254 
CALCUTTA. 
appears to have had two grand objects in view: to watch over, 
and improve, the characters of the junior civil servants, and 
to afford them that pecuhar species of education, which could 
alone quaUfy them for discharging the complicated duties of their 
station. To effect either of these purposes, it became absolutely 
necessary that some kind of control should be acquired over the 
young men, which could not be more unexceptionably and effect- 
ually obtained than by subjecting them to the confinement of a 
public institution, and placing them under the guidance and autho- 
rity of a provost, and such other officers as it might be judged ex- 
pedient to appoint. Without some powerful restrictions of this 
nature, it would have proved totally impracticable to keep a 
number of inconsiderate young men within the due bounds of 
restraint. 
The inadequacy of a more limited scheme has been unfortunately 
experienced, from the small portion of Lord Wellesley's plan still 
suffered to exist, which, though certainly useful in facilitating the 
acquirement of the native languages, is lamentably defective in 
all those essential purposes it was originally intended to answer ; 
especially with regard to its most important object, of preserving 
the young men from the many temptations and dangers by which 
they must necessarily be assailed on their arrival in such a 
country as India, with no greater degree of experience than 
usually falls to the lot of school-boys, and in full possession of a 
splendid income, in the expenditure of which they are absolutely 
uncontrolled. 
At the present time, there are few of these young men who do not 
keep their horses, commonly their curricles, and in many instances 
