were needed for the gaining of information and another kind needed as a mental gymnastic. Every-where throughout creation we find faculties developed through the performance of those functions which it is their office to perform; not through the performance of artificial exercises devised to fit them for their functions."* The British Association, at its meeting in 1867, gave the following reasons for including some training in science in general education in schools: "As providing the best discipline in observation and collection of facts, in the combination of inductive with deductive reasoning, and in accuracy both of thought and language. "Because it is found in practice to remedy some of the defects of the ordinary school education. Many boys, on whom the ordinary school studies produce very slight effect, are stimulated and improved by instruction in science; and it is found to be a most valuable ele ment in the education of those who show special aptitude for literary culture. "Because the methods and results of science have so profoundly affected all the philosophical thought of the age, that an educated man is under a very great disadvantage if he is unacquainted with them. "Because very great intellectual pleasure is derived in after life from even a moderate acquaintance with science. "On grounds of practical utility as materially affecting the present position and future progress of civilization."+ The Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction thus answer the objection that there is no time for such studies : "21. We do not wish to underrate, in any way, the necessity of careful instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, as the very foundation of education; but we do not believe that the introduction of extra subjects would in any way interfere with it. Mr. Lingen, then Secretary to the Committee of Council on Education, stated before Mr. Samuelson's Committee ou Scientific Instruction, in answer to Mr. Dixon, that those schools in which extra subjects are introduced are most successful in teaching reading and writing; and Mr. Moseley, in his Report on the King's Somborne School, expressed it as his opinion that the slowness with which children in our elementary schools learn to read is in some degree to be attributed to the unwise concentration of the labours of the school on so few subjects: with these opinions we are disposed to concur." The following are some of the "General Observations" of the Commission: "24. From a consideration of the evidence we are of opinion that instruction in the elements of natural science can be, and eventually ought to be, made an essential part of the course of instruction in every elementary school. * What Knowledge is of most Worth? + Reprinted in Schools Inquiry Commission, Vol. II., p. 219. "25. The instruction to which we refer, though scientific in sub. stance, should, in form, be deprived of needless technicality, and should be almost wholly confined to such facts as can be brought under the direct observation of the scholar. It should, in fact, be conveyed by object lessons, so arranged and methodized as to give an intelligent idea of those more prominent phenomena which lie around every child, and which he is apt to pass by without notice. "26. A course of object lessons of the nature here indicated could be given even to the junior classes of elementary schools, not only without in any way interfering with the efficiency of other instruction, but with the effect of aiding the general development of the intelligence of the children; and similar advantages would attend teaching of a like kind, but of a somewhat more advanced character, in the senior classes." "The scientific instruction thus afforded would, within the narrow limits to which it extends, give a sound acquaintance with the elements of physical science." Report, p. xvi. The objection is frequently brought forward that teachers are incapable of giving lessons in science. The Royal Commissioners say : "We have the evidence of highly competent authorities to show that the scientific instruction which was given by ordinary elementary school teachers, before the introduction of the Revised Code of 1861, was, in many instances, sound and valuable in itself and beneficial to the pupils." p. xii. The want of apparatus is thus noticed by Professor Tyndall: "I would here remark that although no scheme of education in physics is even approximately complete without illustrative experiments, an able teacher, even in the absence of apparatus, can do a great amount of good. It is possible, by the judicious use of the blackboard and chalk, and of simple models, to convey clear conceptions of various parts of physics, so clear, indeed, that, should the pupil afterwards witness the experiments, he shall witness that of which he had previously an accurate, though, it may be, an incomplete conception. Indeed, even when apparatus exists, the performance of experiments ought to go hand in hand with this diagrammatic exposition.”* The London School Board has made instruction in elementary physical science an essential subject in all its schools. The course is to be: "Systematized object lessons, embracing, in the six school years, a course of elementary instruction in physical science, and serving as an introduction to the science examinations which are conducted by the Science and Art Department."+ Dr. Duff rightly characterizes the Hindu mind as "subjective and metaphysical," apt to indulge in "dreamy abstractions and * Appendix, vii., p. 53. + Quoted in Royal Commission Report, p. xvii. intangible profitless speculations."* The value of science as a corrective will at once be apparent. There have been several protests against the neglect of science in India. Many years ago the Bengal Council of Education remarked :— "The want of every thing of a practical character in the educational course at present appears to the Council to be its greatest defect. Every thing that strikes the senses, one-half of the whole circle of knowledge is, as it were, ignored in our present scheme of education. This, the Council incline to think, would be a grave defect in any country, but they cannot doubt it is so in India." In 1853, the present Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal observed: "With respect to the quality of Government education, the great mistake seems to be the preference of English literature to science."