The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c7.14

c7.14

There is no difficulty in multiplying schools at present in India to any extent provided funds are furnished. The people are anxious and earnest in calling upon the Missionaries for teachers. With a little patience, we may introduce into these schools *any* books that we please. In them the children know of no precedence, but that which is derived from merit.¹⁰ This is an extraordinary testimony in favour of the native character, and from a source where we can expect no kindly prejudice. They entertain no suspicion of the ultimate designs of their instructors; but with candour and openness send their children to school, where we are elsewhere informed, no difficulty was found in introducing the scriptures, when done with discretion.¹¹ They sacrifice all the feelings of wealth, family pride and caste that their children may have the advantages of a good education. This desire is strongly impressed on the minds of all the Hindoos. It is inculcated by their own system, which provided schools in every village. The learned and the ignorant, one of the Missionaries writes from Chinsuram, congratulate one another, that their children now enjoy the great blessings of education. Native free schools were once universal throughout India.