One of the first questions which this remarkable experiment suggests is whether the ideals which Mr. Gokhale sets before the "Servants of India" will suffice to supply the necessary driving power. Hitherto some form of religious faith and the hope of some heavenly reward have alone availed to induce men to renounce the world and all its material interests and surrender themselves to a life of rigorous and selfless discipline in the service of their fellow-creatures, or rather in the service of God through their fellow-creatures. Mr. Gokhale's society makes no claim to any religious sanction. Though Indian asceticism has from the most remote times found devotees willing to lead a life of far more complete self-annihilation than any that the most rigorous monastic orders of Christendom have ever imposed, or that, for the matter of that, Mr. Gokhale seeks to impose upon his followers, it has always been inspired by some religious conception. Will the "Servants of India" find the same permanent inspiration in the cult of an Indian Motherland, however highly spiritualized, that has no rewards to offer either in this world or in any other? On the political as well as other potentialities of such an organization as Mr. Gokhale contemplates there is no need to dwell. For the "Servants of India," moulded by one mind and trained to obey one will, are to go forth as missionaries throughout India, in the highways and by-ways, among the "untouchables" as well as among the higher classes, preaching to each and all the birth of an Indian nation. CHAPTER XVII. THE GROWTH OF WESTERN EDUCATION. The rising generation represent the India of the future, and though those who come within the orbit of the Western education we have introduced still constitute only a very small fraction of the whole youth of India, their numbers and their influence are growing steadily and are bound to go on growing. If we are losing our hold over them, it is a poor consolation to be told that we still retain our hold over their elders. I therefore regard the estrangement of the young Indian, and especially of the young Hindu who has passed or is passing through our schools and colleges, as the most alarming phenomenon of the present day, and I am convinced that of all the problems with which British statesmanship is confronted in India none is more difficult and more urgent than the educational problem. We are too deeply pledged now to the general principles upon which our educational policy in India is based for even its severest critics to contemplate the possibility of abandoning it. But for this very reason it is all the more important that we should realize the grave defects of the existing system, or, as some would say, want of system, in order that we may, so far as possible, repair or mitigate them. There can be no turning back, and salvation lies not in doing less for Indian education, but in doing more and in doing it better.