W. A. Porter

“ When a policy is new it may be necessary to defend it against attack. Its continuance may otherwise be in danger, and, to secure it a fair trial, those who think it valuable, must array arguments in its defence. But in the present stage of education in India, I am willing to leave the matter to the silent testimony of facts which in my opinion, are steadily accumulating in its favor. The higher education has been now in operation in this Presidency for more than 20 years. ”

“ Method and system are the characteristic marks of intellectual training. You can see it in the simplest narrative as told by different men. The uneducated man is dominated by accidental circumstances of time and place, and follows every incident, however irrelevant it may be. The man of culture sees the relations of things and the art of arrangement is habitual to him. And it is impossible for a student to master anybody of reasoned truth without acquiring some tincture of method and orderly arrangement. ”

“ I believe it explains, in a great degree, the practice too common I admit, but by no means so common as is often stated, of dropping English studies after the degree is obtained. Even in England, we do not find all our graduates solacing their leisure with the differential calculus or a Greek play, and it is not to be wondered at that the student in this country, with so much less in his surroundings to draw him to study, should show too much alacrity in dismissing his books. ”

“ I wonder when I hear the strange limitation sometimes placed upon the moral power of what is called secular education. We have in our service that vast literature of power whose influence on the character by acting on the emotions none can measure. ”

“ It opens to you a great literature. It places you in communication with modern thought. The treasures of a foreign tongue are guarded by difficulties as hard to be passed as the dragons of ancient story. ”

“ Knowledge must be gained before it is loved, and the fact, that it is turned to purposes of utility, is no proof that it is regarded in no higher aspect. I will put a parallel case. Most men who study law or medicine do so with a view of making a living by their profession. ”

“ A wise traveller, after visiting the points of interest in a foreign city seeks some lofty point, tower, or mina.ret, from which the whole lies before him; and the student by a mental effort, which may not inaptly be likened to the toilsome labour of climbing, should seek to get a wide survey of every subject he studies. Labour of this kind is painful, and this fact in some degree accounts for its being so little practised. The system of our teaching. But I believe there is something in our system which tends to encourage this kind of mental indolence. ”

“ It is perfectly true that the hope of advancement is the original motive which sends so many boys to our schools. It is equally certain that the majority of our students have to turn their knowledge to immediate use as a means of living. ”

“ The effort after knowledge and self-improvement is made in retirement and known only to their associates . That every avenue to office is painfully crowded with applicants, that the doors of every court and cutchery are besieged by youths who have passed examinations is a sight plain enough to every one. ”

“ In opposition to much prejudice—a prejudice that to some extent, no doubt, was due to their own failings, among which may be reckoned an unwillingness to begin low enough on the official ladder—they have gradually made their way in the Courts and Cutcherries, and I believe it is generally admitted that especially in method and regularity, and I believe also, in the tone of morality, the public service has in recent years vastly improved. An educated man and an ignorant man. ”

“ If the spirit of manliness that triumphs over obstacles be wanting at College, it will be wanting in manhood. The student of many excuses will be a man of small performance. If a cold or a headache was always at hand to keep him away from his class, the same convenient maladies will attend him through life.
The present year is in some respects a marked one. Progress of 16 years. Important changes affecting the studies and the length of the course come into operation next year, and the present is the last under the old regulations. ”

“ But, as they would be still more useful if they were guided by knowledge and sympathy, I will venture to make one or two remarks that The fault of more friendly and charitable view our of educational work m this country, ihe critics of the Hindu student set up too high a standard. They compare him not with the graduates of England or Scotland or Germany, but with an ideal man who loves culture purely for its own sake and into whose mind there never enters, in connection with his studies, any idea of personal aggrandizement in the shape either of money or of fame. ”

“ I have now to mention for your encouragement that the same qualities, Student, the father of man. mental and moral, which give success at College, will in general be attended with a like result in the severer struggle on which you are now entering. And, though alas! there are cases in which the future contradicts the past and a blight comes over the promise oli youth, the ordinary rule is otherwise. The student, if I may parody the words of the poet, is the father of the public man. The habits of ten years are not forgotten in a day. ”

“ I have already given the reason why I did not rise to the challenge of my anti-educational friend, and stated that I should be ready to leave the matter to the slowly gathering weight of opinion which seems to me unmistakably in its favor. At the same time, I do not wish to discourage our critics by treating them with apparent neglect. I trust they will persevere. The fault of our critics. Satire and ridicule have their uses. ”

“ To do so would be useful both to you and to me, to you before whom there lie, I hope, many years of further progress, and to me whose duty it is, as one of the body of teachers, never to be satisfied with what it has already done if anything better is within reach. ”

“ Of the latter defect illustrations are easily given. In examinations it is seen in the frequent mistakes as to the exact point of a question. It has been said that it requires some knowledge to ask a wise question. It is equally true that it requires a good deal of knowledge to understand the purport and drift of a question. Any body of reasoned truth or any group of connected facts is like a complicated machine and a knowledge of the bearing and connection of the parts is necessary for an intelligent comprehension of a question. ”

“ Such critical enquiries are natural at a time which is marked however slightly as an epoch, and they are moreover in a manner forced upon us by a hostile tone of opinion which, for some time past, has been very marked. Opposition to Higher Education. The policy of establishing Colleges and conferring Opposition to degrees, the policy in fact of the higher education has lately been a good deal called in question. ”

“ For the Bachelors of Arts of this year are not the representatives of the students who Matriculated three years ago, but consist of stray students of various years, who, from one cause or another, did not proceed to their degree at the usual time. Are there equal grounds for congratulation when we look not at the numbers but at the Qualities of the students. ”

“ While I urge these pleas for a more kindly spirit of criticism as regards the higher education in this country, Defects of Indian students. I concede that there are many imperfections which cannot escape the most friendly critic. ”

“ The earlier pupils of our schools have reached or past their prime of life, and many of them now hold high posts in all the departments of public life. Among these are men whose names are widely known among their countrymen and who are honored where they are known. ”

“ Apart from war, which appeals to elementary passions and will be eternally interesting, I believe it is limited, as I have stated. A struggle between labour and capital in France interests us because it is a vital question in England. ”

“ One evil of this impossible standard is that with a want of logic which is not uncommon, people are apt to conclude that because there is a large balance of alloy, there is no precious metal whatever. The failure to reach the lofty ideal being conspicuous, it is argued that the nobler elements are altogether wanting. ”

“ A certain Greek writer tells us of some man who to save his bees a troublesome flight to Hymettus cut their wings and placed before them the finest flowers he could select. The poor bees made no honey. I think that by our system we imitate this foolish man. We cut the wings of our students and give them the flowers they should find for themselves. ”

“ Let those who make this complaint consider in what degree we ourselves take an interest in the politics of foreign countries, I believe it is in the main limited to those questions to which there is something similar at home. ”

“ The pupils of later years have also in large numbers found employment in official life. Of these young men whose work is carried on in comparative obscurity, I am not in a position to speak with authority. ”

“ If our students were not too polite to descend to so obvious a retort^ they might ask with some pertinence if educated Englishmen were in the habit of taking a deep interest in the land tenures of India. ”

“ The administration has become in recent years more elaborate, and it is certain that, for the working of our present system there are needed men who have received a somewhat extended course of intellectual training. ”