346 



Application of the Soman Alphabet. 



[No, 4, 



sion regarding the introduction of the Eoman alphabet, into India 

 was confined to missionaries, it was not necessary for us to meddle 

 with it ; but when it is taken up by such high authorities, as those 

 who are now interested in it — and has been removed, as it were, from 

 the arena of controversy, considering the important bearing it has on 

 the intellectual progress of an empire containing very many millions 

 of souls, it is one that ought not to be treated lightly ; but in a sober 

 and philosophic spirit, such indeed as that adopted by my esteemed 

 friend Dr. Sprenger, in his paper alluded to. 



In considering every question, however, in which a variety of inter- 

 ests are involved, or which is peculiarly liable to be acted upon by 

 circumstances outside and foreign to the end ultimately to be arrived 

 at, it ought to be a sine qua non, that prior to its discussion, that 

 end should be so fixed and determined, that we shall know exactly 

 what we desire to accomplish, and that during its discussion the argu- 

 ments used shall tend solely to that finite point where proof of the 

 proposition or theorem proposed for demonstration can be found. 



Now in the discussions on the subject of romanizing the Oriental 

 alphabets carried on many years ago, the parties engaged in them 

 had far too much of the character of partizans to arrive at any sound 

 conclusion. Dr. Sprenger has fallen into error in supposing that Dr. 

 Tytler, the two Prinseps, and Sir Charles Trevelyan, were in accord in 

 these discussions. They were wholly opposed ; but their opposition 

 may be traced, I think in a great measure to partizanship. In those 

 days there were two schools of educationists in India — the orientalists 

 and the anglicists. The former, in these discussions, was represented 

 by James and Thoby Prinsep and Dr. Tytler. The latter by Messrs, 

 Macaulay and Trevelyan, Dr. Duff and other missionaries. The ques- 

 tion they fought, though nominally the battle of the alphabets, was 

 quite as much a battle of languages, and this question has perhaps 

 also been too much mixed up with the real one by Dr. Sprenger. 



Missionaries again, — and I do not suppose they make any secret of 

 it, — advocate the adoption of the Eoman alphabet, rather because they 

 believe it will aid them in the work of conversion, than from a con- 

 viction of its greater suitableness for the purposes of writing 

 oriental languages, and from that source, therefore, we can hardly look 

 for wholly unbiassed conclusions. 



A third class would adopt the Eoman in preference to the Oriental 



ft 



