line of advance from the resolution of 1835. But first the preliminary statement of policy may be briefly considered. "Among many subjects of importance," says the despatch, "none have a stronger claim to our attention than that of education. It is one of our most sacred duties to be the means, as far as in us lies, of conferring upon the natives of India those vast moral and material blessings which flow from the general diffusion of useful knowledge, and which India may under Providence derive from her connection with England." A little further on it declares emphatically "that the education which we desire to see extended in India is that which has for its object the diffusion of the improved arts, science, philosophy, and literature of Europe; in short, of European knowledge." The despatch pays a fitting tribute to the antiquarian and historical interest of the classical languages of India and to the honourable and influential position of those who maintain the traditional learning. It explicitly repudiates any aim or desire "to substitute the English language for the vernacular dialects of the country." In these respects it makes good the temperamental defects of Macaulay's minute. At the same time it says as plainly as Macaulay that "the systems of science and philosophy which form the learning of the East abound with grave errors, and Eastern literature is at best very deficient as regards all modern discovery and improvements; Asiatic learning, therefore, however widely diffused, would but little advance our object." It affirms that "a knowledge of English will always be essential to those natives of India who aspire to a high order of education." It expresses the desire "of extending far more widely the means of acquiring general European knowledge of a less high order, but of such a character as may be practically useful to the people of India in their different spheres of life." It regrets a

tendency which it fears has been created "to neglect the study of the vernacular language." Consequently it lays down that "in any general system of education, the English language should be taught where there is a demand for it; but such instruction should always be combined with a careful attention to the study of the vernacular languages of the district, and with such general instruction as can be conveyed through that language." For the mass of the people, the authors of the despatch hold, the only possible medium of instruction is the mother-tongue; but it is significant that while this conviction is stated very plainly, it is also indicated that the teachers themselves should know English. The general scope of the whole is "to decide on the mode in which the assistance of Government should be afforded to the more extended and systematic promotion of general education in India, and on the measures to be adopted to that end."

Unquestionably, the despatch of 1854 is a most memorable document. It rises to the height of its problem and comprehends its length and breadth. It outlines a complete and systematic organization of education in India from the university to the elementary school. In the fifty-six years that have passed since it was received, Government, the Education Departments, and private effort have toiled and panted at the tasks it set; they are straining at them still, and adequate fulfilment is not even yet within view. For it is nothing short of a complete system of national education which it sketches. The despatch of 1854 is thus the climax in the history of Indian education: what goes before leads up to it; what follows flows from it. It offers a convenient measure both of attainment and of failure of attainment. It will repay, therefore, the most careful study in relation to the problems of to-day.

VII

THE FOUNDATION AND GROWTH OF

UNIVERSITIES

THE Indian universities owe their origin to the despatch of 1854. Already, nine years earlier, in 1845, a proposal for establishing a central university had been made by the Council of Education (the name by which the Committee of Public Instruction had been called since 1842), and put aside by the Court of Directors as premature. It is not difficult to understand the motives which influenced those who advocated the establishment of a university, or universities. The first successes of English education had been striking. In point of mere number we have seen the Hindu College reaching a total of 562 pupils in the year 1841. In 1851 there were 1464 students in the four Bengal colleges, the colleges at Hooghly, Dacca, and Krishnaghar, and the Hindu College, Calcutta, besides 227 studying English at the Sanskrit College, and two Madrasas (Calcutta and Hooghly): the total number sharing in English education was 4341. On the other hand, the standard attained by individuals was creditably high. In the early years the remarkable quickness and powers of expression of the students of the new learning were regarded with a sort of gaping wonder. The scholarship examination offered a strong incentive to effort, and afforded a more solid and definite test of attainment. The answers of the Most Proficient students in the

Presidency and Mofussil Colleges" were year by year printed in the General Reports of Public Instruction, and very fairly bear out the claims made for the standard reached. When, after 1844, this examination was made a gate to the public service, there was already, as Sir Frederick Halliday said, "the germ of a university." It was natural that the need should be felt for some more distinctive recognition of academic attainment for the "large and annually increasing number of highly educated pupils." The Council, in 1845, calls it "a matter of strict justice and necessity." Naturally, a university was thought of, and degrees like those of European universities; and the London University, which had been established only in 1836, afforded a convenient model, for it was an examining and nonresident university. So, when the subject was brought up before Parliament in 1852, and evidence both for and against universities taken, the advocates of universities for India carried the day. At all events, the complete scheme of the Indian university as we know it is found in the Despatch of 1854, and in 1857 the universities were incorporated by Acts dated January 24th for Calcutta, for Bombay July 18th, and for Madras September 5th.

The first Entrance Examination of the Calcutta University was held in April, 1857. There were 244 candidates, and 162 passed. Within five years there were over a thousand candidates, and nearly five hundred passes. In the eleventh year (1867) there were 1507 candidates. In 1871 there were 1902. In 1881 there were 2937. In 1891 there were 5032. In 1901 there were 6135, and the number passed was 3307. This certainly looks, as far as figures can show it, like an effective demand for university education.

In 1857 the

Or take it on the financial side. University cost Government Rs.11,918. In 1872-73,

though its total expenditure had risen to Rs. 46,519, it was just self-supporting. In 1873-74 there was a small but substantial balance of Rs.6236. In 1906, when for several years the expenditure had exceeded two-and-ahalf lakhs, a reserve fund of over six lakhs had accumulated. As a practical business concern the University must also be pronounced a success. In these two respects, growth of numbers and financial independence, the University had certainly, by the end of the century, justified its promoters. These things were precisely what they had prophesied for it. "The adoption of the plan," the Council had said, "would only be attended with a very trifling expense to Government in the commencement; for, in the course of a few years, the proceeds of the Fee Fund would be more than sufficient to defray every expense attendant upon the University." At Convocation in 1866, nine years from the foundation of the University, Sir Henry Maine, in urging the necessity of university buildings, had said: "The thing must be seen to be believed. I do not know which was the more astonishing, more striking-the multitude of the students, who if not now, will soon, be counted not by the hundred, but by the thousand; or the keenness and eagerness which they displayed. For my part, I do not think anything of the kind has been seen by any European University since the Middle Ages, and I doubt whether there is anything founded by, or connected with, the British Government in India which excites so much practical interest in native households of the better class, from Calcutta to Lahore, as the examinations of this University."

If the question be asked, as it has been asked any time these fifty years past, "Was the foundation of universities in India premature? Was the Calcutta University wisely and timely founded?" it would seem