MACAULAY'S MINUTE ON INDIAN EDUCATION
2ND
OF FEBRUARY, 1835
As
it seems to be the opinion of some of the gentlemen who compose the Committee
of Public Instruction, that the course which they have hitherto pursued was strictly
prescribed by the British Parliament in 1813, and as, if that opinion be
correct, a legislative act will be necessary to warrant a change, I have
thought it right to refrain from taking any part in the preparation of the
adverse statements which are now before us, and to reserve what I had to say on
the subject till it should come before me as a member of the Council of
India.
It
does not appear to me that the Act of Parliament can, by any art of
construction, be made to bear the meaning which has been assigned to it. It
contains nothing about the particular languages or sciences which are to be
studied. A sum is set apart "for the revival and promotion of literature
and the encouragement of the learned natives of India, and for the introduction
and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of the
British territories." It is argued, or rather taken for granted, that by
literature, the Parliament can have meant only Arabic and Sanscrit literature,
that they never would have given the honorable appellation of "a learned
native" to a native who was familiar with the poetry of Milton, the
Metaphysics of Locke, and the Physics of Newton; but that they meant to
designate by that name only such persons as might have studied in the sacred
books of the Hindoos all the uses of cusa-grass, and all the mysteries of
absorption into the Deity. This does not appear to be a very satisfactory
interpretation. To take a parallel case; suppose that the Pacha of Egypt, a
country once superior in knowledge to the nations of Europe but now sunk far
below them, were to appropriate a sum or the purpose of "reviving and
promoting literature, and encouraging learned natives of Egypt," would
anybody infer that he meant the youth of his pachalic to give years to the
study of hieroglyphics, to search into all the doctrines disguised under the
fable of Osiris, and to ascertain with all possible accuracy the ritual with
which cats and onions were anciently adored? Would he be justly charged with
inconsistency, if, instead of employing his young subjects in deciphering
obelisks, he were to order them to be instructed in the English and French
languages, and in all the sciences to which those languages are the chief
keys?
The
words on which the supporters of the old system rely do not bear them out, and
other words follow which seem to be quite decisive on the other side. This lac
of rupees is set apart, not only for "reviving literature in India,"
the phrase on which their whole interpretation is founded, but also for
"the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences among the
inhabitants of the British territories,"--words which are alone sufficient
to authorise all the changes for which I contend.
If
the Council agree in my construction, no legislative Act will be necessary. If
they differ from me, I will prepare a short Act rescinding that clause of the
Charter of 1813, from which the difficulty arises.
The
argument which I have been considering, affects only the form of proceeding.
But the admirers of the Oriental system of education have used another
argument, which, if we admit it to be valid, is decisive against all change.
They conceive that the public faith is pledged to the present system, and that
to alter the appropriation of any of the funds which have hitherto been spent
in encouragmg the study of Arabic and Sanscrit, would be down-right spoliation.
It is not easy to understand by what process of reasoning they can have arrived
at this conclusion. The grants which are made from the public purse for the
encouragement of literature differed in no respect from the grants which are
made from the same purse for other objects of real or supposed utility. We
found a sanatarium on a spot which we suppose to be healthy. Do we thereby
pledge ourselves to keep a sanatarium there, if the result should not answer
our expectation? We commence the erection of a pier. Is it a violation of the
public faith to stop the works, if we afterwards see reason to believe that the
building will be useless? The rights of property are undoubtedly sacred. But
nothing endangers those rights so much as the practice, now unhappily too
common, of attributing them to things to which they do not belong. Those who
would impart to abuses the sanctity of property are in truth imparting to the
institution of property the unpopularity and the fragility of abuses. If the
Government has given to any person a formal assurance; nay, if the Government
has exdted in any person's mind a reasonable expectation that he shall receive
a certain income as a teacher or a learner of Sanscrit or Arabic, I would
respect that person's pecuniary interests--I would rather err on the side of
liberality to individuals than suffer the public faith to be called in
question. But to talk of a Government pledging itself to teach certain
languages and certain sciences, though those languages may become useless,
though those sciences may be exploded, seems to me quite unmeaning. There is
not a single word in any public instructions, from which it can be inferred
that the Indian Government ever intended to give any pledge on this subject, or
ever considered the destination of these funds as unalterably fixed. But had it
been otherwise, I should have denied the competence of our predecessors to bind
us by any pledge on such a subject. Suppose that a Government had in the last
century enacted in the most sole,nn manner that all its subjects should, to the
end of time, be inoculated for the smallpox: would that Government be bound to
persist in the practice after Jenner's discovery? These promises, of which
nobody claims the performance, and from which nobody can grant a release; these
vested rights, which vest in nobody; this property without proprietors; this
robbery, which makes nobody poorer, may be comprehended by persons of higher
faculties than mine.--- I consider this plea merely as a set form of words,
regularly used both in England and in India, in defence of every abuse for
which no other plea can be set up.
