BABOO ENGLISH.
(TO THIE EDITOR OP THS spEcrrATort..)
SIR,—In your last number a correspondent who signs himself "An Anglo-Indian" sets out a ridiculous composition by a so- called Bengali Balm resident in Burma in order, as he says, to enlighten your readers " as to the real value of the many thousands of Bengalis whom we have educated in our schools and Colleges throughout Bengal." How "An Anglo-Indian" could put forward such wretched jargon as a fair specimen of the English written or spoken by natives of India educated at the schools and Colleges which we have founded in India, and which are presided over by eminent English scholars, passes my comprehension. Probably this strange effusion was written in the bazaar by a professional petition-writer for the usual fee of a few annas. But as the imprimatur of so well informed and so impartial a journal as the Spectator may give it a value which it really ought not to possess, I will ask you, Sir, to allow me to lay before your readers the following brief statement, which affords, I think, better materials for judging of the real character of English education in India, and of what your correspondent calls " Baboo English," than the specimen given by himself. Last year three natives of India were successful in the open competition for the Civil Service. I am not sure that any one of them was a Bengali, though one of them was a graduate of the University of Calcutta. But this is of no consequence. The natives of India who have been educated at the schools and Colleges in Bengal are certainly not inferior in literary attainments to those who have been educated elsewhere. It is, therefore, perfectly fair to take these three men as samples of what English education produces in India. I may observe that they had had no exceptional advantages. They had received the ordinary school and College education of young Indians until they went to Cambridge, where each of them spent, not the full three years customary with English students, but two years only, in the ordinary studies of the University. Two out of the three received no instruction elsewhere ; one of them was for six weeks at Wren's studying mathematics. In the Open Competition, out of a hundred and sixteen candidates, one of these three men was thirty-eighth, one was forty-sixth, and the third was seventy-eighth. The second of these three was bracketed Senior Wrangler, the third obtained a First Class in the Natural Science Tripos. Now let us see how these men compare with their English co-competitors in the matter of English com- position. Every candidate in the Open Competition is required to write an English essay in the examination-room itself, and for purposes of comparison I will take the marks in this subject of the three Indian candidates and those of the nine Oxford candidates who were successful, and who had also gained First Classes in the Oxford school of Literae Humaniores. The highest marks gained by the Oxford men in English composition were 403; the lowest 218 ; the average 319. The marks in the same subject of the three Indian candidates were 323, 325, and 325 respectively. Perhaps, however, it may be said that a fairer comparison would be with the Cambridge Wranglers. Of these there are eight, and the highest marks gained by them in English composition are 420, the lowest 108, average 307. The Indian men, therefore, in the subject of English composition come out quite as well as the Oxford First Class men, and better than the Cambridge Wranglers. I assert, Sir, in direct contradiction of " An Anglo-Indian's" statement, that the teaching in Indian schools and Colleges is good, and that the proficiency of students in the subjects
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