vi
while the village communities provided in their own crude way for their educational wants.
The classical literature of Tamil, on which our modern Pandit is nursed, has very little of that vitality and breadth necessary for the healthy growth of popular intelligence. If the 20 millions of people that speak Tamil are to have their minds reformed on the Western paibern, the result will not be brought about by D'r. Duncan's plan. The Government of Madras rightly considers that to require our erudite Pandits “to study science in order that they may be the means of introducing a vocabulary of scientific terms into the Vernacular languages would be wrong in principle.” “In English,” as Government observes, “new terms and vocabularies are constantly being manufactured from other languages, and if these are to be introduced into Oriental languages similar methods will inevitably present themselves for adoption.” In other words, it is useless trying to manipulate the existing Vernacular vocabulary for new scientific terms; on . the other hand, it is more easy to adopt foreign words and terminology than to twist existing Vernacular words for this purpose. The latter will only make confusion worse confounded. It is no doubt desirable that in the elementary classes of our schools the boy's mother-tongue should be made the main medium of instruction, and the importance of doing so has recently been urged on the local Governments by the Government of India. But to convey instruction by means of the Wernacular language is not the same thing as to coin elongated and jawbreaking expressions which are as unintelligible to the young mind as any English expression cam ba. In facti, the new Wernacular expressions woulâ be more difficult to the young student because, while ha constantly hears his elders at home, in School and elsewhere using the English expressions and becomes more or less familiar with them; the same advantage is absent in the case of Varnacular terms newly coined.
The peculiar condition of India, which makes a close and complete study of English necessary, and really more important in many ways than that of any native language, should not be forgotten, and all higher studies in science have necessarily to be done in English. The young child forced to use strange Wernacular terms will havé ultimately to forget them, for when he acquires sufficient knowledge of English and does most of his reading in that language, he will not care to remember, much less to use, his earlier acquisitions in the Vernacular.
Our University, with all the abuse thai. Histy people heap on it, is producing a class of men who would soon prove the originators of a new useful literature to meet the popular demand that is springing up. In the absence of the old patrons of learning, Rajahs and nobleman, who no longer think of paşromising authors, but lavishly endow gymkhanas, literature must become paying before it can attract competent devotees, and we are hopeful that this state will soon arise. It must be remembered that the best way of diffusing a knowledge of science among the masses is not to begin by placing primers and text-books in.
