Page:History, Design and Present State of the Religious, Benevolent and Charitable Institutions.djvu/166

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government chinsuah schools.

posed to lead to wealth, and distinction, and which tongue, most classes, who have it in their power, study with remarkable eagerness. It has been proposed, therefore, to establish an English class for such boys, as shall have made the greatest progress in their own language, in order to induce them to remain at the Schools for a longer period. But, notwithstanding these deductions, it may be safely asserted, that the foundation of more extensive and higher knowledge, is securely laid in the establishment of these Schools, and that an abundant harvest of intelligence, knowledge, and morality will ultimately arise from the seed thus judiciously and benevolently sown.

The obstacle experienced by Mr. May, in the outset, from an apprehension of authoritative religious interference, and the great increase in his Schools when that apprehension was removed, presents a striking proof of the indispensible necessity, which cannot be too often, and too strongly inculcated, of divesting all plans for the extension of education among the natives of this Country, of any thing calculated to excite the remotest suspicion of such a design. This truth seems to be deeply impressed on the mind of the Go-