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Introduction In the present volume of his Promotion of Learning in India, my friend, Mr.Narendra Nath Law, deals with the very interesting subject of the efforts made by Europeans in India to provide the machinery of public instruction. Those of Mr. Law's readers who may think that the efforts described are of a somewhat meagre and unsatisfactory nature, might well be asked to bear in mind three important facts : (1) In the year 1818 it is calculated that in England "for one child who had the opportunity of education, three were left entirely ignorant," and we are told, by way of illustration of the lamentable state of things then existing, that the prosperous town of Preston, " one of the richest cities in the great manufacturing county of Lancaster, with a population of 18,000 persons, had an endowed school, educating only thirty-six children. " There were three other schools in the town, one taught by a master, and two by mistresses, but it is not known how many children shared the doubtful advantages of these miserable institutions. It has been observed that there are some things which all men profess to admire in the abstract, but which they detest in the concrete, and that in the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth century, public instruction was one of the most marked of those things. The observation, however, fails to do justice to facts. The truth is that during the period which falls under review in the present work, the average man maintained that ignorance is a positive blessing to the poor, and that to instruct the children of the poor is, in the long run, only to make the poor discontented with a lot which it is neither desirable nor indeed possible to alter. (2) In the year of grace, 1914, if the old prejudices are less vigorous than they were, the importance of the cause of public instruction is even yet insufficiently understood. The most convincing evidence for this assertion is afforded by the place which the schoolmaster holds in the esteem of the community. There are, of course, the few who can find their way to well-paid appointments in the most expensive of our public schools, and it is true that the rapid advance towards efficiency which has been made by the State Provided Schools has led to a certain improvement in the lot of those who impart instruction to the children of the poor. Yet, is it not still the case, that " schooling " is one of the last resources of the graduate, too old to enter the Army, not smart enough for the Bar, not " good " enough for the Civil Service, or "pious" enough to enter Holy Orders? It may be that parents belonging to the upper middle classes cannot afford to pay enough to secure a really sound education for their children, but whatever may be the cause, the result is to be found in the existence of " crammers" " corresponding colleges' and the like. We are quite content with those respectable minor schools, which, after having had our children entrusted to their care for five or six years, send them out not able to write three lines of a dead language without making a blunder, or speak for one minute in a modern language and be understood. It may be true that our poverty compels us to endure a state of things which it would cost much money to remedy, but the salient fact is that on the whole our people love to have things so. It is now fairly widely realised that the would-be teacher has to be taught to teach ; but if teaching is a profession which requires a considerable outlay in securing the necessary qualifications, the returns for the outlay are usually miserably small. India, at the present time, offers no career to the competent schoolmaster ; in this country his salary is inadequate, and his prospects in his own profession are almost nil. By Walter K. Firminger ...Continued in the book : Promotion of learning in India by European settlers (up to about 1800 AD) By Narendra Nath Law