BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1902-09-20

as now carried on is worse than failure,
since it not enly does not secure the
end aimed at but wealens the moral
fibre of the subject so that the average
native graduate of an Indian college or
university has lost many of the better
of his racial qualities without making
corresponding gains from his teachers.
According to the "Chronicle's' cor
respondent, aside from the faults of ad-
rnin1stration which are slowly being
corrected, the fundamental reason for
this failure is the false basis on which
this educational structure has been
erected. We have given, he says,
these Indians, we are giving them, an
English education without considering
the impression Our methods make on
their minds. But everything depends
on knowing what they think. The
difference between their standpoint and
ours is the essence of the problem"
The difference is found in the motive
which incites education. Education to
the Englishman-or the American
means. to certain extent, an invest
ment which has practical cash value
and in later years will pay good inter
est on the original investment. To
such an extent is it utilitarian. But
the greater motive may be found in the
general desire for knowledge for its
own sake, or for ability to appreciate
the intellectual efforts of others. In
India, however, there is Only one mo-
tive and that is the loves. 1t is strictly
utllitarlan, the average Indian going to
college IN order that he may with the
least pcssihle. Effort prsDare himself for
a government office or for the law.
Western culture as such means nothing
to him. He simply learns By rote, not
because he is in sympathy with British
ideals, but because he knows by doing
so he can get employment. Eve"
says the writer, ''ln our incrussab1e fo'1y
(he thinks have ordained that no one
shall become clerk or pleader unrl mvs-
ferrous Jafgons have been acquired and
certain examiners persuaded or trapped
into granting certificates to such &C
quirement. So he sets himself in the
first place to learn all tricks that NAV
be of avail with his examiners, and in
the second place through halfhidden
chain of relatives in higher places) to
get men for examiners who will 10
preciate his aims rather than ours and
make his way easier to his desired en-
ployment
The result of this seems to be that
the average student sets out to memor-
ize his tasks "a boy who has learned a
textbook OF mathematics by heart being
no uncommon case) "The student
knows" says the critic, ''lhat, thanks to
us, ne has to spend four good years of
his life in making himself less, not
more, tit for the work before him: and
he naturally imagines that our home
universities also have this blighting
effect on their undergraduates. But, +
links he to himself, he at any rate has
he excuse of compulsion. 1t is per
orce that he studies himself into in
'ptltude; how inept, then, must we be
Who DO these things willingly And
hat sinks him lower still in the mire.
Cringing insolence is the lowest
tage of servitude, and to that stage we
re gradually forcing the subtler and
eener Bengali student by the combin-I
q influence of our political and educa.
onal systems"
Ihe primary mistake the English
sem to have made in India is the cou-
lctlon that the educational system Of
le west could be established in the
ast with no allowances being made for
le difference in race, ideals and NOR. i
s. That, too, is the problem which
'nfronts us in the Philippines and On M
II successful adaptation of western
ethods to eastern needs will depend A.
e success Of our efforts. p