F10195_0106

[newspaper clipping]
THE MORNING POST, SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1909.

LORD CURZON ON INDIA.

IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF
HISTORY

Lord Curzon of Kedleston attended a meeting of the
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland held
at the society's rooms, Albemarle-street, yesterday afternoon
for the purpose of presenting the society's Public
School Medal to Mr. A. H. M. Wedderburn (Eton
College), the winner of the essay on an historical subject
relating to India. There was a large attendance of
members and friends.

Lord REAY, the President of the Council, who presided,
remarked that this was the first occasion on which
the medal had been won by a public school for a second
time. Eton was victorious in the competition in 1905
and was again this year. In 1904 the prize was won by
Merchant Taylor's School, in 1906 by Rugby, in 1907 by
Westminster, and in 1908 by Harrow. He regarded it as
of extreme importance that the study of history generally
and of the history of India in particular should be given
in our public schools and other institutions. He was
glad to see that the importance of the subject was now
realised, and in their elementary, secondary, the higher
schools, and the Universities the study of history was
given a place in the curriculum it ought to have. Having
referred to the importance of the subject as shown by the
interest the German educational authorities were taking
in it as a study, Lord Reay said that as civilisation became
more complex questions arose which became more and
more difficult for statesmen both in the East and the
West to solve. If they were to understand their relations
with the East, and if the East were to understand
their relations with the West, it was necessary that the
study of history should be proscecuted with energy both
here and in the East. No person could engage in either
administrative or political work of any kind who had not
to a certain extent mastered the historical problems
which lay at the root of political development, and
nothing but disaster could accrue to the country where
the study of history did not obtain a foremost place.
(Hear, hear.)
Lord CURZON, before making the presentation, siad
that it gave him the greatest pleasure to be present that
afternoon, in the first place because the subject of the
victorious essay dealt with a statesman (Lord Wellesley)
who was a great Governor-General of India and a loyal
Etonian, because the winner of the medal was an Eton
boy, and he himself had enshrined deep in his heart
India and Eton with a lifelong and ardent devotion. He
regarded that competition which had been won by Mr.
Wedderburn as one of the great means which were being
adopted to popularise a knowledge of India in this
country. The ignorance about India in England was
perhaps less now than it was twenty or thirty years
ago, but still it was appalling. Sixty years ago
Lord Dalhousie, a great Governor-General, said that it
required either a great victory or a great defeat in India
to make the smallest impression upon the public mind in
England. We had fortunately passed out of the region
of acute warfare in India, but it did almost require some
similar convulsion in some other sphere to disturb public
opinion in this country about India. A little while ago
he came across a case which illustrated his meaning with
regard to the ignorance about India. A leading and very
popular English novelist had written a book, scenes in
which were laid in India. In that book he had perpetrated
the howler of making Bombay a port on the
Eastern Coast of India, in Bengal. (Laughter.) When
his mistake was pointed out to him he declined to sacrifice
the edition, which would have meant a considerable
loss out of his own pocket, but he rather humorously had
a slip of paper printed and pasted in each copy of the
edition, on which the words appeared: "It must be
understood that for the purposes of this story, and this
story only, that Bombay is in Bengal." Proceeding,
Lord Curzon said he was not quite sure that in the case
of a good many people that even that limitation would
act as an explanation. When they found that sort of
ignorance among men of culture and distinction such as
the writer to whom he had referred, it was not surprising
that it should be widespread among the general classes of
the population.

