Page:India—what can it teach us?.djvu/9

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
DEDICATION.
vii

saves trouble to others.' We want men who will work hard, even at the risk of seeing their labours unrequited; we want strong and bold men who are not afraid of storms and shipwrecks. The worst sailors are not those who suffer shipwreck, but those who only dabble in puddles and are afraid of wetting their feet.

It is easy now to criticise the labours of Sir William Jones, Thomas Colebrooke, and Horace Hayman Wilson, but what would have become of Sanskrit scholarship, if they had not rushed in where even now so many fear to tread? and what will become of Sanskrit scholarship, if their con- quests are for ever to mark the limits of our knowledge? You know best that there is more to be discovered in Sanskrit literature than Nalas and Sakuntalâs, and surely the young men who every year go out to India are not deficient in the spirit of enterprise, or even of adventure? Why then should it be said that the race of bold explorers, who once rendered the name of the Indian Civil Service illustrious over the whole world, has well-nigh become extinct, and that England, which offers the strongest incentives and the most brilliant opportunities for the study of the ancient language, literature, and history of India, is no longer in the van of Sanskrit scholarship?

If some of the young candidates for the Indian Civil Service who listened to my Lectures, made up their minds that such a reproach shall be wiped out, if a few of them at least determined to follow