examination, and then availed themselves of his assistance. By continuing this clause, they denied to the young men the benefit of any improvement in the system of education. If they were asked, "why do you not go to such a seminary,-you will be taught very speedily there?" their answer is, "we are denied access to itwe must go to Haileybury-we must not think of an improved system of education." In the whole course of what he had said, he had not stated one evil of the institution that appeared to be corrigible; it comprized a mass of inherent evils. He should now conclude, hoping that this question would be discussed without any reference to opinions formerly advanced when it was debated in that Court. He forgot what opinion he himself entertained, when the first discussion took place. He had, on this occasion, taken up the subject in honest sincerity, and he felt himself responsible to the Professors and the public if he had brought it forward unnecessarily. He thought that he had not done so. Those who heretofore had formed a different opinion on this question from that which he now advocated, might, he thought, under all the circumstances, abandon that opinion without incurring any reproach whatever. They might, at that peried, when there was much clamour abroad, have defended the college, from feelings of generosity. He did not look at the decision of this question in the light of a triumph to one party or another. He feared, if his views of the subject were not carried into effect, in some shape or other (and certainly the proposition would come with a better grace from the Court of Directors than from any other party), that the question would be travelling into this Court every two or three years, which would be made the scene of a great deal of unnecessary acrimony. (Hear, hear!) The Hon. Gent. concluded by moving a resolution in the terms of the requisition. He then observed, that if the motion were carried, he should subsequently propose the following resolution: "That it shall not be lawful for the Court of Directors to nominate, appoint, or send to India, in the capacity of writer, any person who has not submitted his qualifications to one or more public examination, as they shall, from time to time, appoint."

The Chairman." It was not my inten.. tion to have troubled you on this question so early, if it had not been for what has just fallen from the Hon. Proprietor, whom (though we differ in opinion) I heard with very great pleasure-(Hear, hear!) I do not say this with any desire of complimenting the Hon. Proprietor, but we must all applaud the mild and gentlemanly manner in which he brought the subject forward.-( Hear, hear!) The

Hon. Proprietor asks," Cannot the Court of Directors take up this question? The last place where a subject of this kind should be discussed is the Court of Proprietors." I give the Hon. Proprietor credit for this sentiment; and I must say, that if it had not been for the continual notices of the Hon. Proprietor, I meant to have taken the subject into consideration before I quitted the chair. Under these circumstances, I will put it to the Hon. Proprietor whether it will not be more prudent to withdraw his motion, leaving the question in the hands of the Executive Body, who, as a matter of duty, must have it brought before them. I have privately turned my attention to this subject, but I have not moved in it, on account of the Hon. Proprietor's frequent notices. I may be here permitted to say, that subjects of this nature are not immediately, and in the first instance, taken up in this house; and I must observe farther, that the Hon. Proprietor is consderably in error in several parts of his statement. The Hon. Proprietor considers that the Professors have no power to remove a student. Now the fact is, that the first term is strictly probationary. All the terms are probationary, but the first is to be considered as such in a more particular sense, and during that period the Professors have the power of removal. If, in that term, the student does not give the College Council satisfaction, he may be removed, and he is not permitted to return until such time as he is qualified: therefore the Professors have that power which the Hon. Proprietor speaks of. The Hon. Proprietor also went on to argue, that we have no certificate of conduct-nothing but a test of qualifications. He certainly could not have read the statute, for the act expressly says, that the student shall have a certificate of his residence for four terms at Haileybury College, in conformity with the rules, which certainly includes general good conduct. If the Hon. Gent. will adopt the suggestion I have thrown out, and will leave the question in those hands where it can most safely be left, namely, with the Court of Directors, I think it will be more advantageous for all parties. The Hon. Proprietor will, however, recollect, that the Executive Body do not now stand in the same situation, with respect to the College, which they formerly did. The Bishop of London, as visitor, now exercises a power, which was at first vested in the Court of Directors..

