topics: |  india | british-raj | education |

a petition was presented by a number of students of the Sanskrit college, pathetically representing that despite their arduous course of study, they found little prospect of bettering their condition...

A 200-page argument for how the natives desire English education and why the East India Company government practice has moved from an emphasis on traditional native learning towards English education, both in the language, and the sciences. This work followed the 1835 decision by William Bentinck to abolish further support for Sanskrit and Persian colleges, and institute a English-based education system for the natives.

Covers the period 1813 to 1837. A much more nuanced position compared to the infamous Macaulay minute (1835). The details of the change in syllabus etc are interesting.

Indian Education under the East India Company

The Company was not interested in investing for public education, but was
goaded by the British parliament on the matter. While renewing the
company's charter in 1813, the parliament made it mandatory for it to spend
an annual budget of one lakh rupees was set up for native education.  Given
the generral apathy, this money was not utilized till the mid 1820s, and
in 1823, the General Committee for Public Instruction (GCPI) was set up to
look into this matter.

In 1826, Charles Edward Trevelyan joined the Company Civil service as a
"writer" (administrator) at the age of nineteen.  He earned laurels in
Persian at the Fort William college, and held several important posts in
Delhi and Calcutta.  In 1833, he was appointed chairman of the GCPI.

 
Charles Trevelyan, 1850s.

In 1834, Trevelyan married Hannah Macaulay, the sister of his close friend
Thomas Babington Macaulay, who had arrived recently from England to join
the Supreme Council of India.

Orientalist vs Anglicist debate

At the time, the GCPI had been under the sway of the Orientalists, who
had set up two institutions to provide education in the traditional native
mores.  Some texts of the european sciences had been translated into native
languages for instruction here.

Trevelyan and some others, such as Mountstuart Elphinstone, argued
for a thoroughly european education scheme, and came to be known as the
Anglicists.

The steam boats, passing up and down the Ganges, arc boarded by native boys, begging, not for money, but for books.

This book outlines Trevelyan's arguments for why European education - and the English language - should be used in educating Indians. One of the key arguments it that there was overwhelming interest among the natives for English learning. The anglicist project was completed in 1835, when his brother-in-law Thomas Babington Macaulay presented a strongly worded argument ("minute"), which was accepted by the committee.

Trevelyan returned to England in 1840.  He soon joined the British
government in Ireland, where he attained  notoriety during the potato famine,
for being unresponsive to the needs of the dying citizenry.

Excerpts

The Mohammedan college at Calcutta was established A.D. 1781, and the
Sanskrit college at Benares A.D. 1792. The course of study at these
institutions was purely oriental, and the object of it was to provide a
regular supply of qualified Hindu and Mohammedan law office's for the
judicial administration. p.1

General committee of public instruction (GCPI)

[the general committee of public instruction was given a budget of one lac
rupees a year.  Focus, education in the Indian traditions.]

[set up] the Sanskrit college at Calcutta in lieu of two similar
institutions, the formation of which had been previously contemplated at
Nuddea and Tirhoot; improvements at Hindu College, Calcutta, which had been
founded as far back as 1816, by the voluntary contributions of the natives
themselves, for the instruction of their youth in English literature and
science. p.2

...  printing of Sanskrit and Arabic books - and large projects translating
English science into Arabic...

GCPI Report, December 1831

In addition to the measures adopted for the diffusion of English in the
provinces and which are yet only in their infancy, the encouragement of the
Vidyalaya, or Hindu college of Calcutta, has always been one of the chief
objects of the committee's attention. The consequence has surpassed
expectation.

A command of the English language and a familiarity with its literature and
science have been acquired to an extent rarely equalled by any schools in
Europe. A taste for English has been widely disseminated, and independent
schools, conducted by young men reared in the Vidyalaya, are springing up in
every direction.  The moral effect has been equally remark-' able, and an
impatience of the restrictions of Hinduism and a disregard of its ceremonies
are openly avowed by many young men of respectable birth and talents, and
entertained by many more who outwardly conform to -the practices of their
countrymen.

In the Madressa of Calcutta and Hindu college of Benares, institutions of
earlier days, European superintendence was for many years strenuously and
successfully resisted. This opposition has long ceased. The consequences are
a systematic course of study, diligent and regular habits, and an impartial
appreciation of merits, which no institution left to native superintendence
alone has ever been known to maintain.

The plan of study adopted in the colleges is in general an improvement upon
the native mode, and is intended to convey a well-founded knowledge of the
languages studied, with a wider range of acquirement than is common, and to
effect this in the least possible time. [In] the native mode of instruction,
for instance, a Hindu or Mohammedan lawyer devotes the best years of his life
to the acquirement of law alone, and is very imperfectly acquainted with the
language which treats of the subject of his studies. In the Madressa and
Sanskrit college the first part of the course is now calculated to form a
really good Arabic and Sanskrit scholar, and a competent knowledge of law is
then acquired with comparative facility and contemporaneously with other
branches of Hindu or Mohammedan learning.