OUR IGNORANCE OF INDIA.
He truly believed that one could find a hundred men in
England who could give a correct list from memory of
Derby winners from the start for every one who could
give correctly the number and names of Indian provinces
at the present moment, or a list of the Viceroys England
had sent out to India since the Mutiny, and yet the means
of information at their disposal was great. It was a
remarkable feature of our rule in India that it had thrown
out in the last hundred years many eminent men, whose
lives had been written and whose records and careers were
well known. Scarcely any history in the world had been
better illuminated than the record of India. and if they
went to Blue-books India positively staggered under their
weight. And yet who read those Blue-books? He had
not met a single human being who would open one of
them with the exception of the members of the Royal
Asiatic Society. Another source of information was by
the occasional visits paid to India. A great many persons
went out there, and it was a remarkable thing that in proportion
to the shortness of their visit di they feel
on their return an overmastering impulse to record
their impressions in print. (Laughter.) The shorter
the time they spent in India the longer were
their speeches in the House of Commons, and the more
pretentious they were in the ignorance they showed
about India. The ignorance remained great and widespread,
and the reason he welcomed so much these competitions
was that it seemed to him they were attacking
the English public from the right point of view. It was
difficult to persuade middle-aged people to commence a
study in which they had never had an interest, and the
Society very properly went to the bottom of the scale,
took boys when they were young and tried to inspire
them with an interest in India and a knowledge about it
which might continue and influence them for the rest of
their lives. It was very desirable that public school
boys should become acquainted with the history of India.
As he entered that room a book was put into his hand,
and on opening it he saw on the first page the words:
"India should be placed first in the list of the world's
countries for she is almost certainly the birthplace of man."
That was a very cryptic observation, and it carried one
back into the region of speculation into which he did
not propose to enter. So far as he knew there was no
foundation whatever for the statement, but whether
India had or had not any relation to the original birthplace
of man it was unmistakable and indubitable that
the history, the politics, the ethnology, the religion, and
the philosophy of India had left a deeper impression
than almost any history on mankind. Look at the parts
India had played in our own history. She had been
one of the principal stepping-stones by which this
Empire had marched from a small Island Kingdom to the
greatest Empire of the world. She was at this moment
geographically by far the largest and politically one of
the most important, if not the most important, section
of the British Empire - they keystone of the arch of our
world-wide Dominion. The points which appealed to him
more than any other were the problems of administration
which India offered, they were the most complex, the most
delicate, and the most responsible that were anywhere devolving
upon the shoulders of the English race. If he were
a parent seeking a profession for his son he thought the
first thing he would do would be to cast his eye upon
India, mainly for two reasons. In the first place, if he
sent his son there he would be doing something definite
and practical and of positive value to the large masses of
human beings at a time of life when in any other
country he could only be occupying a secondary and
irresponsible place. Secondly, he would send his son
there because it opened up a field of responsibility and
activity to a young Englishman greater than any in the
world. It would open up to any young man of character
and ability who went to India, to whatever class he
belonged, the power to rise to a position in that country,
in which, before he reached the age of fifty, he might be
ruling, with almost single authority, a territory larger
than that of many European kingdoms and exercising
authority greater than many European Kings. India was
the only country in the world of which that could be
said. John Bright used to say many years ago that India
was a playground for the aristocratic classes. John
Bright had a great and genuine interest in India, tempered
with a good deal of ignorance, but he seriously seemed
to thinkt hat we kept India for the younger sons of the
aristocracy. He would like to appeal to Lord Reay, with
his experience of India, whether in his travels about the
country he ever came across those sons, the scions of a
papmpered aristocracy.

THE UNREST IN INDIA.
He believed that India would occupy a greater
share of public attention in the future than it
had done in the past. There had recently been a
wave of unrest passing over that country, resulting in
some cases in the commission of atrocious crimes, and
producing concessions and reforms from the present
Administration. Nothing could be more improper than
for him to say anything on that occasion which would
have a political complexion, and he would not say a word
as to the effect that it appeared to him those changes
wouldhave on the future of India. But it was permissable
for him to say this. Those changes would unquestionably
render the administration of India more complex,
more arduous, and more difficult in the future, and
must impose a greater strain upon those civilians called
upon to conduct the administration of the country. If
that were so, how important it was for the training up of
their young men that they should have that broad
acquaintance with Indian conditions and history of which
they were speaking, and which it was in the main the
object of those competitions to give. (Hear, hear.) He
would like to point out [text covered by page folder over]