point to this
contribution as sufficient counterbalance. From the works of such
teachers as Mill, Cobbett, Bagehot, and Morley, the mind of India has
for the first time derived the principles of free government. But of all
its teachers, I suppose the greatest and most influential has been
Burke. Since we wished to encourage the love of freedom and the
knowledge of constitutional government, no choice could have been
happier than that which placed the writings and speeches of Burke upon
the curriculum of the five Indian universities. Fortunately for India,
the value of Burke has been eloquently defined by Lord Morley, who has
himself contributed more to the future constitutional freedom of India
than any other Secretary of State. In one passage in his well-known
volume on Burke, he has spoken of his "vigorous grasp of masses of
compressed detail, his wide illumination from great principles of human
experience, the strong and masculine feeling for the two great political
ends of Justice and Freedom, his large and generous interpretation of
expediency, the morality, the vision, the noble temper." Writing of
Burke's three speeches on the American War, Lord Morley declares:

"It is no exaggeration to say that they compose the most
perfect manual in our literature, or in any literature, for one
who approaches the study of public affairs, whether for knowledge
or for practice. They are an example without fault of
all the qualities which the critic, whether a theorist or an
actor, of great political situations should strive by night and
day to possess."

For political education, one could hardly go further than that. "The
most perfect manual in any literature"--let us remember that decisive
praise. Or if it be said that students require style rather than
politics, let us recall what Lord Morley has written of Burke's style:

"A magnificence and elevation of expression place him
among the highest masters of literature, in one of its highest
and most commanding senses."

But it is frequently asserted that what Indian students require is, not
political knowledge, or literary power, but a strengthening of
character, an austerity both of language and life, such as might
counteract the natural softness, effeminacy, and the tendency to
deception which Macaulay and Lord Curzon so freely informed them of. For
such strengthening and austerity, on Lord Morley's showing, no teacher
could be more serviceable than B