National education in its totality may be likened to the beautiful structure in which we are now assembled. Primary education is as the plinth with the foundation broad and deep; secondary education is as the superstructure with its walls and pillars; high education is as the roof with the domes and towers. No part of the structure can be injured or neglected without affecting the safety, or the usefulness, or the beauty of the whole. And as the architects have bestowed care on all parts alike, so is the Government bound to attend equally and simultaneously to the three departments of education—high, elementary, or intermediate, preferring none to the others, but meeting even-handed measure to all.
Our first duty is to determine the curriculum, the standard or standards, for each of these branches, in conformity with the wants of the several sections of Native society affected by each. In order that this maybe well done, discriminative knowledge of the people, and sympathetic appreciation of their condition and prospects, are absolutely necessary.
Fortunately we can, by the method known as payment by results, induce both masters and scholars to follow whatever standards may be prescribed. If the master be a salaried servant of the State, he receives more or less remuneration according as more or fewer scholars pass examinations according to the standard. If private schools apply for grants-in-aid from the State, the aid is allowed, more or less, according as the scholars pass the examination.
Another method of ensuring, on the part of the scholars, adherence to the standards, is the granting of scholarships. For each class of schools, scholarships can be offered for open competition among the scholars at examinations to be held annually according to the standard. The scholarship is, of course, a stipend; the holder virtually obtains a free education; he is the honourable possessor, not from patronage or favouritism, but from victory over his fellows in the contest of mind with mind. Consequently, all the active-minded boys work for proficiency according to that standard, in the hope of winning the scholarship, and the master has every inducement to teach them accordingly. Thus the ,grant of scholarships is not a mere act of charity or of grace, but is an engine for compelling by the force of emulation the observance of standards.
So the method of scholarships by competition stimulates the spontaneous efforts of the good scholars; the method of payment by results ensures attention on the part of the masters to the scholars of moderate or indifferent ability, so that the best
