Minute by Lord Moira, October 2, 1815

Extract from a minute by Lord Moira, on the Judicial administration of the Presidency of Fort William, dated the 2nd October 1815.

119. In looking for a remedy to these evils, the moral and intellectual improvement of the natives will necessarily form a prominent feature of any plan which may arise from the above suggestions, and I have therefore not failed to turn my most solicitous attention to the important object of public education.

120. The humble but valuable class of village schoolmasters, claims the first place in this discussion. These men teach the first rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic for a trifling stipend which is within reach of any man's means, and the instruction which they are capable of imparting, suffices for the village zeemeendar, the village accountant and the village shopkeeper.

121. As the public money would be ill-appropriated in merely providing gratuitous access to that quantum of education which is already attainable, any intervention of government either by superintendence, or by contribution, should be directed to the improvement of existing tuition, and to the diffusion of it to places and persons now out of its reach. Improvement and diffusion may go hand in hand; yet the latter is to be considered matter of calculation, while the former should be deemed positively incumbent. The general, the sad defect of this education is, that the inculcation of moral principle forms no part of it. This radical want is not imputable to us. The necessities of self-defence (for all our extensions of territory have been achieved in repelling efforts made for the subversion of our power) and our occupation in securing the new possessions, have allowed us till lately, but little leisure to examine deliberately the state of the population which we had been gradually bringing beneath our sway. It was already vitiated. The unceasing wars which had harassed all parts of India, left everywhere their invariable effects, a disorganization of that frame-work of habit and opinion, which enforces moral conduct, and an emancipation of all those irregular impulses which revolt at its restraint. The village school-masters could not teach that in which they had themselves never been instructed; and universal debasement of mind, the constant concomitant of subjugation to despotic rule, left no change that an innate sense of equity should in those confined circles suggest the recommendation of principles not thought worthy of cultivation by the government. The remedy for this is to furnish the village school-masters with little manuals of religious sentiments and ethic maxims, conveyed in such a shape as may be attractive to the scholars; taking care that while awe and adoration of the Supreme Being are earnestly instilled no jealousy be excited by pointing out any particular Creed. The absence of such an objection, and small pecuniary rewards for zeal occasionally administered by the magistrates, would induce the school-masters; to use those compilations readily.

122. To those who are anxious to propagate among the vast population of this empire the inestimable lights of true religion, it may be confidently maintained that there is no hope of success but by rendering the people capable of understanding that which is proposed to them; open the minds of the rising generation by due instruction; give them a habit of reverencing the principles which the Christian doctrine enjoins without stimulating the parents into opposition by teaching on point adverse to their superstitions; and their inevitable rejection of beliefs irreconcilable to the reason which you will have enabled them to exercise, and repugnant to the probity which you will have taught them to admire, must render certain their transition to the path you wish. As it is, their ignorance insures their tenaciousness of their earlier impressions, and pledges their implicit submission to the dictates with which the Brahmins would counteract the object were they alarmed into contest. The progress to be effectual, must be patient and silent; like every other beneficial change, it must rise out of the general sense of society, not be imposed upon it; and to produce that sense, I know no mode but education.

123. The next gradation in public tuition is the higher class of teachers to be found in the principal towns, and the only question in regard to them appears to be the expediency of furnishing them with the means of inculcating more accurate ideas of general science and sounder principles of morality.

124. In these towns will also be found the same medium scale of education for the class of shopkeepers, artificers and labourers as in the country villages, but in these towns, and principally in the chief station of the zillah, and in the neighbourhood of our jails will be found a numerous population, which seem to call for the particular attention of Government. I allude to the offspring of mendicants and vagrants, who nurtured in idleness and vice, are destined to recruit the ranks of the professional thieves infesting all great cities. Houses of industry for the education, reformation and employment of these infant profligates, appear to be particularly needed.

125. That the native governments were not inattentive to the important object of public education, is evinced by the numerous grants of rent-free land, and of pecuniary allowances, for the endowment of public seminaries and the education of particular descriptions of pupils. But in the general disregard of established institutions which appears to have marked the steps of the British Government hitherto, their appropriation has been lost sight of, and the funds have through an inattention been converted into private property by native
individuals.

126. In such of these institutions as yet remain, and in such of them as may be still recoverable to their original purposes, the point for our consideration will be the nature as well as the extent of the interference which it may be proper for Government to exercise, and the mode in which that interference should be applied for giving an improved direction to them.

127. With this view I beg leave to propose that the several plans which may be or have been suggested for the improvement of education in this country should be referred to the consideration of committees to be formed at the stations of Dacca, Patna, Moorshedabad, Bonares, Bareilly and Furruckabad, of the principal civil officers residing there, and that their opinions be afterwards submitted to the deliberate revision of the most experienced servants in the judicial and revenue departments at the presidency.

