The Marquess Wellesley, K.G. in India, 1798-1805 : an essay : [manuscript]

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[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]

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ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. [line] The anniversary meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society was held at 22, Albemarle-street, yesterday. Lord REAY, who presided, referred to the Peace Conference at The Hague, at which he was associated with Sir Ernest Satow. On the foundation which they then laid there was recently built the additional edifice of the Naval Conference which had passed several resolultions as a result of the prepatory work done at the Peace Conference. He regretted however, that the Naval Conference did not take place before the Peace Conference. He congratulated Dr. Grierson on having been presented by the Prince of Wales with the Triennial Gold Medal of the Society this year for services to Oriental scholarship, and announced that Lord Curzon would shortly present the Society's Public School Gold Medal to Mr. A. H. M. Wedderburn, of Eton, for an essay. Referring to the deputation which recently waited on the President of the Board of Education with regard to the Indian Museum, Lord Reay said he believed the speeches of Lord Curzon and others must have convinced Mr. Runciman and the officials present of the immense importance attaching to the separate existence of the Indian Museum. It would be little less than a scandal if an inquirer asked for the Indian collection and had to be told that it had been scattered. Unless that colleciton were maintained as a separate one it would not attract gifts from Indian Princes and other rich natives. He hoped the valuable collection of Dr. Stein would find a place there.

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ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY.

[two labeled photos]

MR. WEDDERBURN LORD CURZON

Lord Curzon of Kedleston yesterday presented the gold medal of the Royal Asiatic Society to Mr. A. H. M. Wedderburn, of Eton College, for the best essay on a subject connected with India. - (Daily Mirror photographs.)

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