Education in British India

Abstract

T HE present system of education in India was introduced in the early years of the nineteenth century as one distinct and apart from the indigenous system which was already in existence, consisting of both higher and elementary institutions. The indigenous educational institutions were indeed no better nor much worse off than similar contemporary institutions in the West. A foreign observer speaking of them in the thirties of the last century said: My recollections of the village schools of Scotland do not enable me to pronounce that the instruction given in them has a more direct bearing upon the daily interests of life than that which I find given or professed to be given in the humbler village schools of Bengal. But widely prevalent as the indigenous system was, it was fast going into decay owing to various economic and political forces, chief among which were the growing poverty of the people and the withdrawal of state patronage which followed the change of government. In reaction to the external forces which it