128. In the meantime two experimental schools, one for Hindoos and one for Mahomedans, might be established at each zillah station under the superintendence of a committee, consisting of all the civil servants at the station, including the surgeons, together with any resident gentlemen not in the service who might be willing to lend their assistance; the expediency and the means of extending the plan beyond the sudder stations, will form a part of the deliberation of the provincial committees to be submitted to the control committee at the presidency.

129. The decay of religious endowments and public seminaries is noticed by several of the magistrates; and the decline of morality is stated to be a subject of reproach against us by all the natives whom birth or education has inspired with concern for the good order or well being of society.

130. If the operative effect of the British administration has been, however unintentionally, to do away with the restraint which before existed on the evil passions, while the increase of wealth, and more general diffusion of it, arising from the solid principles of equal justice, have afforded additional temptation to their indulgence, the reflecting part of the community may probably be impressed with an erroneous idea, that vice, if not encouraged, is not sufficiently discountenanced by the ruling power.

131. It certainly does not appear to have been ever the intention of the laws enacted by the British government to lesson the obligation of religion, or to weaken the proper influence of the priesthood. But that such has been the result of the general system cannot be doubted. This result may be ascribed partly to the omission of a positive enactment in support of the existing institutions of the country, partly to a too strict adherence in the judicial officers to the letter, without adhering to the general spirit of the laws, and partly perhaps to an expansive tendency in the human mind which in a state of freedom imperceptibly seeks progressive improvement with an impulse, which nothing but an injudicious attempt to introduce it too rapidly is capable of checking.

132. The immediate encouragement of the superior descriptions of science by any bounty to the existing native colleges, appears to me a project altogether delusive. I do not believe that in those retreats there remain any embers capable of being fanned into life. It is true, the form of tuition is kept up in them, but the ceremony is gone through by men who are (as far as I could learn) devoid of comprehension in the very branches which they profess to teach. I was particularly curious to assure myself of the state of learning in the university of Benares, the place where one should expect that ancient acquirements would be found in the best preservation. My incompetence to judge on the substance of the answers given by the young men examined before me did not extend to the manner of their performance, which was such as inspired the notion that every thing they said was wholly by rote. On following up this suspicion I ascertained that I had guessed accurately. I remained satisfied that the students only got by heart certain formularies unexplained to them by professors incapable of expounding the spirit of the lessons. Of course, the instruction, unless where it chanced to fall on some mind uncommonly vigorous and acute, would have very limited effect in future application, and if it did happen to be bestowed on a genius able to unravel it, the rational calculation was, that it would only render him more dexterous in those crooked practices which the depraved habitudes of the community would offer to his imitation. I thence conceive that the revival of the liberal sciences among the natives can only be effected by the previous education (beginning with the rudiments) which shall gradually give to individuals the power of observing the relations of different branches of learning with each other, of comprehending the right use of science in the business of life, and of directing their enlargement of thought to the promotion of those moral observances in which rests the temporal convenience of society as well as the sublimer duty of man. Then, but not till then, such records, or such traces of ancient lore as remain in the universities may be useful. Consequently to this opinion, I must think that the sum set apart by the Honorable Court for the advancement of science among the natives would be much more expediently applied in the improvement of schools, than in gifts to seminaries of higher degree.

133. It is satisfactory to find that there are many natives of birth and education who still feel an anxiety for the improvement of the general morals. For it is through their agency that such a measure is most likely to succeed. It is also pleasing to observe, from the accurate and lively picture which Mr. Fortescue has drawn of the public feeling, that while many solid and essential benefits are acknowledged in the security of person and property, in the advancement of agriculture and of commerce and in the free enjoyment of wealth, most of the disadvantages enumerated, where they attach to the executive details of the laws are capable of easy correction, and where they spring from the habits and manners of the people themselves, may be expected to yield to the silent but entire operation of the measures now in contemplation.

134. In the infancy of the British administration in this country, it was perhaps a matter of necessity to confine our legislation to the primary principle of justice. "Not that nice and delicate justice, the offspring of a refined humanity, but that coarse, though useful, virtue, the guardian of contracts and promises, whose guide is the square and the rule, and whose support is the gallows."

135. The lapse of half a century and the operation of that principle have produced a new state of society, which calls for a more enlarged and liberal policy. The moral duties require encouragement and experiment. The arts which adorn and embellish life, will follow in ordinary course. It is for the credit of the British name, that this beneficial revolution should arise under British sway. To be the source of blessings to the immense population of India is an ambition worthy of our country. In proportion as we have found intellect neglected and sterile here, the obligation is the stronger on us to cultivate it. The field is noble: may we till it worthily!

MOIRA

On the River Ganges,
The 2nd October 1815

From: Bureau of Education. Selections from Educational Records, Part I (1781-1839). Edited by H. Sharp. Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1920. Reprint. Delhi: National Archives of India, 1965, 24-29.