The young
orators of the Oxford Union arrived at the same conclusions and
showed doubtless just the same enthusiasm. If there were any
political analogy between India and England, if the thousand
races of this Empire were one, if there were any chance even of
their learning to speak one language, if, in short, India were a
Utopia of the debating-room, and not a real land, this kind of talk
might be worth listening to, but it is all based on false analogy and
ignorance of the facts."
"But he is a native and knows the facts."
"He is a sort of English schoolboy, but married three years, and the
father of two weaklings, and knows less than most English
schoolboys. You saw all he is and knows, and such ideas as he has
acquired are directly hostile to the most cherished convictions of
the vast majority of the people."
"But what does he mean by saying he is a student of a mission
college? Is he a Christian?"
"He meant just what he said, and he is not a Christian, nor ever
will he be. Good people in America, Scotland and England, most
of whom would never dream of collegiate education for their own
sons, are pinching themselves to bestow it in pure waste on Indian
youths. Their scheme is an oblique, subterranean attack on
heathenism; the theory being that with the jam of secular
education, leading to a University degree, the pill of moral or
religious instruction may he coaxed down the heathen gullet.
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