The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c10.s3.55

c10.s3.55

He admitted at once that he had at present no facts to substantiate his statements and did not attempt to answer my argument that the articles in *Young India* for December 8th and 29th 1920 by Daulat Ram Gupta of which he had furnished me with typed copies, contained no literacy figures and that the most recent official report in them, Dr G.W. Leitner’s History of Indigenous Education in the Punjab was written in 1882 and could therefore furnish no evidence with regard to the progress or decline of literacy in India during the last 50 years. He told me that Mr Mahadeo Desai who was present had been investigating the matter in the British Museum. Mr Desai admitted that he had found nothing fresh up to the present. Mr G. said that he would question the writer of the articles in *Young India* and that on his return he would get competent friends to investigate the matter for him over there and that he would send me a cablegram with regard to the result, and that in it he would say whether he had found material that would convince me that he was right, or that he would apologise handsomely for his mistake, and would make his withdrawal in such a way as to reach a much wider audience than his original statement.