voured quarter of the globe, and the particular claims of the English language as an instrument of Indian improvement have thus become a point of paramount importance. These claims have been thus described by one who will be admitted to have made good his title to an opinion on the subject:

"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 narratives 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, trade; with full and correct information respecting every experimental science which tends to preserve the health, to increase the com

Whoever

fort, or to expand the intellect of man. 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 Austral-Asia, 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."

As of all existing languages and literatures the English is the most replete with benefit to the

human race, so it is overspreading the earth with a rapidity far exceeding any other. With a partial exception in Canada, English is the language of the continent of America north of Mexico; and at the existing rate of increase there will be a hundred millions of people speaking English in the United States alone at the end of this century. In the West India islands we have given our language to a population collected from various parts of Africa, and by this circumstance alone they have been brought many centuries nearer to civilization than their countrymen in Africa, who may for ages grope about in the dark, destitute of any means of acquiring true religion and science. Their dialect is an uncouth perversion of English suited to the present crude state of their ideas, but their literature will be the literature of England, and their language will gradually be conformed to the same standard. More recently the English language has taken root in the continent of Africa itself, and a nation is being formed by means of it in the extensive territory belonging to the Cape out of a most curious mixture of different races. But the scene of its greatest triumphs will be in Asia. To the south a new continent is being peopled with the English race; to the north, an

ancient people, who have always taken the lead in the progress of religion and science in the east,* have adopted the English language as their language of education, by means of which they are becoming animated by a new spirit, and are entering at once upon the improved knowledge of Europe, the fruit of the labour and invention of successive ages. The English language, not many generations hence, will be spoken by millions in all the four quarters of the globe; and our learning, our morals, our principles of constitutional liberty, and our religion, embodied in the established literature, and diffused through the genius of the vernacular languages, will spread far and wide among the nations.

The objection, therefore, to the early proceedings of the education committee is, that they were calculated to produce a revival, not of sound learning, but of antiquated and pernicious errors.

* The Buddhist religion, which originated in Behar, has spread to the furthest extremity of China, and the intervening nations have always been accustomed to regard India as the fountain-head both of learning and religion. Thibetan literature is a translation from Sanskrit, and the vernacular language of Behar is the sacred language of Burmah and the adjoining countries. It may be hoped that India will hereafter become the centre of a purer faith. The innumerable islands of the South must also be powerfully acted upon by Austral-Asia, which has been wonderfully reserved to be erected at once into a civilized and powerful eountry in the darkest region of eastern barbarism.

The pupils in the oriental seminaries were trained in a complete course of Arabic and Sanskrit learning, including the theology of the Vedas and the Koran, and were turned out accomplished maulavees and pundits,—the very class whom the same committee described as "satisfied with their own learning, little inquisitive as to any thing beyond it, and not disposed to regard the literature and science of the West as worth the labour of attainment." And having been thus educated, they were sent to every part of the country to fill the most important situations which were open to the natives, the few who could not be provided. for in this way taking service as private tutors or family priests. Every literary attempt connected with the old learning at the same time received the most liberal patronage, and the country was deluged with Arabic and Sanskrit books. By acting thus, the committee created the very evil which they professed to fear. They established great corporations, with ramifications in every district, the feelings and interest of whose members were deeply engaged on the side of the prevailing errors. All the murmuring which has been heard has come from this quarter; all the opposition which has been experienced has been headed by persons supported by our stipends, and trained in