Nec scribere tantum, nec tantum legere debemus. Altera res contristabit, et vires exhauriet: de stilo dico: altera solvet et diluet. Invicem hoc illo commutandum est, et alterum altero temperandum: ut quidquid lectione collectum est, stilus redigat in corpus. SENECA. THE BENARES MAGAZINE. FEBRUARY, 1851. I. POPULAR EDUCATION IN THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES OF THE BENGAL PRESIDENCY. "There is one great question to which we should look in all our arrangements-What is to be their final result on the character of the people? Is it to be raised, or is it to be lowered ?”* SUCH was the momentous question propounded by one of the Company's most illustrious servants at the close of his official career, to the members of that Government over which he presided. In no part of India can a better and more satisfactory answer be furnished than in the NorthWestern Provinces. Besides the physical benefits conferred on the people-the operations visible on the face of the country, the roads and bridges, the line of canals intersecting the Western districts-the minor works of agricultural utility constructed with Government money-the municipal and sanitory regulations, that diffuse health and comfort throughout the towns and cities;-there are still a number of systematic improvements which, independent of temporal advantages, may be fairly expected to elevate the national mind. Postal communication has been extended to the remotest and most sequestered portions of every district; rights have been ascertained, defined, and registered ;-violence has been repressed by the eradication of the motives which lead to it; -lawless tribes have been reclaimed to industry by the cer * Minute, by Sir T. Munro, Governor of Madras, dated 31st December, 1824. B tainty of reaping the fruits of their labours;-the peasant has been taught to feel that his little property is respected and recorded by the Government;-the proprietors. of the soil have found that their ancestral customs and privileges have been understood and maintained. The scrutiny required for the attainment of these ends has been fraught with further results, both in the mass of information which has been educed, and in the investigations to which it has led. To the enquiries made into the rights of the people, we owe most of the complete and varied statistical information which has been laid before the public. To the spirit of enquiry thus evoked may be attributed the census, the population returns, the educational statistics, and lastly, the creation of a vernacular literature. The publication of countless legal treatises, of practical compilations explanatory of the system of Government, and of the principles of finance and taxation which affect every individual member of the State-have all tended to foster the growth of intelligent independence. But it is evident, that the success of all the pains which have been taken to define rights, to collect useful information, and to present it in a popular dress -must greatly depend on the fitness or otherwise of the people to appreciate the one and to comprehend the other. Elementary knowledge is necessary for the reception of those influences which the civilizing and humanizing measures of the Government are calculated to diffuse. As might naturally be expected, therefore, endeavours have been made not only to impart a complete education to a few, but also to stimulate the general progress of elementary education, and to encourage the people to acquire the rudiments of practical knowledge. If the principle be admitted, that the improvement and elevation of the native character should be one of the objects aimed at by the British rule, there can be little doubt that popular education ought to be one of the means employed. And in these Provinces there exist special reasons to hope, that if merely the simplest education could be generally imparted to the mass of the people, the results would be palpable and immediate. Now, what has been, and what may, be done, for the promotion of popular education in the North-Western Provinces ? Thirteen Government Schools and three Colleges were at various dates and places founded in these Provinces under the orders of the Council of Education at Calcutta. The Colleges are, comparatively speaking, old established institu |