It came to India directly from English universities,
which had stuck fast in the ruts of the Renaissance. Undue weight
was given to literary training, while science and technical skill
were despised. Our colleges and schools do not attempt to build
character on a foundation of useful habits and tastes that sweeten
life; to ennoble ideals, or inspire self-knowledge, self-reliance,
and self-control. Technical education is still in its infancy; and
the aesthetic instinct which lies dormant in every Aryan's brain is
unawakened. A race which invented the loom now invents nothing but
grievances. In 1901 Bengal possessed 69,000 schools and colleges,
attended by 1,700,000 pupils, yet only one adult male in 10 and
one female in 144 can read and write! The Calcutta University is an
examining body on the London model. It does not attempt to enforce
discipline in a city which flaunts every vice known to great seaports
and commercial centres, unmitigated by the social instinct. Nor is the
training of covenanted civilians more satisfactory. In 1909 only 1 out
of 50 selected candidates presented himself for examination in Sanskrit
or Arabic! Men go out to India at twenty-four, knowing little of the
ethnology, languages or history, of the races they are about to govern.
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