THE INDIAN REVIEW A. MONTHLY PERIODICAL DEVOTED TO THE DISCUSSION OF ALL TOPICS OF INTEREST. Vol. XX. AUGUST, 1919 No. 8. The Calcutta University Commission Report I. BY SIR P. S. SIVASWAMI AIYER. HE long expected report of the Calcutta University Commission has at last been made available to the public. The Commission sat for a period of nearly 18 months and it cannot be said that the results of their labour partake either in quality or in quantity of the proverbial character of a mountain in travail, The main body of the report comprises five portly volumes of about 400 pages each. But the defects of a production of this formidable size are largely mitigated by the table of contents and the analyses of the chapters and the attractiveness of the type. With all these conveniences for reference, the reading of the report and the detailed consideration of its contents demand a very considerable amount of time. It is only possible at present to give a rough idea of the impressions produced by a perusal of the official summary. During the course of the last one hundred years the question of educational policy has engaged the attention of Government at intervals of about 20 to 30 years. Making allowance for the leisurely methods of consideration and execution in favour with the Government, it will probably take several years more before the Reforms recommended by the Commission are carried out and any tangible result is achieved. The Education Commission of 1882 and the Government of the day were largely dominated by the very insular conception of education which prevailed in England at the time. Education was hardly recognised in England as a University function of the State. England was well provid ed with schools and Universities founded by private benefactors and Englishmen naturally applied the ideas derived from this system to India notwithstanding the great difference of conditions. The vital connection between elementary, secondary and collegiate education, the importance of technical education, the for the construction of a comprehensive system of education as an organic whole, and the duties of the state in the matter of education have all been forced into prominence by the war and it is only within the last few years that Englishmen have begun to realise that it is just as much the duty of the state to provide for the education of the people, as it is to look after their health. mitted failure of the Government of India to The adachieve results at all proportionate to the period of British rule must in great part be attributed to their inability to recognise the obligations of the state in this behalf and the consequent omission to provide the necessary funds. Though the opinions expressed by the commission were mainly based upon the conditions observed by them in Bengal and are intended to refer to the system in force there, many of their in this Presidency also. remarks are more or less applicable to the system so glaring here as in Bengal, but they exist The evils may not be nevertheless and are sufficiently serious to demand prompt and effective treatment. equipment of many of the English High Schools, The inadequate the underpayment of the staff and its inadequacy, the absence of a sufficient diversity of lines of study, the necessity for the intermediate classes of Colleges to supplement and finish the course of secondary instruction imperfectly carried out by the High Schools are defects in the system of school education which can be observed in this Presidency also. The system of secondary education here cannot be said to be dominated by the matriculation examination of the University for the reason that the latter has practically disappeared but the domination of the secondary school system by the University flourishes as vigorously as ever. It was to escape this domination and with the object of giving more latitude to the school course and ensuring greater consideration for the work and conduct of |