_Lord Curzon’s Secret Educational Conference._ The fact that he admitted no Indian to the meeting of the Secret Educational Conference held at Simla, when he formulated the government policy, strengthened that idea. His University Legislation shocked the country beyond measure and left no doubt whatsoever that what he aimed at was a complete official control of all education in India. Educated Indians read between the lines and concluded that it was a mistake to look to the Government to do things or to follow a policy which might quicken the national pulse, strengthen the Nationalist sentiment, or add to the efficiency of the people so as to fit them to stand on their legs and desire to get rid of the leading strings in which they were held by the British. _Indians and Lord Curzon at Cross Purposes._ Indians saw that they and Lord Curzon were at cross-purposes. They aimed at self-government and freedom; Lord Curzon aimed at prolongation of the period of their bondage and the permanence of the existing political conditions. We wanted independence; he wanted us to be dependent on the British. We wanted to quicken the pace of national advance; he wanted to slacken it. We wanted to be assertive and self-reliant; he wanted us to be submissive and in permanent control and tutelage. We wanted to go forward, he mistrusted us. We wanted a policy of honest confidence; instead of that he inaugurated a policy of suspicion. We wanted unity, he proceeded to bring into existence fresh causes of friction between community and community. We wanted the marshalling of our forces in the common cause, he proceeded to divide us and to keep us apart. We wanted consolidation, and he started active disintegration. We wanted an extension of representative government, Lord Curzon did his best to discredit the institutions that had been granted and to set back the hands of the clock. _The Congress Deputation to England in 1905._ The leaders of the Indian National Congress saw all this; they resisted Lord Curzon’s policy rather boldly; they spoke with courage; they sought his patronage and sent their president to wait on him. Lord Curzon refused to see him and thus slapped the Congress in the face. He characterised their activities as the letting off of “gas.” Their resolutions he looked upon with contempt because, as he said, nothing had ever come out of them. The leaders felt offended, they fretted and foamed. But all they resolved to do was to appeal to the British public. So a deputation was sent to England in 1905 to place the grievances of India before the British public.