Again, the improvements effected have not been limited to a reformation in
the course and scope of native study, but, whenever opportunity has favoured,
new and better instruction has been grafted upon the original plan. Thus in
the Madressa, Euclid has been long studied and with considerable advantage:
European anatomy has also been introduced. In the Sanskrit college of
Calcutta, European anatomy and medicine have nearly supplanted the native
systems. At Agra and at Delhi the elements of geography and astronomy and
mathematics are also part of the college course. To the Madressa, the
Sanskrit college of Calcutta, and the Agra college, also, English classes are
attached, whilst at Delhi and Benares distinct schools have been formed for
the dissemination of the English language. ...

In addition to the measures adopted for the diffusion of English in the
provinces and which are yet only in their infancy, the encouragement of the
Vidyalaya, or Hindu college of Calcutta, has always been one of the chief
objects of the committee's attention. The consequence has surpassed
expectation. p.8

A command of the English language and a familiarity with its literature and
science have been acquired to an extent rarely equalled by any schools in
Europe. A taste for English has been widely disseminated, and independent
schools, conducted by young men reared in the Vidyalaya, are springing up in
every direction.  The moral effect has been equally remark-' able, and an
impatience of the restrictions of Hinduism and a disregard of its ceremonies
are openly avowed by many young men of respectable birth and talents, and
entertained by many more who outwardly conform to the practices of their
countrymen. Another generation will probably witness a very material
alteration in the notions and feelings 'of the educated classes of the Hindu
community of Calcutta.

Meanwhile the progress of events was leading to the necessity of adopting a
more decided course.  The taste for English became more and more "widely
disseminated." A loud call arose for the means of instruction in it, and the
subject was pressed on the committee from various quarters.  English books
only were in any demand: upwards of thirty-one thousand English books were
sold by the school-book society in the course of two years, while the
education committee did not dispose of Arabic and Sanskrit volumes enough in
three years...

Among other signs ot the times, a petition was presented to
the committee by a number of young men who had been brought up at the
Sanskrit college, pathetically representing that, notwithstanding the long
and elaborate course of study which they had gone through, they had little
prospect of bettering their condition; that the indifference with which they
were generally regarded by their countrymen left them no hope of assistance
from them... The English classes which had been tacked on to this and other
oriental colleges had entirely failed in their object.  The boys had not time
to go through an English, in addition to an oriental course, and the study
which was secondary was naturally neglected. p.9

[Debates in the committee : the Orientalist group attempts to propagate
native education as before, to bring out an edition of Avicenna etc,] by
all which means fresh masses would have been added to an already unsaleable
and useless hoard.  Anglicist group : more emphasis on English and
vernacular languages.]  This state of things lasted for about three
years...

Resolution of Government, dated 1th March 1835

				 (following the Macaulay minute)

His lordship in council is of opinion that the great object of the British
government ought to be the promotion of European literature and science
amongst the natives of India, and that all the funds appropriated for the
purposes of education would be best employed on English education alone.
[but all existing colleges of native learning would continue to be
supported.]  13-15

Eventually some of the pro-native education members on the committee died or
resigned; one of their replacements was Macaulay.  Others also supported the
tide of English education.

Contribution to Libraries : FN. As most young men take out a stock of books
with them to India, while few bring any back, the common English standard
works have accumulated there to a great extent. The public libraries which
have been established by the committee in the principal towns form a nucleus
round which these and many other books collect. 16-17

Desire among natives for the benefit of European instruction

This harmony of effort, however, would be of little avail if it were not
founded on a real desire on the part of the natives themselves to obtain the
benefit of European instruction. The curiosity of the people is thoroughly
roused, and the passion for English knowledge has penetrated the most
obscure, and extended to the most remote parts of India. The steam boats,
passing up and down the Ganges, arc boarded by native boys, begging, not for
money, but for books.

[The following footnote is quoted in Niranjana Twjaswani's remarkable work,
Siting Translation (1992).

	Some gentlemen coming to Calcutta were astonished at the eagerness
	with which they were pressed for books by A troop of boys, who
	boarded the steamer from an obscure place, called Comercolly. A Plato
	was lying on the table, and one of the party asked a boy whether that
	would serve his purpose.  "Oh yes," he exclaimed, "give me any book ;
	all I want is a book."

	The gentleman at last hit upon the expedient of cutting up an old
	Quarterly Review, and distributing the articles among them. In the
	evening, when some of the party went ashore, the boys of the town
	flocked round them, expressing their regret that there was no English
	school in the place, and saying that they hoped that the
	Governor-general, to whom they had made an application on the subject
	when he passed on his way up the country, would establish one. 167

The chiefs of the Punjab, a country which has never
been subdued by the British arms, made so many applications to the Political
Agent on the frontier to procure an English education for their children,
that the Government has found it necessary to attach a schoolmaster to his
establishment. The tide of literature is even rolling back from India to
Persia, and the Supreme Government lately sent a large supply of English
books for the use of the King of Persia's military seminary, the students of
which were reported to be actuated by a strong zeal for European learning.


---
see also: 
Hilliker, J. F. "Charles Edward Trevelyan as an Educational Reformer in
India, 1827-1838." Canadian Journal of History 9.3 (1974): 274-91.