1835.] Asiatic Society. 239 



Mr. W. H. Macnaghten thought it would be useless in the Society to form 

 a Committee, until it were assured that Government would grant the same pecu- 

 niary support as heretofore, or at any rate, a sufficient aid ; he would therefore 

 first propose that a memorial should be presented to Government, or if necessary, 

 to the Court of Directors, expressing the sentiments of the Society as a body, 

 on the late resolution, and praying to be allowed to continue the suspended pub- 

 lications at the public expence, in case no other arrangement was contemplated 

 for their completion. 



His own view of the effects of the measure on the education of the people, he 

 had expressed in another place — but he could not consent to relinquish these 

 arguments in an appeal from the Society, which was as much as any body open 

 to conviction that the improvement of the vernacular dialects, nay the very 

 grammatical formation of them, required the cultivation and preservation of the 

 parent and classical languages. 



The Rev. Dr. Mill entirely concurred in these views. To discourage sys- 

 tematically the study of the learned languages of the east, — was, as far as in us 

 lies, to barbarize the native dialects, and render them incapable of being the 

 vehicles of science and improved knowledge. This capability was now eminently 

 possessed by many of them, entirely through their natural connexion with the 

 Sanscrit, an advantage which it was chimerical to think of supplying by means of 

 artificial and exotic derivation from the English. Another observation had forcibly 

 struck him with respect to the late measure. There were two distinct classes 

 of publications overthrown by it, of which he feared only one would or could 

 be provided for by the Society's proposal ; namely, the perpetuation of the most 

 venerated monuments of Sanscrit, Arabic, or other oriental literature, — but the 

 other class, comprising the 5th, 7th, 8th, and 9th of the works enumerated above, 

 which are intended to communicate the advanced knowledge and science of 

 Europe, through the medium of the learned languages of India, either by trans- 

 lations or original treatises, and thus indirectly, but most powerfully, to encourage 

 the study of English among learned natives, fell peculiarly under the scope of an 

 Education Committee. It did not come within the Asiatic Society's province to 

 attempt this, otherwise than by commenting on existing native systems of science ; 

 and although the object was so important as to warrant some latitude in the exer- 

 cise of its proposed functions, it seemed doubtful whether they could properly 

 undertake the completion of the four works thus suspended, already prepared and 

 half printed at so great an expence. 



Mr. Trevelyan came purposely to support the formation of the new Com- 

 mittee. He thought the preservation of standard editions of the classics of the 

 country a national object, although he had done his utmost to disconnect it from 

 the business of national instruction. He had himself had a narrow escape of 

 being a great orientalist, for he had attained some credit for his progress in San- 

 scrit at College : but his Dictionary fell overboard on his voyage to this country, 

 and thus he was saved from the bias which an enthusiastic devotion to this ancient 

 tongue might have given to his views of education. 



The President thought, it would be proper to confine the object of the Society's 

 motion, to the simple question of the completion of the oriental works, which it 

 was given to understand had been discontinued. He also agreed with Mr. 

 Macnaghten, that the first step must be to ascertain whether Government 

 would continue its support, and to what extent ; for this he recommended, that 

 Mr. Macnaghten and Dr. Mill should be requested, in conjunction with the 

 Secretaries, Mr. J. Prinsep and Babu Ram Komel Sen, to draw up an urgent 

 memorial to the Government, avoiding to the titraost all controversial points, 

 and to submit it for the approval of the Society at the next meeting. 



This proposition was unanimously agreed to. 



[The meeting was less numerously attended than usual, in consequence of the 

 usual notices to members having been omitted. At the last meeting it was direct- 

 ed, " that in future the day of meeting should be fixed regularly for the first Wed- 

 nesday of every month, and that notice should be only inserted in the " public 

 engagement" column of the daily papers."] 



