Old pre-possessions and unscientific
methods must be cast aside, and the value of the confession must be
held at a discount." Bengal policemen fail as egregiously as their
British colleagues in coping with professional crime. Burglary is
a positive scourge, and the habit of organising gang-robberies has
spread to youths of the middle class.
Education.--Though Mr. Banerjea has no experience of the inner working
of our Government offices, he speaks on education with an expert's
authority. Lord Macaulay, who went to India in 1834 as legal member of
Council, was responsible for the introduction of English as the vehicle
of instruction. He had gained admission to the caste of Whigs, whose
battle-cry was "Knowledge for the People," and his brilliant rhetoric
overpowered the arguments of champions of oriental learning. Every one
with a smattering of Sanskrit, Arabic or Persian, regrets the fact that
those glorious languages have not been adequately cultivated in modern
India. Bengali is a true daughter of the Sanskrit; it has Italian
sweetness and German capacity for expressing abstract ideas. No degree
of proficiency in an alien tongue can compensate for the neglect of the
vernacular. Moreover, the curriculum introduced in the "thirties" was
purely academic.
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