Orders of 1854, the new system produced a stamp of men
who seemed fully to justify the hopes of its original founders--not
merely men with a sufficient knowledge of English to do subordinate work
as clerks and minor _employes_ of Government, but also men of great
intellectual attainments and of high character, who filled with
distinction the highest posts open to Indians in the public service, sat
on the Bench, and practised at the Bar, and, in fact, made a mark for
themselves in the various fields of intellectual activity developed by
contact with the West. It is much to be regretted that no _data_ have
ever been collected to show what proportion men of this stamp bore to
the aggregate number of students under the new system. The proportion
was certainly small, but it was at any rate large enough to reflect
credit upon the system as a whole and to disguise its inherent defects.
It is characteristic of the narrowness of official interest in
educational questions that, whereas abundant statistics are forthcoming
on all subjects connected with material progress, no attempt seems to
have been made to follow the results of Western education statistically
into the after-life of high school pupils and college students. We know
that a certain number have emerged into public distinction, but there is
nothing to show, except in the most, general way, how many have turned
their education to humbler but still profitable account, or how many
have turned it to no account at all.

Paradoxical as it may sound, it is the eagerness of young India to
respond to our educational call that has led to the breakdown of the
system in some of the most important functions of education. In its
earlier stages those who claimed the benefit of the new system were
chiefly drawn from the intellectual _elite_--i.e., from the classes
which had had the monopoly of knowledge, though it was not Western
knowledge, before the introduction of Western education. With the
success which the new system achieved the demand grew rapidly, and the
quality of the output diminished as it increased in quantity. On the one
hand education came to be regarded by the Indian public less and less as
an end in itself, and more and more as merely an avenue either to
lucrative careers or to the dignified security of appointments, however
modest, under Government, and, in either case, to a higher social
_status_, which ultimately acquired a definite money value in the
matrimonia