CCOXl 



connecled with agriculture are so few, a syetem of peasant properties is 

 the best suited. Those who, in common with the reviewer, believe 

 that Government can, by adopting a few measures of a drastic charac- 

 ter, pull by main force the teeming millions of the popidation out of 

 their accustomed grooves determined for them by the economic condi- 

 tions under which they have to work, and set them going in this or 

 that direction which is considered desirable, will doubtless feel disap- 

 pointed at the slow rate at which the country has progressed. Those, 

 on the other hand, who take note of the difficulties to be surmounted 

 in raising the economic condition of the population which was as bad 

 as bad could be but 40 years ago ; the liability of most parts of the 

 country to the extremes of plenty and dearth alternately — a state of 

 things conducive to careless habits of life and inimical to the forma- 

 tion of habits of steady industry, the tendency of every increase in 

 production to be absorbed in mere increase of numbers unless there is a 

 rise in the standard of comfort; the necessity for the readjustment 

 of time-honoured, religious and social usages for effecting any perma- 

 nent change in the standard of comfort, and the impossibility of 

 effecting such a change by coercive methods which do not touch the 

 intelligence of the people, will, when they compare the state of things 

 at present with what it was in the past, be gratified to see that the 

 improvement has been so substantial ; and will further see more 

 " consolatory signs of decided and vigorous progress " in the future than 

 the reviewer has been able to detect. While recognising that every 

 step in improvement adds to the duties and responsibilities of Grovern- 

 ment and requires wiser statesmanship than even in the past for guid- 

 ing the country through the period of transition, and for meeting new 

 evils by methods and measures calculated to influence the growing 

 public intelligence, they will see no reason in the experience of the 

 past to despair that either the Grovernment or the people wQl rise 

 to the requirements of the future. 



(2) Note on the progress of Education in the Madras Presidency between 

 1870-71 and 1890-91 by S. Seshaiyar, Esq., B.A., Professor of 

 Kumhahonam Oollege. 



During the past twenty years the Madras Presidency has made 

 indeed a vast progress in education. The most noteworthy features 

 of that progress are (1) the enormous expansion of higher or collegiate 

 education, (2) the rapid diffusion of elementary or primary education 

 among the bulk of the population, and (3) the strong stimulus given 

 to female education. 



Prior to 1850, there were few or no English schools in the 

 mofussil. The only institution in the Presidency in which a liberal 

 English education was given was the Presidency College in Madras. 

 It was in 1853 that Government started its first schools for in- 

 struction in English at Zillah or Provincial stations. Kumbakonam, 

 Eajahmundry, Calicut and Cuddalore were among the earliest centres 

 chosen for the experiment. The University of Madras was constituted 

 in 1857 and held its first examination for the degree of Bachelor of 

 Arts in 1858. From 1858 to 1871 inclusive, the number of young men 



