James Braithwaite Peile

“ First, then let me say that, with the great and urgent needs of your country, intellectual, moral and material, your career should be one of life-long and devoted labour, if it is to be worthy of your University and fulfill the expectations of your Government. You have won nothing as yet but the means of usefulness, the weapons of your warfare, and you will do well not to look for a premature reward in some inglorious stipend or rest content with a cheaply earned, unproved and unfruitful reputation for ability. ”

“ In regard to the best way of using a higher teaching power which cannot be much augmented, the military principle commends itself, that, when a force is small in proportion to its field of occupation, it is more effective when collected at a centre than when its strength is dissipated by sub-division. Lower down in the educational system, there are financial reasons, but others also, why the Government should cease, at a certain point, to multiply Grammar Schools and elementary Arts Colleges. I do not mean that general education should be starved. ”

“ Science and art applied to invention and production pay no regard to distinctions of nationality or clime. They choose as their most honoured agents those who are best educated, whose natural taste and aptitude have been best cultivated for the work to be done. The competition in the world's industrial school gives the prize to those results of labour which derive the highest excellence from enlightened skill and the fine artistic sense, and to the peoples who most assiduously cultivate those faculties. ”

“ Even now it is confessed that the advocacy of technical teaching as an extended and systematic education up to and including the methods of original research has not entirely prevailed. But it must be remembered that, even with defects of organization, England is rich in the great names of scientific discovery and invention, that national poverty is not the difficulty in England, and that the English workman is second to none in natural energy, intelligence, and inventiveness. ”

“ Both Governments and peoples are animated by the conviction that the prosperity of their industries depends on the cheapness and attractiveness of their products, and these on the high perfection of manual skill combined with artistic culture. Thus, while the State undertakes the cost of the highest general and technical instruction, most of the cost of the secondary and elementary instruction, both in science and in art applied to industrial and decorative purposes, is cheerfully borne by the localities. ”

“ There is no room there for the assertion of an equality which cannot prove itself by facts and achievements. That arena is quite apart from baseless jealousies of class and race, their passions and profitless strife. The competition is waged under conditions likely to promote the modesty which is an element of wisdom and the reverence which Goethe calls the soul of all religion. ”

“ That prospect is all-sufficing for a selected few and my earnest hope is that is may attract and enchain more and more of our students as the academic life is more highly esteemed. But no more in an Eastern than in a Western University can any but a small proportion of students devote themselves to a life of philosophic research. And in truth it is evident that the material progress of India demands ever more imperatively that those whose minds have been strengthened and cultured in our Universities should apply their powers to practical life as teachers and workers. ”

“ Moreover, elementary education, which everywhere includes instruction in drawing, is in the most European nations compulsory. Both republics and monarchies have accepted the principle that there is a discipline and restraint which a free people may impose on individual freedom for the attainment of a great public object. If an Indian Presidency need not despair of doing, in a measure, what a Swiss Canton or a small German State succeeds in doing completely and excellently, it is time to lay down the lines of action. ”

“ If we look to the University, we find, besides the science course which comprehends most of the branches of natural science, the more special programme of studies and degree in Civil Engineering, and the affiliated College of Science where technical education is given of the kind suited to the higher and middle class of professional men. I do not say that either the College of Science or the allied institution for teaching decorative art and design is as complete or potent as it should be, and we are preparing to strengthen both of them. ”

“ Every boy should have within his reach the means of education appropriate to his position. But it would seem that the appetite for secondary education may soon be trusted to supply for itself what more is needed of these institutions, whether designed to supply the particular wants of a locality, or leading up to the University course in languages, history, literature, political economy, or moral philosophy. It may be observed that the course in Arts or letters is much more commonly selected by students than the courses in natural philosophy. ”

“ India cannot afford to despise any reduction of cost price or improvement in quality which can be made by the substitution of scientific for rough processes and manipulation. Nor should India continue to buy at a great price in silver any commodity which an increase of industrial capacity may enable her people to produce well and cheaply for themselves, again, there is the growth of population liberated in a great measure from the checks of war and famine. ”

“ And now it remains for me to say a few words of exhortation and encouragement to those young men who have to-day received their University Degrees, and are about to go forth with the good seed of education in their hands, to sow and reap. ”

“ If you are denied an intellectual pleasure on which you had counted, it will still be easily understood that the claims and interests of education in this empire, the aim and grasp, the tendencies and influences of the University and of public and private instruction, are many-sided and complex, such as are not to be learnt from books or the conversation of those who have been in India ”

“ The man who is best fitted by education and character to perform the services which the public requires should be the man who is employed. But besides all these there is a boundless field of useful activity open to those who have acquired in this University the habit of research, and will apply it to investigations useful to Government and their country. Reflect, for instance, on the imminent problem connected with the growth of population under the Roman peace of this empire. ”

