Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎456r] (36/238)

Suitable to the Present Circumstances of India? 249
Concurring in the general appreciation of the versatility
of Sir William’s genius, and of the excellence of his
intentions, I must yet pronounce the official adoption of
his book by the Indian educational authorities a grave
political indiscretion. I am not quite sure that the perma
nent mischief would have been greater, though, of course,
there would have been more outcry at the moment, if
Bishop Welldon’s aspiration for the close of the present
century had been realized at its commencement, and the
Bible had been ordered to be read in all Government
schools. For it amounts, in effect, to imposing a political
test on all managers and teachers of State-aided institu
tions. The little book bristles with dogmatic assertions
about matters that are keenly debated, all tending to the
glorification of the British Government as it was and is.
The title is a misnomer, suggesting, as it does, the possession
of those political rights which are, as we all know, withheld
for the present from the people of India. It is brightly
written, and might pass well enough as a private venture ,
as a text-book officially prescribed it cannot fail to be
a source of irritation and embarrassment to well-informed
and conscientious teachers. The 1 imes writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. already
quoted tells us that the profession of teaching as a career
is a byword among educated natives ; it is not likely to g3-in
in dignity when the teacher is required not only to restrain
the expression of his political views, but to be ex officio an
apologist of things as they are.
And yet it is difficult to see how trouble of this sort is to
be avoided if we once grant the assumptions that it is the
duty of the State to undertake the moral education of the
people, and that politics are a branch of morals. Sir
Henry Maine, himself a very eminent Indian official,
once remarked that the official mind does not love
criticism ; which is, after all, not saying much more than
that officials are human. If the Government of the day is
entrusted with the task of moulding young minds, what
else can we expect but that they will be moulded according