Bright's speech in the House of Commons, June 3, 1853: (emphasis added)
John Bright was a Quaker, and I think it is among Quakers that one finds the most humanism, compared to alleged liberals like Macaulay.
Now, with reference to education, so far as could be gathered from the Returns before the House—he had sought to obtain Returns of a more specific character, but to no purpose, having received the usual answer in these matters, that there was no time for preparing them—but from the Returns they had before them he found that while the Government had overthrown almost entirely the native education that had subsisted throughout the country so universally that a schoolmaster was as regular a feature in every village as the "potail" or head man, it had done next to nothing to supply the deficiency which had been created, or to substitute a better system.No doubt Macaulay and Niall Ferguson and the like would think that the 66,000£ was adequate, and that displacing the universal native education system in favor of a vacuum was greatly civilizing for India. Of course, to balance this imposed universal illiteracy they abolished Sati, and that justifies it all for the benighted latter day disciples of such Apostles of Empire.
Out of a population of 100,000,000 natives we instructed but 25,000 children; out of a gross revenue of 29,000,000 £ sterling, extracted from that population, we spent but 66,000£ in their education. In India, let it be borne in mind, the people were not in the position with regard to providing for their own education which the people of this country enjoyed, and the education which they had provided themselves with, the Government had taken from them, supplying no adequate system in its place. The people of India were in a state of poverty, and of decay, unexampled in the annals of the country under their native rulers. From their poverty the Government wrung a gross revenue of more than 29,000,000£ sterling, and out of that 29,000,000£, returned to them 66,000£ per annum for the purposes of education!
John Bright was a Quaker, and I think it is among Quakers that one finds the most humanism, compared to alleged liberals like Macaulay.
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Savyasachi · 635 weeks ago
I've followed your blog for years - probably over 6 years now. I'm always happy to see exhaustive links and quotations, though there has been something else on my mind lately - having shifted from the US back to India.
I am leading a major project in my field now, and the one thing that strikes me about India and Indians (yes, I am Indian too, but bitter about the way I have been discriminated against first in Bihar for bing non-Bihari and then in the rest of India for being a Bihari) is the inability to
1. Work as a team
2. Allow any new ideas to flourish, especially in youngsters
I am way past asking why (for practical reasons, though I'm still curious); what I really want to work on is how to change this - through and in the context of my project.
Let me know if you're interested in discussing this - I'll be happy to ponder this with you and perhaps implement thoughts that emerge from our discussion.
macgupta 81p · 635 weeks ago
CIP · 635 weeks ago
then being allocated for three purposes: to print books in Sanskrit and Arabic, funding a Madrassa and a Sanskrit
college in Calcutta, and paying stipends to students at the actual centers of Sanskrit learning at Benares and Arabic
learning at Delhi. His argument was that (a)the books almost never sold and merely accumulated, (b)English colleges were needed
and (c)real scholars don't need to be paid to study.
Whatever the merits of these arguments, there is nothing here about abolition of village schools or about village schools at all.
If he was responsible for that crime, it was a great one, but I have yet to see the evidence.
macgupta 81p · 635 weeks ago
"It is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people."
Where did this "limited means" arise from? The East India Company took the revenues that the villages normally used for the support of the village schools. Was Macaulay the originator of this? Probably not. But in proposing educational reform, he went along with it. In any case, he thought that the education Indians of that time received was useless, he wanted to create his class of Indians English in outlook, morals, taste, intellect, and this class would then carry education to the masses. For what would happen in the mean time he had no concern.
CIP · 635 weeks ago
macgupta 81p · 635 weeks ago
They tell us that the Englishman William Adam in his Reports, argued that
....the traditional form and institutions presented
'the only true and sure foundations on which any scheme of general or national education can be established. We may deepen and extend the foundations; we may improve, enlarge and beautify the super structure; but these are the foundations on which the building should be raised'.
....
To labour successfully for them, we must labour with them; and to labour successfully with them, we must get them to labour willingly and intelligently with us. We must make them in short, the instruments of their own improvement. And how can this be done but by identifying ourselves and our improvements with them and their institutions.
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If the context of this quote is as expected (which I have to verify, one should always check what one can in case of a controversial topic) then this is an opponent that Macaulay defeated, and this is one that would have improved the village schools (as opposed to say, urban colleges).
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Another strong opponent of Macaulay's policy was Horace Hayman Wilson. Wiki says, "He was one of the staunchest opponents of the proposal that English should be made the sole medium of instruction in native schools, and became for a time the object of bitter attacks." Unfortunately, so far I have not been able to find what his position was first hand except behind pay-walls that accommodate only institutions. Maybe one of these days I will go to the Library of Congress and see what I can find. I'm also waiting for a copy of Gauri Vishwanathan's Masks of Conquest to arrive. What I have right now is only snippets, such as following the 1835 act that followed Macaulay's minute, "the teaching of English was taken out of the Sanskrit College and the Madrassa and confined to institutions devoted to studies entirely conducted in English....The Orientalist Horace Wilson objected strongly to this move as an attempt to create a different kind of caste hierarchy in Indian education, claiming that these two native colleges produced many excellent English scholars who showed a mastery of the language for all useful purposes."
etc.
macgupta 81p · 635 weeks ago
Section I The Twenty-Four Pergunnahs, including Calcutta
Population
Indigenous Elementary Schools
Elementary Schools not Indigenous
Indigenous Schools of Learning
English Colleges and Schools
Native Female Schools
Infant Schools
SECTION II The District of Midnapore
etc.