Robert Caldwell

“ It may safely be said that one-fourth of the rural population in this part of India belongs to classes for whose improvement nothing has ever yet been done, except by Europeans. One set of rulers after another has arisen and fallen, but the condition of the labouring classes has remained unchanged. They themselves did not care for education. Even the wish to become wiser or happier than they were at length died out. And if by any chance any of them did entertain a wish to rise they were precluded from rising by the prejudices of the upper classes. ”

“ The people of India have surpassed all other peoples, ancient or modern, in the earnestness and assiduity with which they have studied the grammars of their various tongues, and to this must be attributed the wonderful perfection several of those languages have reached as organs of thought and much of the acuteness for which the Indian mind is famed. But the study of the languages of their country by Indian scholars has never beeome comparative and, therefore, has never become scientific. ”

“ I now return to that branch of beneficence with which I commenced—the education of the lower classes, especially the lower classes in the rural districts, and I think I may say without exaggeration that the world does not present a finer sphere for turning theories of doing good into practice than that which educated Natives will find opening before them in every direction, if they set themselves to help forward the education and elevation of the hitherto neglected masses. ”

“ The promotion of education in various ways and amongst various classes of people, in the town or district in which he is employed, in addition to the ordinary work of his own school, will be quite in accordance with a good educationist's conception of his duties. Without ceasing to teach he can encourage others to teach. He can also with special propriety urge the uneducated classes to show themselves desirous of learning. A still larger proportion of educated Natives will doubtless be employed, as hitherto, so in future, in the public service. ”

“ If, however, educated Natives resolved to apply themselves to a study so peculiarly suited to them, I consider it certain that excellent results would soon be realised. If they began to compare their vernaculars one with another, ancient forms with modern, and both with Sanskrit, they would soon find that Language had a history of its own, throwing light on all other histories, and that instead of being the driest of subjects, it was one of the richest in matters of wide human interest. ”

“ No guide but our own intelligence is better than a faithless guide. Something has already been done in the direction of the search for and de- cipherment of inscriptions by Europeans, though less systemati- cally in Madras than in Calcutta and Bombay, but much remains to be done and will always remain, till educated Natives enter upon this branch of study with the zeal with which so many people in Europe have devoted themselves to it. Natives possess various facilities for this study which are denied to Europeans living in India. They have no reason to fear the sun. ”

“ The truest beneficence consists in doing good to those who are beneath you, who cannot requite you in any way in kind, and who possibly may have sunk so low as to be unable to requite you even with gratitude. But though the lower classes may have sunk very low, morally as well as intellectually, it must not for a moment be supposed that they are unimproveable, as they are sometimes said to be by those who do not wish them to improve. ”

“ In particular, with regard to the highest development of beneficence—doing good to others though it be to our own hurt, doing good to those who do us evil—Indian literature is rich in maxims and illustrations of the highest excellence. ”

“ In this branch of research, Hindus in all ages have fallen as much behind other nations as in the study of grammar they have excelled them. The only branch of natural science heretofore studied in India was Astronomy, and that had fallen from its high position and been compelled to do menial service to a silly Astrology. Several branches of natural science have had a place given them of late in the curriculum of Indian Uni- versity studies, and there seems reason to hope that a consider- able number of educated Natives will henceforth learn to observe. ”

“ Wherever you commence, if only yon steadfastly go on, you will touch in succession every point in the circumference, and unite at length in one majestic, unbroken circuit the two poles of life, the human and the Divine. ”

“ All nature is constantly in a state of excitement, librating between excess and defect, and constantly calling upon you to observe its changes. The habit of observation will prove of the greatest possible advantage to the Indian student, in checking that too ready belief in authority and that fondness for dreamy speculation which are so natural to Natives of the tropics. ”

“ He need not go far — probably he need not pass the limits of his own family circle — to find scope for carrying into effect those ideas respecting the importance of female education, which in theory at least seem now to be generally admitted, and which seem steadily passing, especially in the great towns, from the region of theory to the region of practice. There is another department of educational work of great national importance which has not yet come to be regarded by Natives of the better classes with as much favour even as female education. ”

“ There is much high moral teaching—not unmixed with teaching of a different character — in the books with which some of you probably were familiar before you came in contact with the moral teaching of Europe? ”

“ There are certain Sastras, it is true, in which the observance of the rules of one's own caste is represented as virtually the highest morality; but the teaching of such Sastras is neutralised by that of others, and there is no Sastra in which members of the higher castes are prohibited from promoting the education, the civilisation, the moral well-being of the lower. ”

“ The degree in which they differ from the barbarous aboriginal races in other parts of the world exhibits the degree in which they are capable of improvement. And if they have reached the condition in which we find them without the help of education — a condition which probably they reached two thou- sand years ago — how much higher might they not be expected to rise if they were taken by the hand and helped forward by the educated classes? ”

“ I refer to the education of the labouring poor. Here is a noble and most extensive field for the exercise of that enlightened, large-hearted philanthropy which it is the great ultimate aim of the higher education to foster ”

“ The names only of many Tamil works of the earlier period survive and many works must have been composed at a still earlier period of which even the names have been forgotten. Tamil literature seems to have known no youth. Like Minerva, the goddess of learning amongst the Greeks, it seems to have sprung, full-grown and fully armed, from the head of Jupiter. ”

“ They can generally stop in their journeys without inconvenience and examine a.ny antiquity they see ; and whilst Europeans must be content with examining only the inscriptions on the outer walls of temples, inscriptions in the interior also can be examined by Natives. They will also be allowed to examine inscriptions on copper plates in the possession of respectable Native families which would not readily be allowed to pass into the hands of Europeans. A humbler, but still very important branch of archaeological work lies open to every educated Hindu in the Tamil districts in this Presidency. ”

“ In studying Mental Philosophy you have doubtless been taught the philosophy of morals. You have made your acquaintance with various theories of moral obligation and doubtless some one of those theories has been specially recommended to you. ”

“ To see is not to observe, and to learn up and pass examinations in the observation of others is not to observe. You are surround- ed in the tropics with facilities and incitements to observation which do not exist in Europe. ”

“ The comparative study of the languages of India has remained up to this time in the hands of Europeans, but it is a branch of study to which educated Natives might be expected to apply themselves with special zeal, and in which, if they applied themselves to it, I feel sure that they would attain to special excellence. ”

“ I do not ask or wish such persons to neglect the duties they owe to the Government they serve, whose pay they receive, for the sake of unpaid philanthropic labours for the benefit of the community, nor do I expect them in any good work they undertake to promote it by large dona- tions of money. If they resolve to content themselves with their salaries and their unstained honour, they will find that they have not much money to spare. ”

“ Dispel their ignorance, strike off their fetters, allow them to entertain some hope of bettering their condition, and even the horrors of those periodical famines, from which they suffer more than any other class, will be found to be capable of mitigation. ”

“ Learned Natives of Calcutta and Bombay, trained in European modes of thought and vieing with Europeans in zeal for historical accuracy, have already made a promising beginning in this department of research. ”

“ What 1 may fairly ask and wish them to do is to use for the good of the community whatever influence they possess or may acquire. Though their salaries may be small, their influence in the native Community is very great. ”

“ The methods of thought and principles of action in which he has been trained should be propagated. Wherever he goes, in whatever situation he may be placed, the educated Native will find ample scope for his efforts in the cause of enlightenment. ”