VI

PROGRESS 1835 TO 1854

At

A MARKED invigoration of educational activity in Bengal followed Macaulay's accession to the Committee of Public Instruction. It is possible that English education owes more to his organizing industry than to his Minute. the beginning of 1835 there were fourteen institutions under the control of the Committee. Seven new institutions were started during 1835 and six more were in process of establishment. By the end of 1837 there were forty-eight institutions with 5196 pupils, of whom 3729 were in Anglo-Vernacular schools or colleges. The average monthly expenditure was Rs.25,439. These figures are by present standards moderate enough, but they show a great advance on 1835: they show also how largely educational effort in Bengal was at this time expended on English education. Progress continued steadily from year to year on these lines. An extensive system of scholarships was introduced in 1839 and added a new motive to exertion. In 1852 the number of scholarships in Bengal (Oriental and English together) was 291, and the expenditure on this account was nearly Rs.50,000. In 1844 another step had been taken which gave ultimately a far stronger impetus to English education. On the 10th of October in that year appeared Lord Hardinge's resolution definitely enjoining the selection for Government services of candidates who had received an English education. It was directed against lingering prejudices, though it must not be supposed that young men who

had learnt English in the new colleges were altogether shut out from service under Government. On the contrary, success in obtaining employment had been from the first one of the incentives to English education; but Lord Hardinge's Educational resolution lays down definitely selection on educational grounds as a principle. The exact words of the resolution are of interest: "The Governor-General, having taken into consideration the existing state of education in Bengal, and being of opinion that it is highly desirable to afford it every reasonable encouragement by holding out to those who have taken advantage of the opportunities afforded them a fair prospect of employment in the Public Service and thereby not only to reward individual merit, but to enable the State to profit as largely and as early as possible by the result of the measures adopted of late years for the instruction of the people, as well by the Government as by private individuals and Societies, has resolved that in every possible case a preference shall be given in the selection of candidates for public employment to those who have been educated in the institutions thus established and especially to those who have distinguished themselves therein by a more than ordinary degree of merit and attainment." The immediate effect of this resolution does not appear to have been great: its ultimate influence has been scarcely less than that of the adoption of English education. For it has given English education its value in terms of livelihood. A third measure has been equally, or even more, influential in determining the supremacy attained by English education. This is the adoption of English as the language of public business. This had been contemplated as the settled policy of Government as early as 1829, when, in reply to the Committee of Public Instruction, a Government letter says that "his Lordship in Council has no

hesitation in stating to your Committee, and in authorizing you to announce to all concerned in the superintendence of your native seminaries that it is the wish and admitted policy of the British Government to render its own language gradually and eventually the language of public business throughout the country; and that it will omit no opportunity of giving every reasonable and practicable degree of encouragement to the execution of this project." This was in the first year of Lord William Bentinck's administration. Here again it is not the immediate but the ultimate effects of the policy which were important. When Persian was first abolished in the Courts, its place was taken by the vernaculars, and in 1838 Charles Trevelyan was able to write: "Everybody is now agreed in giving the preference to the vernacular language." 1 The claim of the vernacular has never since been lost sight of, yet broadly English now is and has long been the language of public business. It is to be observed indeed that this measure and also the employment in the work of public administration of the men of the new learning were only logical consequences of the decision of Government to promote English education actively. Their importance in contributing to the ultimate result, the rapid spread of English education, must not on that account be overlooked in a just appreciation of cause and effect. English education has not extended solely by its own intrinsic value. Three factors have co-operated: (1) educational organization determined by the decision of 1835; (2) the policy of requiring more and more a knowledge of English as a condition of employment in the public service in all but the lowest positions; (3) the more and more complete adoption of English as the language of public business. These causes, moreover, are interlaced, and act and react each upon the others.

1 Trevelyan, "On the Education of the People of India," p. 148.

The course of events in other parts of India was roughly similar. In Bombay there were in 1834 two schools under English masters; 214 students of English in one and 100 in the other. In 1835 the total number under instruction (Vernacular and English) was 5018. In 1840 the first report of the Board of Education gives a total of 7426 and for the Elphinstone Institution 681. In 1850-51 the total in Government schools and colleges is 13,460 and for English education 2066.

The advance in Madras was less rapid. As we have seen, it was not till 1837 that Madras had a school teaching English at all, and not till 1841 that a Government institution resembling the Hindu College, Calcutta, was opened. This was called the Madras "University," and consisted of two departments, a High School and a College. Numbers in this place of education did not ever reach 200 up to the year 1852. On the other hand, the work of Missionary Societies in Madras was comparatively extensive. By the year 1852 the total number of Mission Schools in the Madras Presidency was 1185 and of pupils 38,005. Also the Madras Christian College had between 200 and 300 pupils, while still known as the General Assembly's School.

Returns laid before the House of Lords in 1852 give the totals in the three Presidencies and the North-West Provinces of Bengal: 25,372 under instruction, 9893 for English education, and an expenditure of Rs.7,14,597. These figures obviously exclude all but Government institutions. Then came the epoch-making despatch of 1854. From 1835 to 1854, it may be noted in passing, is nineteen years, a time equal to the interval between 1910 and 1891. The despatch itself is by far the most impressive measure of the advance made.

The despatch of 1854 is important on every account in the history of Indian education, and is quite rightly

looked upon as a charter of educational privilege. It was the first authoritative declaration of policy on the part of the sovereign power responsible for the administration of British India-at that time still the Court of Directors. The policy therein defined is that which today controls the system in operation throughout the Indian Empire, and is co-extensive in scope with the whole field of education. It ordained the formation of

Departments of Public Instruction. It promised the establishment of Universities and sketched the university scheme in full detail. All the lines of Public Instruction as we know them now in successive departmental reports and university calendars are laid in this comprehensive document. There is even one thing more which it is acknowledged has been imperfectly attended to and which is destined, perhaps, to mark the next great era of advance, a plain recognition of the importance of measures to convey to convey "useful and practical knowledge to the great mass of the people.

The occasion of the despatch was the renewal of the Company's charter by Parliament in 1853. Lord Dalhousie was then Viceroy, and the great material reforms which he initiated were then in progress. Education was engaging his anxious attention when the despatch of Sir Charles Wood1 came bringing "a scheme of education for all India, far wider and more comprehensive than the Local or the Supreme Government would have ventured to suggest." It will be convenient to give separate treatment to each of the main parts of the scheme indicated above, examining the details, investigating how far they have been carried out in the established system, and reviewing the results actually achieved. It will be convenient also to vary the order so far as to take first the universities, because they are more directly in the

1 Raised to the peerage in 1866 as Viscount Halifax.