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Native Education. 



[April 



affords them an invaluable opportunity for ascertaining (heir 

 familiar habits, peculiar feelings, and true sentiments, which, 

 unreservedly communicated to others, are too apt to be con- 

 cealed, or dissembled, before any one clothed with public 

 authority. It is a knowledge of the natives thus acquired, 

 before entering upon public life, which forms the best foun- 

 dation for that indulgent consideration towards them after- 

 wards, that ought ever to characterize our civil polity in 

 India. 



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ee On the first establishment of the College, such was the 

 deplorable apathy and ignorance prevalent amongst the people^ 

 that it was requisite, not only to instruct the candidates for 

 the situation of teacher in their own languages, as well as in 

 English, but to bestow upon them salaries, to hire them to 

 learn. The result of my recent examinations at the College 

 clearly proves that this is no longer necessary. In each of 

 the languages, I found several unpaid natives, studying ex- 

 pressly for the office of teacher ; and, by a tolerable ac- 

 quaintance with English, as well as a critical knowledge of 

 their own tongue, well qualified to hold the situation to> 

 which they aspire. 



^ ^fc %t ^ "Jfe 



<( From the want of that attention and encouragement, 

 on the part of the ruling power, without which learning 

 never flourishes in any country, it had so long sunk into 

 a dormant state in the Peninsula, that if competent teachers 

 of the spoken dialects were not procurable, still greater dif- 

 ficulty was experienced, in filling up the high situations of 

 Hindoo and Mahomedan Law Officer in our courts of Judi- 

 cature, requiring a knowledge of law and its sister sciences, 

 buried in the profound depths of Arabic and Sanscrit lore. 

 Accordingly, the. Hindoos at first, selected with the utmost 

 care, were too often found, on trial, ill qualified for the offi- 

 ces they filled ; and not a single Mussulman being discover- 

 ed in the Madras territories capable of this employment, it 

 was necessary to send to Bengalfor Mahomedan Law Officers, 

 who arrived here necessarily as ignorant as Europeans of 