The Hon. D. Kinnaird, said that, in conformity with the spirit in which he had brought forward this question, he felt disposed to adopt the suggestion of the Hon. Chairman. At the same time he thought it was quite necessary that it should be distinctly understood how the Court was

situated. It had been clearly stated by him, all along, that if the Court of Directors would do any thing to put an end to the constant discussion of this question, he would not meddle with it: he therefore hoped that he would not be accused with having prematurely introduced it, as he knew not that it was about to be taken up behind the bar. The Hon. Chairman seemed to intimate that, after considering the subject, the Court of Directors might possibly accede to this proposition, or to something else which would affect the specific question. It would be as well, unquestionably, for the Court of Directors to abstain from further inquiry, if they had no hope of introducing some proposition which would arrive at the same result which he had in view; namely, that of preventing this question from ever being discussed here again. Unless that could

be done, he (Mr. D. Kinnaird) suggested whether any advantage could accrue from postponing the question. If any circumstances could be pointed out which would make it more desirable that the discussion should be heard hereafter-if gentlemen were likely, for instance, to come to it with less passion, and more temper, he had no objection to the postponement. With respect to the certificate, what he meant was, that there was a test superadded to that certificate. As to the right of appeal from sentence of expulsion, he knew very well the unfortunate situasion in which the Court of Directors were placed.

Mr. Hume said, the speech of his Hon. Friend must have carried conviction home to the mind of every person who had heard it. There could be no second opinion in that court as to the evils which were connected with this institution, and no time should be lost in removing them, so as to render the establishment as complete as possible, and to enable it to afford to the young men an excellent moral and scientific education. He must now observe, that if his Hon. Friend acceded to the proposition made by the Hon. Chairman, it would be throwing the question out of Court; he therefore hoped that the Court would unanimously agree to a suggestion which he would make. He would leave the business with the Court of Directors; but he would do so by prefixing a few words to the motion of his hon. friend. He meant the motion to run thus :-"That it be referred to the Court of Directors to take into consideration, whether so and so shall be now done," setting forth the present motion. By this course neither party would be compromized; and it would prove to all concerned, that the Directors wished to see whether any thing could in fact be done. He was not aware of any specific mode of inquiry; but, if any objection were offered to this proposition, he was sure his Hon. Friend would not hesitate

to make any alteration, provided it did not interfere with the spirit of his resolution. He hoped his Hon. Friend would not be induced to withdraw it; because if he did they would then be precluded from further interference. The subject would be thrown entirely into the hands of the Court of Directors, and then every thing would be got rid of.

The Chairman-" I apprehend that the Hon. Proprietor's suggestion, instead of removing the difficulty, creates a new one. I should not have ventured to have acted as I have done, if the suggestion had not originated with the Hon. Mover himself. It is impossible for the Court of Directors, directly or indirectly, to bind itself to any proposition, or to state what course they may think proper to adopt. After what fell from the Hon. Mover, I thought it was in my power to prevent the discussion from going farther; but, if any specific pledge be expected from the Court of Directors, I believe the discussion mnst go on."

The Hon. D. Kinnaird-" When you spoke of the Directors taking the question up, I inferred that some measure, similar to that before the Court, which would finally settle the matter, was contemplated. If the Hon. Chairman did not mean that, I can only regret that he made such a request as he has done, which proceeded on grounds that were scarcely justifiable. The Hon. Chairman stated, that being on the eve of leaving the chair, he had intended to bring this question forward, but was prevented by my frequent notices. What was I to understand from this but that the question was about to be taken up effectually?"

Mr. Carruthers presented himself to the Court at the same time with Mr. R. JackHe submitted, that if the debate were to go on, he was in possession of the

son.

chair.

The Chairman, however, called on the latter gentleman.

