It would perhaps be easier to say what an Indian civilian should be than what he is. He should be not less capable and omniscient than the late Lord John Russell, prepared to command the Channel fleet, or to perform an operation in lithotomy. There is a story current of a distinguished civilian in the mutinies of 1857–58 to whom Lord Clyde said, “Why, Mr. P., you seem to wish to command the army.” “And a very laudable ambition too, I think, my Lord,” replied Mr. P., unabashed. The government of a province and its millions of inhabitants is avowedly the ultimate aim and object of each civilian’s official life; but whilst he is serving his apprenticeship for the higher offices of Government, he must be prepared to adapt his mind to the most humble and unintellectual duties. He must learn to obey, so that he may understand how to rule. He will have to look after the scavengers who are occupied with the drainage and sanitation of the town in which he lives. He will have to count and deliver out postage-stamps with his own hands, and woe betide him if his treasury accounts and cash balances do not agree to the uttermost farthing. The capacity of a civilian’s mental power should be similar to that of the elephant’s trunk, which can pick up a pin and pull down a mighty forest tree. There is nothing too great, and hardly anything too small, to which he may not in the course of his career be expected to apply himself. The civilian is not unfrequently described in the local newspapers as a Celestial official. There is a linguistic basis for this epithet Celestial. Where the Sanskrit and Bengali languages prevail, the civilian is usually addressed by the title of Dhurmavatar, or Incarnation of Justice. Where the Persian and Hindustani languages are more in vogue, he is usually styled Khudawand, which may be translated as “Lord” or “God.” The civilian from his official cradle being thus addressed as a superhuman personage, not unnaturally sucks in the high-sounding titles and mentally feeds upon them. What wonder, then, if he unconsciously begins to think with thoughts that are not as those of ordinary mortal men. And thus it comes to pass that the young members of the Civil Service, nurtured on sweet words and addressed continually by flattering and exaggerated titles, surrounded from day to day by suppliant and subservient attendants, and frequently cut off from any direct communication with English friends, do acquire a manner of thought and speech which may strike the non-official observer as savouring of the superhuman or Celestial type. It is unwholesome for the human mind to live in an atmosphere of flattery and honeyed words. We remember a native gentleman of high rank and position who asked for an appointment in a Government office for one of his younger sons. “He is a good lad,” he said, “but I want to get him placed where he will find himself addressed by some title less than Maharajah, as he now hears