case. Mr. Pratt then spoke as follows: The very terms in which this evening's discussion is announced imply an opinion. They assume as a fact that the abstention of the educated class in India from industrial, manufacturing, or commercial enterprise is an evil. May we not, indeed, take this for granted? Few will question the force or accuracy of the complaint made by Sir Richard Temple in an official report on this subject,-a complaint which is but an echo of what English officials in India have said for many years past. He writes as follows: "It is melancholy," he says, "to see men who once appeared to receive their honours in the University convocation now applying for some lowly-paid appointment, almost begging from office to office, from department to department, or struggling for the practice of a petty practitioner, and after all this returning baffled and disheartened to a poverty-stricken home, and then to reflect how far happier their lot might have been had they while at school or college been able to move in a healthier atmosphere of thought and freer walks of life. Nevertheless, with these examples before their eyes, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of young men persist in embarking on the same course, which can only lead to the same ending. And one reason, among several reasons, is this-that they still dread and dislike the thought of manual work, even though it be accompanied with mental training." I wish that I had had an opportunity of seeing a statement by Sir Richard Temple of the other reasons for the preference given to Government service to which he alludes, in addition to the one which he specifies in this passage. It is our business to-night to enquire what those other causes are. As regards the one more particularly referred to, viz., "the dislike of manual labour," of course it in some measure arises out of the separation in Hindu society of the literary caste from the artizan caste; but we

see that under the influence of Western ideas, of foreign conquests, of the altered conditions of life and of the necessities of existence, the ancient state of Hindu society is undergoing a great change, and that the educated classes of India are prepared to disregard ancient usage and doctrine in these matters. If so, it is the duty of the present rulers of India to do all in their power to break down the prejudice against what Sir R. Temple calls "manual work." I presume that he gives a wide meaning to those words, and that he does not intend to suggest that men educated in Indian schools and colleges should become artizans and handicraftsmen, ploughmen, stokers or mechanics of the humbler kind. I presume that he means that there is a prejudice against callings which involve any bodily exertion, such as apprenticeship in the engineering shop and the building yard, callings which require a training in the use of tools and machines and in their construction; a practical acquaintance with building materials, and with all the operations which must be familiar to the architect, the engineer, the mining engineer, the manufacturer, the builder, contractor, clerk of the works, or skilled foreman. One of the questions which we should consider to-night is whether the dislike for such occupations in India is not partly due to the literary character of the education given in the schools and colleges; to the fact that we have followed the example of our English Universities rather than that set for many years past on the continent of Europe. If, in the main, our Indian young men have their attention turned at school and college to languages, literature, pure mathematics, philosophy and law, is it likely that they will turn their attention when they leave college to subjects for which they have received little or no training or preparation,-to the arts and practical sciences, to mechanics, physics,-to such studies and pur

suits, theoretical and practical, as they would undertake at a German polytechnic, and “Real” or Technical School, or at an école des Arts et Metiers in France? It must be borne in mind that the English rulers in India had from the beginning of their rule one end mainly in view when framing their educational system-that of obtaining a competent native agency in the subordinate bureaucracy of the Indian empire. They required thousands of clerks, employés, collectors and magistrates or judges of inferior grade, and they could only obtain the services of men fit to co-operate in their administration by means of such an education as has actually been given in the Government schools and colleges. That being the case, it was not likely that the educational machinery would adapt itself to other objects. But now the question comes whether those other objects are not absolutely essential for the well-being of India. How great a disappointment and disadvantage this purely literary education involves is clearly seen in the extract from Sir Richard Temple's report, and the same complaint has been made for the last twenty or thirty years in Government reports. There can be no enquiry, therefore, of greater importance than one as to the remedy for this state of things. If the individual members of our educational institutions suffer from this state of things India at large suffers still more. Englishmen at home have learned at last how terrible is the poverty of the Indian population, how many millions live on the brink of starvation if floods or droughts visit the land. They know that this inability to meet these not unfrequent disasters arises on the one hand from the absence of savings from the small returns from agriculture, and from the prevalence of increasing indebtedness. Striking testimony to this condition of things is borne by Mr. James Caird, C.B. (member of the Famine Commission), in papers recently contributed by him to the

Nineteenth Century. "It is impossible," he says, "to contemplate the present state of India without serious apprehension. The people under the protection of our rule are increasing in number. The available good land is nearly all occupied, and much of it is deteriorating in productiveness from the exhausting system of agriculture. The land-less class depending on labour is becoming more numerous, while the demand for labour does not increase. Scarcity is more frequent because the margin of production beyond the wants of the people is becoming every 10 years narrower."

In the Deccan, "75 per cent. of the cultivators on the poorer class of land are hopelessly indebted."

In Dharwar, "one-fourth of the land has in this way passed into the hands of money lenders. Ten lacs of rupees of government land tax are in arrears, and two million acres are in the risk of passing into the hands of government."

In Madras, "the high prices have impoverished the poorer cultivators; the population eke out subsistence on nuts and seeds. THE INCREASE OF POPULATION PRESSES ON THE MEANS OF SUBSISTENCE." Moreover, Dr. Hunter's statistics show that while, in Great Britain and Ireland, there are 2 acres of land per person, there is not one acre in many parts of Bengal.

These facts show the absolute necessity of opening out new spheres of employment in industry for the surplus agricultural population and for increasing the national wealth. Let us consider in what manner this object may be accomplished.

It must be borne in mind that the immense army of servants, soldiers, policemen, clerks and officials, English and Indian, numbered by tens of thousands and costing several millions a year, does not create wealth, although it may, by making life and property secure, remove all impediments from

its growth. Properly speaking, not one member of this great bureaucratic and military class is a "producer" in the economic sense of the word. It is then of the very first importance so to train the youth of India that they may be disposed and be fitted to become "producers" in every branch of industrial enterprise.

That will have another result, one political as well as economic. It will create what is so greatly wanted, a larger number of men who occupy a position of social and political independence, able to give valuable but unbought service to the government; able to advise it, and able to warn it, and to differ from it when necessary. One of the greatest disadvantages and difficulties of a foreign government like ours in India, is that it has no competent criticism and advice from an independent and enlightened class, such as would be found if there were highly educated landlords, owners of mines and factories, iron masters, manufacturers, directors of great jointstock companies and all those whom Thomas Carlyle calls "captains of industry" in every form of enterprise.

The object of our discussion to-night is to consider how the growth of such a class may be promoted. I have indicated that one means of doing so is the development of new departments of instruction in our schools and colleges, not as a substitute for, but in addition to those now in existence.

Such efforts should be followed up by measures having for their object to facilitate instruction similar to that afforded in the Polytechnic institutions and schools of arts and trades in Switzerland, Germany and France, where education in applied science is far cheaper and far more thorough than in England. Perhaps a certain number of young Indians might be enabled to pursue their studies at the Polytechnic of Zurich or of Stuttgard, by such means as the Gilchrist scholarships, and it may be hoped, that in course of time,