The Express.
London, England, 1859-08-02 00:00:00

1131. S EDUCATION IN INDIA.

Montle De* Newel
W • maws to =prose the hops that the benevo-
lent and pions waste whose opinions at the sib-
lent of teaching tie Bible In the Government
dehools of India were formally fermented to Lord
PALMERSTIJN and Sir CIIAELES WOOD on Saturday,
by• deputation of noblemen, prelate., and members
Po:lament, will for the present rest satisfied with
the mearmees given by the Prawns and the
PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL of INnte. Lord Pate

Mantras told the Deputation that he thought " they
" were all agreed upon one point—namely, that it
" was their duty and their interest to promote the
" diffusion of Christianity us far as possible through-
" out the length and breadth of India. The only
" question they had to jeoneider was, whether the
" scheme the deputation proposed was calculated to
" promote the spread of Christianity, or to have a
" contrary effect." tiir Clikauss Wooo also " as-
" mired the deputation that no persons were more
" anxious for the advancement of Christianity in
India than the members of her MAJESTT'e present
" Government, for every Christian made was a new
" bond between India and England."
We confess we attach great importance to them
declarations, because we have observed with regret
ea the part of some excellent persons, carried by
mal too far away from charity, a fixed resolution to
trace to moral cowardice, to want of sympathy with
the noble cause of Christian missions, or even to a

secret hostility to the Gospel itself:the objections
which many conscientious and enlightened men, re-
flecting on the peculiarity of oar position as Christian
rulers of a heathen people, have raised to the pro-
posal to break in upon the neutral system of educa-
tion which we have established in India. We have

from time to time pointed out that the imputation
was undeserved, and have invited those who have

insisted upon changing the character of the govern-
ment schools to lay said' pasaionAte and unreasoned
appeals to religious sentiment, aud consider some
overlooked besting' of Christian doctrine and precept
upon our assumed duty in this matter $ and now we
find Lord l'ALmaarrom telling the Archbishop of
CANTENBUILT, the Bishop of LONDON, and other
clergymen who accompanied them to Cambridge-
house, that "he had consulted many ministers of
" religion, and had found that the general opinion
" was that the scheme recommended by the depa-

tation would impede the movement which many
" religions people had in view." Seeing how opinion
is divided u to the means of effecting an object which
all desire, it is greatly to be:regutted that thou who
wish to see the Bible introduced in Government

schools, should seek to prejudice public opinion
against the educational policy of the Government
by a partial representation of the facts. The per-
petual repetitioa of the asoertion that the Govern-
ment has " laid an interdict "—phrase odious to
Protestants and to freemen—upon the Word of GOD
in India, and has " put the Bible under ban," is neither
correct nor creditable. Whoosadingthesestatements,

would have thought that of late years the Govern-
ment of India had been aiding MUM:miry Schools?
The fact is, that the Indian Government m establish-
ing schools for all had to consider not only what is io
itself good for the body of learners, but also what
they can receive. No English statesman will ven-
ture to say that a scheme of education which leaves
oat the faith and morals of the Christian Scriptures is
complete. The most determined supporters of the
neutrality of the Indian Government in matters
of religion have not founded their arguments upon
any assumption of the equal merit of all religions. But
as soon as the duty of educating the people was
recognised, the questioner** how that general know-
ledge which in all schools forms the staple of the
instruction given, could be made most accessible to
the children of our Indian fellow-subjects. It was
finally resolved that the education to be given in tie
government schools should be wholly secular, no
religious instruction of any kind being provided. The
reason lies on the surface. It we teach any religion
it must be that which we believe to be right—that
by which we live and are great. If the natives receive
instruction in a religion it must be one in which
their parents desire that they should be taught. It
may be said, " Why not fix your own standard of
"education, and boldly abide by it? " That would be
very wise, if our flint thoughts were of ourselves and
of the means of gratifying our own preferences. Bet
the practical work before us was to bring as many
scholars as possible under our teaching, and prepare
them for the life they have to live es earth. (If
course this object is infinitely below that which the
missionaries propose in their labours. For this
reason we think it is one more salted to a foreign
government, which his to collect taxes, make war.
and occasionally blow its subjects from guns. It
wax resolved, then, that the education imparted in
the Government Schools of India should be wholly
secular; and this is what is moat by "placing
" the Bible under ban." It is what we have been
doing for many years in a part of the United King-
dom —in a Christian land, and with tie sanction
of bishops and archbishops ; it is what we have been
doing in Ireland ever since the foundation of the
national school system ; nod we see with regret
that the same arguments to which Lord PAL-
WILMS was requested to listen last Sa-
-1 torday are employed with more and more effect,
both by Protestants and Catholics, to subvert
that admirable system. But the Government of
India having decided not to make its schools useless
to the gust masa of the population, by introducing
Christian doctrine into the course of instruction, con-
tents itself with the amount of restriction necessary to
secure its neutrality. The Government school.
muter, if he have the ability and the will to teach
Christianity, is at liberty to mumble his 'obelus for
that purpose fat half so boar before or half an hour
after school boars. We know it has been said that
this is no 00000,13011 at all, because after school hours
the master is not under the control of the Govern-
Mt; that, therefore, the Government merely
makes a show of giving the teacher what is already
his own. Bat it is not exactly so. The echooll
muter, supported by the Government. must be held
to be hotted by its rales as to his occupation,
and we may easily imagine a government
over anxious to make an ostentation of a neutrality
not demanded by the circumstances of the cue,
assuming that the teaching of religious doctrines by
the master of a neutral school, and on the school pre-
mises, might compromise its character, and issuing
its prohibitions accordingly. By the arrangement
adopted Sir COMMIS WOOD maintains the universal
character of his school, and removes all pretence for
declaring that the Bible is a forbidden book.
In the statement read at Cambridge-house on
Saturday, by the Bev. Mr. VENN, it was urged that
the local authorities should be at liberty to introduce
the Bible into the Government schools, to be taught
to voluntary classes wherever it might be thought
desirable. This request is founded on a radical mis-
cooception. It can only be understood on the
assumption that the objection to the teach-
ing of the Bible in Indian schools origi-
nates with the Government. But we know
that this assumption is erroneous. The Government
wield be too glad were its way at once to authorise
the teaching of the Holy Scriptures in the Govern-
ment schools throughout India. But it believes that
than existing educational system, incomplete as it is,
confers positive and great advantages on the people
of India, and it stands forward to prevent well-mean-
ing but injudicious persons from destroying its use-
fulness by changes which would make it an object
of suspicion to those for whose good it has been
established. We put it to Mr. tern and his
colleagues whether the difference between that
which they have and that which they ask is so
groat as to justify the Government in doing anything
to shake the confidence of the natives of India to the
Government schools ? At present a hundred children
of our Hindoo and Mahoesetan fellow-subjects in
Bengal attend a Government school. A clever school-
master might find a dozen children who would
volunteer into one of Mr. Vass 's Bible cloaca, and
be taught in school hours. That would be
no far well ; but what of the remaining
eighty-eight I For them, or most of them, the
neutrality of the school, that is to say the condition
upon which they, heathens as they are, can accept
instruction from a Christian Government, is gone.
Are we to consider the twelve, or the eighty-eight P
Happily wears not reduced to this alternative. Lot
but the hopeful band come thirty minutes before the
school boor or stay thirty minutes later and they may
be gratified, without injury to any interest or offence