Mr. R. Jackson said, this would be a lesson to the Court not to give way, very hastily, to sensations of great and extraordinary pleasure. It did seem to him that the Hon. Chairman was holding out the olive branch, which they were all so anxious and so willing to receive. While he was on the point, he would state most unequivocally for himself, and for those with whom he acted, that no desire was more ardently cherished by them, than that of leaving this question to the Court of Directors; a question of such importance, that five or six-hundred gentlemen had met to deliberate upon it. But, if he were unfortunate enough truly to understand the Hon. Chairman, he said, “ I propose to do that which I and my Hon. Colleagues have often said was next to impossible--I mean to take into considera

tion the whole detail of this extraordinary question." Now he (Mr. Jackson) had no objection to add to the motion the words proposed by his Hon. Friend; namely, "That it be referred to the Court of Directors to consider the propriety of petitioning Parliament for the repeal of this clause." The Hon. Chairman would not, however, concede this. Assuredly the major ought to comprize the minor; and, if the Hon. Chairman felt no objection, after refusing the boon for several years past, to take the whole subject into consideration, certainly he could not refuse the minor point which his Hon. Friend demanded. Undoubtedly, he might agree to that interesting inquiry, whether a parent should be allowed to preserve the morals and watch over the education of his child, or leave those important considerations to chance. He would not now argue that proposition; but he would caution his brother proprietors not to be thrown out to sea altogether, by resting content with the assurance, that the Hon. Gentleman would do that, before he left the chair, which the whole Court of Directors have declared impossible. He and his friends had no objection to submit the subject to the Executive Body with gratitude and pleasure; because such a course was most consonant with their ideas of the true constitutional connexion which should always subsist between the Proprietors and the Directors. In 1817, he had implored that the whole question should be referred to the Executive Body. He had lowered his tone, and now only wanted them to consider this single proposition.

The Chairman." The discussion must go on."

Mr. Carruthers.-The present opportunity might have been looked forward to by many individuals, who were desirous to deliver their sentiments upon this question; but by no one with more anxiety than by the humble individual who now addressed the Court; he hoped that these considerations would influence Hon, Proprietors who sat around him, to give him their attention for a short time. The arguments he had heard from the Hon. Proprietor who had introduced the question, were at once so inconclusive and imprudent, that he (Mr. Carruthers) could not be content with giving a silent vote. conclusive and imprudent, however, as those arguments were, they presented no novelty to his mind, for they had been propounded and refuted so long ago as the year 1817. They were advocated by a learned gentleman who he now saw in the Court (Mr. R. Jackson), and whose eloquence, he remembered, made a great impression upon all who heard him; but by no man were they more warmly opposed, than by the late excellent and venerated colleague of the worthy Chairman, Mr.

In

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Grant; who, in the course of that discussion, emphatically said, that if the institution at Hertford were as immaculate as human ingenuity or conduct could make it, it could not stand against the malevolence of the attacks that were being constantly directed against it. (Expressions of disapprobation.) Were gentlemen so indifferent to the dangers which threatened the company in these reiterated charges against the College? Perhaps he might be allowed, in calling their attention to this matter, to inquire into the nature of their civil appointments to India. It was not now, as it used to be, that young men went out qualified to be mere factors or agents; but the system was now, to qualify them, as it had been lately expressed by Mr. Malthus (in his clear and unanswerable statement in respect of this College), for the honourable employments of statesmen, and governors of districts or provinces. were to be called upon, in representing the Hon. Company, to study the habits, and opinions, and prejudices, of a vast population; to dispense justice to a people of various nations, languages, usages, customs, and religions; to preserve order among some of the most unsettled regions of the earth. They were to administer justice, indeed, over an extent of dominion larger than the largest of the European kingdoms; and to become, as occasion might require, magistrates, statesmen, ambassadors, and generals. Such were the duties which the civil servants of the Company were required to perform; and this reflection ought naturally to lead gentlemen to inquire what system of education could be framed for preparing young men to discharge functions like these, equal to that which prevailed in the institution at Hertford?-(hear!) a system which had been expressly devised for these purposes, and was rendered daily more effective by its uniformity of action. There might be some deficiencies in it; and, no doubt, some defects and disparagements,—some errors might be shewn to exist in it. (Hear! hear!) But it could not be forgotten, that the College was still in its infancy; and, however distant it might be said to be from perfection, yet, at least, the records of this institution would prove that gentlemen, who having passed their examinations according to the College statutes, and after completing the course of studies through which they were required to travel, had gone out to India, had there distinguished themselves in such a manner as to challenge the highest respect for their general acquirements, and to call down the admiration of the service for their general conduct. It was to be observed, that these individuals had so distinguished themselves at this early period in the existence of the institution. (Murmurs of impatience.) He hoped that he was not unnecessarily

