rease the comfort, or to expand the intellect of man. Whoever knows
that language has ready access to all the vast intellectual wealth which
the the wisest nations of the earth have created and hoarded in the
course of ninety generations. It may safely be said that the literature
now extant in that language is of far greater value than all the
literature which three hundred years ago was extant in all the languages
of the world together. Nor is this all. In India, English is the
language spoken by the ruling class. It is spoken by the higher class of
natives at the seats of government. It is likely to become the language
of commerce throughout the seas of the East. It is the language of two
great European communities which are rising, the one in the south of
Africa, the other in Australasia; communities which are every year
becoming more important, and more closely connected with our Indian
Empire. Whether we look at the intrinsic value of our literature or at
the particular situation of this country, we shall see the strongest
reason to think that, of all foreign tongues, the English tongue is that
which would be the most useful to our native subjects.

"The question now before us is simply whether, when it is in our power
to teach this language, we shall teach languages in which, by universal
confession, there are no books on any subject which deserve to be
compared to our own; whether, when we can teach European science, we
shall teach systems which, by universal confession, whenever they differ
from those of Europe, differ for the worse; and whether, when we can
patronise sound philosophy and true history, we shall countenance, at
the public expense, medical doctrines, which would disgrace an English
furrier--astronomy, which would move laughter in the girls at an English
boarding-school--history, abounding with kings thirty feet high, and
reigns thirty thousand years long--and geography made up of seas of
treacle and seas of butter.

"We are not without experience to guide us. History furnishes several
analogous cases, and they all teach the same lesson. There are in modern
times, to go no further, two memorable instances of a great impulse
given to the mind of a whole society--of prejudice overthrown--of
knowledge diffused--of taste purified--of arts and sciences planted in
countries which had recently been ignorant and barbarous.

"The first instance to which I refer is the great revival of letters
among the we