the apprehensions of "alarmist prophets," have been
distinctly beneficial to the better and stronger class of students.

To summarize very briefly the work of the Conference, it recognized in
the first place the importance of the vernaculars as the proper medium
for instruction in the lower stages of education, whilst maintaining the
supremacy of English in the higher stages. It sought to give a more
practical character to high-school training by promoting the "modern
side," hitherto overshadowed by a mainly literary curriculum, and it
endeavoured to make the school courses self-sufficing and self-contained
instead of merely a stepping-stone to the University courses. To this
end secondary schools were encouraged to give more importance to School
Final Examinations as a general test of proficiency and not to regard
their courses as almost exclusively preparatory to the University
Entrance Examination. Great stress was also laid upon the improvement of
training colleges for teachers as well as upon the development of
special schools for industrial, commercial, and agricultural
instruction. Nor were the ethics of education, altogether forgotten in
their bearings upon the maintenance of healthy discipline. Government
emphasized the great importance of a large extension of the system of
hostels or boarding-houses, under proper supervision, in connexion with
colleges and secondary schools, as a protection against the moral
dangers of life in large towns; and whilst provision was made for the
more rigorous inspection of schools to test their qualifications both
for Government grants-in-aid and for affiliation to Universities,
certain reforms were also introduced into the constitution and
management of the Universities themselves.

The results already achieved are not inconsiderable. The provision of
hostels, in which Lord Curzon was deeply interested, has made great
progress, and one may hope that the conditions of student life described
by Dr. Garfield Williams in Calcutta are typical of a state of things
already doomed to disappear, though at the present rate of progress it
can only disappear very slowly. In Madras there is a fine building for
the Presidency College students and also for those of the Madras
Christian College. In Bombay Government are giving money for the
extension of the boarding accommodation of the three chief colleges. In
Allahabad, Agra, Lucknow, Meerut, Bareilly, Lahore, and many other
centres old res