The present Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, Mr. G. Camp- tell, is
a very conscientious _person, with considerable intellectual power and a good many crotchets. One of them is that there is no such language as Oordoo, but only Hindostanee, which is very like saying that Ciceronian Latin is no language, and that the -only true Latin tongue is the colloquial, chiefly recorded in -comedies, graffiti, and popular writings. He recently issued an -edict declaring in so many words that he "abolished the Oordoo language," and prohibiting its use in schools, and he has now for- bidden the University of Calcutta to examine candidates for matriculation in this tongue. The Syndicate is fighting hard ; but the University is a mere department of the State, and unless Lord Northbrook intervenes it must be defeated. We are in- -dined to believe that Mr. Campbell has a sound idea in his head, a wish to give the official stamp to English as against Johnsonese ; but he has the whole body of educated Beharees against him, and is, in fact, trying in the Middle Ages to abolish Latin in favour of the vernaculars. It 113 the .oddest exhibition of the modern spirit of intellectual despotism, the spirit which wants to propagate " Geist " by the bayonet, that we have ever recorded.
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