554 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



foreign technical schools ; they benefited little by their studies 

 and returned to India completely lacking that practical know- 

 ledge and experience which are absolutely essential to success 

 in an industrial career. Gradually it has become evident both 

 to the Government and to the educated classes in India that 

 industries must precede technical instruction and that any 

 future industrial development must follow on the lines which 

 have been so successfully pursued in the case of the cotton 

 industry in Western India, the jute and mining industries in 

 Bengal, the leather and cotton trades of Cawnpore and the 

 many miscellaneous industrial undertakings which have been 

 successfully established in every province of India. 



The Lack of Native Industrial Leaders 



It is now fairly generally accepted that technical colleges in 

 India can only do useful work when they train students for 

 whose services there is a demand in existing industries and 

 that the pioneer work of starting new industries must be under- 

 taken by men who have acquired their skill and experience 

 in other lands where those industries are carried on under 

 favourable conditions. The establishment of technical schools, 

 like the Victoria Technical Institute in Bombay, in other parts 

 of India is now recognised as useless, unless there is a corre- 

 sponding industrial development to be catered for. Only in 

 Bengal can it be said that this state of things exists ; the 

 Seebpore College already makes fairly adequate provision for 

 the needs of that part of India. 



The increasing pressure of the educated classes in the more 

 favoured fields of employment can only be relieved by providing 

 new openings for them in other directions and of these by far the 

 most important will be found in the organisation of the immense 

 resources of India for industrial undertakings of many kinds. A 

 great deal has already been done in this direction by European 

 initiative ; the reason why the actual benefit to India has not 

 been greater is the fact that Indians have, as a rule, stood 

 aloof. The original impulse, capital and directive energy came 

 from abroad, India having only furnished the raw material and 

 the labour. The profits have been taken out of the country 

 year by year but of greater moment is the fact that there 

 has been no gradual growth of industrial experience, so that 



