go Transactions of the Canadian Institute. [vol. ix 



schools help him very much and they can turn out work of the very 

 highest class. The students, are of course, paid for their work, other- 

 wise they would not come, for the boy has to help support the family as 

 soon as he is able to work. In India the existence of creeds difTering 

 widely from one another and from that of the faith of the ruling power 

 has made it essential for the state to assume a position of strict religious 

 neutrality in its relation to public instruction. No religious instruction 

 is given in Government schools, but in all others, provided a sound sec- 

 ular education is provided, the Government gives a grant for its support 

 be it Hindu, Mohammedan or Christian. As no religious training is 

 given in Government institutions, other means have to be found for im- 

 proving the moral welfare of the students and all work with this end in 

 view is encouraged and aided by the Government. One of these means 

 is the provision of hostels where the students can be kept under strict 

 discipline and control and these are now springing up around most of the 

 large colleges. Then again the teachers and professors supervise the 

 school games and encourage athletics and gymnastics all of which tends 

 to the upbuilding of the Indian character. Nowhere does a professor 

 get a better insight into student character than on the athletic field, 

 and he there discovers the childishness of the character. In this way the 

 Government is trying to uplift the millions of subjects placed under its 

 charge from a condition of slavery and ignorance to that of freedom and 

 intelligence. The path may be long and tortuous, the results meagre 

 and perchance often superficial, but you cannot change habits that have 

 been fixed from time immemorial in one or even two generations, for it 

 is only by improvement from generation to generation that the people 

 can be elevated to a position of intelligence comparable with that of the 

 western nations. 



Co-operative Credit. 

 In India there is a class of people known as Bunias, they are the native 

 bankers and grain merchants of India, and a curse to the country. The 

 poor people who have produce to sell have to sell it to the bunia and he 

 generally advances them their grain and food, so that once a poor native 

 gets into their hands he is never known to get free from debt. Owing 

 to the illiteracy of the people, the bunia can so manipulate accounts and 

 charge such exorbitant rates of interest that the man is always in his 

 clutches, and the bunia allows him about enough to keep body and soul 

 together. To rid the people of this evil the Government has established 

 what are called co-operative credit societies on the lines of the Agri- 

 cultural Banks in some European countries, notably Germany. The 

 principal objects of these societies are the encouragement of thrift, the 

 accumulation of loanable capital and the reduction of interest on borrow- 



