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Thomas B. Macaulay, " Minute on Indian Education "

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2ND OF FEBRUARY, 1835

As it seems to be the opinion of some of the gentlemen who compose the

Committee of Public Instruction, that the course which they have hitherto

pursued was strictly prescribed by the British Parliament in 1813, and as,

if that opinion be correct, a legislative act will be necessary to warrant a

change, I have thought it right to refrain from taking any part in the

preparation of the adverse statements which are now before us, and to

reserve what I had to say on the subject till it should come before me as a

member of the Council of India.

It does not appear to me that the Act of Parliament can, by any art of

construction, be made to bear the meaning which has been assigned to it. It

contains nothing about the particular languages or sciences which are to be

studied. A sum is set apart " for the revival and promotion of literature and

the encouragement of the learned natives of India, and for the introduction

and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of the

British territories. " It is argued, or rather taken for granted, that by

literature, the Parliament can have meant only Arabic and Sanscrit

literature, that they never would have given the honorable appellation of " a

learned native " to a native who was familiar with the poetry of Milton, the

Metaphysics of Locke, and the Physics of Newton; but that they meant to

designate by that name only such persons as might have studied in the sacred

books of the Hindoos all the uses of cusa-grass, and all the mysteries of

absorption into the Deity. This does not appear to be a very satisfactory

interpretation. To take a parallel case; suppose that the Pacha of Egypt, a

country once superior in knowledge to the nations of Europe but now sunk far

below them, were to appropriate a sum or the purpose of " reviving and

promoting literature, and encouraging learned natives of Egypt, " would

anybody infer that he meant the youth of his pachalic to give years to the

study of hieroglyphics, to search into all the doctrines disguised under the

fable of Osiris, and to ascertain with all possible accuracy the ritual with

which cats and onions were anciently adored? Would he be justly charged with

inconsistency, if, instead of employing his young subjects in deciphering

obelisks, he were to order them to be instructed in the English and French

languages, and in all the sciences to which those languages are the chief

keys?

The words on which the supporters of the old system rely do not bear

them out, and other words follow which seem to be quite decisive on the

other side. This lac of rupees is set apart, not only for " reviving

literature in India, " the phrase on which their whole interpretation is

founded, but also for " the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the

sciences among the inhabitants of the British territories, " --words which are

alone sufficient to authorise all the changes for which I contend.

If the Council agree in my construction, no legislative Act will be

necessary. If they differ from me, I will prepare a short Act rescinding

that clause of the Charter of 1813, from which the difficulty arises.

The argument which I have been considering, affects only the form of

proceeding. But the admirers of the Oriental system of education have used

another argument, which, if we admit it to be valid, is decisive against all

change. They conceive that the public faith is pledged to the present

system, and that to alter the appropriation of any of the funds which have

hitherto been spent in encouragmg the study of Arabic and Sanscrit, would be

down-right spoliation. It is not easy to understand by what process of

reasoning they can have arrived at this conclusion. The grants which are

made from the public purse for the encouragement of literature differed in

no respect from the grants which are made from the same purse for other

objects of real or supposed utility. We found a sanatarium on a spot which

we suppose to be healthy. Do we thereby pledge ourselves to keep a

sanatarium there, if the result should not answer our expectation? We

commence the erection of a pier. Is it a violation of the public faith to

stop the works, if we afterwards see reason to believe that the building

will be useless? The rights of property are undoubtedly sacred. But nothing

endangers those rights so much as the practice, now unhappily too common, of

attributing them to things to which they do not belong. Those who would

impart to abuses the sanctity of property are in truth imparting to the

institution of property the unpopularity and the fragility of abuses. If the

Government has given to any person a formal assurance; nay, if the

Government has exdted in any person's mind a reasonable expectation that he

shall receive a certain income as a teacher or a learner of Sanscrit or

Arabic, I would respect that person's pecuniary interests--I would rather

err on the side of liberality to individuals than suffer the public faith to

be called in question. But to talk of a Government pledging itself to teach

certain languages and certain sciences, though those languages may become

useless, though those sciences may be exploded, seems to me quite unmeaning.

