when in India, gave him no favourable impression of the institution. But, at a later period, when he became intimately acquainted with several of their civil establishment who had been educated there, whose moral character and intellectual acquirements were of the highest order, and when he heard them in glowing terms repeatedly express their obligations to the College, which they revered as their alma mater; when they, in fact, reversed the epigrammatic sentiment of the Hon. Mover (Mr. Kinnaird), and instead of describing the system as one which converted a boon into a penalty, declared that the compulsion which sent them to Haileybury rendered that boon still more valuable; he felt satisfied that, whatever evils existed, and he must be deaf as well as blind who denied their existence, were to be traced to a want of moral principle in some of the students before they went to Haileybury, or to some internal mismanagement of the College, but certainly not to the nature of the institution itself. He must, however, contend that the Court was not the place in which these evils were to be corrected; the Legislature had wisely committed the application of the remedy to another authority-the Court of Directors, under the controul of the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India -and with them that right might safely be left; but if they failed in the discharge of their duty, it was certainly competent for this Court to call on them to account for their conduct. When his official situation placed him more in connexion with this College, the opinion he had formed became strengthened; and, notwithstanding the disgraceful scenes of insubordination and riot which had occurred, notwithstanding the reports which were circulated (often, he believed, with much exaggera. tion) to the prejudice of the College, he had sent his son to that institution without a fear or a doubt, (hear!) and he was happy to say the result had amply justified the confidence with which he did so. (Hear!) They were now called on, after the existence of this college for twenty years, to apply to Parliament for the repeal of a fundamental clause in the act by which it was instituted, and on which, notwithstanding the disclaimer of such being the intention of the Hon. Mover, he must assert, that the very existence of the College, as to any useful purpose, mainly de.. pended. They were called upon to procure the sanction of the Legislature to those qualifications, the possession of which all admitted to be essential to the efficiency of their civil service in India, being sought elsewhere or any where as well as at the College, which was expressly established to secure the attainment of them, and where alone was to be found concentered in one consistent comprehensive course of study

and of discipline, all that is requisite on that vast field of public service which our extended empire presents, on which many of the students from Haileybury have highly distinguished themselves, and where now are to be found some of the brightest ornaments that any public service in any country ever produced. It was now, however, proposed, that this system of education and discipline, which, by the 53d of the late King, was made obligatory, should henceforth be optional; but to guard against the evil-for the very projectors of the new system apprehended them to guard against the evil consequences which actually resulted from a latitude of choice in education before the existence of the College, what has the Hon. Proprietor (Mr. Kinnaird) proposed? He says, "that those who, availing themselves of the option, decline a college education, must, before they are permitted to proceed to India in the capacity of writers, submit their qualifications and acquirements to the test of a public examination, to be appointed by the Court of Directors and the Board of Controul." But if these qualifications and acquirements can be as adequately obtained without the pale of the College as within it, then the proposition of the Hon. Gentleman does not go far enough: it ought to extend to the total abolition of an institution, which, upon this presumption, is a lavish and useless expenditure. There is, however, a striking difference be tween the system in operation and that proposed to be substituted, which need only be pointed out to shew one great cause of the clamour raised against the college. Within the college there must be subordination-without the college there need be none. A simple public examination may be sufficient to try the abilities of a student it cannot be competent to try his disposition, or his habits of submission to authority; it cannot train him to rule others with moderation, by the early regulation of his own temper and conduct. (Hear!) One material object of college discipline is, to nip in the bud the growth of a spirit which, in a soil genial to its production, may ripen into the bitterest fruit. They all knew that great talents were often found in alliance with violent and ungovernable minds; these may lead a young man triumphantly through a public examination, whilst the lurking vices in the character of the youth may wholly escape observation; and they again may become more dangerous and destructive, from the talents with which they are associated; (hear!) and if not detected and checked by early discipline, may burst forth in their maturity, when they cannot be controlled, and when their indulgence may lead to incalculable evils. (Hear!) It was said, and said truly, in the first part of this debate, that much of the hap

