The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & MissionarySmith, George
Religion
The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & Missionary
Smith, George
Carey, William, 1761-1834; Missions -- India
Called upon to prevent the evils he had been the first to denounce
officially, Lord Wellesley wrote his magnificent state paper of 1800,
which he simply termed Notes on the necessity of a special collegiate
training of Civil Servants. The Company's factories had grown into the
Indian Empire of Great Britain. The tradesmen and clerks, whom the
Company still called "writer," "factor," and "merchant," in their
several grades, had, since Clive obtained a military commission in
disgust at such duties, become the judges and rulers of millions,
responsible to Parliament. They must be educated in India itself, and
trained to be equal to the responsibilities and temptations of their
position. If appointed by patronage at home when still at school, they
must be tested after training in India so that promotion shall depend
on degrees of merit. Lord Wellesley anticipated the modified system of
competition which Macaulay offered to the Company in 1853, and the
refusal of which led to the unrestricted system which has prevailed
with varying results since that time. Nor was the college only for the
young civilians as they arrived. Those already at work were to be
encouraged to study. Military officers were to be invited to take
advantage of an institution which was intended to be "the university of
Calcutta," "a light amid the darkness of Asia," and that at a time when
in all England there was not a military college. Finally, the college
was designed to be a centre of Western learning in an Eastern dress for
the natives of India and Southern Asia, alike as students and teachers.
A noble site was marked out for it on the stately sweep of Garden
Reach, where every East Indiaman first dropped its anchor, and the
building was to be worthy of the founder who erected Government House.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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