All time in thy defence; dead-thou dost fling Ah, thou should'st have been, In thy pure hatred for the bigot, Spain, On those far seas a stainless buccanier, P. C. NATIVE EDUCATION IN INDIA. Many copies of a pamphlet by Col. Sykes, bearing on this subject, have been recently, with the kindest intention, circulated amongst us. The feeling that it was wished to excite was, doubtless, a desire to emulate the native youth in industry, application, and general improvement; and to keep up the character of our native land in the opinion of those with regard to whom we are placed in such an exalted position. And there certainly is much to excite this emulation, judging, as we do, principally by the answers to examination questions in the pages before us. We cannot but say how much more weight we give to this proof of the intellectual advancement of the natives than to the programme of education at the different Institutions, for we are convinced that could the native youth by any chance hear that the future Rulers of India, between the ages of 18 and 20, were instructed in Homer, Juvenal, Aristotle, Virgil, Grotius, Tacitus, Eschylus, Sophocles, and Greek Testament; Euclid, Algebra, Statics, Dynamics, Trigonometry, Hydrostatics, and Astronomy; Political Economy; the History of Egypt, India, Ancient Europe, and the Middle Ages; the Law of Morals, Contracts, Obligations, and the Criminal Code; the Languages of Sanscrit. Persian, and Hindustani, with occasionally Bengali and Arabic, not to speak of Water Colour Painting, Fencing, and Single Stick, they would at once sink under the idea of in any way coming into competition with a body of young men thus trained in the whole range of Classical Literature, Science, History, and Language. We do not, therefore, hold much by programmes. The answers, however, are certainly very surprising, and particularly in the metaphysical subjects, where such great perspicuity is observable. It is with feelings of admiration, only however for them, that we have read the papers on Philosophy, and not at all with a feeling of shame for ourselves; for, as metaphysics are not read here, we can form no judgment of how we could grapple with them if they were; nor would it be fairer to consider us as incapable of such a subject, than to estimate the scale of mind as higher at the London University than at Cambridge, because the Novum Organum is studied at the one and not at the other. But there is perhaps a better feeling than emulation, which the sight of these papers suggest. They tell us that beneath an Eastern sun, with different habits, associations, and manners, there is a mighty mass of men of the same thought and power with ourselves-men grasping the truths of science, exploring the mines of history, analysing the motions of the mind, and calling aloud for further knowledge; and over them we are summoned to bear rule, and to exert an influence-an influence for evil or for good-it can have no neutral effect. This is, indeed, respon. sibility deep enough to make a man at least reflect. These, then, are the natural emotions on reading Colonel Sykes's little work; but as it is desirable to raise an interest in the subject, and such must be in some degree done by a fair discussion, we shall not be thought, we trust, presumptuous if we mention a few thoughts on the plan of Government Education in India-thoughts which we shall be happy to have corrected by any who may have clearer views than ourselves. No man can regard this movement in the East without looking forward to the probable result at a future time. We are enlightening the minds of the native population-opening their eyes to the freedom of other countries in the pages of history—strengthening their mental energies by study and application-fitting them, by ethical knowledge, for self-government, and by political knowledge, for governing others—and yet supplying no existing principle of subjection to the powers that be, establishing no permanent bond of union. Is this politically wise? We are refining their notions, elevating their feelings, and purifying their habits-are therefore rendering them disgusted with the ignorant obscenities of the Brahmin, or the gilded sensualities of the Moslem, Creed; but we are not offering any resting-place for the poor bewildered heart, conscious of immortality, and panting for a certain hope. Is this morally wise? The effect of education alone has, in many cases, been productive of Deism; and we cannot see how it should be otherwise. The educated native, with new views and new lights, cannot look on the horrors of Paganism without contempt. He cannot stand by the car of Juggernauth, he cannot behold squalid devotees swinging on the hook, or scorched by the flame, he cannot watch the trembling suppliant cringing at the foot of a hideous idol, without an indignant pity, or a sarcastic hatred. He cannot mingle with the shorn and self-righteous Mussulman, with his copious harem and his empty cup, without feeling there s no reality here, and then comes over him the wild disregard of devotional observance, and shaking boldly off what he thinks the chaff of systems and the dust of creeds, he plunges at once into the cold indifference of scepticism. How a nation of educated Deists will prosper, is fortunately no longer a subject of conjecture. The answer is stereotyped in the French Revolution. There are voices from the dead-the butchered dead-the guillotine itself has a voice-the up-rooted throne and the desecrated temple, have a voice bearing witness against a people without God in the world. We suppose, however, it will be said, "Let us first educate, and then we can add religion." But we believe, however darkened the mind may be by superstition, it is more fitted then to receive the truth of our faith than when the dark and dreadful clouds of doubt have once passed over it,-when that terrific shade of unbelief has once thrown its blackness on the intellect. And besides this, we unhesitatingly state our firm conviction, that you may not touch the heart in that way through the mind;—our religion is not mental perception and assent, but it is FAITH, Then will be said, "So we must give up education; for if we add religion, the natives will refuse to be taught." This is, in fact, the main question, and on this point expediency would be the great engine used against us; but standing on what we believe right, we cannot say else than that education should follow in the wake of missionary exertions, and that if missionary success has hitherto been so feeble as to render the establishment of State-education for native converts too humble an undertaking, why then we cannot but think the time not arrived for a State-education at all. Already around us seem to ring indignant words at our suggesting this spoke in the wheel of the general progression of the world as it is termed; but after all, what is education?