d sound
_Swadeshi_ before the word had ever been brought into vogue by the
Indian politician. The veteran Sir George Birdwood, Sir George Watt, Sir
Edward Buck, and many others have stood forth for years as the champions
of Indian art and Indian home industries. As far back as 1883, a
Resolution was passed by Government expressing its desire "to give the
utmost encouragement to every effort to substitute for articles now
obtained from Europe articles of _bona fide_ local manufacture or
indigenous origin." In 1886, a special Economic Department was created
to keep up the elaborate survey of the economic products of India which
Sir George Watt had just completed under State direction. But the most
important administrative measure was the creation under Lord Curzon of a
separate portfolio of Commerce and Industry in the Government of India,
to which a civilian, Sir John Hewett, was appointed with very
conspicuous success. It was also under Lord Curzon that the most
vigorous impulse was given to technical education of which the claims
had already been advocated by many distinguished Anglo-Indian officials,
such as Sir Antony MacDonnell and Sir Auckland Colvin. The results of an
exhaustive inquiry conducted throughout India by a Committee of
carefully selected officers were embodied in the Educational Resolution
of 1904. Particular stress was laid upon the importance of industrial,
commercial, and art and craft schools as the preparatory stages of
technical education, for which, in its higher forms, provision had
already been made in such institutions as the engineering colleges at
Sibpur, Rurki, Jubbulpore, and Madras, the College of Science at Poona,
and the Technical Institute of Bombay. Until then the record of
technical schools had too often resembled the description which Mr.
Butler, the new Minister of Education, tersely gave of that of the
Lucknow Industrial School--"a record of inconstant purpose with breaks
of unconcern." Not only did the question of technical education receive
more systematic treatment, but a special assignment of Rs.244,000 a year
was made in 1905 by the Government of India in aid of the provincial
revenues for its improvement and extension. It was not, however, until
the liberality of the late Mr. J.N. Tata and his sons, one of the best
known Parsee families of Bombay, recently placed a considerable income
for the purpose at the disposal of Government that steps have been taken
to establish an "I