MR. ADAM’S LETTER
TO
LORD W. BENTINCK,
ON
VERNACULAR EDUCATION.
From W. Adam, Esquire, to the Right Hon’ble Lord William Cavendish Bentinck, K. C. B., G. C. H., Governor General of India,—Dated the 2nd January 1835.
My Lord,—At your Lordship’s request, I have the honor to address you in writing on the subject to which my recent personal communications with your Lordship have had principal reference. Having submitted a proposal to institute an investigation into the actual state of education in this country, with a view to ulterior measures for its extension and improvement, and the object of that proposal being approved by your Lordship, I have been instructed to describe the mode in which the plan might be carried into effect, and to furnish an estimate of the monthly expense that would thereby be incurred. A brief reference to the considerations that recommend the design is requisite to render those details intelligible.
2. It is assumed that Government is desirous of encouraging education amongst all classes of its subjects, whether Christians, Mahomedans, or Hindoos, as a means of improving their condition by a better knowledge of the arts of life that minister to human wants; of purifying and elevating their character by moral and intellectual instruction; and of qualifying them at once to appreciate the benevolent intentions and salutary measures of Government, and to give to those measures the moral force derived from the support of an intelligent and instructed population.