trespassing on the time of the Court; but he did trust that gentlemen would permit him to state his opinions without interruption. Unquestionably, every institution which the liberality of any individuals might found as a seat of learning, would, in its infancy, be subject to much abuse, and to the misrepresentations of its open and secret enemies, until time should wear all its elements away, and its fame rest upon the basis only of its own past good works. He apprehended it could not be shewn, but that the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, when they were first founded, had to encounter, in their infancy, many enemies, and much opposition also: yet they had the singular advantage of being founded by Kings and Queens, and at a time, let him be permitted to say, when royalty in this country was unrestrained, self-willed, all-powerful, and tyrannical. Those seats of science had survived the enmity of their foes, and had now flourished for centuries, through every danger and despite of every attack. Though assailed by every storm that ignorance, or bigotry, or malice could create, they had outlived the peril, and had become part of that astonishing system which must flourish in this empire as long as time.-(Here the Hon. Proprietor was again interrupted, and

for some time inaudible.) Really (he continued) one would imagine, from the sort of opposition that was raised against this College, that gentlemen behind the bar (the Directors) were now relieved from the uncomfortable, and even painful situation of being obliged to listen to, only to refuse, the applications of their friends, on behalf of sons and relatives desirous of going out to India; but he believed the fact to be, that, notwithstanding all the previous preparation that was now required, all the studies, the tests, and the examinations that were to be gone through, the Directors were not one whit relieved from the embarrassing difficulties of their painful situation; nor did he think it to be true, that, if admission to the civil service of the Company were not opened, appointments would not be filled by those equally qualified for their duties: for, even among the first gentlemen of England, or in their families, there would be found individuals destined for the church, or the army, or the bar, who would be too content to receive civil or military appointments to India, even on the condition that the nominee should reside the necessary number of terms at Haileybury. That being the case, he did contend, that the opposition which had been raised against the College must be, to a certain extent, groundless. Be the evils of that institution what they might, they would not be found to be as extensive, nor as irremediable, as its enemies would represent them to be. This opposition, indeed, was all fair enough as Asiatic Journ.-No. 99.

coming from the unfortunate youth (and, above all, as coming from the disappointed parents, relatives or guardians of that unfortunate youth), who, from inattention to his prescribed studies, from neglect of his duty, or from insubordination to those whom the statutes of the College had set over him, had lost his valuable appointment of a Writer. But such affairs, deeply affecting as they were to those who suffered from them, were not to influence the Court upon the question which they were met to discuss that day. It was no single misfortune, no individual case that claimed their deliberations; but the welfare, the happiness, and order of millions of their subjects in India: for it must depend upon the opinion of this Court whether the Company should or should not, over those millions of people, place such enlightened civil servants as might, by their ability, their attainments, and their zeal, render their Indian dominion as lasting as it was extensive. Well, then, (he felt disposed to ask) what system of civil education could, by possibility, so well prepare young men for the discharge of those arduous duties he had alluded to, as the institution at Hertford, even though the different system proposed by an Hon. Proprietor should have the advantage of public examinations? Let it be remembered, that the supplications of youth-the tears and entreaties of parents-the threats of friends, would not prevail with collegiate authorities to act in violation of their oaths, and against collegiate laws, by certifying the good conduct and acquirements of a youth during his residence in college, when, either from in subordination or negligence, that youth might be really altogether incapable of passing examination. On the other hand, surely it was almost too much for gentlemen' to expect that tutors, if unfettered by these restraints, and unbound by collegiate laws, could long remain proof against such continual entreaties and threats. Nor would it be wise in gentlemen to place individuals in so distressing a situation as that which should expose them to such applications. While feelings like those he had endeavoured to express continued to influence him, he did hope, that the question of this day would meet with the same fate that a similar question found in that Court, in the year 1815. When he saw the advantages which this institution had already effected; when he reflected upon its beneficial influence on the happiness and well-being of their Indian subjects, and marked the fostering care of that iminense population which was evinced by those who had been educated in the College, he felt an anxious hope, that such an institution might be admitted as an integral part of the Company's Indian system, and an assurance that, in that case, the system would endure as long as India VOL. XVII, 2 U

should continue to exist. He entreated Gentlemen to recollect, before they came to a final determination upon the important point before them, that it was impossible to say how soon the question might be put upon the whole of that system, "Delendo est Carthago ?" and that when their officers were scattered about the world, in other regions, and on other services,— when, in short, the government of India should be suppressed, it would be too late to reflect upon the destruction of this institution, or to ask whether the continuance of such an establishment might not still have preserved to them the empire of India. (Hear!)

