Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎456v] (37/238)

250 Is State-aided Education in any Shape
to the Government pattern ? unless, indeed, they are
driven by a natural reaction into Nihilism.
The answer to all these objections will, no doubt be
that it is worth while to encounter every sort of difficulty,
economic, religious, or political, rather than that the people
should remain uneducated. The small residue of my time
must, therefore, be devoted to satisfying you, if I can, that
there is no such dilemma.
What would Happen if State Aid were Withdrawn ?
In their dread of losing the very meagre State aid that
they now receive, Indian educationists are like the man in
the story who clung agonized to a rope till he died of
fright, thinking that he was hanging over a precipice, when
his feet were actually almost touching the ground. I have
pointed out already what would happen if the rope were to
be cut in other words, if all educational grants were
suddenly to cease. School managers of all kinds would
have to look about for voluntary support, and would have
to put up the shutters if they failed to obtain it. That a
good many existing institutions would have to do this I
have no doubt; but I also very much doubt its being a
matter for regret.
Complaints are rife in France just now that the country
is suffering from a superfluity of doctors without patients,
lawyers without clients, and disappointed candidates for
Government employment, and there is a good deal of
evidence that in India also the supply of the sort of
educated youth turned out by Government schools and
colleges is considerably in excess of the demand. As
regards primary education, there is not much substance in
the argument that the raiyat must be taught to read
and write and calculate in order to save him from being
cheated by the banya. Not long ago a highly-educated
Indian lady, wife of a learned professor, told me that a
vi lage belonging to her husband was left entirely to the
management of his aunt, a Hindu widow of the old school,