There is not a single word in any public instructions, from which it can be

inferred that the Indian Government ever intended to give any pledge on this

subject, or ever considered the destination of these funds as unalterably

fixed. But had it been otherwise, I should have denied the competence of our

predecessors to bind us by any pledge on such a subject. Suppose that a

Government had in the last century enacted in the most sole,nn manner that

all its subjects should, to the end of time, be inoculated for the smallpox:

would that Government be bound to persist in the practice after Jenner's

discovery? These promises, of which nobody claims the performance, and from

which nobody can grant a release; these vested rights, which vest in nobody;

this property without proprietors; this robbery, which makes nobody poorer,

may be comprehended by persons of higher faculties than mine.--- I consider

this plea merely as a set form of words, regularly used both in England and

in India, in defence of every abuse for which no other plea can be set up.

I hold this lac of rupees to be quite at the disposal of the Governor

General in Council, for the purpose of promoting learning in India, in any

way which may be thought most advisable. I hold his Lordship to be quite as

free to direct that it shall no longer be employed in encouraging Arabic and

Sanscrit, as he is to direct that the reward for killing tigers in Mysore

shall be diminished, that no more public money shall be expended on the

chanting at the cathedral.

We now come to the gist of the matter. We have a fund to be employed

as Government shall direct for the intellectual improvement of the people of

this country. The simple question is, what is the most useful way of

employing it?

All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that the dialects commonly

spoken among the natives of this part of India, contain neither literary nor

scientific information, and are, moreover, so poor and rude that, until they

are enriched from some other quarter, it will not be easy to translate any

valuable work into them. It seems to be admitted on all sides, that the

intellectual improvement of those classes of the people who have the means

of pursuing higher studies can at present be effected only by means of some

language not vernacular amongst them.

What then shall that language be? One-half of the Committee maintain

that it should be the English. The other half strongly recommend the Arabic

and Sanscrit. The whole question seems to me to be, which language is the

best worth knowing?

I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic.--But I have done

what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read

translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have

conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by their proficiency

in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at

the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found one among

them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth

the whole native literature of India and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority

of the Western literature is, indeed, fully admitted by those members of the

Committee who support the Oriental plan of education.

It will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the department of

literature in which the Eastern writers stand highest is poetry. And I

certainly never met with any Orientalist who ventured to maintain that the

Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European

nations. But when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts

are recorded, and general principles investigated, the superiority of the

Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration

to say, that all the historical information which has been collected from

all the books written in the Sanscrit language is less valuable than what

may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in

England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy, the relative

position of the two nations is nearly the same.

How, then, stands the case? We have to educate a people who cannot at

present be educated by means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some

foreign language. The claims of our own language it is hardly necessary to

recapitulate. It stands pre-eminent even among the languages of the west. It

abounds with works of imagination not inferior to the noblest which Greece

has bequeathed to us; with models of every species of eloquence; with

historical compositions, which, considered merely as nar- ratives, have

seldom been surpassed, and which, considered as vehicles of ethical and

political instruction, have never been equalled; with just and lively

representations of human life and human nature; with the most profound

speculations on metaphysics, morals, government, jurisprudence, and trade;

with full and correct information respecting every experimental science

which tends to preserve the health, to increase the comfort, or to expand

the intellect of man. Whoever knows that language has ready access to all

the vast intellectual wealth, which all the wisest nations of the earth have

created and hoarded in the course of ninety generations. It may safely be

said, that the literature now extant in that language is of far greater

value than all the literature which three hundred years ago was extant in

all the languages of the world together. Nor is this all. In India, English

is the language spoken by the ruling class. It is spoken by the higher class

of natives at the seats of Government. It is likely to become the language

of commerce throughout the seas of the East. It is the language of two great

European communities which are rising, the one in the south of Africa, the

other in Australasia; communities which are every year becoming more

important, and more closely connected with our Indian empire. Whether we

look at the intrinsic value of our literature, or at the particular

situation of this country, we shall see the strongest reason to think that,

of all foreign tongues, the English tongue is that which would be the most

useful to our native subjects.

