Ancient Indian Education: An Inquiry into its Origin, Development, and Ideals c9.25

c9.25

of being profoundly changed; and very soon this will be a matter of general discussion. The long-unquestioned domination of European over Asiatic is now being put to the test, and is probably coming to an end. What is to be the issue? That depends entirely on the influence of Christianity, and on the degree to which it has affected the aims both of Christian and of non-Christian nations; there are cases in which it has affected the latter almost more than the former. The ignorant European fancies that progress for the East lies in Europeanizing it. The ordinary traveller in the East can tell that it is as impossible to Europeanize the Asiatic as it is to make an Asiatic out of an European, but he has not learned that there is a higher plane on which Asia and Europe may “mix and meet”. . . . The new stage towards which Christianity is moving, and in which it will be better understood than it has been by purely European thought, will be a synthesis of European and Asiatic nature and ideas.’ ¹