The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c5.s29.10

c5.s29.10

This expense will be incurred only be degrees, because it will be long before a sufficient number of qualified teachers can be obtained. The charges for the Madras School-Book Society and the collectorate schools, are all that will probably be wanted before the sanction of the Honorable Court can be received. The sum for which we ought to request their sanction ought not to be less than half a lakh of rupees. None of the endowments in the Collectors’ reports are applicable to the present object; they do not exceed 20,000 rupees in all, and only a small portion of them are public grants, and this small portion belongs chiefly to the teachers of Theology, Law and Astronomy. Whatever expense government may incur in the education of the people, will be amply repaid by the improvement of the country; for the general diffusion of knowledge is inseparably followed by more orderly habits, by increasing industry, by a taste for the comforts of life, by exertion to acquire them, and by the growing prosperity of the people.