:

piness of the millions over whom we rule in India, much of the character and stability of our government, must depend upon the disposition and principle of the embryo statesmen who are selected to fill high and various functions in their civil service in India: but it is important to bear in mind, that for this test of qualification the proposed plan makes no provision; nor is it capable of any adequate to the purpose, or which can stand in competition with the ordeal of a two years' subjection to college discipline, under the vigilant eye and experienced guidance of competent professors-and, he would further say, under the salutary terror to the insubordinate and vicious, of disgrace, expulsion, and loss of appointment. It was natural that those parents who had their fairest hopes of placing their sons in the civil service of the Company blasted, should consider unnecessary, harsh and severe, the penalty of expulsion for disobedience to authority-that they should regard the punishment as exceeding the nature of the offence: but neither the East-India College, nor any other, without the power of inflicting this penalty, could be governed with effect; and, during the whole of this discussion, he had heard but one dissentient voice on that proposition. He would ask, had that discretion been exerçised with harshness or excess? During twenty years, what was the number of students admitted to the College, and what the number expelled? There had been 721 students entered during that period, and there were only twenty expulsions. (Hear!) If they were to compare that number with the number of young men expelled in the same time from other colleges in this kingdom, it would be found, he thought, far inferior in amount. Of that number were, he believed, the two gallant officers alluded to by the Hon. and Learned Gent. opposite (Mr. Gahagan), who bestowed the severest epithets that language or ingenuity could supply on the barbarity of the expulsion, and sarcastically remarked, that those who were deemed unworthy to serve the East-India Company, were considered very worthy of bearing his Majesty's commission. (Mr. Money) had authority for saying that one of these gallant officers, and he believed both

He

The Hon. D. Kinnaird rose to order. He thought it very hard to have the private character and history of an individual, who had nothing to do with this discussion, brought before the Court.

Mr. Money." If what I was about to say could cast even a shade of reflection on those respectable individuals, I should at once sit down; but as what I have to state is to their honour, as it is to the credit of the College, I consider that I am perfectly in order."

The Chairman." Although I am sure my Hon, Friend did not mean to state any thing disrespectful of those gentlemen, still, from the manner in which the intimation has been received, I would put it to him, whether he had not better abstain from any topic that can by possibility disturb the good understanding and harmony which have hitherto prevailed? Though my Hon. Friend may bring forward the subject very temperately, yet it is possible that other gentlemen may not pursue the same course.

Mr. Money. After what had fallen from the Chair, he should only state, that his object was fairly to make the striking circumstance to which he was about to refer, when he was so unusually interrupted, subservient to the view which he took of this question. He would, however, waive any further observation on these cases, and proceed with the general discussion. He would venture to assert, without the fear of contradiction, that instances of commotion and expulsion had not been more numerous or more striking at Haileybury than at other collegiate foundations, which have had the influence of ancient character to support them; they should then be rather considered as exceptions from the general reputation of the college, than as forming its more prominent and objectionable features. Allusion was made on Wednesday last to some discreditable scenes and disgraceful acts which had recently occurred in the two first colleges of our great universities; but they have not been considered by the public to have lowered the high reputation of Oxford or Cambridge: but, if such scenes had occurred at Haileybury, they would have been blazoned forth as positive proofs of a vicious system of education, which ought to be suppressed. The trial and condem nation of a student of Trinity had left no blot upon that venerable seat of learning; but had a student at Haileybury been publicly convicted of an act of moral turpitude and sentenced to an ignominious punishment, the stain would have been transferred from the criminal to the college, and deemed indelible. He averred, on the authority of those most competent to decide upon it, that the general conduct of the young men at the East-India College has been orderly and studious, and that the students have been contented and happy. If he might be permitted to adduce one testimony to this fact, for the accuracy of which the scrupulous regard to truth in the writer enabled him with perfect confidence to vouch, he thought it would go far with the unprejudiced to remove the tendency of the misrepresentations by which the college had been traduced, and to shew the benefits, not only that might be, but which actually were derived from it, were of such magnitude, that no prudent parent properly con

sulting the welfare of his child, would wittingly forego, and such as no student anxious for his own improvement and future destination, would not be emulous to attain.-Hear, hear!) The letter he would read, was from a student at Haileybury to his father : —

