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its present rate; and would enable the Government to bring the main bulk of its military strength to bear upon any given 'point, in as many days as it would now require months, and to an extent which at present is physically impossible."

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The short length of Railway now open in Bengal has already proved the truth of these observations; and if, as we believe, the advance of the British power in the East is to be, as was said of the progress of the French in Algeria, "ense et aratro," -no more effectual means can be devised both for the consolidation of our military power, and for spreading the arts of peace, than the making of Railways.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES:

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LIST OF WORKS ON INDIA AND THE EAST PUBLISHED DURING THE QUARTER.

Christian Education for India in the Mother Tongue. A Statement on the formation of a Christian Vernacular Education Society. London, 1858.

Christian Vernacular Education Society for India.

Papers, Nos. I and II. London, 1858.

Occasional

The Educational Destitution in Bengal and Behar; and the London Christian Vernacular Education Society for India. Calcutta, 1858.

THE Christian Vernacular Education Society for India will be, if fully and successfully carried out, as its projectors warrant us to anticipate, the most glorious result of the Rebellion, which has so directed the attention and the prayerful energies of the English nation to this land. Beginning as it now does with small things, it may yet form the first wave of an under-current of Christianising and civilising influences that, though for a time they may not bulk largely in the eyes of the world, will result in changes higher and more thorough than our rulers have hitherto dared to dream of, changes which many of them have pronounced both wrong and impossible.

The first two of these publications are issued by the Society itself, with the view of explaining its objects, constitution, and modes of operation. Its Provisional Committee numbers among its members many of the best and wisest of those who have always shewn an intelligent interest, or have personally lived and laboured, in the country. It embraces retired Civilians and Military officers, as well as Missionaries and Lay Secretaries of Missionary Societies. At its head stand the names of Shaftesbury, Kinnaird, and Culling E. Eardley; while its Secretaries represent the four leading Missionary Societies in England -Church, Baptist, Wesleyan, and London. It will, and has already, put itself in connexion with practical men in India, with the view of at once receiving advice, and calling forth co-operation. Its occasional papers are composed of the letters of such, and of such information from India as will lead the Society in England to increased and wise effort. Union, and a resolution to walk together as Christians, and to work together, so far as they agree, are to characterise all its acts.

It sets out with the acknowledgment, which all seem now to have SEPT., 1858.

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agreed in, that the education of the young is all important, but that it should, in all its details and low degrees, be conducted by professional teachers under the superintendence of ordained missionaries, whose time will thus be mainly devoted to evangelistic work, while that which is purely educational, and we think quite as important, will be better done than hitherto. Their objects are thus thoroughly educational and thoroughly Christian, while in themselves they are mainly two."Institutions for training masters to teach in their mother tongue, and the preparation of Christian books, in the various languages of 'India." Taught by the failure of Government Education, the Society will concentrate and intensify its operations, confining them at first to a few centres, and to the two objects that will most affect the whole of education in the land-Teachers and Books. As we read the manly and frank statement of the Society, we cannot help feeling with some degree of bitterness, that a scheme for assisting and promoting education in every way so admirable as that enunciated in the Education Despatch of 1854 has been burked, nay, directly set aside by every act of the Supreme Government of India since it was issued. The Grant-in-Aid system there so strongly recommended, and so wisely and beneficially carried out in England, would have solved the Religion' difficulty for ever, and yet have been the most effectual means of Christianising the country. Such a Society as this could then have claimed and received large assistance, on the ground of the secular instruction imparted, and thus have become a direct teaching body, spreading its blessings over a large extent of country. When the Government learns, as they will soon do, to adopt the policy of the Despatch, a policy reiterated by every Educationist lay and missionary in the country, a policy earnestly recommended by the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, and again, in spite of ignorant reproof, advanced by the Director of Public Instruction in Bengal ; when it ceases to be itself the School-master, to monopolise native education, to educate badly and non-morally, to discourage all efforts but its own, and drive all as interlopers off the field; when it is no longer directly connected with any college or body of schools, but expends the large sums that it squanders on such, in encouraging all who will undertake the enlightenment of the ignorant and the elevation of the degraded; when it is honest and does not oscillate, as now, between two contradictory policies; then will it be, what God has established every Government to be-His instrument for the true civilising of His people. And by this scheme also it will adhere to the most thorough neutrality; it will abandon its present intolerance to its own creed. Such acts as have recently taken place in its educational operations, will never be repeated. The Court of Directors will not refuse or delay aid to a Missionary school, on the ground that its own college supplies sufficient education for a district, and then at once establish, under the orders of the Court of Directors, an" orthodox" Hindu school in the same locality; it will never again condemn the Sonthals to barbarism, because Christian Mission

aries had the civilising of them, nor will it again issue such an order as its "last"—that the already miserable expenditure for educational purposes be not increased-for it is dead.