+ In the Bengal Public Instruction Report for 1856-57, Mr. Hodgson Pratt, then Inspector of Schools, said : "We have so long given exclusive importance to Classics and Mathematics, that the young Baboos regard the Physical Sciences with contempt. There could not be stronger evidence of the defects of our past system. If there is one thing more than another which (religion apart) educationists ought to strive for in this country, it is to awaken these books in chudders,' as they have been wisely and wittily called, to the pleasures and advantages of Science.' To encourage them to Classics and Mathematics to the exclusion of every thing else, pursue is to perpetuate the very faults which especially distinguish the mental character of the so-called educated classes. "I know that all suggestions of this kind are met by a cry, that we are going to substitute a smattering of every thing for a knowledge of two or three things; but it is worth enquiring whether we have not been teaching many things of little or no use whatever. I would ask why should Greeshchunder Chuckerbutty be expected to know what circumstances enabled Shakespeare to exhibit an accurate knowledge of Greek Mythology,' or 'in what respect the Dramatic compositions called 'Mysteries' differ from those called 'Moralities,' and other facts of a like nature? On the other hand, it is of very great importance, that he should see clearly the danger of living with an open sewer running under the lower floor of his house, or the cruelty of marrying his children at an immature age, or the impolicy of exhausting the soil of his fields by the disregard of important principles in Chemistry and it is very important that his mind should comprehend the sublimity and beauty of the laws by which his own body and every thing around him are governed; and that his heart should, if possible, be awakened to the great facts and conclusions of Natural Theology."‡ * Quoted in Calcutta Review, Vol. xli., p. 311. Bengal Public Instruction Report, 1856-57, Ap. A., pp. 2, 3. Some progress has been made in securing a place for physical science in education except in South India. A graduate of the Madras University may be totally ignorant of Natural Science. It is not taken up at all before the B. A. Examination, and it is then only one of the optional subjects, probably rarely selected. The last Madras Public Instruction Report remarks: "The practical exclusion of the natural sciences from our course seems also much to be regretted. The most eminent thinkers are coming to the conclusion that the neglect of them in Europe has been a grievous error. The intellectual discipline which the experimental sciences are calculated to afford would be particularly valuable in correcting the dreamy and impractical turn of mind which characterize the Hindu student." The Bombay Matriculation Examination requires an elementary knowledge of the following: (a.) The mechanical powers. (b.) The laws of chemical combination, the chemistry of air and water, and the phenomena of combustion. (c.) The solar system. Sir George Campbell has given a considerable impulse to the study of science in Bengal. Last year, the Hon. Mr. Markby, seconded by Babu Rajendra Lala Mitra, proposed in the Senate of the Calcutta University, that " a short and easy course of physical science may be adopted in the schools." The motion was lost at the time; but optional scientific subjects have since been introduced into the University course. While there is a great deal of mere "cramming" in English Schools in India, the want of mental discipline is far more felt in the indigenous schools. Adam says of the teachers in Bengal: "At present they produce chiefly a mechanical effect upon the intellect of their pupils which is worked upon and chiseled out, and that in a very rough style, but which remains nearly passive in their hands, and is seldom taught or encouraged to put forth its self-acting and self-judging capacities."* A. D. Campbell, Esq., Collector of Bellary, in his Report to Sir T. Munro, thus estimated the instruction given in Native Schools in his district : "Few teachers can explain, and still fewer scholars understand the purport of the numerous books they learn to repeat from memory. Every school boy can repeat verbatim a vast number of verses, of the meaning of which he knows no more than the parrot which has been taught to utter certain words. Accordingly from studies in which he *Vernacular Education in Bengal, p. 93. has spent many a day of laborious but fruitless toil, the native scholar gains no improvement, except the exercise of memory, and the power to read and write on the common business of life. He makes no addition to his stock of useful knowledge and acquires no moral impressions. He has spent his youth in reading syllables, not words, and on entering into life he meets with hundreds and thousands of words, of the meaning of which he cannot form even the most distant conjecture." The late Director of Public Instruction remarks, after quoting the above, "The foregoing picture, it is to be feared, is still applicable to the quality of the instruction imparted in a large proportion of the present native schools." The Director of Public Instruction, Oudh, says of indigenous schools in his last Report, (p. 3) "They teach him as a rule merely to read certain books by rote." Mill, in noticing "the great controversy of the present day with regard to higher education"--whether it should be literary or scientific, says: "I can only reply by the question, why not both? Can any thing deserve the name of a good education which does not include literature and science too? If there were no more to be said than that scientific education teaches us to think, and literary education to express our thoughts, do we not require both? and is not any one a poor, maimed, lopsided fragment of humanity who is deficient in either?" The above expresses the true conclusion. Neither literature nor science should be neglected. Each is important in its place. The claims of science have been advocated under this head, only because, as a rule, attention has been chiefly given to literature. III. THE MORAL IMPROVEMENT OF THE PEOPLE. Kerr, in his Review of Public Instruction in the Bengal Presidency, says : "The Court of Directors from an early period considered that the improvement of the moral character of the natives was one of the first objects to be aimed at, and directed that a Professor should be appointed to lecture on Jurisprudence and Morals, without having any other duty to perform." p. 62. As this was not carried out, Mr. Cameron, in 1840, wrote a Minute on the subject, containing the following passage :— "In most countries Morality is taught as part of Religion. Here we are prevented by the circumstances of the country from teaching Morality in that manner. It is, therefore, more incumbent upon us than upon other ministries of public instruction to teach Morality in the form of Moral Philosophy." Kerr, p. 62. The same great duty is recognized in the Despatch of 1854. * Selections from the Records of the Madras Government, No. II, p. 3. |