I
hold this lac of rupees to be quite at the disposal of the Governor General in
Council, for the purpose of promoting learning in India, in any way which may
be thought most advisable. I hold his Lordship to be quite as free to direct
that it shall no longer be employed in encouraging Arabic and Sanscrit, as he
is to direct that the reward for killing tigers in Mysore shall be diminished,
that no more public money shall be expended on the chanting at the
cathedral.
We
now come to the gist of the matter. We have a fund to be employed as Government
shall direct for the intellectual improvement of the people of this country.
The simple question is, what is the most useful way of employing it?
All
parties seem to be agreed on one point, that the dialects commonly spoken among
the natives of this part of India, contain neither literary nor scientific
information, and are, moreover, so poor and rude that, until they are enriched
from some other quarter, it will not be easy to translate any valuable work
into them. It seems to be admitted on all sides, that the intellectual
improvement of those classes of the people who have the means of pursuing
higher studies can at present be effected only by means of some language not
vernacular amongst them.
What
then shall that language be? One-half of the Committee maintain that it should
be the English. The other half strongly recommend the Arabic and Sanscrit. The
whole question seems to me to be, which language is the best worth
knowing?
I
have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic.--But I have done what I could
to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most
celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have conversed both here and at home
with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite
ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists
themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single
shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India
and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western literature is, indeed,
fully admitted by those members of the Committee who support the Oriental plan
of education.
It
will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the department of literature in which
the Eastern writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never met with any
Orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could
be compared to that of the great European nations. But when we pass from works
of imagination to works in which facts are recorded, and general principles
investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable.
It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say, that all the historical information
which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit language is
less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at
preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral
philosophy, the relative position of the two nations is nearly the same.
How,
then, stands the case? We have to educate a people who cannot at present be
educated by means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some foreign
language. The claims of our own language it is hardly necessary to
recapitulate. It stands pre-eminent even among the languages of the west. It
abounds with works of imagination not inferior to the noblest which Greece has
bequeathed to us; with models of every species of eloquence; with historical
compositions, which, considered merely as nar- ratives, have seldom been
surpassed, and which, considered as vehicles of ethical and political
instruction, have never been equalled; with just and lively representations of
human life and human nature; with the most profound speculations on
metaphysics, morals, government, jurisprudence, and trade; with full and
correct information respecting every experimental science which tends to
preserve the health, to increase the comfort, or to expand the intellect of
man. Whoever knows that language has ready access to all the vast intellectual
wealth, which all the wisest nations of the earth have created and hoarded in
the course of ninety generations. It may safely be said, that the literature
now extant in that language is of far greater value than all the literature
which three hundred years ago was extant in all the languages of the world
together. Nor is this all. In India, English is the language spoken by the
ruling class. It is spoken by the higher class of natives at the seats of
Government. It is likely to become the language of commerce throughout the seas
of the East. It is the language of two great European communities which are
rising, the one in the south of Africa, the other in Australasia; communities
which are every year becoming more important, and more closely connected with
our Indian empire. Whether we look at the intrinsic value of our literature, or
at the particular situation of this country, we shall see the strongest reason
to think that, of all foreign tongues, the English tongue is that which would
be the most useful to our native subjects.
The
question now before us is simply whether, when it is in our power to teach this
language, we shall teach languages in which, by universal confession, there are
no books on any subject which deserve to be compared to our own; whether, when
we can teach European science, we shall teach systems which, by universal
confession, whenever they differ from those of Europe, differ for the worse;
and whether, when we can patronise sound Philosophy and true History, we shall
countenance, at the public expense, medi- cal 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.
We
are not without experience to guide us. History furnishes several analogous
cases, and they all teach the same lesson. There are in modern times, to go no
further, two memorable instances of a great impulse given to the mind of a
whole society,--of prejudices overthrown,--of knowledge diffused,--taste
purified,--of arts and sciences planted in countries which had recently been
ignorant and barbarous.
The
first instance to which I refer, is the great revival of letters among the
Western nations at the close of the fifteenth and the begi:ning of the
sixteenth century. At that time almost every thing that was worth reading was
contained in the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Had our ancestors
acted as the Committee of Public Instruction has hitherto acted; had they
neglected the language of Cicero and Tacitus; had they confined their attention
to the old dialects of our own island; had they print- ed nothing and taught
nothing at the universities but Chronicles in Anglo-Saxon, and Romances in
Norman-French, would England have been what she now is? What the Greek and
Latin were to the contemporaries of More and Ascham, our tongue is to the
people of India. The literature of England is now more valuable than that of
classical antiquity. I doubt whether the Sanscrit literature be as valuable as
that of our Saxon and Norman progenitors. In some departments,--in History, for
example, I am certain that it is much less so.
