should consist of the "upper classes," it is essential to ascertain who these latter consist of. Here it is absolutely necessary for the European inquirer to divest his mind of European analogies, which so often insinuate themselves almost involuntarily into Anglo-Indian speculations. Circumstances in Europe, especially in England, have drawn a marked line, perceptible in manners, wealth, political and social influence, between the upper and lower classes. No such line is to be found in India, where, as under all despotisms, the will of the prince was all that was requisite to raise men from the humblest condition in life to the highest station, and where, consequently, great uniformity in manners has always prevailed. A beggar, according to English notions, is fit only for the stocks or compulsory labor in the work-house: in India he is a respectable character, and worthy indeed of veneration according to the Braminical theory, which considers him as one who has renounced all the pleasures and temptations of life for the cultivation of learning and undisturbed meditation on the Deity.

dia.

17. The classes who may be deemed to be influential, Upper classes of In- and in so far the upper classes in India, may be ranked as follows:1st. The land-owners and jaghirdars, representatives of former feudatories and persons in authority under Native powers, and who may be termed the Soldier class.

2nd. Those who have acquired wealth in trade or commerce, or the commercial class.

3rd. The higher employés of Government.

4th. Brahmins, with whom may be associated, though at long interval, those of the higher casts of writers who live by the pen, such as Parbhus and Shenwis in Bombay, Kayasts in Bengal, provided they acquire a position either in learning or station.

18. Of these four classes, incomparably the most influen

Brahmins the most influential.

tial, the most numerous, and on the whole the easiest to be worked on by Government, are the latter. It is a well-recognized fact throughout India that the ancient jaghirdars or Soldier class are daily deteriorating under our rule. Their old occupation is gone, and they have shown no disposition or capacity to adopt a new one, or to cultivate the arts of peace. In this Presidency the attempts of Mr. Elphinstone and his successors to bolster up a landed aristocracy have lamentably failed; and complete discomfiture has hitherto attended all endeavours to open up a path to distinction through civil honors and education to a race whom nothing appears to excite but vain pomp and extravagance, or the reminiscences of their ancestors' successful raids in the plains of Hindustan. Nor among the commercial classes, with few exceptions, is there much greater opening for the influences of superior education. As in all countries, but more in India than in the higher civilized ones of Europe, the young merchant or trader must quit his school at an early period in order to obtain the special education needful for his vocation in the market or the counting-house. Lastly, the employés of the State, though they possess great influence over the large numbers who come in contact with Government, have no influence whatever with the still larger numbers who are independent of Government; and, indeed, they appear to inspire the same sort of distrust with the public as government functionaries in England, who are often considered by the vulgar as mere hacks of the State.

Poverty of Brahmins.

19. The above analysis, though it may appear lengthy, is nevertheless indispensable, for certain important conclusions deducible from it. First, it demonstrates that the influential class whom the Government are able to avail themselves of in diffusing the seeds of education are the Brahmins, and other high casts, Brachmannis

proximi. But the Brahmins and these high casts are for the most part wretchedly poor; and in many parts of India the term "Brahmin" is synonymous with "beggar."

20. We may see,

Wealthy classes will not at present support superior education.

then, how hopeless it is to enforce

what your Lordship in Council so strongly enjoined upon us in your letter of the 24th April 1850,what appears, primâ facie, so plausible and proper in itself,-what, in fact, the Board themselves have very often attempted, viz. the strict limitation of superior education "to the wealthy, who can afford to pay for it, and to youths of unusual intelligence." The invariable answer the Board has received when attempting to enforce views like these has been, that the wealthy are wholly indifferent to superior education, and that no means for ascertaining unusual intelligence amongst the poor exist until their faculties have been tested and developed by school training. A small section from among the wealthier classes is no doubt displaying itself, by whom the advantages of superior education are recognized; it appears larger in Bengal, where education has been longer fostered by Government, than in Bombay, and we think it inevitable that such class must increase, with the experience that superior attainments lead to distinction, and to close intercourse with Europeans on the footing of social equality; but, as a general proposition at the present moment, we are satisfied that academical instruction in the arts and sciences of Europe cannot be based on the contributions either of students or of funds from the opulent classes of India. 21. The practical conclusion to be drawn from these facts, which years of experience have forced upon our notice, is that a very wide door should be

Question as to educating low casts.

opened to the children of the poor higher casts, who are willing to receive education at our hands. But here, again,

another embarrassing question arises, which it is right to notice: If the children of the poor are admitted freely to Government Institutions, what is there to prevent all the despised castes,-the Dhérs, Mhars, &c.-from flocking in numbers to their walls?

the Hindus.

22. There is little doubt that if a class of these latter Social prejudices of were to be formed in Bombay, they might be trained, under the guiding influence of such professors and masters as are in the service of the Board, into men of superior intelligence to any in the community; and, with such qualifications as they would then possess, there would be nothing to prevent their aspiring to the highest offices open to native talent,— to Judgeships, the Grand Jury, Her Majesty's Commission of the Peace. Many benevolent men think it is the height of illiberality and weakness in the British Government to succumb to the prejudices which such appointments would excite into disgust amongst the Hindu community, and that an open attack should be made upon the barriers of cast.

Wise

observations

23. But here the wise reflections of Mr. Elphinstone, the most liberal and large-minded administrator who has appeared on this side of India, point out the true rule of action. "It is

of the Hon'ble Mountstuart Elphinstone cited.

observed," he says, "that the missionaries find the lowest castes the best pupils; but we must be careful how we offer any special encouragement to men of that description; they are not only the most despised, but among the least numerous of the great divisions of society; and it is to be feared that if our system of education first took root among them, it would never spread further, and we might find ourselves at the head of a new class, superior to the rest in useful knowledge, but hated and despised by the castes to whom these new attainments would always induce us to

prefer them."* It is mortifying to a Christian philanthropist to think that such strong social prejudices should exist to create this marked distinction of persons; the mortification, however, is diminished by finding that the despised classes form a very insignificant fraction of the community; and when he recollects the prevalence of similar opinions in his own country,—of the feelings, for example, that would be roused by the head of the House of Percy or of Howard allying himself with a butcher's daughter, however beautiful, accomplished, or wealthy,―he perceives that social peculiarities on these subjects lie wholly beyond the just scope of Government interference.

24. Having thus established, as we venture to presume, that Government education can Classification of Government Schools cononly be applied to a small section sidered. of the community, and that the poor higher casts form the most promising subjects on whom educational influences can be brought to bear, we may proceed to consider the classification of Schools which has been adopted in this Presidency. What are our vernacular Schools-what our English? Do the first correspond to the primary, the latter to the superior Schools of Europe? Education in English for the upper classes?-through the vernacular medium for the masses, the millions?

25. A hasty analogy would suggest an answer to these questions in the affirmative. Language occasionally used by the Board itself would seem to indicate that some such principle of division dictated the arrangement;

Vernacular Schools do not correspond to the primary Schools of Europe.

and our President particularly requests us to point out that in various Minutes on this subject he had overlooked the real

Minute by Hon'ble Mountstuart Elphinstone on Education, 13th

December 1823.