July, 1910.] 



63 



EDUCATION, 



A PLEA FOR INDUSTRIAL 

 EDUCATION. 



(Prom the Indian Agriculturist, Vol. 

 XXXIV., No. 3, March 1, 1910.) 

 In a vigorous note, which was origin- 

 ally written for the Ootacarnund Indus- 

 trial Conference, and has since been read 

 belore the East India Association, Mr. 

 P. J. E. Spring, Chairman of the Madras 

 Harbour Trust, expresses himself strong- 

 ly in favour of such a change in edu- 

 cational policy in India as shall aid the 

 industrial development of the country. 

 A purely literary education, he says, was 

 justified when it was first introduced. 

 The Government needed a large number 

 of educated Indians for service in its 

 various departments, and it adopted 

 the best means of obtaining them. But 

 in the course of time this necessity was 

 met, and an abundant supply of fairly 

 suitable candidates for Government 

 service secured. Indeed, the supply far 

 exceeded the demand, and for a consider- 

 able time past the literary education by 

 means of which yourg Indiaas have 

 sought entrance into the haven of sub- 

 ordinate official appointments, has been 

 producing a large and growing class of 

 discontented graduates, for whom there 

 is no room in the Government service, 

 and for whom, therefore, no employ- 

 ment of any kind is available except 

 poorly-paid educational work in schools 

 and second-rate colleges, or clerkships in 

 mercantile offices. Meanwhile, the indus- 

 tries of the country have been develop- 

 ing apace, and are as much in need of 

 the services of educated Indians as the 

 Government was when a literary edu- 

 cation was resolved upon, Mr. Spring 

 holds that at least ten years ago, 

 possibly twenty, the Government should 

 have recognised the urgency of the new 

 demand, and that the time had come to 

 provide an industrial training in order 

 to qualify young men for industrial 

 pursuits. There is much force, if 

 nothing particularly new, in this con- 

 tention ; but the Government of India 

 at least plead that they erred in good 

 company. It is only in recent years 

 in fact that the British Government 

 has been roused to a due appreciation 

 of the need of technical education, if 

 England is to hold her own as a manu- 

 facturing country. The Government of 

 India could scarcely have been expected 

 to anticipate the home authorities in 

 this matter, but now that the lesson 

 taught by the success of Germany has 

 been taken to heart in England, the 



Indian Government has shown no lack 

 of readiness to face the new require- 

 ments. Inquiries have been conducted 

 in every Province, conferences have been 

 held, schemes of all kiuds drawn up, 

 Mr. Spring pleads that the Government 

 ought to '•launch out on a very exten- 

 sive development of the new education, 

 at any cost in reason." Such expen- 

 diture will, he is confideut, "pay in the 

 long run in the development of the 

 wealth of the country in a thousand 

 ways." It is evident that if the people 

 have any capacity for industry and 

 manufacture, industrial training must 

 be a more remunerative investment than 

 literary education. Some writers, it is 

 true, have coutetited that the natural 

 bent of the Indian mind is toward liter- 

 ary, legal and philosophical study, and 

 that the popularity of literary education 

 is to be explained by the fact that it 

 satisfies the tastes of the higher castes. In 

 the discussion which followed the reading 

 of Mr. Spring's paper before the East 

 India Association, Sir Arundel Arundel 

 appeared to think that the eagerness 

 with which Indian students had availed 

 themselves of a literary training had 

 prompted the Government to persevere 

 in supplying education on these lines. 

 But as we have pointed out the Govern- 

 ment of India were merely giving the 

 conventional education of the period, 

 which the Indian student perforce 

 accepted as the only higher education 

 within his reach. When once education 

 lias gob into a groove it is hard to 

 change its direction, aud there is there- 

 fore no reason for surprise in the 

 figures, which show that in 1907 the 

 number of Art and Law graduates and 

 licentiates numbered between them only 

 3,000. The question arises : is there any 

 reason to suppose that the Indian people 

 lack the qualities necessary to success 

 in commerce and industry ; and, if not, 

 can they be developed by suitable train- 

 ing ? On this point Mr. Spring expresses 

 himself in emphatic terms. " There is 

 no use," he says, '' telling me that the 

 people have not got it in them. They 

 have it in them right enough, but talent 

 for lack of education— in the true philo- 

 logical sense of that much-abused word." 

 With regard to the policy which should 

 be pursued, Mr. Spring makes three 

 observations which should carry con- 

 siderable weight in the discussion that 

 is now proceeding. In the first place, 

 he maintains that the immediate re- 

 quirement is the training of those of 

 the upper classes who show a bent 

 towards industrialism. A mere increase 