The question now before us is simply whether, when it is in our power

to teach this language, we shall teach languages in which, by universal

confession, there are no books on any subject which deserve to be compared

to our own; whether, when we can teach European science, we shall teach

systems which, by universal confession, whenever they differ from those of

Europe, differ for the worse; and whether, when we can patronise sound

Philosophy and true History, we shall countenance, at the public expense,

medi- cal doctrines, which would disgrace an English farrier,--Astronomy,

which would move laughter in girls at an English boarding school,--History,

abounding with kings thirty feet high, and reigns thirty thousand years

long,--and Geography, made up of seas of treacle and seas of butter.

We are not without experience to guide us. History furnishes several

analogous cases, and they all teach the same lesson. There are in modern

times, to go no further, two memorable instances of a great impulse given to

the mind of a whole society,--of prejudices overthrown,--of knowledge

diffused,--taste purified,--of arts and sciences planted in countries which

had recently been ignorant and barbarous.

The first instance to which I refer, is the great revival of letters

among the Western nations at the close of the fifteenth and the begi:ning of

the sixteenth century. At that time almost every thing that was worth

reading was contained in the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Had

our ancestors acted as the Committee of Public Instruction has hitherto

acted; had they neglected the language of Cicero and Tacitus; had they

confined their attention to the old dialects of our own island; had they

print- ed nothing and taught nothing at the universities but Chronicles in

Anglo-Saxon, and Romances in Norman-French, would England have been what she

now is? What the Greek and Latin were to the contemporaries of More and

Ascham, our tongue is to the people of India. The literature of England is

now more valuable than that of classical antiquity. I doubt whether the

Sanscrit literature be as valuable as that of our Saxon and Norman

progenitors. In some departments,--in History, for example, I am certain

that it is much less so.

Another instance may be said to be still before our eyes. Within the

last hundred and twenty years, a nation which has previously been in a state

as barbarous as that in which our ancestors were before the crusades, has

gradually emerged from the ignorance in which it was sunk, and has taken its

place among civilized communities.--I speak of Russia. There is now in that

country a large educated class, abounding with persons fit to serve the

state in the highest ftmctions, and in no wise inferior to the most

accomplished men who adorn the best circles of Paris and London. There is

reason to hope that this vast empire, which in the time of our grandfathers

was probably behind the Punjab, may, in the time of our grandchildren, be

pressing close on France and Britain in the career of improvement. And how

was this change effected? Not by flattering national prejudices: not by

feeding the mind of the young Muscovite with the old women's stories which

his rude fathers had believed: not by filling his head with lying legends

about St. Nicholas: not by encouraging him to study the great question,

whether the world was or was not created on the 13th of September: not by

calling him " a learned native, " when he has mastered all these points of

knowledge: but by teaching him those foreign languages in which the greatest

mass of information had been laid up, and thus putting all that information

within his reach. The languages of Western Europe civilized Russia. I cannot

doubt that they will do for the Hindoo what they have done for the Tartar.

And what are the arguments against that course which seems to be alike

recommended by theory and by experience? It is said that we ought to secure

the cooperation of the native public, and that we can do this only by

teaching Sanscrit and Arabic.

I can by no means admit that when a nation of high intellectual

attainments undertakes to Superintend the education of a nation

comparatively ignorant, the learners are absolutely to prescribe the course

which is to be taken by the teachers. It is not necessary, however, to say

any thing on this subject. For it is proved by unanswerable evidence that we

are not at present securing the Cooperation of the natives. It would be bad

enough to consult their intellectual taste at the expense of their

intellectual health. But we are consulting neither,--we are withholding from

them the learning for which they are craving, we are forcing on them the

mock-learning which they nauseate.

