1867.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 101 



certain text books, held under the superintendence of the Inspector by 

 such a Pandit of the Sanskrit College as Maheca Chandra Nyayaratna, 

 would give the needed stimulus. Examinations should also be held in 

 the Mugdhabodha or Sanskrit grammar. 



2. It seems to me very needful, that, as the condition of a liberal 

 help for the Sanskrit studies, Government should insist on some 

 amount of useful learning being also taught. Some arithmetic and 

 perhaps geography and history, and (still better if it were but possible) 

 some little Western Logic and Moral Philosophy would be an invaluable 

 auxiliary and corrective to the peculiar training of a tole. Of course 

 this must all be given in Bengali, and I have no doubt that a sound 

 knowledge of Bengali itself is very rare at Nuddea, even among great 

 Sanskrit scholars. In this way we should break into the narrow 

 circle of prejudice and exclusiveness which hedges round so closely 

 the students of Nuddea, and we should fit them for exercising a 

 beneficial influence on their countrymen. At present they necessarily 

 belong to the past, and are utterly unable to sympathise with or 

 understand the mighty movements round them. A Nuddea student 

 is an exact counterpart to Gibbon's description of the sophist Liba- 

 nius, " a recluse student, whose mind, regardless of his contemporaries, 

 was incessantly fixed on the Trojan "War and the Athenian Common- 

 wealth." Still, after all, their position and training unavoidably 

 give them great influence among their countrymen, especially away 

 from the towns. This influence is, no doubt, at present used every- 

 where against the progress of education and social improvement ; but 

 surely it would be an object well worth striving for, if we could 

 improve, not abolish, the time-honoured tole, and if we could change 

 the character of the students whom its system tends to form, into 

 sound Sanskrit scholars instead of disputatious pedants, and into the 

 friends, instead of the enemies, of native education. 



I beg to forward you the above Report, and I must express my 

 deep regret that I have so long delayed sending it. Much of it was 

 written in India before I left, and I had hoped to send it completed 

 soon after my arrival in England, but ill-health and prostration of 

 energy precluded it, and subsequently I found it very difficult to 

 collect the scattered fragments of my notes into a narrative. As it is, 

 I feel it is very imperfect, and had I my Pandit Maheca Chandra by 

 my side, I could easily increase its value tenfold. 