“ I would remind you that under your Government barriers are temporary and are surmountable by the force of proved merit and worth. And no victory over difficulties is of much ethical value which is achieved without serious effort. The great field of local public business has been made your own to occupy and possess. And I hold that whatever limitations must in this day be imposed on access to higher office, the selection of men to conduct local affairs should be subject to no other conditions than the selection of men to serve the public in the liberal professions. ”

“ By what resources of agricultural science may the land through higher cultivation be enabled to support a larger number? What products can be grown for export which will bring wealth in return from other lands? What alternative industries can be set on foot for the employment of the surplus population? ”

“ The admirable system of technical education in the countries of the Continent had its origin only half a century since with the creation of railways and factories. A similar educational development should follow in India on the extension of railways, the expansion of commerce, and the freer interchange of thought. Municipal law, has also been advanced so far as this, that the new local Government Acts impose on local boards and municipalities the obligation to maintain an adequate system of elementary schools which is indispensable basis of technical education. ”

“ In 1869 when I was Director of Public Instruction, when the law left it quite optional with municipal bodies to support schools or not, and in fact 1 3/4 millions of towns people was contributing less than Rs. 14,000 yearly for school purposes from municipal funds, I made a proposal to Government for imposing by law a school-rate on municipal towns, and one of my suggestions was that by aid of this rate each town of higher class should support an industrial college or school of instruction in science and art. ”

“ Where taxation is not cheerfully borne, where the workman is apathetic under the superstition of custom, and content with a bare subsistence, where the reach of elementary education is small, where the upper classes are indifferent or inadequately appreciate the needs of their country, a too ambitious scheme put forward by the Government on a European model would certainly be doomed to failure. ”

“ As the great majority of them have to contribute their labour in some special calling to the public stock, the best they can do is to promote their country's prosperity by directing a skilled intelligence to extract from nature, through science, the services of her means and agents of material progress. It is quite true that the University may direct the use of scientific method to the study of languages and philosophy as well as to the study of the natural sciences. There is room for science of both kinds ”

“ It may be said that to organize technical education is the duty of the Government which provides such educational means and appliances as seem suited to the needs of those whom it rules rather than of the University which confers degrees for proficiency in the use of those means. ”

“ Indian silks, muslins, gold and silver brocade, carved work, dyes—all old Indian products —are in evidence in the international exhibitions, and where manufactures touch the province of the Fine Arts, we have the old forms and traditions, which, if now productive in a somewhat mechanical way, are still among us as suggestive guides to excellence. ”

“ This is no doubt attributable to the enlargement of the means of secondary education, but the question suggests itself—What is the object of this great body of students marching chiefly on one and the same line, and would any just expectations be thwarted by the adoption of stricter methods for the exclusion of the unfit? Certainly no public object is gained by increasing the number of our graduates in Arts at the expense of their quality. ”

“ He founded an institute, the members of which after a careful training for the office of school-masters, were to devote their lives to the work of primary education. The Brotherhood extended its labours over France, it survived the Revolution of the Commune and carried its operations into other countries, and although the present Government has unhappily withdrawn from it all countenance and support, yet in Paris alone it has 60,000 scholars and is largely aided by the private benevolence of all classes, both the rich and the poor. ”

“ And although impatience is often expressed at barriers and restrictions in the official career, yet when I see natives of this country in the Legislative Councils, on the Benches of the High Courts, in the Magistracy, the Civil Service and in nearly every department of State, I cannot admit that the obstacles to the higher offices are such as need depress or discourage. ”

“ But where is the sub-structure of which a Polytechnic College is the upper story? The answer is that it does not exist. Our elementary and middle school course has no regard to technical instruction, nor is it linked with a system of special technical and art schools for handicraftsmen or for foremen and manager of works. Drawing is restricted to our high schools. ”

“ We have four Arts Colleges of old standing, with a College of Medicine, a College of Science, and a School of Law, all recognized between 1860 and 1869—chiefly about 1860. Then comes the younger generation—the Gujarat, Kolhapur, Baroda, and Bhavnagar Colleges, and the Fergusson College at Poona, all recognized in the last five or six years. But these are elementary colleges, teaching the less advanced part of the Arts course; they are all concerned with the Arts course ”

“ The spontaneous energy in education which is manifesting itself in our large towns may perhaps owe some of its vigour to the invitation held out by the Government to private enterprize, but chiefly it marks the fact that forces which have been gathering strength beneath the surface of society are beginning to show their vitality in a practical way. ”

“ That which is most popular is also most capable of self-support. The upholding hand of the State may properly transfer itself from that side of national education where it has planted both a demand for teaching and the knowledge how to supply it, to help in its turn another side where at present there is little either of knowledge or demand. ”