104 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Control, who in a letter to the Chairman of the Court of Directors dated 28th of April 1858, did not hesitate to strike the following note of caution :—
“Gentlemen:—Many letters have been lately before me, reviewing the state of education in different parts of India, under the instructions sent by the Court of Directors in 1854, and I confess, that they have not given me the impression that the expected good has been derived from the system which was then established, while all the increase of charge which might have been expected, appears to be in progress of realization.
“Paragraph 11:—I believe, we rarely, if even induce parents above the lower class to send their children to our schools, and we should practically, if we succeeded in intending education as we desire, give a high degree of mental cultivation to the labouring class, while we left the more wealthy in ignorance.
“Paragraph 12:—This result would not tend to create a healthy state of society. Our Government could not offer to the most educated of the lower class the means of gratifying the ambition we should excite.
“Paragraph 13:—We should create a very discontented body of poor persons, having, through the superior education we had given to them, a great power over the mass of the people.
“Paragraph 14 :—Education and civilization may descend from the higher to the inferior classes, and so communicated may impart new vigour to the community, but they will never ascend from the lower classes to those above them ; they can only, if imparted solely to the lower classes, lead to general convulsion, of which foreigners would be the first victims.
“Paragraph 15:—If we desire to diffuse education, let us endeavour to give it to the higher classes first.
“Paragraph 16:—These are but two ways of doing this— by founding colleges to which the higher classes alone should be admitted, and by giving in the reorganization of the army, commissions at once, to such sons of native gentlemen as may be competent to receive them.”
This antipathy of the European officers towards the untouchable classes was finally corrected by the Secretary of State for India in his despatch of 1859, which again reiterated the responsibility of Government for mass education.
Singular as it may appear, the recognition by the Government of its responsibility for mass education conferred upon the Depressed classes a benefit only in name. For, although, schools