g.,

cation to develop the intellectual at the expense of the moral and religious faculties. In September 1911 they invited Local Governments other than the Bombay Government to assemble local committees in order to consider the whole question. Such committees are still at work in some provinces. For the present the Government of India must be content to watch experiments and keep the matter prominently in view. Enlightened opinion and accumulated experience will, it is hoped, provide a practical solution to what is unquestionably the most important educational problem of the time. 6. There has been real progress of late years in the

provision of hostels. In the last hostels, school buildings, decade the numbers both of hostraditions, etc.

tels and of resident male students have nearly doubled, and now stand at over 2,200 and over 78,000 respectively. The Government of India desire to see the hostel system develop until there is adequate residential accommodation attached to every college and secondary school in India. But a hostei of itself will not achieve the desired end unless effective means are adopted for guiding students and assisting them in their work and in their recreation. Already in some first-class institutions in the country admirable arrangements have been made on European lines to secure the full benefits of the residential system. Again it is reassuring that traditions are growing up, that meetings of old boys are held, that debating and literary societies are becoming more common. All these require help which will in many cases best be organised in connection with the hostel system. Much

has also been done of late to improve school buildings; but a large number of thoroughly unsuitable, not to say mean, squalid and insanitary buildings still exist in India. These will be replaced, as funds permit, by modern buildings designed upon sanitary lines and with a view to avoid overcrowding and to facilitate the maintenance of discipline. The Government of India hope that the time is not far distant when educational buildings will be distinguished as the most modern and commodious buildings in the locality, and scholars in India will have the advantages in this respect of scholars in the west. The influence for good of clean, well-arranged buildings with the concomitant domestic discipline can scarcely be exaggerated. 7. The claims of hygiene are paramount not only

in the interests of the children

themselves, though these are allimportant, but also as an object-lesson to the rising generation. Hitherto want of funds and the apathy of the people have been responsible for the comparatively small attention paid to hygiene. In some provinces a simple course of instruction in hygiene is prescribed, at some period of the school course, but the lessons are often of too formal a type, are not connected with the life of the pupil, and fail to form his habits or to enlist his intelligence in after-life in the struggle against disease. In some areas there is a general inspection of school premises by a medical authority; but it is believed that little is done for the individual inspection of school children and that medical advice has not always been enlisted in regard to the length of the school day, the framing of curricula, and

Hygiene.

such matters. The Government of India commend to Local Governments a thorough enquiry, by a small committee of experts, medical and educational, into school and college hygiene. The scope of the enquiry will no doubt vary in different parts of India, but the following seem to be important matters for investigation:(i) The condition of school houses, hostels and

other places where pupils reside, from the

point of view of sanitation. (ii) The professional examination of building

plans from the hygienic point of view. (iii) The introduction of a simple and more prac

tical course of hygiene; whether it should be a compulsory subject in the various schemes of school-leaving certificates, and whether it should be recommended to universities as part of their matriculation ex

amination. (iv) The inspection, where possible, of male

scholars, with special reference to infec

tious diseases, eyesight and malaria. (v) The length of the school-day, home studies,

and the effect upon health of the present system of working for formal examina

tions. (vi) The requirements in the way of recreation

grounds, gardens, gymnasia, reading rooms,

common-rooms, etc. (vii) The inspecting and administrating agency

required, the possibility of co-operation