1838.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 573 



native inference will be that partiality, not principle, has dictated the difference. But 

 the general principle of this case is rigidly enforced no where {—assuredly not in this 

 country, where at its Universities of Oxford and Cambridge numerous endowments 

 of scholarships and exhibitions enable young men to follow a course of study which 

 would else be beyond their attainment. Why are the native youth of British India to 

 be denied a similar provision ? They must be ill acquainted with the country who say 

 that they do not need it, and why should talent be precluded from the chance of dis- 

 tinction because its professor is poor in India alone and under a British adminis- 

 tration ? I must therefore in the name of the youth of India, Muhammadan or Hin- 

 du, most earnestly entreat the court to withhold their sanction from a measure which 

 proposes if not a doubtful yet a very scanty good, which will inflict a severe blow 

 upon the prospects of the rising generation, and will be viewed as ungenerous and 

 unjust by the most respectable and influential classes of the people of India. 



I have, &c. 



(Signed) H. H. Wilson, 

 Oxford, 5th March, 1836. 



Boden Professor of Somskrit in the University of Oxford 

 and Agent in Europe for the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 



To J. C. Melvill, Esq. 

 Sir, 



In the early part of last year I had ■he honor to address the Hon'ble the Court of 

 Directors on the subject and in support of a memorial which should have reached 

 them about the same time from the Asiatic Society of Bengal. As no reply has been 

 yet received by the Society I beg permission respectfully to recal the correspon- 

 dence to the recollection of the court, and to express my hope that the memorial of 

 the Asiatic Society may receive their favorable consideration. 



The object of the Society's application was to solicit the sanction of the Honora- 

 ble Court to the grant by the Bengal Government of some 'pecuniary aid in the 

 expense of publishing standard and useful works in Oriental literature. It will be 

 in the recollection of the Court that upon a change of the members of the Commit- 

 tee of Public Instruction in 1834-35 the Government of Bengal was induced by their 

 representations to resolve that the encouragement formerly granted to native litera- 

 ture should be withdrawn at once, and the funds employed upon that object be 

 appropriated exclusively to instruction in English. Consequent upon this resolution 

 the printing of several works in Arabic and Sanskrit original or translations and of 

 which some were nearly completed, was relinquished, and would in their unfinished 

 state have been worthless, if the Society had not interposed and undertaken their 

 completion, expressing, at the same time, a hope that with reference to the limited 

 funds at their disposal they would be aided with some assistance by the Government. 

 With such aid they proposed not only to finish the books which had been commenced 

 but to proceed with the work and print from time to time the most celebrated com- 

 positions in the literature of India. The government in reply admitted the desira- 

 bleness of the proposal, but pleaded the state of the finances as a reason for declin- 

 ing to comply with the request. The Society consequently appealed to the liberality 

 of the Honorable Court, proceeding in the meanwhile at their own risk and cost 

 with the task which they had undertaken. 



The considerations which should induce an enlightened government like that of 

 British Iudia to encourage to a reasonable extent the literature of the East, and 

 preserve it by means of the press from decay have always beeu fully appreciated by 

 the Court. It is unnecessary therefore to urge them upon its attention. I would 

 only beg permission to observe, that in the communications which have taken place 

 with the Asiatic Societies of Bengal and Great Britain on this subject, it has been 

 mixed up with a question on which it is to be feared an irreconcileable diversity of 

 opinion prevail, — the course that should be followed in the education of the people 

 of India. There is however no very intimate connexion between the two, and the 

 publication of the most esteemed writings of the east for the use as much of Euro- 

 peans as Asiatics need not in any way interfere with the widest possible dissemi- 

 nation of the English language in India. The duty being transferred to the Asiatic 

 Society will not embarrass the operations of the Committee, and the amount of the 

 pecuniary aid which would enable the Society to proceed with its publications would 

 be too inconsiderable to be a sensible diversion of funds that would be else appro- 

 priable to the charge of public education. I should hope therefore, that the ques- 

 tion of encouragement to the printing of Standard Oriental works to an extent 

 compatible with a due regard to public economy will be considered as not necessarily 

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