"I feel that the nearer the time approaches when I must quit this place, the more I grow attached to it-the greater esteem I feel for the institution, and those who direct it: for I can truly say, I have never spent a happier year and a half than I have here, and shall always remember it with the most pleasing associations. I believe there are not a few who will leave this spot with the same impressions. Our lectures, too, this term, have been most interesting, particularly those of the Principal; our Latin subject being De Natura Deorum, we had to peruse all the ancient systems of philosophy; to read all the best English authors upon the existence of the Deity, such as Barrow, Butler, Warburton, Paley, Sumner, &c. &c. tracing the steps of revelation and reason, and all the arguments which are most popular to refute deistical and atheistical notions. Doctor Batten always in the last term gives the student some work to read, which enables him to introduce these subjects, which he does in the most clear and interesting manner. The last term which went out, we had to examine all the works upon the immortality of the soul, and upon a future state of rewards and punishments; and so he goes on, giving each term some of the leading doctrines of Christianity to peruse and examine, which I think answers here all the purposes of theological lectures, particularly in the way in which he communicates this mode of lecturing." Mr. Elphinstone, the Director." Who wrote that letter?"

Mr. Money. It was with some feeling of parental pride, which it would be in vain for him to attempt to disguise, and for which he hoped he should be pardoned, that he stated the writer of that letter to be his son; (hear, hear!) who, on completing his terms, received the highest honours which the college could confer for his conduct and talents; (hear!) and was now, with many of his fellow-students, disseminating in India the benefits of that education, and those habits of self-government to which they have been trained at Haileybury. (Hear!) Yet this excellent and peculiarly appropriate system of education, for so he must maintain it to be, notwithstanding its admitted defectsfor what human institution is exempt from them?-this system, which had been twenty years in operation, it was the drift of the present motion to annihilate. When he made this observation, he begged leave to say, that he gave the Hon. Mover full credit for the sincerity of his declaration,

when he stated, that "it was not his intention to overthrow the establishment;" but the tendency of the present motion was to destroy the college, and to substitute in its stead, what is at best but an untried and doubtful experiment-optional education, subject to an examination of the educated.(Hear!) It was material, in the discussion of the question, to bear in mind that the East-India College was, by the very essence of its constitution, a place "at once preparatory and probationary.” This point was well stated by the Hon. Chairman, when he read the college statute which applied to it. An Hon. Friend of his (Mr. Poynder), who spoke early in the debate, had been taunted for asking, if this new system be adopted, what parents would send their sons to Haileybury College? He (Mr. Money) would answer, that few parents would be found willing to hazard the two-fold risk of forfeiting a valuable provision for their sons, if the option be given of submitting their capacity for the appointment to one test alone, that of an examination of their abilities. To those parents who will shrink from this double-shotted danger when it becomes avoidable, may be added all those whose impatience to launch their sons into the public service may seek to hasten them upon their career prematurely; and many others, again, who will be desirous of purchasing education alone at a cheaper rate than that at which it can be obtained at the East-India College. These, however, are personal motives, distinct from the proper grounds on which a question of such national importance as the best mode of educating and training the civil servants of the Company ought be decided. If the place and course of instruction are to be optional, the East-India College will be rendered worse than useless. But it is not by the disappointment of a few, or even of many refractory youths, who have shewn themselves unworthy of the benefits placed within their reach, and who would, in all probability, manifest the same disposition to resist authority under any other system of tuition; it is not by the mistaken views of parents, however respectable and numerous, that the college, under its present system of compulsory and indispensable preparation, must stand or fall-a system, be it remembered, which is in full operation at Addiscombe, which has been held up by the opponents of Haileybury as an example for imitation. The influence and effect of this system upon the civil servants, upon the governments, and upon the people of India, to whom the students are destined to afford protection and dispense justice; the means which it affords beyond any other existing mode of training youth, of enabling them and the Directors to fulfil the great trust with which they have

