Assuming, then, that the branch of missionary labour thus chosen for a commencement, is a legitimate one-which many will at once admit-and also a prudential one, on which inquiry we will not, as we said, now enter, we hold it self-evident that the thorough-going and vigorous mode of prosecuting it, exemplified in the Scottish Mission, is the only one to afford a tolerable prospect of any considerable success, or even to justify at all its almost exclusive adoption. No efforts have been spared; funds have been liberally supplied; men of first-rate talent and superior education have been sent out; the most approved plans of teaching have been adopted; the entire time and talents and exertions of the highly qualified Missionaries have been devoted to the Institution, and most certainly with no small results of the character immediately contemplated. We say immediately, because the ultimate object-the only one which could for one moment justify so large an outlay of expressly religious missionary funds, and so exclusive an application of Christian ministerial labour-and the one too, we are quite sure, ever nearest the hearts of the Scottish Church as well as of their excellent missionaries on the spot-has been openly avowed from the beginning. The uncharitable cant of deception, &c. so often in the mouths of some nominal but pseudo-christians (proh pudor!) as a charge against the conductors of Mission schools in India, and which has in truth no just application to any of those establishments, cannot have even a seeming plausibility as applied to the General Assembly's Institution in Calcutta. The pupils and their parents are fully aware, and were so from the first, that the destruction of Hindu idolatry and superstition, equally with that of all false philosophy, is directly aimed at, and conversion to Christianity, as a moral and rational consequence, contemplated and desired by its founders, its supporters, and its agents; and that this ultimate object out of view, not one cowrie of religious funds would have been spent, nor one hour's missionary toil have been devoted to merely scholastic exercises and scientific instruction, however absolutely valuable and however, on other resources and by other agents, laudably to be engaged in. One reflection was powerful in our own minds during the examination; namely the utter futility of the idle fears entertained by many well-meaning friends of native education, that the introduction of any direct instruction upon the doctrines and evidences of Christianity would surely neutralize the efforts made to open the native mind to the reception of European education at our hands. For, what is the fact? In the Assembly's school are upwards of 700 boys and young men, of all castes and classes, the highest and most respectable in native society, in regular and voluntary attendance upon the instructions of avowed Christian missionaries. Be it, if the objectors please, that for the sake of larger advantages than elsewhere obtainable, for the better prosecution of scientific and secular studies, they but tolerate the inculcation and submit to the study of Christianity, in its doctrines, evidences, and moral precepts; yet, what can more triumphantly refute the vain apprehension we now refer to, than the fact of such an exhibition? But we are satisfied, from personal inquiry and the stubborn evidence of facts, that there is more than what we have supposed; that there is, in many, a real awakening of mind to the paramount claims and love of truth in all its departments, and not least in its moral and religious aspect; and this is all we wish for. Let but truth have as fair a hearing as error, and it must triumph. Magna est veritas et prævalebit. The human mind was con stituted for it, and it designed for the human mind; the result, consequently of its exhibition to that mind, when awakened to the pursuit, is not doubtful in the forward-view of the discerning and observant student of human nature, adequately read in the history of his race. We annex the programme of the examination. 12th Instructor No. II. 11th Instructor No. III. 10th 9th 4th Monitorial 2 pp. 24 pp. English Grammar, Parts of Speech. 24 pp. Woollaston's Grammar. 48 pp. McCulloch's do. 26 pp. 160 pp. Lennie's do. 52 pp. Geo. graphy-Europe, Asia, and Africa. Euclid, Book I. Brief Survey of History, Part II. 97 pp. New Testament-The Four Gospels; Arithmetic-Fractions. ESSAY BY MAHESH C. BA'NURJYA. Whately's Rhetoric; Sir Jas. Mackintosh's Ancient and {Scholastic Ethics, Paley's Evidences of Christianity. ESSAY BY KHYETAR M. CHA'TURJYA'. 1st Class.-Milne's Astronomy; Leechman's Logic; Clift's Political Economy; Horne's Evidences; History of England; Conic Sections; Parabola and Ellipse; Spherical Tri-; gonometry. ESSAY BY BEHA'RI' L. SINGHA. 2nd Class.-Horne's Evidences; History of India; New Testament; Euclid, 6 Books; Plane Trigonometry; Algebra ; Quad : Equations. 5th & 6th EXAMINATION IN BENGA'LI'. 3rd Class.-History of India, 77 pp.; Euclid, 4 Books; Horne 40 pp., New Testament, 4 Gospels; Physical Geography. Brief Survey, Part I. 140 pp.; Use of the Globes; Arithmetic, Fractions; Geography, 4 Quarters and India. Brief Survey, Part I. 24 pp.; Geography, the 4 Quarters; Arithmetic, Reduction; Lennie's Eng. Grammar. The number of pupils on the list is 740: the greatest number present at once 645. 7th & 8th The Programme was not strictly adhered to, in the examination; several Classes, from want of time, were not examined at all. We were not able to remain out the entire examination, (which was conducted chiefly by the Rev. Messrs. Charles, Mackay, and Ewart;) but saw and heard enough to justify us in forming and expressing an unqualified opinion, that the conduct of this Institution has been eminently successful in communicating a large mass of miscellaneous knowledge to its pupils. Many of these have certainly acquired a very considerable acquaintance with our, to them, exotic and most heterogeneous language, difficult alike in its enunciation, spelling and construction. The Essays exhibit most satisfactory specimens of progressive attainment, pro ratione classium, in the art of English composition; and that not merely as to grammatical correctness, idiomatic expression, and just application of terms, but as to ease and range of thought, enlargement of ideas, and positive growth of intellect. Yet they were shewn up as written, with all their faults and peculiarities of spelling, diction and illustration. The first Essay was "on Grammar, by Gopál Chandar Dás, a lad of the 10th class, of only nine or ten years of age. It was read aloud by the lad himself, and excited, by its original naïveté, truly native turn of thought, and swelling and singular figures and illustrations, no small amusement among the European