-not an end, but a means. The happiness of the majority is the end, education is one of the means, but sometimes an insignificant one, and we certainly think perfectly secondary to the spread of religious truth. Conversion may move slowly, but have missionary exertions been fairly and generously supported? Speak, shades of Martyn and Thomason and Brown, and tell how your labours were thwarted! And let candid readers cast their eyes over missionary subscription lists, and see who are the supporters of that struggle now. The sneer at Exeter Hall, and the sarcastic smile at the very name of missionary, we have become accustomed to; but time may yet show whether the humble preachers of the faith are not carrying out the real and true plan for refining the minds, elevating the characters, and securing the happiness of the Indian people. Oh! happy vision of a future day! If that from the plains of Hindostan might rise the incense of universal devotion to the true God; if that they who bow beneath the same sceptre might kneel with us at the same altar; if that a gentle word might be spoken to the stranger saying, "We love you, our brother, you have given us a kind Ruleryou have taught us of a merciful God." STEPHEN AUSTIN, PRINTER, .HERTFORD THE HAILEYBURY OBSERVER. Liberius si Dixero quid, si fortè jocosius, hoc mihi juris Cum venia dabis. Hor. Lib. 1. Sat, iv. 103. OCTOBER 22, 1845. ARTHUR CAREW. THE humble individual who now ventures to lay a trifling part of his somewhat remarkable career before you is the son of a gentleman, who, at the latter end of the last century, was rector of the picturesque little village of Easthope in Devonshire, one of those sweet spots whose beauty has so often been dilated upon by the enthusiastic tourists of the far west. My mother had died in bringing me into the world, and from that hour my father, who was naturally one of the most light-hearted and kindest of men, became gloomy, morose, and sullen. Towards me, he evinced an apathy almost amounting to dislike, and, consequently, at a very early age I was removed to a school in a distant county, where my periodical visits to my home were but few, and the welcome which then awaited me, calculated to make me dread, rather than look forward to, those important epochs in a schoolboy's life. Things went on thus till my tenth year, when my father suddenly formed the resolution of educating me at home, and 1 accordingly returned from school to finish my education under his auspices. By his poorer parishioners my father had ever been most cordially beloved; the affliction which had bowed him to the earth had also fallen heavily upon them, for my mother had been the idol of the parish, at once the cheerer of the death-bed, the adviser in distress, and the ready aider of the stricken and needy. The poor people mourned their loss deeply, and for her loved memory they made allowance for the altered demeanour of the widower, and if the rector did speak more harshly than was his wont in former days, they neither complained nor murmured, for all sympathised with his grief, and the infirmities it had engendered. But the richer NO XI.-VOL. III. 2 Q members of our little world, the squire and the doctor, could neither appreciate nor understand the cause of his altered character and habits, and when six months had passed away after his bereavement, and their kindly greetings and efforts at renewed friendship were received with chilling coldness, if not with haughty repulse, they left him entirely to himself, and he lived among them a cheerless solitary man, till the time at which he decided upon taking the duties of my education upon himself. In his mode of tuition, my father was kind and gentle; yet he never exhibited any desire to ingratiate himself in my affections; and when the lessons of the day were over, I was generally left almost entirely to myself to prepare my studies for the morrow, which, if not well-executed, were met with heavy and often severe punishment, whilst my exertions to succeed seldom met with a corresponding reward. Living on thus from my earliest childhood with a parent who neither sympathised with my youthful pleasures, nor made allowance for my foibles, without the softening influence of a mother's love, nor the sweet intercourse of a sister's companionship, what wonder that my young affections should become in some measure deadened, by being always pent up within my own breast. Still, under such circumstances, and if an object to love be all that is required, the young heart will generally find it, and that, too, without being scared by the prudence of older heads, or distressed by the wisdom of one's own. In the same village, of which my father was rector, there lived a man, some years his senior, who had been unprosperous in business, it was supposed from grief arising from some misfortune similar to that which we had sufferered. His wife had died in a distant town, leaving him three children, two sons and a daughter; the latter, however, was many years younger than her brothers. The eldest son had reached man's estate, and was endeavouring, by superintending his father's affairs, collecting the wreck of their little property, and assiduously making the best use of it, to lay the foundation of a future fortune, while he was ever careful to provide his surviving parent and little sister with every possible comfort in the secluded spot which the former had selected for his residence. The second son had early chosen a sea-faring life, and being, moreover, of rather dissipated habits, was generally absent from home. Little Emily was, therefore, her father's only companion; an old woman, who had had the charge of her from her birth, acted in the capacity of both nurse and housekeeper; and a rather superior dayschool in the village supplied such education as the father's limited means could afford for his child. When we first made their acquaintance, Emily was eleven and I thirteen; our respective fathers, probably from being companions in misfortune, became in some measure companions from choice, and a great intimacy gradually sprung up between |