Another
instance may be said to be still before our eyes. Within the last hundred and
twenty years, a nation which has previously been in a state as barbarous as
that in which our ancestors were before the crusades, has gradually emerged
from the ignorance in which it was sunk, and has taken its place among
civilized communities.--I speak of Russia. There is now in that country a large
educated class, abounding with persons fit to serve the state in the highest
ftmctions, and in no wise inferior to the most accomplished men who adorn the
best circles of Paris and London. There is reason to hope that this vast
empire, which in the time of our grandfathers was probably behind the Punjab,
may, in the time of our grandchildren, be pressing close on France and Britain
in the career of improvement. And how was this change effected? Not by
flattering national prejudices: not by feeding the mind of the young Muscovite
with the old women's stories which his rude fathers had believed: not by
filling his head with lying legends about St. Nicholas: not by encouraging him
to study the great question, whether the world was or was not created on the
13th of September: not by calling him "a learned native," when he has
mastered all these points of knowledge: but by teaching him those foreign
languages in which the greatest mass of information had been laid up, and thus
putting all that information within his reach. The languages of Western Europe
civilized Russia. I cannot doubt that they will do for the Hindoo what they
have done for the Tartar.
And
what are the arguments against that course which seems to be alike recommended
by theory and by experience? It is said that we ought to secure the cooperation
of the native public, and that we can do this only by teaching Sanscrit and
Arabic.
I
can by no means admit that when a nation of high intellectual attainments
undertakes to Superintend the education of a nation comparatively ignorant, the
learners are absolutely to prescribe the course which is to be taken by the
teachers. It is not necessary, however, to say any thing on this subject. For
it is proved by unanswerable evidence that we are not at present securing the
Cooperation of the natives. It would be bad enough to consult their
intellectual taste at the expense of their intellectual health. But we are
consulting neither,--we are withholding from them the learning for which they
are craving, we are forcing on them the mock-learning which they
nauseate.
This
is proved by the fact that we are forced to pay our Arabic and Sanscrit
students, while those who learn Engiish are wiling to pay us. All the
declamations in the worid about the love and reverence of the natives for their
sacred dialects will never, in the mind of any impartial person, outweigh the
undisputed fact, that we cannot find, in all our vast empire, a single student
who will let us teach him those dialects unless we will pay him.
I
have now before me the accounts of the Madrassa for one month,-in the month of
December, 1833. The Arabic students appear to have been seventy-seven in
number. All receive stipends from the public. The whole amount paid to them is
above 500 rupees a month. On the other side of the account stands the following
item: Deduct amount realized from the out-students of English for the months of
May, June and July last, 103 rupees.
I
have been told that it is merely from want of local experience that I am
surprised at these phenomena, and that it is not the fashion for students in
India to study at their own charges. This only confirms me in my opinion.
Nothing is more certain than that it never can in any part of the world be
necessary to pay men for doing what they think pleasant and profitable. India
is no exception to this rule. The people of India do not require to be paid for
eating rice when they are hungry, or for wearing woollen cloth in the cold
season. To come nearer to the case before us, the children who learn their
letters and a little elementary Arithmetic from the village school-master are
not paid by him. He is paid for teaching them. Why then is it necessary to pay
people to learn Sanscrit and Arabic? Evidently because it is universally felt
that the Sanscrit and Arabic are languages, the knowledge of which does not
compensate for the trouble of acquiring them. On all such subjects the state of
the market is the decisive test.
Other
evidence is not wanting, if other evidence were required. A petition was
presented last year to the Committee by several ex-students of the Sanscrit
College. The petitioners stated that they had studied in the college ten or
twelve years; that they had made themselves acquainted with Hindoo literature
and science; that they had received certificates of proficiency: and what is
the fruit of all this! "Notwithstanding such testimonials," they say,
"we have but little prospect of bettering our condition without the kind
assistance of your Honorable Committee, the indifference with which we are
generally looked upon by our countrymen leaving no hope of encouragement and
assistance from them." They therefore beg that they may be recommended to
the Governor General for places under the Government, not places of high
dignity or emolument, but such as may just enable them to exist. "We want
means," they say, "for a decent living, and for our progressive
improvement, which, however, we cannot obtain without the assistance of
Government, by whom we have been educated and maintained from childhood."