auditory. The second, on Female Character," by Mahendra Lál Baisák, shews the writer to be really a thinker and an observer, though neither very original nor very profound. His style is unequal, his composition not so correct as it is evident he could render it, were he to take greater pains, by writing leisurely and revising carefully. This latter exercise is especially called for to restrain the luxuriance of native style and to conquer the intolerance of patient labour so characteristic of Bengálí youth. However, as almost a first attempt, the Essay on Female Character must be deemed highly creditable to its author, the more so as we learn that he has received no regular instruction whatever in composition. The third essay 66 on the Rise and Doctrines of the Stoics and Epicureans of Greece," is, on the whole, composed with much correctness and knowledge of the subject. It is from the pen of Khyetar M. Cháṭṭurjyá, of the first or monitorial class, although not considered the best that was presented. That on the same subject, by Mahesh Chandar Bánurjyá obtained the preference. The mathematical classes passed a highly creditable exami nation indeed. Several of the young men were singularly prompt in the demonstrations, and accurate in the expression of the algebraic formulæ, &c. One youth, Mahendra L. Baisák, already mentioned, brought up and presented a book of Geometrical Propositions with original solutions, well conceived and worked out with much talent. The figures were drawn and the solutions written out with great neatness and in a remarkably good fair hand. The whole was the labour of his private hours, quite unknown to his tutors, who were first aware of his voluntary exercises when exhibited on the morning of the examination. This youth's mind has evidently a mathematical direction; its development in this branch is considerable, much greater indeed than in any other. We regretted extremely not to have been able to await the hearing of the Bengálí class; for we regard as one of the most important objects to be aimed at in all institutions for the education of natives, the exciting of a taste for the study of their vernacular languages. Few of them can ever hope to attain a sufficiently extensive and accurate acquaintance with English, to be able to compose in it works of any standard excellence or great utility; and were it even otherwise, how small still the number that would or could be benefitted by their perusal ! The great object of a European education, apart from its possessors being thereby led to a knowledge of religious truth, and from their own personal advancement in strength and excellence of mental and moral character, must of course be to furnish a sufficient number of young men of fair talent and application, with the science, literature and wisdom of the west; and to awaken in their minds an effective desire to seek the improvement of the mass of their countrymen, by spreading their own acquisitions among them through the medium of translations and original compositions in the native tongues. Thus would they become real and extensive benefactors; short of this, on the other hand, they would usually be but vain, selfish, and inglorious possessors of talents uselessly buried, or abused, perhaps, to purposes of ostentation and display. It is to natives of the country, thoroughly educated, of well cultivated minds, just sentiments, enlarged views, liberal and philanthropic feelings, that we must look for the exertion of any very extensive influence upon the mass of the Indian population; and this not only in regard to art, science, literature, and general education, but to religion also. The hugest efforts that it were not altogether visionary to suppose put forth by the various societies of our father-land, through European missionaries, and the vastest amount of charitable contribution that could by possibility be obtained, would but serve to commence, in various well chosen foci, the work of religious illumination and moral regeneration. As in ail past periods and among other nations, so now and here, foreign instructors and resources can be made to bear only upon the introduction of Christianity. It is by its own native energy, once put fairly in operation, that it must radiate far and wide, in all directions. A holy leaven, once duly inserted up and down the mass of an idolatrous and debased population, must subsequently work its own way till the whole be leavened. Thus many small bodies of native scholars on the one hand, and numerous little native churches on the other, are all that can reasonably be proposed as the result of European means and efforts. To those bodies and churches themselves must be left the task of extending true knowledge, a sound education, and a pure religion over the length and breadth of the land. Hence the real importance of such institutions as the Assembly's School-whether we view their alumni as the future literati and writers of their country; or as destined to furnish from their number a body of well educated men, imbued, as it may be confidently hoped not a few will be, with a zealous love for truth, and saturated with the genuine spirit of an enlightened Christianity, to go forth hereafter as the heralds of a divine salvation, and to become the apostles of the future churches of christianized Hindustan. Nothing short of this will ever effect the conversion to the Christian faith of the millions of the East. This is the great aim of all our noble Missionary Societies; this is the fervent prayer, the supporting hope of all their zealous agents in this idolatrous country, and that to which all their self-denying and laborious exertions are perseveringly directed. But to return A bare inspection of the programme will satisfy any inquirer, that most assiduous, intelligent and well-directed effort must have been employed by the directors and conductors of this institution, before such works as Whateley's Rhetoric and Logic, the Ancient and Scholastic Ethics of Sir J. Mackintosh, the Evidences of Paley and Horne, could have become its class books; to say nothing of astronomy, algebra (as far as quadratic equations), plane and spherical trigonometry, conic sections, the problems of the parabola and ellipse, &c. being among the subjects of only its seventh yearly examination! The chief Magistrate Mr. McFarlan, with most considerate and munificent liberality, has given one thousand rupees as a fund for a yearly gold medal, to be the meed of the best proficient in the school, at its periodical examination. It was this year adjudged to Mahesh Ch. Bánurjyá. Mr. Gray, the builder, also presented a very handsome silver medal, which was obtained by Khyetar M. Cháṭṭarjyá. A third medal was presented, by the Rev. J. Charles, to Mahendra Lál Baisák, of the 2nd class. |