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of the discontented.

In order to generate heat there must

Hindus

be friction and it is difficult to see where the friction was to come from when there was no opposing force. are free to return to the worship of the ancient gods, if indeed they have ever abandoned it, because there is no one to say them nay, so long at least as the rites do not involve a flagrant violation of the accepted code of humanity. And if the question be viewed from the other, the social standpoint, it is equally difficult to see how an organized attack on Western culture can succeed. Things have gone too far and the strictly orthodox party are in the position of Julian. The advantages of contact with the Western world are too apparent, the inconvenience of adhering strictly to antiquated regulations is too obvious, to give any serious reaction the slightest chance of victory. India cannot now sleep the sleep of Brunnhilde, encircled by the magic fire of her ancient Articles of Religion, and even if she could, some Siegfried would arise from among her own people to deliver her from such a position of national stagnation. The educated classes must for their own sakes and for the sake of India's position in the world, prevent the success of any reactionary movement and it would surely be the height of imprudence for the Brahmin to imperil the great advantages he now possesses, by forcing the rulers of the country to take sides against him. Western culture in India has not been forced upon the Indian it has grown with the growth of the country and be India never so independent she cannot now relinquish it without sacrificing her place in the world and becoming negligible without her borders and impoverished within them.

This part of the Professor's argument, then, seems to me exaggerated if not wholly false, but it is just that line of argument which would be seized upon with avidity by those who wish to find signs of weakness in the British Empire in India and who interpret the facts in the light of their own desires. It is only fair to repeat that there is no sign

throughout the lecture of any intention to twist the facts so as to support some preconceived idea, however palatable to German audiences.

The justification of British rule in India lies, we are told, first and foremost in the increase of population which is regarded as a sure indication of peace and prosperity and orderly government. The extension of the railway and irrigation systems which have led to an extraordinary development of trade, the establishment of the post and telegraph services, of a uniform system of justice, of schools and universities, the care of the public health and the provision against famine, lastly the creation of a purer and more unselfish public spirit, -all these things are among the blessings which England has conferred upon India.

But some of these are not unmixed blessings. The very increase of the population brings with it an everincreasing pressure on the land which the reclamation of new soil can only retard but not cure, and which the inevitable decline of native industries through the operation of economic laws tends to accelerate. Even the law courts have their disadvantages for the Judges are bound to assist the usurious creditor whom, as the Professor quaintly says, "the debtor would in former times have simply struck dead" (einfach tot), and this knowledge made the creditor careful (darum sah dieser sich etwas vor).

His most pregnant criticism however is reserved for the educational system. Valentine Chirol has described the educational experiment as "more arduous even than that of governing the 300 millions of India with a handful of Englishmen. Many nations have conquered remote dependencies inhabited by alien races, imposed their laws upon them, and held them in peaceful subjection. . . . We alone have attempted to educate them in our own literature and science and to make them by education the intellectual partners of our civilization." Dr. Wegener quotes this with full approbation and he attributes the unexpected degradation of the schools into mere machinery for "the

superficial passing of examinations" to the great influx of the less intelligent classes and the consequent decline in the standard owing to the want of qualified teachers. Such criticism comes not unnaturally from a German, in whose own country qualified teachers jostle one another in the competition to teach and where, as Price Collier says, the only way to prevent a flood of candidates for the civil service was to make the examinations severe. But there is a curious similarity between the Professor's next criticism and a further passage in Price Collier's book. We are told-and not without truth-that these superficial passings of examinations lead to the creation of a half-educated class who are "practically useless" and thereby to a flood of unemployed aspirants for Government posts who are doomed to "economic misery." This is what Price Collier says:-"Not to reach a certain standard means that a man's way is barred from the army and navy, civil service, diplomatic or consular service, from social life in short. . The man of twenty-five who has not won an education and a degree faces a blank wall barring his entrance anywhere: and even when, weaponed with the necessary academic passport, he is permitted to enter, he meets with an appalling competition which has peopled Germany with educated inefficients who must work for next to nothing, and who keep down the level of the earnings of the rest." It is not contended that the cases are exactly parallel: such cases seldom are. Germany is so well stocked with the fit that the unfit are bound to go under. The conditions in India are rather that, while there is plenty of scope for the fit, there is desperate competition among the half-educated for the broken meats of the loaves and fishes. There is no need to labour this because it is rather the attitude which is relevant to my purpose. The German lecturer apparently thinks that we began well enough if we had only been able to keep up the standard. To him the essential is efficiency, and the touchstone of efficiency is book-learning. The Anglo-Saxon

critic of our educational system feels rather that we may after all have made a psychological mistake at the beginning, in that we did not sufficiently recognize the inherent differences between the English and the Indian boy. Every year we turn out from our public schools hundreds of young men whose equipment for life consists of a modest acquaintance with Latin and Greek, a smattering of mathematics and perhaps some elements of modern languages and history. That, for instance, in a higher scale of degree is the equipment of the Indian Civil Service, for which as a body the Professor has unqualified praise. We imported the same idea into India and hoped that the same results would follow. But in India the unexpected always happens. The Indian boy with unlimited patience, nimble wits and a habit of taking himself seriously, is at the same time lacking in versatility and the power of observation. He is not usually athletic either by nature or by tradition. Again, the landless youth without capital, in a country where agriculture is the staple industry, where the learned professions are limited and the prizes are few, was forced to make a living somehow and the most obvious means to this was either by the surer road of Government service or by the more precarious but probably more lucrative one of the law. And so it came about that that education which was primarily intended for the formation of character, became a system of cramming for the mere passing of examination—a kind of inferior German Gymnasium. The German sees chiefly the inefficiency; the Anglo-Saxon would probably deplore the failure to influence the character. This is perhaps the extreme view. I am not concerned with the truth of the criticism, but only with the difference in the angle of vision between the German and the English critic.

Professor Usher of Washington University, in putting what he conceives to be the German view, says that the English have succeeded to a shadowy authority which gave them "the right of direction, of suggestion not of conThey have helped the rulers by a business-like

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administration and they have improved the condition of the peasants. But could not the Germans also do as much? Do the English give the Hindu anything which the German could not give as well?" As an argument for substituting German for English authority such questions are puerile, for if the two things are equal, there is no need for a change. But let that pass. Germany might perhaps have given to India her material benefits, railways, canals, the postal system and so on, always supposing that she would have had the will and provided that she could have done in forty years what it has taken England a century and a half to achieve. In some respects she might have done better. She might have introduced her system of land banks sooner, have learnt the languages more thoroughly, have studied the religion and the religious books more deeply. But the one thing-and that the most important of all-which she could not have given, is the English ideal and the English system of government. They may be better or they may be worse, but in that ideal and in that system the Indians have been educated for a century, and Germany could not give them because they are not hers to give. We believe in the spirit of liberty and in that spirit we have sought to govern India, with those adaptations which seem necessary to the conditions: if there be some who think that the Government of India is at once too autocratic and too paternal, at least we have not attained to the rigidity of Prussia. We have not stretched the nations on the Prussian bed of Procrustes. The Germans are only beginners, and from all accounts their attempts to rule alien nations in Alsace-Lorraine, in Poland and in Africa have not been signally successful. The Germans are only beginners, and when they ask what England has given to India which Germany could not equally have given, the answer is that England has given that experience and that genius which have made her admittedly supreme among the nations in the art of government.

STANLEY RICE.

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