They conclude by representing, very pathetically, that they are sure that it
was never the intention of Government, after behaving so liberally to them
during their education, to abandon them to destitution and neglect.
I
have been used to see petitions to Government for compensation. All these
petitions, even the most unreasonable of them, proceeded on the supposition
that some loss had been sustained- that some wrong had been inflicted. These
are surely the first petitioners who ever demanded compensation for having been
educated gratis, for having been supported by the public during twelve years,
and then sent forth into the world well furnished with literature and science.
They represent their education as an injury which gives them a claim on the
Government for redress, as an injury for which the stipends paid to them during
the infliction were a very inadequate compensation. And I doubt not that they
are in the right. They have wasted the best years of life in learning what
procures for them neither bread nor respect. Surely we might, with advantage,
have saved the cost of making these persons useless and miserable; surely, men
may be brought up to be burdens to the public and objects of contempt to their
neighbours at a somewhat smaller charge to the state. But such is our policy.
We do not even stand neuter in the contest between truth and falsehood. We are
not content to leave the natives to the influence of their own hereditary
prejudices. To the natural difficulties which obstruct the progress of sound
science in the East, we add fresh difficulties of our own making. Bounties and
premiums, such as ought not to be given even for the propagation of truth, we
lavish on false taste and false philosophy.
By
acting thus we create the very evil which we fear. We are making that
opposition which we do not find. What we spend on the Arabic and Sanscrit
colleges is not merely a dead loss to the cause of truth; it is bounty-money
paid to raise up champions of error. It goes to form a nest, not merely of
helpless place-hunters, but of bigots prompted alike by passion and by interest
to raise a cry against every usetul scheme of education. If there should be any
opposition among the natives to the change which I recommend, that opposition
will be the effect of our own system. It will be headed by persons supported by
our stipends and trained in our colleges. The longer we persevere in our
present course, the more formidable will that opposition be. It will be every
year reinforced by recruits whom we are paying. From the native society left to
itself, we have no difficulties to apprehend; all the murmuring will come from
that oriental interest which we have, by artificial means, called into being,
and nursed into strength.
There
is yet another fact, which is alone sufficient to prove that the feeling of the
native public, when left to itself, is not such as the supporters of the old
system represent it to be. The Committee have thought fit to lay out above a
lac of rupees in printing Arabic and Sanscrit books. Those books find no
purchasers. It is very rarely that a single copy is disposed of. Twenty-three
thousand volumes, most of them folios and quartos, fill the libraries, or
rather the lumber-rooms, of this body. The Committee contrive to get rid of
some portion of their vast stock of oriental literature by giving books away.
But they cannot give so fast as they print. About twenty thousand rupees a year
are spent in adding fresh masses of waste paper to a hoard which, I should
think, is already sufficiently ample. During the last three years, about sixty
thousand rupees have been expended in this manner. The sale of Arabic and
Sanscrit books, during those three years, has not yielded quite one thousand
rupees. In the mean time the School- book Society is selling seven or eight
thousand English volumes every year, and not only pays the expenses of
printing, but realises a profit of 20 per cent. on its outlay.
The
fact that the Hindoo law is to be learned chiefly from Sans- crit books, and
the Mahomedan law from Arabic books, has been much insisted on, but seems not
to bear at all on the question. We are commanded by Parliament to ascertam and
digest the laws of India. The assistance of a law Commission has been given to
us for that purpose. As soon as the code is promulgated, the Shasster and the
Hedaya will be useless to a Moonsiff or Sudder Ameen. I hope and trust that
before the boys who are now entering at the Madrassa and the Sanscrit college
have completed their studies, this great work will be finished. It would be
manifestly absurd to educate the rising generation with a view to a state of
things which we mean to alter before they reach manhood.
But
there is yet another argument which seems even more untenable. It is said that
the Sanscrit and Arabic are the languages in which the sacred books of a
hundred millions of people are written, and that they are, on that account,
entitled to peculiar encouragement. Assuredly it is the duty of the British
Government in India to be not only tolerant, but neutral on all religious
questions. But to encourage the study of a literature admitted to be of small
intrinsic value, only because that literature incuIcates the most serious
errors on the most important subjects, is a course hardly reconcileable with
reason, with morality, or even with that very neutrality which ought, as we all
agree, to be sacredly pre- served. It is confessed that a language is barren of
useful know- ledge. We are to teach it because it is fruittul of monstrous
superstitions. We are to teach false History, false Astronomy, false Medicine,
because we find them in company with a false religion. We abstain, and I trust
shall always abstain, from giving any public encouragement to those who are
engaged in the work of converting natives to Christianity. And while we act
thus, can we reasonably and decently bribe men out of the revenues of the state
to waste their youth in learning how they are to purify themselves after
touching an ass, or what text of the Vedas they are to repeat to expiate the
crime of killing a goat?
