THE UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA.*

IT is, we may be allowed to hope, a proof of the imperturbable progress of India under British rule that the three older Uni-

versities of India, at Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras, were in turn incorporated in January, July, and September of 1857, the

fateful year of the Mutiny. All three were founded on the model of the University of Loudon, as it was then constituted. They were then merely institutions for examining candidates for degrees and for conferring degrees, though they had the

power of influencing the already existing colleges and schools by prescribing text-books and standards of instruction, and, of course, by means of their examinations. The examinations have, till late years, been conducted for the most part in the English language, not always efficiently taught in the overcrowded and understaffed institutions which feed the Universities. In Calcutta the growth of the number of students reading for University examinations has (especially in the last twenty years) been portentous. The population of Bengal is almost exactly that of the United Kingdom—about 45,000,000

By a curious coincidence," the Report before us adds, " the number of students preparing for University degrees is almost the same—about 26,000. But since in Bengal only about one in ten of the population can read and write, the proportion of the educated classes of Bengal who are taking full-time University courses is almost ten times as great as in the United Kingdom."

Not only is the number of undergraduates ten times as great in proportion to the literate population, but nearly all of them are following purely literary courses. Law alone of the pro- fessional subjects of study has a large following. Medical students are few compared with our own, students of engineering are " very few," students of teaching are " extraordinarily few," and there are practically no students of technical science, so that the scientific industries of Bengal, mostly founded by British energy and capital, mainly draw their experts from this country. " The great majority " of the students, it seems " (over 22,000 out of 26,000), pursue purely literary courses which do not fit them for any but administrative, clerical, teaching, and (indirectly) legal careers." Such, manifestly, was not the intention of the founders of the most populous University in the Empire. There arc other drawbacks, more or less incidental to the over-swollen crowd of students and the lack of control over the teaching administered to them. It is not surprising that a Commission should at last have been appointed to suggest a reconstruction and remedies.

It is, of course, wholly impossible to attempt even the barest summary of five stout volumes in the spate at our disposal. We can only heartily recommend the careful perusal of them by all who are interested in the problems of University education in any part of the world. The Report is admirably written, and still more admirably arranged. We must draw special attention to the skill with which, in the body of the Report itself, excerpts from relevant portions of the evidence submitted to the Commissioners have been included so as to show that it is not the administration only, or the Indian Education

• Repo t of the Calcutta Univerrild ,00111111114151ff. 1907-19. 6 vols. 'Calcutta Superintendent of Government Printing, India. [Ss. net per vol.! Department, that is dissatisfied, but educated Bengalis them- selves. For this feature of the Report we may be permitted

to congratulate the Secretary of the Commission.

On two features of the education of Bengal, typical of that of India at large, we venture to make a passing comment. One is the extraordinary inefficiency of the secondary teaching in India. No one can doubt that this is largely due to the fact that instruction is for the most part imparted in a foreign language, ill pronounced and often ill understood by the teachers themselves, few of whom, in outlying schools at least, can think in 'English, and must needs translate their thought as they teach, or borrow at once thought and expression from English books. Can we wonder that Bengal has for fifty years been reproached as the chosen bkadssisams of undigested cramming, of unintelligent learning by heart, of parrot-like repetition of phrases having little meaning for the speaker ?

It is interesting to find that the remedy suggested on this point by the Commission has been borrowed by them from the University of Mysore, the youngest of Indian Universities, and one that provides for the needs of a great Native State. There it was speedily found, as has long been evident at the

older Universities in India, that great part of the University course was wasted in imparting elementary instruction which should have been acquired at school. Mysore has already so organized six of its best schools that they can perform part of the work hitherto included in University courses.

Following this precedent, the Commissioners recommend the creation of Intermediate Colleges for lads between sixteen and eighteen years of age :—

" About two-thirds [of students whose homes are not in Calcutta] are young boys in the intermediate stage, whose needs could quite well be met, and ought to be met, nearer their homes. It is they who, iu the main, produce the residential problem which forms so great a difficulty in Calcutta ; and the attempt to provide decent conditions of life for them involves an immense outlay which might bo far more profitably expended in meeting their needs nearer home."

It is needless to enlarge on the dangers which beset adolescents

from quiet agricultural villages when plunged into time temptations and dissipations of the great cosmopolitan city

which Calcutta has now become. They are, as ono Brahmin witness says, " removed from wholesome home atmosphere and healthy country life." This is a grievance which can be both easily and cheaply remedied, if anything can now be cheap.

The other point which calls for a brief comment is one which does not fall within the purview of the Commission's inquiry,

but arises directly out of it. One result of the small value of Indian academical degrees is that Indian students are compelled to cross the seas in daily growing numbers to seek admission to our own congested Universities. Theoretically, there is an advantage in compelling Indian youth to take a part in English social and academical life. In practice, however—and Indian parents have not been slow to note this--Indians are now so numerous at British Universities that they form a society apart. They mix very slightly, if at all, with British contem- poraries. Their experience of social life here is confined to an undesirable familiarity with lodging-house-keepers and their daughters. As a distinguished Indian now in this country earnestly said the other day, " the most determined and dangerous enemies of British rule in India are the Indian lads who are educated in your own Universities." No one who has any sane and sound Imperial sentiment will doubt that here is a very serious evil. There would seem to be only one remedy. We know that there have always been a few (lamentably few) Indian students who have successfully overcome the obstacles (usually trifling enough) which prevent them from taking a full share in the social and intellectual activities of their British fellow-students. If Indian parents desire that their sons in England should follow this example, they should insist that, if their boys fail to find their proper place in British academic life, the parents should promptly be informed of that fact, and be asked to remove their sons. Indian degrees should, as speedily as possible, be made the equivalent of British degrees, and students coming to the United Kingdom should come chiefly in order to share in and enjoy European social

life. This, of course, does not apply to advanced students who sail for Europe in order to prosecute branches of research for which India cannot provide facilities. More than this,

Indian Universities ought, in their turn, to provide oppor- tunities for research by Europeans in philological and antiquarian studies which can be carried out only in India.