# Hints Relative to Native Schools/Section 2

​Page:Hints Relative To Native Schools (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.102605).pdf/95 ​Page:Hints Relative To Native Schools (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.102605).pdf/96 ​Page:Hints Relative To Native Schools (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.102605).pdf/97 ​It is true, that when these helps are provided, namely, a correct system of Orthography—a sketch of Grammar, a simplified system of Arithmetic,—and an extended Vocabulary, little is done beyond laying the foundation. Still however this foundation must be laid, if any superstructure of knowledge and virtue be attempted relative to the inhabitants of India. Yet, were the plan to stop here, something would have been done, a peasant, or an artificer, thus rendered capable of writing as well as reading his own language with propriety, and made acquainted with the principles of arithmetic, would be less liable to become a prey to fraud among his own countrymen, and far better able to claim for himself that protection from oppression, which it is the desire of every enlightened government to grant. But the chief advantage derivable from this plan is, its facilitating the reception of ideas which may enlarge and bless the mind in a high degree; ideas for which India must be indebted to the west, at present the seat of science, and for the communication of which, generations yet unborn will pour benedictions on the British name.
1. To this then might be added a concise but perspicuous account of the Solar System, preceded by so much of the laws of motion, of attraction and gravity, as might be necessary to render the solar system plain and intelligible. These ideas however, should not be communicated in the form of a treatise, but in that of simple axioms delivered in short and perspicuous sentences. This method comes recommended by several considerations: it agrees with the mode in which doctrines are communicated in the Hindoo Shastras, and is therefore congenial with the ideas of even the learned among them; it would admit of these sentences being written from dictation, and even committed to memory with advantage, as well as of their being easily retained; and finally the conciseness of this method would allow of a multitude of truths and facts relative to ​astronomy, geography, and the principal phenomena of nature, being brought before youth within a very small compass.
2. This abstract of the solar system might be followed by a compendious View of Geography on the same plan, that of comprising every particular in concise but luminous sentences. In this part it would be proper to describe Europe particularly, because of its importance in the present slate of the world; and Britain might with propriety be allowed to occupy, in the compendium, that pre-eminence among the nations which the God of providence has given her.
3. To these might be added a number of popular truths and facts relative to Natural Philosophy. In the present improved state of knowledge a thousand things have been ascertained relative to light, heat, air, water, to meteorology, mineralogy, chemistry, and natural history, of which the ancients had but a partial knowledge, and of which the natives of the east have as yet scarcely the faintest idea. These facts, now so clearly ascertained, would be conveyed in a very short compass of language, although the process of reasoning which enables the mind to account for them, occupies many volumes. A knowledge of the facts themselves however, would be almost invaluable to the Hindoos, as these facts would rectify and enlarge their ideas of the various objects of nature around them, and while they, in general, delighted as well as informed those who read them, they might inflame a few minds of a superior order with an unquenchable desire to know why these things are so, and thus urge them to those studies which in Europe have led to the discovery of these important facts.
4. To this view of the solar system, of the earth, and the various objects it contains, might with great advantage be added such a ​compendium of History and Chronology united as should bring them acquainted with the state of the world in past ages, and with the principal events which have occurred since the creation of the world. With the creation it should commence, describe the primitive state of man, the entrance of evil, the corruption of the antediluvian age, the flood, and the peopling of the earth anew from one family, in which the compiler should avail himself of all the light thrown on this subject by modern research and investigation: he should particularly notice the nations of the east, incorporating in their proper place the best accounts we now have both of India and China. He should go on to notice the call of Abraham, the giving of the decalogue, the gradual revelation of the Scriptures of truth, the settlement of Greece, its mythology, the Trojan War, the four great monarchies, the advent of the Saviour of men, the persecutions of the Christian church, the rise of Mahometanism, the origin of the papacy, the invention of printing, of gunpowder, and the mariner’s compass; the reformation, the discovery of the passage to India by sea, and the various discoveries of modern science. Such a Synopsis of History and Chronology, composed on the same plan, that of comprising each event in a concise but perspicuous sentence, would exceedingly enlarge their ideas relative to the state of the world, certainly not to the disadvantage of Britain, whom God has now so exalted as to render her almost the arbitress of nations.
5. Lastly, it would be highly proper to impart to them just ideas of themselves, relative both to body and mind, and to a future state of existence, by what may be termed a Compendium of Ethics and Morality. The complete absence of all just ideas of this kind, is the chief cause of that degradation of public morals so evident in this country. The system of ethics, (if it deserve the name) which pervades India, and indeed nearly the whole of ​the east, is far less friendly to public and private virtue than even that which prevailed in Greece and Home when idolatry was at its highest pitch. The doctrine of the metempsychosis carried to the extent in which it is in India, while it seems to exalt man to the state of a god by terming him an identical part of the deity, in reality sinks his ideas of the deity to the level of every thing immoral and degrading; while men’s maintaining that God does every thing within them, takes away all reverence for him, and sets them free from every tie of moral obligation. Further, the idea of the soul’s passing from body to body, strips death of every thing awful, and humanity of every thing tender; and instead of elevating the minds of the Hindoos above terrene objects, it renders them insensible to the finest feelings of humanity, and causes them to set scarcely any value on human life, even though it be the life of those who gave them existence. Thus these two grand principles, piety and humanity, which are the foundation of all virtue, both public and private, and which enter into the essence of both natural and revealed religion, are almost extinguished in the mind of a Hindoo by the natural operation of the system he holds: and when to this we add that disregard of justice and all good faith, and that proneness to knavery, falsehood, and deceit, which instantly follow the absence of piety, justice, and humanity, we have before us all the great features of depravity visible in their general character.
If we would therefore wish to improve the public morals of our Indian fellow subjects, this must be attempted by the introduction of a remedy suited to the nature of the disease, by imparting to them that knowledge relative to themselves, to their responsibility for their actions, their state both here and hereafter, and the grand principles of piety, justice, and humanity, which may leaven their minds from their earliest youth. Should any one say: “effect ​Page:Hints Relative To Native Schools (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.102605).pdf/102 ​Page:Hints Relative To Native Schools (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.102605).pdf/103 ​Page:Hints Relative To Native Schools (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.102605).pdf/104