द ब्यूटीफुल ट्री: १८वीं सदी में भारत की स्वदेशी गुरुकुल शिक्षा (धर्मपाल)

In reply to your request for the sources of my own knowledge of the history of education in India, I would refer you to the sources quoted in the report of the Calcutta University Commission of which I was Chairman (Interim Report of the Indian Statutory Commission, H.M. Stationery Office, Cmd. 3407,1929), and especially to the literacy figures, taken from the census reports and quoted on p.382 of Vol.1 of the Simon Report, which I subjoin:— In 1911 the figure for British India was 12%; and in 1881 8%. It has always to be remembered that these percentages are adversely affected by the existence of nearly 20,000,000 aboriginals and hill tribes, as well as by the educational backwardness of a far greater number of ‘untouchables’. You will notice that the figure for males for British India increased from 8% in 1881 (50 years ago) to 12% in 1911 and 14.4% in 1921, not a rapid increase, but still an increase. In Travancore and Cochin you have a large number of Indian Christians. In Baroda the system of compulsory primary education taken from Western models, began to be introduced in 1893. The census figures, as you well see, are in complete contradiction with your assertion that literacy has diminished in British India in the last fifty years. The figures for Hyderabad (preponderatingly Hindu with a Mohammedan ruler), and for Kashmir (preponderatingly Muslim with a Hindu ruler) seem inexplicable if you attribute illiteracy to British administration. I would refer you also to the chapter on Education which I have contributed to ‘Modern India’ (Oxford University Press, 1931), and finally to a work by an advanced Indian political thinker, the late Lala Lajpat Rai (National Education in India, 1920), whose views, though in many ways opposed to your own, I am sure you would find interesting. I welcome your decision, of which I felt assured beforehand, that you will immediately correct your statement, if you are convinced that it is erroneous, and I look forward to your doing so. Believe me, Yours sincerely, Sd/- Philip Hartog 350