It
is taken for granted by the advocates of Oriental learning, that no native of
this country can possibly attain more than a mere smattering of English. They
do not attempt to prove this; but they perpetually insinuate it. They designate
the education which their opponents recommend as a mere spelling book
education. They assume it as undenlable, that the question is between a
profound knowledge of Hindoo and Arabian literature and science on the one
side, and a superficial knowledge of the rudiments of English on the other.
This is not merely an assumption, but an assumption contrary to all reason and
experience. We know that foreigners of all nations do learn our language
sufficiently to have access to all the most abstruse knowledge which it
contains, sufficiently to relish even the more delicate graces of our most
idiomatic writers. There are in this very town natives who are quite competent
to discuss political or scientific questions with fluency and precision in the
English language. I have heard the gentlemen with a liberality and an
intelligence which would do credit to any member of the Committee of Public
Instruction. Indeed it is unusual to find, even in the literary circles of the
continent, any foreigner who can express himself in English with so much
facility and correctness as we find in many Hindoos. Nobody, I suppose, will
contend that English is so difficult to a Hindoo as Greek to an Englishman. Yet
an intelligent English youth, in a much smaller number of years than our
unfortunate pupils pass at the Sanscrit college, becomes able to read, to
enjoy, and even to imitate, not unhappily, the compositions of the best Greek
Authors. Less than half the time which enables an English youth to read
Herodotus and Sophocles, ought to enable a Hindoo to read Hume and
Milton.
To
sum up what I have said, I think it clear that we are not fettered by the Act
of Parliament of 1813; that we are not fettered by any pledge expressed or
implied; that we are free to employ our fiinds as we choose; that we ought to
employ them in teaching what is best worth knowing; that English is better
worth knowing than Sanscrit or Arabic; that the natives are desirous to be
taught English, and are not desirous to be taught Sanscrit or Arabic; that
neither as the languages of law, nor as the languages of religion, have the
Sanscrit and Arabic any peculiar claim to our engagement; that it is possible
to make natives of this country thoroughly good English scholars, and that to
this end our efforts ought to be directed.
In
one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whose general views I am opposed.
I feel with them, that it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to
attempt to educate the body of the people. We
must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us
and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and
colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that
class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to
enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western
nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying
knowledge to the great mass of the population.
I
would strictly respect all existing interests. I would deal even generously
with all individuals who have had fair reason to expect a pecuniary provision.
But I would strike at the root of the bad system which has hitherto been
fostered by us. I would at once stop the printing of Arabic and Sanscrit books,
I would abolish the Madrassa and the Sanscrit college at Calcutta. Benares is
the great seat of Brahmanical learning; Delhi, of Arabic learning. If we retain
the Sanscrit college at Benares and the Mahometan college at Delhi, we do
enough, and much more than enough in my opinion, for the Eastern languages. If
the Benares and Delhi colleges should be retained, I would at least recommend
that no stipends shall be given to any students who may hereafter repair
thither, but that the people shall be left to make their own choice between the
rival systems of education without being bribed by us to learn what they have
no desire to know. The funds which would thus be placed at our disposal would
enable us to give larger encouragement to the Hindoo college at Calcutta, and
to establish in the principal cities throughout the Presidencies of Fort
William and Agra schools in which the English language might be well and
thoroughly taught.
If
the decision of his Lordship in Council should be such as I anticipate, I shall
enter on the performance of my duties with the greatest zeal and alacrity. If,
on the other hand, it be the opinion of the Government that the present system
ought to remain unchanged, I beg that I may be permitted to retire from the
chair of the Committee. I feel that I could not be of the smallest use there--I
feel, also, that I should be lending my countenance to what I firmly believe to
be a mere delusion. I believe that the present system tends, not to accelerate
the progress of truth, but to delay the natural death of expiring errors. I
conceive that we have at present no right to the respectable name of a Board of
Public Instruction. We are a Board for wasting public money, for printing books
which are of less value than the paper on which they are printed was while it
was blank; for giving artificial encouragement to absurd history, absurd
metaphysics, absurd physics, absurd theology; for raising up a breed of
scholars who find their scholarship an encumbrance and a blemish, who live on
the public while they are receiving their education, and whose education is so
utterly useless to them that when they have received it they must either starve
or live on the public all the rest of their lives. Entertaining these opinions,
I am naturally desirous to decline all share in the responsibility of a body,
which unless it alters its whole mode of proceeding, I must consider not merely
as useless, but as positively noxious.
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