S60 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



capital in India, the investing capitalists would send out their 

 own men to look after and manage their interests. The people 

 of India will be welcomed as " hewers of wood and drawers 

 of water " but in no other capacity. Further, it must not be 

 forgotten that the ultimate authority on the government of 

 India is the British democracy, whose opinions on fiscal 

 matters are very unstable. If the erection of a tariff wall were 

 sanctioned by one Parliament, it is by no means unlikely that 

 it would be pulled down or materially altered by some later 

 Parliament. With a tariff wall there would always be some 

 uncertainty as to the continuance of the protection which it 

 would afford, and in proportion to the intensity of the feeling 

 of uncertainty this would militate against its efficiency as a 

 factor in creating industries in India. The conditions in India 

 are such that State intervention is necessary to bring about the 

 economic changes under discussion but it should be directed to 

 assisting the growth of private enterprise in the country rather 

 than to the maintenance of an artificial barrier to the free 

 exchange of commodities with the rest of the world. 



By far the most important matter for the State to deal with 

 at the outset is the establishment of an educational system 

 which, from the primary stages upwards, will be practical 

 rather than literary. Every Indian boy grows up in a certain 

 environment and the education given to him should have refer- 

 ence to that environment and should aim at making him master 

 of it. Hand and eye training, the cultivation of the powers of 

 observation, the co-ordination of the various faculties in the 

 service of their possessor — these should be the objects of educa- 

 tional processes, not merely the development of the mental 

 powers along comparatively narrow lines. The present system 

 of education has failed lamentably to produce men of action, 

 with balanced judgment and sound constructive faculties. The 

 memory rather than the imagination controls thought and in 

 the absence of experience responsibility is declined. It has 

 turned out good if not great lawyers, excellent judges, a few 

 engineers but no original investigators or deep thinkers. 



The Lack of Individualism 



It must, however, be admitted that it is not the education 

 system alone that is at fault. In India the vitalising force of 

 nationality is almost entirely absent and centuries of subjection 