Mr. Poynder next addressed the Court; who said, that he apprehended, in the first place, that any gentleman who opposed the present establishment of the College, must substantiate two positions, by way of founding his opposition: first,that the present system was inefficient; and secondly, that an equivalent could be furnished for it, if it were done away with. Now with regard to the first of these positions, the charge of inefficiency, gentlemen ought not too hastily to credit it, on the maxim of Cicero, "Magister optimus est abusus:" or, in more homely language, where they had not got an absolutely bad thing, they might, by changing, get a worse instead of a better. The next position to be proved was, that the gentlemen who had introduced this question could substitute something that was equivalent, if not superior to that which they wished to remove. Certainly, in his own judgment, and as far as he had been able to make up his mind on so difficult, extensive, and important a question, the Hon. Proprietors had not established either of these positions. (Hear) He was about to occupy the time of the Court for the first time (for he believed he had never ventured to do so before), while he mentioned a few considerations that might satisfy them, that the motion before them

was

not the sort of one they ought to entertain. And here he must be permitted to bring them back to the origin of the institution. He should consider the time of the Court; but, upon so grave a business, he had no choice left him, and therefore addressed them, only remembering that brevity was the soul of wit as well as of argument. To shew the origin of the College, he would adopt the words of the Marquess Wellesley, in that celebrated Minute of Council, which was said to be the primary cause of founding this institution in England. It was a minute made in reference to the deplorable and acknowledged incompetence of all the Company's civil servants in India, at that time, for those appointments which they were called upon to fill in that part of the world. The faet of this incompetency in the civil

servants had been previously pointed out, in e forcible manner, by that able and excellent man the late Marquess Cornwallis; and he, it need hardly be added, had taken, at the same time, all imaginable pains, and had done all that man could do, to remedy so unfortunate a deficiency. But so circumstanced was that enlightened nobleman, that his own work broke under him. There was then no college; and if the system which the Marquess Cornwallis endeavoured to establish could not sustain itself, the bad tools with which the workman was obliged to labour, and not the workman himself, were to be blamed. The Hon. Proprietor then read the minute of council of 1807; which set forth, that the civil servants and officers of the Company, upon the system then acted on, were, in most instances, wholly unequal to the several duties to be performed in the civil service of the Company. The minute then described the nature of those duties; some of which were more particularly these to administer laws to millions of subjects, varying in religion, customs, habits, language, and opinions; to maintain order and good government over countries occupying one of the largest portions of the world; these, and the collection of revenues, were the offices to be discharged by the Company's civil servants in India; numbers of whom, however, were unequal even to the proper exercise of the functions connected with the collection of the revenue; although the principal merchants at Calcutta, and the natives of Bengal, who were engaged in official or mercantile transactions, superintended daily operations, in figures and numerical calculations, infinitely more varied and complicated than any which came under the notice of the Company's servants. Now this minute, the Hon. Proprietor thought, had been the whole occasion of the establishment of the College. It would be admitted by all who heard him, that, at the period in question, the great body of the Company's civil servants in India were not sufficiently qualified to discharge the important duties of their several arduous situations, being equally deficient in military and scientific education. The civil establishment at Madras was even worse than that at Bengal. The result of this state of things was, the foundation of an institution in India by the Marquess of Wellesley; but that had never possessed the sanction and confidence either of the Court of Directors, or of the Board of Controul. It had it not, chiefly on account of the sort of expense which it necessarily required, in order to be duly provided: but it was still more unfortunate, because, generally speaking, European education could not be obtained but in Europe; and, if in Europe, then only in England. These considerations and circumstances