Ignorance still rests like a pall upon that land. According to the census of 1891, out of a total population of 261,840,000, 133,370,000 were males. Of these, 118,819,000 were analphabet. Including boys under instruction, only 14,550,000 could read and write. Of the 128,470,000 females only 740,000 could read and write or were being instructed. In other words, only eleven per cent. of the males and [pg 028] a little more than one-half of one per cent. of the females were in any sense literate. In Madras, we find the greatest progress; but even there eighty-five per cent. of the male and ninety-nine per cent. of the female population are illiterate. In Oudh, on the other hand, corresponding figures are ninety-four and very nearly one hundred per cent. When it is remembered that the Brahmans, who constitute only five per cent. of the total population, include seventeen per cent. of the literate class and more than twenty per cent. of those who know English, it can be understood that the illiteracy of the common people is still greater than that indicated by the above figures.

Considerable effort has been made by the government to educate this immense population. It is seriously handicapped in this endeavour by want of funds. The State does not largely enter into the establishing of schools of its own; its policy being to give grants in aid to private bodies on the basis of results achieved. And it contents itself with the establishing and conducting of relatively only a few schools of its own which shall serve as models and as a stimulus to the private aided institutions. More than three-fourths of the education of the land is thus conducted by private bodies which are encouraged by the government through its grants in aid. There still remain not a few indigenous or, so-called, “piall” schools. Educationally, these schools are of little value, as their training is both antiquated in kind and extremely limited in quantity. They are interesting because they reveal to us the old educational methods of the land. Schools on modern [pg 029] lines, however, by coming under government surveillance, for the purpose of receiving grants in aid, are conducted much more efficiently, and attain results worthy to be compared with those of western lands. The chief feature of the educational system, controlled, examined and aided by government, is the emphasis given to an English training. From the second year of instruction, the English language grows annually in importance in the curriculum of studies. In the grammar school it becomes compulsory and in the high school and college it is the sole medium of the communication of knowledge. The English language is emphasized also because it is the test for admission even into many of the lowest of the numberless offices in connection with government service; so that the study of this language of the West has become to young India practically a necessity and a craze. People of the lowest conditions in life pawn and mortgage their property and involve themselves in terrible debts for the sake of giving their sons an English education.

Christian missions constitute one of the principal bodies which engage in the training of Hindu youth. One-ninth of all the school children of India are found in mission schools. This number includes 330,000 boys and nearly 100,000 girls. In the training of girls, Protestant missions have not only been pioneers; they are also today much the most prominent and efficient educators of the women of the land. Their girls' schools and colleges are not only the most numerous, but also the most efficiently conducted and thoroughly managed of all institutions for women in India. The Madras Christian College [pg 030] for boys and the Sarah Tucker Woman's College of Tinnevelly are among the best institutions for those classes in India. The educational system of India culminates in the five Universities of Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Allahabad and Lahore. These are not instructing, but simply examining universities like the University of London. With these the 140 colleges of two grades and of various degrees of efficiency, are affiliated. In these colleges are found 18,000 students of whom more than 5,000 graduate yearly. The city of Calcutta is a city of many colleges and has more college students, relative to its population, than almost any city of the West.

Though the masses of the people, and especially the women, are still, as we have seen, grossly ignorant, yet every year encouraging progress is being made in spreading the blessings of, and in creating a taste for, education. Every year natives themselves enter more largely into the educational work and find in it not only a living, but noble scope for their activities. Among the higher and cultured classes there is a growing body of young men, besides the ambitious few from the lower classes, crowding into the higher institutions of the land. It is one of the problems of the day to direct the mind of this increasing army of university graduates to other professions than the overcrowded government service. There is a persistent feeling among these youth that it is the business of State to supply them with lucrative posts upon their graduation. And it is the disappointed element of this class which furnishes so many of the discontented, blatant demagogues who are almost a menace to the land.