This is proved by the fact that we are forced to pay our Arabic and

Sanscrit students, while those who learn Engiish are wiling to pay us. All

the declamations in the worid about the love and reverence of the natives

for their sacred dialects will never, in the mind of any impartial person,

outweigh the undisputed fact, that we cannot find, in all our vast empire, a

single student who will let us teach him those dialects unless we will pay

him.

I have now before me the accounts of the Madrassa for one month,-in

the month of December, 1833. The Arabic students appear to have been

seventy-seven in number. All receive stipends from the public. The whole

amount paid to them is above 500 rupees a month. On the other side of the

account stands the following item: Deduct amount realized from the

out-students of English for the months of May, June and July last, 103

rupees.

I have been told that it is merely from want of local experience that

I am surprised at these phenomena, and that it is not the fashion for

students in India to study at their own charges. This only confirms me in my

opinion. Nothing is more certain than that it never can in any part of the

world be necessary to pay men for doing what they think pleasant and

profitable. India is no exception to this rule. The people of India do not

require to be paid for eating rice when they are hungry, or for wearing

woollen cloth in the cold season. To come nearer to the case before us, the

children who learn their letters and a little elementary Arithmetic from the

village school-master are not paid by him. He is paid for teaching them. Why

then is it necessary to pay people to learn Sanscrit and Arabic? Evidently

because it is universally felt that the Sanscrit and Arabic are languages,

the knowledge of which does not compensate for the trouble of acquiring

them. On all such subjects the state of the market is the decisive test.

Other evidence is not wanting, if other evidence were required. A

petition was presented last year to the Committee by several ex-students of

the Sanscrit College. The petitioners stated that they had studied in the

college ten or twelve years; that they had made themselves acquainted with

Hindoo literature and science; that they had received certificates of

proficiency: and what is the fruit of all this! " Notwithstanding such

testimonials, " they say, " we have but little prospect of bettering our

condition without the kind assistance of your Honorable Committee, the

indifference with which we are generally looked upon by our countrymen

leaving no hope of encouragement and assistance from them. " They therefore

beg that they may be recommended to the Governor General for places under

the Government, not places of high dignity or emolument, but such as may

just enable them to exist. " We want means, " they say, " for a decent living,

and for our progressive improvement, which, however, we cannot obtain

without the assistance of Government, by whom we have been educated and

maintained from childhood. " They conclude by representing, very

pathetically, that they are sure that it was never the intention of

Government, after behaving so liberally to them during their education, to

abandon them to destitution and neglect.

I have been used to see petitions to Government for compensation. All

these petitions, even the most unreasonable of them, proceeded on the

supposition that some loss had been sustained- that some wrong had been

inflicted. These are surely the first petitioners who ever demanded

compensation for having been educated gratis, for having been supported by

the public during twelve years, and then sent forth into the world well

furnished with literature and science. They represent their education as an

injury which gives them a claim on the Government for redress, as an injury

for which the stipends paid to them during the infliction were a very

inadequate compensation. And I doubt not that they are in the right. They

have wasted the best years of life in learning what procures for them

neither bread nor respect. Surely we might, with advantage, have saved the

cost of making these persons useless and miserable; surely, men may be

brought up to be burdens to the public and objects of contempt to their

neighbours at a somewhat smaller charge to the state. But such is our

policy. We do not even stand neuter in the contest between truth and

falsehood. We are not content to leave the natives to the influence of their

own hereditary prejudices. To the natural difficulties which obstruct the

progress of sound science in the East, we add fresh difficulties of our own

making. Bounties and premiums, such as ought not to be given even for the

propagation of truth, we lavish on false taste and false philosophy.

