the one side, we see the Westerner haughty,
unyielding and unwilling to conciliate; on the other we behold the
Oriental willing to be trampled upon when it seems necessary, and to smile
with apparent gratitude under the process; but, withal, possessed of a
large inheritance of ineradicable prejudices, which make a contact with
his too domineering Western lord an unceasing trial to him.

There is another point at which the two races are antipodal. The Briton is
progressive to the core. He only needs to be assured that a certain course
is right and for the best interests of the community, in order to adopt
it. His face ever looks upward and his ambition is ever to go forward.
But, in India he lives among a race whose chief divinity is custom and the
gist of whose decalogue is, "Hold fast to the past." As they approach a
proposed enterprise their first and last question concerning it is not
whether it is right and best, but whether it is in a line with the past
and would be approved by their ancestors. The whole country has been
anchored for the last twenty-five centuries to a code of social laws and
customs which are more unyielding than the laws of the Medes and Persians.
With them conservatism is the acme of piety and propriety. All progress
has been practically forced upon the country from without, and in the
teeth of their most sacred institutions and their most earnest
protestation and opposition. Thus the great difference between the two
peoples has been a serious hindrance to the realization of British designs
in that land.

Notwithstanding all this, Great Britain has patiently, persistently and
doggedly carried on her work and pursued her highest ideals for India.

And what have been the ideals and blessings which she is seeking to
achieve for that great land?

The first is that of Western culture and civilization. In these two
particulars, England has introduced into India a perpetual conflict.
Western ideas, processes of thought, points of aspect and ideals of beauty
and of life have been gradually supplanting the very different ones of the
East. Western life in India today is a constant challenge to the people to
study, admire and appropriate its many features of thought and conduct;
and India is not insensible to this call. The railroads and hospitals, the
schools and sanitary projects which have been introduced by the West into
that land are markedly transforming the sentiment and the life of the
people. T