are supposed to inspire a supernatural terror in the awestricken spectator. The Sanskrit sacred poems are flat and poor, while the heroic are unfitted for displaying the peculiar genius of the Hindú bard. The Rámáyana, which celebrates the conquest of Ceylon, and the Mahá Bhárat have both been partially translated into our language. It would not be doing justice to the undoubted merits of these poems, to pass a decision on them from the perusal of a translation merely. Such distinguished Oriental scholars as Wilson, Jones, and others are enthusiastic in their praise. These are men whose judgment we must certainly respect, albeit we may question whether the labour expended in mastering so completely the Sanskrit language, may not have been sweetened by the value of their discoveries, and have become such a labour of love, as to have tinged their opinions on the subject with a slight colour of partiality. We have, thus far, endeavoured to pursue the plan proposed at the commencement of this chapter, and have given, to the best of our power, a short description of the literature of the Hindús and the sciences as taught in the Hindú schools. It may be urged that our remarks, so far as they have gone, are necessarily incomplete, seeing that we have not so much as noticed that portion of the native population which professes the Mahomedan faith, nor alluded, in the slightest degree, to the Mahomedan seminaries which exist in India. Our reasons for dwelling so long upon the Hindús, to the exclusion of the Moslems, their literature, their arts, and their sciences, are then briefly these. The Mahomedan population has been computed to number scarcely one eighth of the Hindú; the Mahomedans came into India as conquerors, and were never intimately blended with the conquered; the introduction of the Persian language, as the language of Government, gave to the learned Moslems certain departments to themselves, certain offices in which the natives had no share, and so widened the gap between them; and, what is far more to the point, the Mahomedan literature and sciences were all founded out of India, and are, moreover, not so peculiar to themselves, not so self-invented as are those of the Hindús, for they derive their logic from Aristotle, their metaphysical system from Plato, and their astronomy from Ptolemy. Again, a lengthened notice of the Mahomedans would almost force us into some mention of the Parsees, that race of merchants, who, descended from the Persians, hold the doctrines of Zoroaster, the Armenians, and other strangers, if we may so call them, who are estimated with the Mahomedans, to form scarcely one-seventh of the entire population: all which would but draw us away from the question of which we propose to treat. The Mahomedan seminaries, in particular the Madressa, or Mahomedan College at Calcutta, we shall notice in the next chapter. The Hindús too, have in all ages paid the greatest attention to education, whilst their principal vernacular languages, the Hindustani, the Bengali, the Marathi, and the Orissa are spoken by millions of people. Sir Alexander Johnston, speaking of the care of the Hindús for the education of their young, says: “In the Hindú political system, the education of the people has always formed part of the business of the government; and with this view, a certain portion of the produce of the land in every district is assigned to the support of the schoolmaster; in Scotland a similar plan has been followed to a certain extent; in England' no such provision exists, while in India it is clearly traceable two thousand years 1 Written before the present system of national education under Government auspices and control was established in England. ago. So highly, indeed, is education prized among the Hindús that it is regarded with a kind of religious vene→ ration, and this feeling of respect extends to those employed in its administration. The children are brought by their parents in early infancy into the presence of the schoolmaster, to whose care they are consigned, with something of the solemnity of a public and official act." Of what that education consisted we have shown in the preceding pages. That a growing desire was felt amongst the higher class natives for something more real and practical, was evidenced, some forty years ago, by a letter, to which we shall allude at greater length in the next chapter, from a learned native (Ram Mohun Roy) to Lord Amherst, the then Governor-General, and by the inquiries and exertions of distinguished members of the Indian Government (among the foremost of whom was the late Lord Macaulay), which resulted in the almost total replacement of the Oriental by the European system of teaching. Awakened, at length, to the vast superiority of the European science, the native youth seized every opportunity of becoming acquainted with it, and could only be induced to study the Oriental languages and literature by actual bribes of money. In fact, they perceived that when brought into comparison with the learning of the West, the Eastern well deserved the censure of the distinguished writer, whose name we have just mentioned, when he spoke of "medical doctrines which would disgrace an English farrier; astronomy which would move laughter in girls at an English boarding-school; history abounding with kings thirty feet high, and reigns thirty thousand years long; and geography made up of seas of treacle and seas of butter." CHAPTER III. THE EFFORTS MADE BY THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT "The bulk of mankind must, without the assistance of education and instruction, be informed only with the understanding of a child."—DR JOHNSON, Rambler, V. III. p. 270. THE first steps taken by the British Government with regard to native education in India can quickly be related. In 1781, Hastings established the Mahomedan College at Calcutta, and in 1792, the Sanskrit College was founded at Benares. The object of these seminaries was to furnish a supply of Hindú and Mussulman natives, sufficiently qualified by their knowledge of their respective laws to perform the duties of judicial administration. It was not, however, until 1813, that the British legislature made a decided move in the question by decreeing, at the renewal of the East India Company's charter in that year, that a lac of rupees (£10,000) should be annually assigned, as the act states, "for the revival and promotion of literature, and the encouragement of the learned natives of India, and the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of the British territories." Owing perhaps to the unsettled state of Europe at the time, and the breaking out afresh of the war with Bonaparte, with the consequent monetary disturbances in the English markets, no steps were taken to carry this resolution of the Government into effect; and the promise of advancement to the natives of India remained unfulfilled till the year 1823, when the Governor-General in Council resolved that "there should be constituted a general Committee of public instruction, for the purpose of ascertaining the state of public education, and of the public institutions designed for its promotion, and of considering, and from time to time submitting to Government, the suggestion of such measures as it might be expedient to adopt, with a view to the better instruction of the people, to the introduction among them of useful knowledge, and to the improvement of their moral character:" and in the instructions addressed to the Committee, after the words "to the introduction among them of useful knowledge," there was added the parenthetical sentence, "including the arts and sciences of Europe," showing that, even then, the authorities were aware of the importance attached by the natives themselves to the learning of the West, which had been so plainly testified some years previously, viz. in 1816, by the establishment by voluntary contributions amongst the learned natives of a Hindú College at Calcutta, for the especial instruction of their youth in European literature and science. This general Committee of public instruction, which must hereafter be looked upon as the sole organ of the Government in all that concerns that important branch of its functions, began its work by completing the organization of the Sanskrit College lately established by Government at Calcutta, improving and taking under its patronage the aforesaid Hindú College, founded by the natives in 1816, by instituting two new colleges at Delhi and Agra for the cultivation of Oriental literature, and by undertaking on a large scale the printing of Sanskrit and Arabic |