The English Grant-in-Aid system is the best and healthiest—we had almost said most necessary-concomitant to such a Society as this, and its influential committee should direct their keenest efforts to the healthy establishment and carrying out of it. If the old Puritan spirit of England awake to the whole question of a wise Christian Education for India, with God's blessing it will be done. At present the time is auspicious and the motives noble.

"A Christian Vernacular Education Society for India, originated while yet the war of the mutineers continued to rage, supported on a scale worthy of England's wealth and India's magnitude, and aiming at ultimately giving every child in India a Christian teacher and Christian books, would be a memorial of a crisis that can never be forgotten, on which we may humbly trust that the Lord of all nations would smile."

The third pamphlet is a report given in by Dr. Duff to the Missionary Conference of Calcutta, on the subject of the formation of this Society. It shews what India's part in the effort must be, and points out in detail, and with much wisdom, the preparations that must be made, and the means that must be adopted, to carry out the plans of the Society, under the heads of the Agent, Principal or Headmaster, Locality, Pupils, Boarding Establishment, Monthly Allowance, Wives, Non-Christian Students, Studies-Medium of InstructionSubject Matter of Instruction, Employment after being trained, and the Organization and Superintendence of the common vernacular schools.

General Introductory Lecture delivered to the Students of the Calcutta Medical College at the opening of the Session of the 15th June, 1858. By Thomas Thomson, M. D., F. R. S., Surgeon Bengal Army, Professor of Botany. Calcutta, 1858.

ANYTHING from Dr. Thomson, on the subject of Education for his own profession, must be received with respect by all who know his character and abilities. With most of the counsels to his native students, and statements as to the mental training necessary for the medical profession, we quite agree. He himself sees the wisdom of confining himself to the consideration of what is necessary for a purely professional education, but cannot resist the temptation, so common to most medical and scientific men, of having a fling at the purely literary or general education, on which all hopes of success in that which succeeds it must be based. In seeming to charge. it with defectiveness in methods, he in reality attacks it on the ground that it is not, what it does not profess to be and will ever strive to avoid being, more external, observing, in fact utilitarian. The present cry for more of this element in education, is now ruining it

introducing mere superficiality, sciolism and empiricism, where formerly there was accuracy if not extent, intensity of not wide diffusion, sterling and honest pride with solid, if not ability to prate about, many acquirements. It is the absence of what Dr. Thomson condemns, the want of a thorough and more lengthened general education, without superficial sprinklings of this physical science and that, which makes such bad professional men, and deluges our professions, and especially the medical, with men of whom our forefathers would have been ashamed. Apart from his remarks on this point, Dr. Thomson's Lecture should be carefully read by every native student. If he sins on this question of education, he sins as his brethren Hartley, Thomas Brown, and Abercrombie have done, in materialising philosophy. The ideal and non-utilitarian cannot co-exist with an enthusiastic love of the medical profession.

My Journal; or what I did and saw between June 9th and November 25th, 1857; with an account of General Havelock's march from Allahabad to Lucknow. By a Volunteer. Calcutta, 1858.

THIS modest little Journal, which was not at first intended for publication, is winning its way to public favour. The first impression is exhausted, and a second is called for. It has no pretensions to literary merit, being evidently the first work of a young writer. It scarcely touches on questions of military strategy or politics, contains no vivid or picturesque sketches of sieges or battles, gives way rarely to any thing like enthusiasm or deep feeling, and is written throughout in a simple, unaffected, almost prosaic style.

But there is a nameless charm about it, which attracts as much the refined and fastidious, as the rude illiterate soldier. In the barracks and the Hospital, no book, that we could offer, was more heartily praised, or more eagerly sought for. The escape from Salone in open day through the regimental lines, the guns drawn up so as to sweep the road they had to go, the sepoys, armed and accoutred, scowling on them, as they passed, some standing by the guns with lighted portfires in their hands, would have tried most men's nerves. But not a word was spoken-not a shot fired-the Lord preserved them. Then comes the episode of Hunowant Sing, like a page cut out of Froissart. This fine old chief was an Oude Talookdar, who had been deprived of the greater part of his estates, and thrown into Jail by the British Commissioner, for certain very doubtful arrears of revenue. That officer was Captain Barrow; but it was done with no will of his, as the old chief knew well. In their hour of need, it was he who warned Captain Barrow of his danger, met the fugitives outside the town with 200 of his followers, took them into one of his forts, fed and entertained them liberally for weeks, escorted them to a

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