charged themselves, were the paramount considerations by which the Court were bound (independently of all personal or party feelings) to decide upon the question submitted to them. These considerations alone should occupy their undivided attention, before they agree to a change, which would paralize a long existing institution; before they apply to Parliament to render optional, or, he should rather say, nugatory, a peculiar system of qualification, which they themselves proposed and have acted upon, and which the Legislature had sanctioned and enforced, not with the view to the accommodation of patronage, or to meet the wishes of those among whom it may be distributed, but with a single eye to the blessings to be diffused by the operation of the system, over a vast and distant empire. When they reflected how materially these must depend upon the mental and moral qualifications of the youths who are annually sent to assist in the government of that great dominion; and when they call to mind the mischiefs which accrued in former times, from the want of discrimination and caution in the appointments which were made; they would be able to form a just estimate of the awful responsibility which attaches to their Executive Body. (Hear) It was the lamentable deficiency of these qualifications which was most forcibly and irrefutably pointed out by the Marquess Wellesley, in his celebrated minute of August 1800, which led to the formation of the EastIndia College. The real question, then, was simply this, "Has the institution answered the purposes for which it was established? Has it in any degree corrected the evils which previously existed?" What, he would ask, was the state of the civil service now, contrasted with that defective state, which was so much felt and lamented before the foundation of the college? Was there ever a period in the annals of the East-India Company when their civil servants were so eminently distinguished for cultivated talents, enlarged views, and high and disinterested principles? (Hear!) Was there ever a period in the history of India when justice was so equally and so -ably administered; when power was so mildly exercised, and so wisely directed; when, in short, the people subjected to British rule were so content with their rulers? (Hear!) In the long interval which had elapsed since the foundation of the college, how immensely had the boundaries of our dominions been enlarged, our duties been multiplied with our acquisitions, and rendered more complicated and arduous! (Hear!) A new government-that of Central India, in itself a kingdom, had fallen under our happy sway, from a state of anarchy and misrule. They had only to turn to the enlightened pages of Sir John Malcolm,

at once its founder and its historian: (Hear !) a man whose long and various and splendid services ranked him amongst the first of soldiers and statesmen, to whom the Company and the country owe a large debt of gratitude, for the acquisition and consolidation of the empire in India. (Hear!) But his peculiar claim to public gratitude did not rest here: he not only raised the British name above the lofty eminence it had attained by the arms which he heroically wielded in victory, but still more by cultivating the arts, and diffusing the blessings of peace among the conquered, and by laying deep the foundations of a paternal government, in the immutable principles of justice and humanity. (Hear!) They need only turn to his Memoirs of Central India, to see what rapid progress had been made in the art of good government and civilization, and to learn how much of what had been effected, under his able administration of Malwa, was attributable, and had been attributed by him, with his characteristic candour and liberality, to the instruments with which he had to work-the civil and military servants of the Company, trained as they now were. (Hear!) That the East-India College was one great source from which these blessings sprung, he could confidently maintain and yet this it was the direct tendency of the motion before the Court to destroy. The radical change of system now proposed was not new at the close of 1816, an attack on the college was made on similar grounds, and defeated. Every one who had read the unanswerable arguments and clear statements published on that occasion by one of the professors of the college, who would adorn the professor's chair at any college-he alluded to Mr. Malthus-would not wonder at the result of that controversy. In the course of these discussions, reference had been made to the opinion of his late lamented colleague, Mr. Grant, with whom the institution of the college is known to have originated; and whose wisdom, talents, and long and eminent services to the Company, would ever live in the grateful recollection and veneration of that Court. (Hear, hear!) He was indeed an advocate, who, by his masculine powers, his acute reasoning, and his commanding eloquence, silenced all former attacks on his favourite institution. The advantage (said Mr. Money) of such a union of practical knowledge and enlightened zeal was lost to them; but his bright example remained, and he confidently hoped that, by imitating the consistency and firmness which distinguished his character, the motion would be successfully resisted, and the question set at rest for ever. He then conjured the Court not to entertain a proposition, the effect of which would be the demolition of a noble edifice, which at a

