Education -- India; India -- Politics and government -- 1857-1919; India -- Social conditions
It was, however, on more general consideration, as is his wont, that Mr.
Gokhale moved his resolution in the first Session of the Imperial
Council at Calcutta last winter for making elementary education free and
compulsory, and for the early appointment of a committee to frame
definite proposals.
Three movements [he claimed] have combined to give
to mass education the place which it occupies at present
amongst the duties of the State--the humanitarian movement
which reformed prisons and liberated the slave, the
democratic movement which admitted large masses of men
to a participation in Government, and the industrial movement
which brought home to nations the recognition that
the general spread of education in a country, even when it
did not proceed beyond the elementary stage, meant the
increased efficiency of the worker.
The last of these three considerations is, perhaps, that which just now
carries the most weight with moderate men in India, where the general
demand for industrial and commercial development is growing loud and
insistent, and Mr. Gokhale's resolution met with very general support
from his Mahomedan, as well as from his Hindu, colleagues. But, in the
minds of disaffected politicians, another consideration is, it must be
feared, also present, to which utterance is not openly given. It is the
hope that the extension of primary schools may serve, as has that of
secondary schools to promote the dissemination of seditious doctrines,
especially amongst the "depressed castes" to which the political
agitator has so far but rarely secured access.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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