India would perhaps be found in the institution of an academy of orientalists, who would authoritatively settle the renderings to be adopted for new terms of European art and science. But the universal acceptance of a neutralized Hindustani, involving a complete reconciliation between Urdu and Hindi, can only be effected in one way. So long as the vernacular of the N. W. P. is written by Munshis in the Persian, and by Pandits in the Nágari character, it is utterly impossible that purism should be eradicated. The one party will indent on Persian and Arabic for their vocabulary, the other on Sanskrit; and though the grammatical structure may be much the same in both compositions, neither of the two will be intelligible to the writer of the other. The adoption of the Roman character would at once remove the whole difficulty; and if it were introduced in our schools, it would rapidly, without any forcing, supersede both its rivals as the vehicle for ordinary written communication.
I have already alluded to the decay of native arts and manufactures, for which our faulty system of education is partly responsible. Something is being done towards their revival by Schools of Design, as at Lahor, Bombay and elsewhere, and by local Exhibitions. But, so long as the dreadful upas tree of the Public Works Department is allowed to overshadow the country, sporadic efforts like these can have no perceptible effect on popular culture. Architecture is the first of all the decorative arts, and its degradation paralyses them all. Our public buildings, which with scarcely an exception are either ludicrously mean or obtrusively hideous, now occupy conspicuous positions in every station and municipality, and, being naturally accepted as models for imitation, are rapidly accustoming the native eye to what is vulgar and tasteless. What weight in the opposite scale can be attributed to the teaching of a few schools or an occasional grant for the restoration of an ancient palace or temple? If there is really a desire to revive oriental art, I believe it can be done without the fussy agency of a department and without any expense to the State, simply by allowing municipal committees to erect their own buildings, to make each Town Hall an emporium of local industry, and generally to develope indigenous talent by the exercise of judicious patronage. In technical as well as in the higher literary education, I believe that a healthy influence can be exerted by Government only from the outside, by removing artificial restrictions and encouraging spontaneous action. In primary education, on the other hand,