great cost they themselves had raised, and which, however it may contain some defects, as he admitted it did, was yet as capable of being made perfect to its end, as any work of human contrivance could be rendered. (Hear!) It now rested on a solid foundation, and will yet withstand all the rude shocks by which it may be assailed, either from without or from within its walls, if that Court did not consent to its downfall. (Hear!) I confidently trust (concluded Mr. Money) that it will never be accessary to the ruin of so splendid a structure, but that it will endure to future ages, a monument of the patriotic feeling, beneficent views, enlightened policy, munificence, and magnanimity of the East-India Company. (Hear, hear!)

Mr. Trant hoped, from what he had heard before he entered the Court on the preceding Wednesday, that this question would not, like some that were taken up in another assembly, be considered a cabinet question. He trusted the Proprietors would be favoured with the sentiments of those gentlemen, who sat on the other side of the bar, and who were supposed to be not altogether unfavourable to this motion. He believed he was the first person who had risen in the Court, on this occasion, who had any recent experience of the Company's civil service abroad. He was sorry that it had fallen to so humble an individual as himself to be foremost in drawing the attention of the Court to the real state of the case; but, relying on that indulgence which he had on other occasions received from the Proprietors, he would state a few of those opinions, which long reflection and research had induced him to form on this subject. He should, in the first place, beg permission of the Court, to read a short extract from a speech delivered by Lord Gren ville, in the year 1813, and which had been already alluded to in the course of the debate. This speech was delivered by his Lordship in the House of Lords, on the renewal of the Company's charter. The Noble Lord, after adverting to the opinion held by Marquess Wellesley on the want of a suitable education for the young men intended for the civil service in India, proceeded to speak thus of the institution at Haileybury:

"The deficiency was, however, acknowledged, and a separate college has been established in England, for the education of the young men destined for India. If I speak of this plan as I think of it, with strong disapprobation and regret, let it not be inferred that I object to any degree of attention which can be given, even to the earliest instruction and discipline of those who are destined for Indian service-far from it. No man will more rejoice in this than I shall-no man

more zealously contend for its advantage. But I never can persuade myself that it was justifiable to form a separate establishment in England. It may be doubted at what age these youths may most advantageously be sent to India: but up to the latest moment of their continuance in this country, be that period what it may, I see the strongest possible reasons against their being separated in education from the young men of their own age and station in life. Instead of forming them beforehand into an exclusive class, into something resembling a distinct caste of men, destined to administer government in remote provinces, they ought, above all other public servants, to receive, so long as they continue in England, an education purely English. Instead of rejecting, we should, I think, have embraced with eagerness the advantage which our great schools and universities would have afforded to them for this purpose: that they might learn there, I trust, with not less facility than elsewhere, the elements of whatever sciences you could wish them to possess; that in addition to those, they might find there, and there only could they find, that best of all education to a public man, which forms the mind to manly exertion and honourable feeling-the education which young men receive from each other in the numerous and mixed society of their equals, collected from various classes of our community, and destined to various ways of life; that they might there be imbued with the deepest tincture of English manners and English attachments-of English principles-and, I am not afraid, in this case, to say, also, of English prejudices; and that they might carry out with them from thence to India remembrances and affections, not local only, but personalrecollections not merely of the scenes, but of the individuals endeared to them by early habits, mixed with the indelible impression of those high sentiments and virtuous principles, which, I am happy to think, float in the very atmosphere of our public places of education, and contribute much more, I think, than is commonly supposed, to all on which we most value ourselves in our national character."

Having read this extract, it might, perhaps (observed Mr. Trant), be my best policy to sit down. (Hear, hear! and laughter.) He only said, what almost any other man would say; for, in truth, that extract did contain, in his simple mind, the whole essence of the argument, and he was sure that any thing which he could add must appear tame and uninteresting. (Hear!) But, as he had passed the whole of his life in the Company's civil service, he would make a few observations, and state a few facts which bore directly on this question. Before he proceeded farther, he would, however, ven