predilections and open his mind to the impressions which fact and observation may produce. Let him traverse a pergunnah, a thana, a district, from north to south, from east to west, and in all directions. ⟨Let him note how village appears after village, before and behind, to the right hand and to the left, in endless succession; how numerous and yet how scattered the population; how uniform the poverty and the ignorance; and let him recollect that this process must be carried on until he has brought within his eye or of his mind about ninety or a hundred millions of people diffused over a surface estimated to be equal in extent to the whole of Europe. It is difficult to believe that it should have been proposed to communicate to this mass of human beings through the medium of a foreign tongue all the knowledge that is necessary for their higher civilisation, their intellectual improvement, their moral guidance, and their physical comfort; but since much has been said and written and done which would seem to bear this interpretation, and since it is a question which involving the happiness and advancement of millions will not admit of compromise, I deem it my duty to state in the plainest and most direct terms my conviction of the utter impracticability of such a design has strengthened with my increased opportunities of observation and judgment.⟩
⟨Although the English language cannot become the universal instrument, European knowledge must be the chief matter of instruction; and the circumstances in which the country is placed point out the English language, not as the exclusive, but as one of the most obvious, means of communicating that instruction. I have, therefore, watched with much interest and promoted by any suggestions I could offer every desire and endeavour on the part of natives to acquire a knowledge of our language. In the districts I have visited the desire cannot be said to be general, only because it is vain to desire that which is plainly unattainable; but it has been found to exist in instances and in situations where its existence is very encouraging⟩. I have met with a learned Hindu and a learned Musalman in different districts, each in the private retirement of his native village attempting by painful and unassisted industry to elaborate some acquaintance with our language, and eagerly grasping at the slightest temporary aid that was afforded. Nor is it only in individual cases that this anxiety is displayed. The school at Raipur in the Beerbhoom district was established and continues to be supported through the desire of a wealthy native landholder to give an English education to his children. The Raja of Burdwan’s school is the more remarkable because it is established in Burdwan where another English school exists, which, although under Missionary direction, has been liberally patronized by the Raja, and in which the scholars receive superior instruction to that which is given by the Raja’s teachers. The support he has bestowed on the Missionary English school may
