Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/190

stress of keenest competition and what remains to be done in England. Even now it is confessed that the advocacy of technical teaching as an extended and systematic education up to and including the methods of original research has not entirely prevailed. But it must be remembered that, even with defects of organization, England is rich in the great names of scientific discovery and invention, that national poverty is not the difficulty in England, and that the English workman is second to none in natural energy, intelligence, and inventiveness. In our Indian Empire I need not say that the difficulties are incomparably greater, and their very outworks have still to be attacked. Where taxation is not cheerfully borne, where the workman is apathetic under the superstition of custom, and content with a bare subsistence, where the reach of elementary education is small, where the upper classes are indifferent or inadequately appreciate the needs of their country, a too ambitious scheme put forward by the Government on a European model would certainly be doomed to failure. But it is profitable to observe by what efforts and sacrifices the successes of European nations in industrial progress have been purchased. Both Governments and peoples are animated by the conviction that the prosperity of their industries depends on the cheapness and attractiveness of their products, and these on the high perfection of manual skill combined with artistic culture. Thus, while the State undertakes the cost of the highest general and technical instruction, most of the cost of the secondary and elementary instruction, both in science and in art applied to industrial and decorative purposes, is cheerfully borne by the localities. Moreover, elementary education, which everywhere includes instruction in drawing, is in the most European nations compulsory. Both republics and monarchies have accepted the principle that there is a discipline and restraint which a free people may impose on individual freedom for the attainment of a great public object. If an Indian Presidency need not despair of doing, in a measure, what a Swiss Canton or a small German State succeeds in doing completely and excellently, it is time to lay down the lines of action. The admirable system of technical education in the countries of the Continent had its origin only half a century since with the creation of railways and factories. A similar educational development should follow in India on the extension of railways, the expansion of commerce, and the freer interchange of thought. Municipal law, has also been advanced so far as this, that the new local Government Acts impose on local boards and municipalities the obligation to maintain an adequate system of elementary schools which is