By acting thus we create the very evil which we fear. We are making

that opposition which we do not find. What we spend on the Arabic and

Sanscrit colleges is not merely a dead loss to the cause of truth; it is

bounty-money paid to raise up champions of error. It goes to form a nest,

not merely of helpless place-hunters, but of bigots prompted alike by

passion and by interest to raise a cry against every usetul scheme of

education. If there should be any opposition among the natives to the change

which I recommend, that opposition will be the effect of our own system. It

will be headed by persons supported by our stipends and trained in our

colleges. The longer we persevere in our present course, the more formidable

will that opposition be. It will be every year reinforced by recruits whom

we are paying. From the native society left to itself, we have no

difficulties to apprehend; all the murmuring will come from that oriental

interest which we have, by artificial means, called into being, and nursed

into strength.

There is yet another fact, which is alone sufficient to prove that the

feeling of the native public, when left to itself, is not such as the

supporters of the old system represent it to be. The Committee have thought

fit to lay out above a lac of rupees in printing Arabic and Sanscrit books.

Those books find no purchasers. It is very rarely that a single copy is

disposed of. Twenty-three thousand volumes, most of them folios and quartos,

fill the libraries, or rather the lumber-rooms, of this body. The Committee

contrive to get rid of some portion of their vast stock of oriental

literature by giving books away. But they cannot give so fast as they print.

About twenty thousand rupees a year are spent in adding fresh masses of

waste paper to a hoard which, I should think, is already sufficiently ample.

During the last three years, about sixty thousand rupees have been expended

in this manner. The sale of Arabic and Sanscrit books, during those three

years, has not yielded quite one thousand rupees. In the mean time the

School- book Society is selling seven or eight thousand English volumes

every year, and not only pays the expenses of printing, but realises a

profit of 20 per cent. on its outlay.

The fact that the Hindoo law is to be learned chiefly from Sans- crit

books, and the Mahomedan law from Arabic books, has been much insisted on,

but seems not to bear at all on the question. We are commanded by Parliament

to ascertam and digest the laws of India. The assistance of a law Commission

has been given to us for that purpose. As soon as the code is promulgated,

the Shasster and the Hedaya will be useless to a Moonsiff or Sudder Ameen. I

hope and trust that before the boys who are now entering at the Madrassa and

the Sanscrit college have completed their studies, this great work will be

finished. It would be manifestly absurd to educate the rising generation

with a view to a state of things which we mean to alter before they reach

manhood.

But there is yet another argument which seems even more untenable. It

is said that the Sanscrit and Arabic are the languages in which the sacred

books of a hundred millions of people are written, and that they are, on

that account, entitled to peculiar encouragement. Assuredly it is the duty

of the British Government in India to be not only tolerant, but neutral on

all religious questions. But to encourage the study of a literature admitted

to be of small intrinsic value, only because that literature incuIcates the

most serious errors on the most important subjects, is a course hardly

reconcileable with reason, with morality, or even with that very neutrality

which ought, as we all agree, to be sacredly pre- served. It is confessed

that a language is barren of useful know- ledge. We are to teach it because

it is fruittul of monstrous superstitions. We are to teach false History,

false Astronomy, false Medicine, because we find them in company with a

false religion. We abstain, and I trust shall always abstain, from giving

any public encouragement to those who are engaged in the work of converting

natives to Christianity. And while we act thus, can we reasonably and

decently bribe men out of the revenues of the state to waste their youth in

learning how they are to purify themselves after touching an ass, or what

text of the Vedas they are to repeat to expiate the crime of killing a goat?

It is taken for granted by the advocates of Oriental learning, that no

native of this country can possibly attain more than a mere smattering of

English. They do not attempt to prove this; but they perpetually insinuate

it. They designate the education which their opponents recommend as a mere

spelling book education. They assume it as undenlable, that the question is

between a profound knowledge of Hindoo and Arabian literature and science on

the one side, and a superficial knowledge of the rudiments of English on the

other. This is not merely an assumption, but an assumption contrary to all

reason and experience. We know that foreigners of all nations do learn our

language sufficiently to have access to all the most abstruse knowledge

which it contains, sufficiently to relish even the more delicate graces of

our most idiomatic writers. There are in this very town natives who are

quite competent to discuss political or scientific questions with fluency

and precision in the English language. I have heard the gentlemen with a

liberality and an intelligence which would do credit to any member of the

Committee of Public Instruction. Indeed it is unusual to find, even in the

literary circles of the continent, any foreigner who can express himself in

English with so much facility and correctness as we find in many Hindoos.

