s over 2,100 receive salaries of less than 30 rupees (L2) a
month. One cannot, therefore, be surprised to hear that in Bengal "only
men of poor attainments adopt the profession, and the few who are well
qualified only take up work in schools as a stepping-stone to some more
remunerative career." That career is frequently found in the Press,
where the disgruntled ex-schoolmaster adds his quota of gall to the
literature of disaffection. But he is still more dangerous when he
remains a schoolmaster and uses his position to teach disaffection to
his pupils either by precept or by example.

I have already alluded to the unfortunate effect of the recommendations
of the Public Service Commission of 1886-7 on the native side of the
Education Service. But if it has become more difficult to attract to it
the right type of Indians, it has either become almost as difficult to
attract the right type of Europeans, or the influence they are able to
exercise has materially diminished. In the first place, their numbers
are quite inadequate. Out of about 500 Europeans actually engaged in
educational work in India less than half are in the service of the
State. Many of them are admittedly very capable men, and not a few
possess high University credentials. But so long as the Indian
Educational Service is regarded and treated as an inferior branch of the
public service, we cannot expect its general tone to be what it should
be in view of the supreme importance of the functions it has to
discharge. One is often told that the conditions are at least as
attractive as those offered by an educational career at home. Even if
that be so, it would not affect my contention that, considering how
immeasurably more difficult is the task of training the youth of an
entirely alien race according to Western standards, and how vital that
task is for the future of British rule in India, the conditions should
be such as to attract, not average men, but the very best men that we
can produce. As it is, the Education Department cannot be said to
attract the best men, for these go into the Civil Service, and only
those, as a rule, enter the Educational Service who either, having made
up their minds early to seek a career in India, have failed to pass the
Civil Service examinations, or, having originally intended to take up
the teaching profession in England, are subsequently induced to come out
to India by disappointments at home or by the often illusory hope of