LORD WELLESLEY'S •SCHOOL FOR ADMINISTRATORS. [TO THE EDITOR OF THE
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Sna—The very' interesting article on Lord 1Vellcaley'a College at Fart William in your issue of September 9th closes with a sad, but surely unwarranted, regret for the failure from the first of the Marquess's great
plan for securing a worthy education for the Civil Service of India. Nor does Canon Cowley-Brown's letter (Spectator, September 16th) remove the sense of failure, early and complete, of a sagacious and far-sighted purpose. But the facts, if followed out, may lead to a very different conclusion. Lord Wellesley's foundation of the College at Fort William in 1800 led directly and speedily to the foundation in 1805 of " The East India College, Herta," for the training of all students qualifying for the Company's Civil Service in India. The Governor-General was supported at home in his great and unflinching purpose by William Pitt and by the Board of ControL And the Directors of the E.I.C., at first unanimous in opposing the scheme, finding that he, not they, was " the master " in this matter, came, as rapidly as time and distance would allow, to a compromise, whereby it was agreed that the Company should establish in England a College for the training of their " writers " for administrative work in India ; while the College at Fort William should be maintained, on a much reduced scale, for instruction in the vernacular languages of India of students as they passed out from England to take up their appointments. How the College in Hertford- shire fulfilled during fifty years the task of training men for worthy and efficient service is written large in the history of India throughout the nineteenth century : it may be read, in brief chronicle, in Professor Monier Williams'. Memorials of Old Haileybury College, or even, in briefer summary, on the tablet in the chapel of new Hailoybury, erected in 1897 by surviving civilians of the E.L Company. On this, the Roll of Honour of the E.L College, are recorded the names of " forty members of the Indian Civil Service, sometime students at old Hailoybury College, who lost their lives in the active discharge of their duty during the outbreak of Mutiny . . . in the years 1857 to 1859."
In writing of the original staff of the College at Fort William Canon Cowley-Brown does not name the Rev. William Carey, Baptist missionary at Sorampore, appointed by the Marquees Wellesley as " teacher," afterwards Professor, " of the Bengali and Sanskrit languages." This work Carey continued for thirty years. Among the young civilians who passed under his instruction must have boon one John Lawrence, future " saviour of India," who studied and resided at Fort William for ton months in 1830. The College was removed in 1835 to " Writer's Buildings " (Tank Square, later Dalhousie Square), Calcutta. Exami- nations wore hold there till 1851, when the College was finally closed.
The "Sciences," "Botany, Chemistry, &e.," which the Marquess included in his courses of study, were not undertaken by the teaching staff in Hertfordshire. Science, indeed, as a subject for teaching was far to seek in the first half of last century. Not till late-Victorian times did Universities and schools, old and new, turn to develop this last-named of the Marquess's comprehensive list of studies.—I am,
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