Nobody, I suppose, will contend that English is so difficult to a Hindoo as

Greek to an Englishman. Yet an intelligent English youth, in a much smaller

number of years than our unfortunate pupils pass at the Sanscrit college,

becomes able to read, to enjoy, and even to imitate, not unhappily, the

compositions of the best Greek Authors. Less than half the time which

enables an English youth to read Herodotus and Sophocles, ought to enable a

Hindoo to read Hume and Milton.

To sum up what I have said, I think it clear that we are not fettered

by the Act of Parliament of 1813; that we are not fettered by any pledge

expressed or implied; that we are free to employ our fiinds as we choose;

that we ought to employ them in teaching what is best worth knowing; that

English is better worth knowing than Sanscrit or Arabic; that the natives

are desirous to be taught English, and are not desirous to be taught

Sanscrit or Arabic; that neither as the languages of law, nor as the

languages of religion, have the Sanscrit and Arabic any peculiar claim to

our engagement; that it is possible to make natives of this country

thoroughly good English scholars, and that to this end our efforts ought to

be directed.

In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whose general views I

am opposed. I feel with them, that it is impossible for us, with our limited

means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do

our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions

whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English

in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may

leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those

dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and

to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great

mass of the population.

I would strictly respect all existing interests. I would deal even

generously with all individuals who have had fair reason to expect a

pecuniary provision. But I would strike at the root of the bad system which

has hitherto been fostered by us. I would at once stop the printing of

Arabic and Sanscrit books, I would abolish the Madrassa and the Sanscrit

college at Calcutta. Benares is the great seat of Brahmanical learning;

Delhi, of Arabic learning. If we retain the Sanscrit college at Benares and

the Mahometan college at Delhi, we do enough, and much more than enough in

my opinion, for the Eastern languages. If the Benares and Delhi colleges

should be retained, I would at least recommend that no stipends shall be

given to any students who may hereafter repair thither, but that the people

shall be left to make their own choice between the rival systems of

education without being bribed by us to learn what they have no desire to

know. The funds which would thus be placed at our disposal would enable us

to give larger encouragement to the Hindoo college at Calcutta, and to

establish in the principal cities throughout the Presidencies of Fort

William and Agra schools in which the English language might be well and

thoroughly taught.

If the decision of his Lordship in Council should be such as I

anticipate, I shall enter on the performance of my duties with the greatest

zeal and alacrity. If, on the other hand, it be the opinion of the

Government that the present system ought to remain unchanged, I beg that I

may be permitted to retire from the chair of the Committee. I feel that I

could not be of the smallest use there--I feel, also, that I should be

lending my countenance to what I firmly believe to be a mere delusion. I

believe that the present system tends, not to accelerate the progress of

truth, but to delay the natural death of expiring errors. I conceive that we

have at present no right to the respectable name of a Board of Public

Instruction. We are a Board for wasting public money, for printing books

which are of less value than the paper on which they are printed was while

it was blank; for giving artificial encouragement to absurd history, absurd

metaphysics, absurd physics, absurd theology; for raising up a breed of

scholars who find their scholarship an encumbrance and a blemish, who live

on the public while they are receiving their education, and whose education

is so utterly useless to them that when they have received it they must

either starve or live on the public all the rest of their lives.

Entertaining these opinions, I am naturally desirous to decline all share in

the responsibility of a body, which unless it alters its whole mode of

proceeding, I must consider not merely as useless, but as positively

noxious.

Last updated: 2 January 2003

 

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