the best talents which England can
spare. That the average of intelligence and virtue is very high in
this country is matter for honest exultation. But it is no reason for
employing average men where you can obtain superior men. Consider
too, Sir, how rapidly the public mind of India is advancing, how much
attention is already paid by the higher classes of the natives to those
intellectual pursuits on the cultivation of which the superiority of
the European race to the rest of mankind principally depends. Surely,
in such circumstances, from motives of selfish policy, if from no higher
motive, we ought to fill the magistracies of our Eastern Empire with men
who may do honour to their country, with men who may represent the best
part of the English nation. This, Sir, is our object; and we believe
that by the plan which is now proposed this object will be attained. It
is proposed that for every vacancy in the civil service four candidates
shall be named, and the best candidate selected by examination. We
conceive that, under this system, the persons sent out will be young men
above par, young men superior either in talents or in diligence to the
mass. It is said, I know, that examinations in Latin, in Greek, and in
mathematics, are no tests of what men will prove to be in life. I am
perfectly aware that they are not infallible tests: but that they are
tests I confidently maintain. Look at every walk of life, at this House,
at the other House, at the Bar, at the Bench, at the Church, and see
whether it be not true that those who attain high distinction in the
world were generally men who were distinguished in their academic
career. Indeed, Sir, this objection would prove far too much even
for those who use it. It would prove that there is no use at all in
education. Why should we put boys out of their way? Why should we force
a lad, who would much rather fly a kite or trundle a hoop, to learn his
Latin Grammar? Why should we keep a young man to his Thucydides or his
Laplace, when he would much rather be shooting? Education would be mere
useless torture, if, at two or three and twenty, a man who had neglected
his studies were exactly on a par with a man who had applied himself to
them, exactly as likely to perform all the offices of public life with
credit to himself and with advantage to society. Whether the English
system of education be good or bad is not now the question. Perhaps I
may think that too much time is given to