out, and that it demands the application to India of the tradition of English education.
This, then, is the idea which lies at the root of the educational reforms about which there has been so much controversy. It is not a better teaching or a higher standard of knowledge which is primarily aimed at, but the training and formation of character by methods with which all Englishmen are familiar.
By the passing of the Indian Universities Act of 1904 the way was made clear for reform; but the new policy is still in its infancy, and in very few places has even the machinery been erected for carrying it out. The experiment, for such it must still be considered, will be watched with intense interest by all who understand its immense importance for India. It is no exaggeration to say that upon the character of the education given in our colleges depends the content or discontent of India. The English-educated class forms whatever public opinion exists in India with regard to political affairs. It is, of course, true that they form only a microscopically small fraction of the whole population, but yet in the long-run it is their opinion which is likely to prevail, because there is no other class which holds any opinions at all upon public questions. The great mass of the agricultural population is as yet only concerned with the chances of the harvest, the gossip of the village, or the propitiation of the local ghost; but if ever they so far widen their mental outlook as to admit political conceptions, they will draw their ideas from the intellectual minority above them. In that minority the political opinions of the English-educated reign supreme. The old Conservatives, who remain faithful in their allegiance to Oriental ideals, have put forward no constructive view of politics, and even in social matters they are fast giving ground before the crusading culture of Europe. The political opinions of the English-educated, therefore, seem destined eventually to become predominant in India, not because they are the wisest, but because there is no opposing school
