the part assigned to him in popular estimation is to a large extent justified. He did decisively determine the inclination of State influence to the side of English education.

Macaulay landed at Madras in June, 1834. Early in October he was in Calcutta. He was appointed President of the Committee of Public Instruction in December, but did not at once take up the duties of the office. Matters on the Committee had at this time come to a strange pass. There had long been differences of opinion on the question of the aim that should guide its operations and a division into two parties: a conservative party upholding the policy of encouraging Oriental literature and a forward party believing it to be possible to introduce a more useful kind of education through the medium of English. This difference of opinion was in practice a contention over the expenditure of the lakh of rupees, which since 1823 had been set aside for educational purposes. The conservative Orientalists were for continuing to devote this sum entirely to the printing of Sanskrit and Arabic books and the payment of stipends. The innovating Occidentalists were for diverting at least a part of it to English education. At the date of Macaulay's arrival the work of the Committee had long been at a standstill. The Committee numbered ten; the two parties on it were nicely balanced, five against five; practically nothing at all could be done. Macaulay refused to take any active part in the business till the dispute was authoritatively settled. In January, 1835, the rival pleas of the two parties were submitted to the Governor-General's Council for decision, and Macaulay as a member of that Council recorded his opinion in the Minute which has become famous. The precise question which came before Council was whether there was in the terms of the Act of 1813 any legal bar to the use of the

educational grant for any other purpose than the revival of Sanskrit and Arabic learning. Macaulay had no

difficulty in showing that no such limitation existed by quotation of the text of the Act, which, along with "the revival and promotion of literature and the encouragement of learned natives," enjoins "the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences." It was clear that the use of part of the funds for new experiments in education was not contrary to the Act but actually prescribed by it, and that no new legislative act was necessary (as had been contended) before funds could be diverted to English. But Macaulay went far beyond this, and wrote a most trenchant statement of the case for a modern course of study as against the antiquated classical learning hitherto maintained by the Committee. That statement is characterized by all Macaulay's absoluteness of diction and some of his particular assertions are indefensible. The point of real importance is, whether he was right in his main contention that the study of English was more useful as the means of intellectual improvement for the classes of India to whom higher education was open than Arabic and Sanskrit. The thesis he proposes for discussion is, "We have a fund to be employed as Government shall direct for the intellectual improvement of the people of this country. The simple question is, what is the most useful way of employing it?" He first puts aside the vernaculars on the ground of general agreement that "the dialects commonly spoken among the natives of this part of India contain neither literary nor scientific information, and are, moreover, so poor and rude that, until they are enriched from some other quarter, it will not be easy to translate any valuable work into them." "It seems,"

he says, "to be admitted on all sides, that the intellectual improvement of those classes of the people who

have the means of pursuing higher studies can at present be effected only by means of some language not vernacular amongst them." He goes on, What then shall that language be? One half of the Committee maintain that it should be English. The other half strongly recommend the Arabic and Sanskrit. The whole question seems to me to be, which language is the best worth knowing."

Macaulay has no difficulty in showing (1) that English is the key to more useful knowledge than Sanskrit or Arabic; (2) that there was already an effective demand for English, whereas the study of Sanskrit and Arabic could only be kept up artificially by the award of stipends; (3) that many natives of India in Calcutta had already a remarkable command of English, so that there could be no doubt of their being able to master English sufficiently for the purpose in view. In his own words, "To sum up what I have said, I think it clear that we are not fettered by the Act of Parliament of 1813; that we are not fettered by any pledge expressed or implied; that we are free to employ our funds as we choose; that we ought to employ them in teaching what is best worth knowing; that English is better worth knowing than Sanskrit or Arabic; that the natives are desirous to be taught English, and are not desirous to be taught Sanskrit or Arabic; that neither as the language of law, nor as the language of religion, has the Sanskrit or Arabic any peculiar claim to our engagement, that it is possible to make natives of this country good English scholars, and that to this end our efforts ought to be directed."

Macaulay's energetic rhetoric was decisive. His Minute is dated the 2nd of February. On March the 7th came the Resolution of the Governor-General: "His

Lordship in Council is of opinion that 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 appropriated for the purposes of education would be best employed on English education alone."

It was almost Lord William Bentinck's last public act, as he left India on March the 20th, within a fortnight of the date of the Resolution. It is also fair to note that the actual decision, whatever its wisdom, was his rather than Macaulay's, and that Lord William Bentinck's sympathies had been with English education before Macaulay's arrival. Undoubtedly this was a turningpoint of the very greatest importance; for from that time forward to the present the promotion of liberal education by means of English has been the acknowledged, though by no means the exclusive, aim of the Government educational policy. The battle was fought and decided in Bengal; but its effect was universal in range. Thus Mr. Satthianadhan, in appending the text of Macaulay's Minute to his "History of Education in the Madras Presidency," notes: "This Minute and the following Resolution have been entered here, as having set at rest the question-at the time they were written an important one as to what should be the character of the instruction imparted in the Government schools and colleges, whether Oriental or European. It is a question which was never raised in Madras, but the decision of which was equally important to this Presidency as to Bengal, for if the advocates of Oriental instruction had carried their point, the Oriental system would probably have been adopted all over India."

V

THE ADOPTION OF ENGLISH-WAS IT A

MISTAKE?

THE formal adoption of English education as the prime object of Government encouragement was a decision pregnant with important consequences, some of them foreseen and desired; others, though they might have been foreseen, and were by some few predicted, would certainly not have been desired. We now know a great deal more of this English education, its possibilities and tendencies; for we have seen its expansion and its results in the seventy-five years which have passed since Macaulay wrote his Minute with such vigour and confidence. It has now to be asked not so much, do we approve the results, as must we still endorse the decision then made: if we were back at that fateful turning-point, would we decide in the same way again?

Some admissions unfavourable to Macaulay must first be made. There was much which Macaulay did not see. He did not see the full necessity of giving attention to vernacular education, though he did not altogether ignore it. He did not see that there might in India be other reasons for the study of Arabic and Sanskrit after the traditional method than the strictly utilitarian. He did not see the necessity of making provision for more than the intellectual side of education. He did not take account of the disintegrating effect of the new truth which