need any detail. The time has certainly arrived when the ancient debt of civilisation which Europe owes to Asia* is about to be repaid; and the sciences, cradled in the East and brought to maturity in the West, are now by a final effort about to overspread the world.+

The early civilisation of Greece by settlers from Phoenicia and Egypt; the philosophical systems of Pythagoras and Plato; the knowledge of chemistry, medicine, and mathematics, which emanated in a later age from the Arabian schools of Cordova and Salerno, attest the obligations we are under to the Eastern world. The greatest boon of all, our admirable system of arithmetical notation, which has facilitated in an incalculable degree the improvement of the sciences and the transaction of every kind of business for which the use of numbers is requisite, is distinctly traceable through the Arabs to the Hindus: we call it the Arabian, the Arabs call it the Hindu system, and the Hindus attribute the invention of it to their gods. It has been practised in India from a period which precedes all written and traditionary memorials.

+ It may be as well to mention some of the probable causes of the existing state of native feeling on this subject. The first is the same which gave rise to the revival of learning, and the cultivation of the vernacular languages in Europe, or the increase in the number and importance of the middle class of society. External peace, internal security of property, arising from a regular administration of justice, increased facilities to trade, the permanent settlement of the land revenue of the Lower, and a long settlement of that of the Upper Provinces, have all contributed to raise up a class between the nabob and the ryot, which derives its consequence from the exercise findustry and enterprise, which is possessed of the leisure necessary for literary pursuits, and which, being a creation of our won, is naturally inclined to imitate us, and to adopt our views. Secondly, The people feeling themselves safe in their persons and

property, and being relieved from the harassing anxieties which daily attend those who live under a barbarous arbitrary government, enjoy that peace of mind, without which it is impossible that letters can be successfully cultivated. Thirdly, The natives cannot fail to be struck by our moral and intellectual superiority; and they are led, by the combined influence of curiosity and emulation, to search for the causes of it in our literature. This motive has led the Russians and Turks, and other entirely independent nations, to cultivate foreign literature; and it cannot, therefore, excite wonder that the Hindus, who stand in such a close relation to us, should have been influenced by it. Fourthly, A liberal English education is the surest road to promotion. It is by far the best education the natives can get; and the Government must always select the best instructed persons that are to be had, for the public service. Lastly, The Hindus have always been a literary people; but as the body of the nation were shut out by the Brahmins from all participation in their own learning, they eagerly avail themselves of what is now offered by us to their acceptance, recommended as it is by so many attractions.

CHAP. VI.

The Establishment of a Seminary at each Zillah Station, a necessary Preliminary to further Operations.

The Preparation of Books in the Vernacular Languages.-A Law of Copyright required. — Native Education in the Madras and Bombay Presidencies. The Establishment of a comprehensive System of public Instruction for the whole of British India urgently required. The public Importance of a separate Provision being made for the Prosecution of Researches into ancient Asiatic Literature.

To proceed to practical details; all we have to do is, to follow out the plan which has been steadily pursued since March, 1835. Seminaries have been established at the head stations of about half the Zillahs in the Bengal and Agra presidencies; and the first thing to be done is, to establish similar institutions in the remaining forty Zillahs. At the average rate of 250 rupees per mensem for each seminary, this would require an annual addition to the fund of 120,000 rupees, or about £12,000 a-year.*

* As the supply of educated persons increases, schoolmasters will be obtained at lower salaries; and the saving arising from this source, and from the falling in of stipends to students, may be applied to the improvement of the seminaries. This is inde

Whatever system of popular instruction it may hereafter be resolved to organise in India, these Zillah seminaries must form the basis of it; and, as some time must be allowed for their operation before we can with advantage proceed a step further, their early establishment is a matter of importance. Every part of our dominions having the same claim upon us, there is exactly the same reason for establishing a central school in one Zillah as in another. Indeed, the motives for carrying out the plan to its full extent are much stronger than those for originally commencing it. The inhabitants of a Zillah in which a seminary has been for some time established, have a very unfair advantage given them over the inhabitants of the neighbouring Zillahs. Calcutta has lately been supplying native deputy-collectors to the whole of Bengal and Behar, because it was the only place at which educated natives were to be obtained in any number. This was justified by the emergency of the case; but, as a general rule, it is very desirable to employ the natives as much as possible in their own neighbourhood. Strangers,

pendent of the contributions of the European and native community, and of the boys themselves, which will never be found deficient where the Government sets an example of liberality.

invested with power, are looked upon with jealousy; and they are generally in a hurry to make what they can, and return to their own homes. On the other hand, respectable natives are more easily induced to take service, and are more under the control of public opinion in their own district than elsewhere.

The next step will be, to extend the system from town to country; from the influential few to the mass of the people. This part of the subject is not of pressing importance, because the materials of a national system must be prepared in the Zillah seminaries before they can be employed in the organisation of the Purgunnah and village schools. The youth of the upper and middle classes, both in town and country, will receive such an education at the head station of the Zillah as will make them willing and intelligent auxiliaries to us hereafter in extending the same advantages to the rest of their countrymen. The Zillah seminaries will be the normal schools, in which a new set of village schoolmasters will be trained, and to which many of the existing schoolmasters will be induced to resort to obtain new lights in their profession. The books and plans of instruction, which have been tried and found to answer at the Zillah seminaries, will be introduced