all Bacon's works, his Essays, which he wrote in English as an amusement for his leisure hours, are alone in everybody's hands; but, notwithstanding this, the modern European literature will be found to have taken its great start at the time when the cultivation of the classical languages was at its height. To check the study of Latin at that period would have been to check the progress of knowledge, of taste, and of curiosity, which, descending lower and lower, at last gave rise to the admirable literature of the West. To check the study of English, in order to force that of the vernacular language, would have an equally bad effect upon the nascent literature of India. It would retard the process of national improvement by a fruitless endeavour to have that first, which ought, in the natural course of things, to come last: it would have the same effect on the increase of knowledge which the mistaken policy of some nations has on the increase of wealth, who, impatient to have manufactures before they come in their own time, divert a portion of their capital from the more profitable employment of agriculture to the less profitable one of manufactures.

There is, however, one mode in which the Government may, without running any risk of en

couraging mediocrity, give direct aid to the growth of a national literature. The consumption of books in the native languages, in the Government schools, is already great, and is daily increasing as the schools become more numerous and better filled. The adoption of any book as a class-book in the Government seminaries also establishes its reputation, and creates a general demand for it. Here then is a certain and perfectly unobjectionable mode of encouraging the production of good books only the best books of each kind are bought, and they are bought only as they are actually wanted; the pupils themselves pay for them, and a large number of useful books thus annually pass into the hands of the people. When particular books are required for the use of the Government schools, it would be advisable to make the want publicly known, in order that all native authors may have an opportunity of supplying it. The best among many competitors is likely to produce something better worth having than any single writer who could be selected.

A good law of copyright, embracing the whole of British India, would now be of great use. The want has only lately begun to be felt. Nothing was to be made by works in manuscript; and printed books were not in sufficient demand to

make the copyright of any value. Now, however, large editions of many works, both in English and the vernacular languages, are called for; and anxiety is felt by publishers on account of their liability to be deprived of their profits by piratical editions.

Although my remarks have been particularly directed to the state of things in the Bengal and Agra presidencies, they are, for the most part, equally applicable to the rest of British India. The plan which has been found to be best adapted for enlightening the people in Bengal, is not likely to be less efficacious at Madras and Bombay. Those presidencies will suffer less by the start of a few years, which Bengal has had, than they will gain by being placed in possession of a well devised and well tested plan of proceeding, without having had any of the trouble or expense of making the experiment.

At Madras, where least has been done for native education, there are, perhaps, more abundant materials and fewer obstacles than in any of the other presidencies. Native learning is even more thinly spread than in Bengal, and no institutions have been established by us to confirm its hold upon the country. On the other hand, a colloquial knowledge of English is a much more common acquirement than it is in Bengal. There are seve

ral different languages spoken in the Madras presidency, and English has been to a great extent adopted as the common medium of intercourse, not only between Europeans and natives, but between the natives themselves. This circumstance must give a permanent impulse to the study of the language, and will probably lead to its being more commonly used in ordinary conversation, and more largely diffused through the native languages in the south of India than in any other part of our Eastern dominions. The rough materials of a system of national education are therefore ready to hand in the Madras presidency; and all we have to do is to organise them, and apply them to their proper purpose. English is no novelty; it is in great request; thousands already know it: but it has hitherto been taught loosely and unsystematically, and we must bring all the modern improvements in education to the aid of its easy and correct acquisition. It has hitherto been taught merely to the extent necessary for carrying on colloquial intercourse; but we must enable our subjects to cultivate it as the means of obtaining access to all the knowledge of Europe.

At Bombay more has been done for native education. At first, too exclusive attention was paid to the vernacular languages; books for which there

was no demand, were translated at a heavy expense; and as the vernacular language only was taught in the schools, a fixed and narrow limit was placed to the acquisitions of the pupils. This plan has since been modified; and, while proper attention is still paid to the vernacular language, English is also extensively cultivated: the taste for it is said to be rapidly increasing; and as the youth of the Bombay Presidency have every thing at their disposal which the English language contains, they have now an open career before them.

It is a striking confirmation of the soundness of the prevailing plan of education, that the Bengal and Bombay Presidencies, although they set out from opposite quarters, and preserved no concert with each other, settled at last on exactly the same point. In Bengal we began by giving almost exclusive attention to the native classical languages, as they did in Bombay to the vernacular languages; and in both cases experience has led to a conviction of the value of English, and to its having had that prominent place accorded to it which its importance demands. It is time that these partial efforts should give place to a general plan, embracing the whole of British India. The constitution given to it by the late charter has es