25 JANUARY 1834, Page 11

PREPARATORY EDUCATION OF EAST INDIA OFFICIALS.

ONE of the most accomplished Hindoos who ever visited England was the late Rajah RAMMOHUN ROY. He was a clear-Leaded man of business in his own country ; and, for a foreigner, remarkably well acquainted with the English language, laws, an .1 literature. Notwithstanding these acquirements, however, we presume that no one would have deemed him qualified to fill the office of a jus- tice of the peace in this country. The absurdity of appointing him to such an office would have been glaring. Yet the British rulers of -India are constantly enacting absurdities nearly as gross. The young gentlemen who are sent out to India to preside in the judicial courts of that country, are generally by no means so well acquainted with Indian languages and laws as R AMMOH UN ROY was with ours. Consequently, all sorts of iniquities, in the shape of denials or .delays of justice, are constantly j erpetrated, even by those who strive to do their duty. This is afi.ct of which

the Board of Control cannot possibly be ignorant ; and yet it ap- pears, that by a clause in the late Indian Bill, the knowledge, however imperfect, of the Oriental languages, is not to be a test of eligibility to fill certain vacancies in the civil service of the Company. The test of admission to Haileybury College is made to depend upon Classical and European learning alone ; the chief objection urged against making the Oriental languages any part of the qualification for such admission being simply this—that such acquisitions would be of no use to those competitors who eventually failed.

Our attention has been called to the probable evil consequences of this regulation, by a letter addressed to Mr. CHARLES GRANT, by Mr. ARNOT of the Oriental Institution.* Mr. ARNOT enforces with common sense arguments the necessity of a study of the Eastern languages to qualify a maii for holding-important offices in the East. He proves very easily, that such acquirements arc not thrown away, even although the candidate should fail of gain- ing the immediate object which induced him to make them. But the question for the Government to consider is, the best mode of furnishing discreet and well-informed men for the management of our Eastern possessions. We have no business to trouble our- selves with the future prospects of disappointed candidates. Let them take care of themselves. Now it seems, in this view of the case, to be downright nonsense to say to a man—" We want proper persons to preside in courts and public offices in India, where a knowledge of several Oriental languages is necessary to enable our officers to perform their duties to advantage ; therefore, before we appoint you, we shall insist upon your being a good French and German scholar, and upon your proving to us your knowledge of the Greek metres." Yet this is the meaning of requiring a know- ledge of European and Classical languages and literature, to the exclusion of the Sanscrit and Hindostanee, in the candidates for admission into Haileibury College, where the study of these lan- guages forms only a part of what he will be expected to attend to during the shot t preparatory term lie reinains there.

For these reasons we agree with Mr. Ai:Noes that "if the clause introduced into the late act of Parliament for nominating four can- didates for each vacancy in the civil service, and assigning the ap- pointment to the one of the four wino is found by competition to be best qualified in certain branclioa of education, be carried into prac-

tice, without extending the test of qualification to that branch peculiarly and essentially necessary in India—a knowledge of the language of the people—the effect will be to injure the service in that very point where it most called for improvement."

• Letter to the Presid.nt of the India Hoard, on the New Plan fur qualifying Ca.. didates for the East India Civil Service. lly satufford Arnot. Parbury and Co.