Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/26

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20
LORD AUCKLAND

knowledge through their own mother-tongues. From this text indeed the Court of Directors had been preaching for several years past, warning their servants not to underrate the importance of vernacular teaching in a country where 'a thorough study of the English language can be placed within the reach of a very small proportion' of the people. Macaulay himself had always recognized the wisdom of this doctrine, and his Committee put forth a manifesto in favour of employing the vernacular languages in all the primary schools. Before he left India in 1838 his efforts to organize a general system of popular schooling were beginning to bear such modest fruit as the scanty funds at his Committee's disposal would allow[1].

Lord Auckland helped to further the new growth of medical science among a people who had hitherto walked in the darkness of old-world theories and traditions. The last days of Bentinck's rule had witnessed the founding of a reformed Medical College in Calcutta, for the training of Native students in every branch of medical science, according to the best European lights, by means of the English language alone. The College opened with a full staff of professors, a library, a museum, and all the appliances needed for the working of so large a scheme. Many persons shook their heads over an experiment which seemed to war against Native prejudice. How, they asked, can you expect a good Hindu to defile himself by cutting up a dead body? Until then, dissection

  1. Kaye's Administration of the East India Company.