by parents who have never been drawn into any contact, however remote, with Western ideas or Western knowledge.  From these purely Indian surroundings his parents, who are willing to stint themselves in order that their son may get a post under Government, send him to a secondary school, let us say in the chief town of the district, or in a University city.  There again he boards with friends of his family, if they have any, or in more or less reputable lodgings amidst the same purely Indian surroundings, and his only contact with the Western world is through school-books in a foreign tongue, of which it is difficult enough for him to grasp even the literal meaning, let alone the spirit, which his native teachers have themselves too often only, very partially imbibed and are therefore quite unable to communicate[18].  From the secondary school he passes for his University course, if he gets so far, in precisely the same circumstances into a college which is merely a higher form of school.  Whilst attending college our student still continues to live amidst the same purely Indian surroundings, and his contact with the Western world is still limited to his text-books.  Even the best native teacher can hardly interpret that Western world to him as a trained European can, and unless our student intends to become a doctor or an engineer, and has to pass through the schools of medicine or engineering, where he is bound to be a good deal under English teachers, he may perfectly well, and very often does, go through his whole course of studies in school and in college without ever coming into personal contact with an Englishman.  How can he be expected under such conditions to assimilate Western knowledge or to form even a remote conception of the customs and traditions, let alone the ideals, embodied in Western knowledge?

Try and imagine for a moment, however absurd it may seem, what would have been the effect upon the brains of the youth of our own country if it had been subject to Chinese rule for the last 100 years, and the Chinese, without interfering with our own social customs or with our religious beliefs, had taken charge of higher education and insisted upon conveying to our youth a course of purely Chinese instruction imparted through Chinese text-books, and taught mainly by Englishmen, for the most part only one degree more familiar than their pupils with the inwardness of Chinese thought and Chinese ethics.  The effect could hardly have been more bewildering than the effect produced in many cases similar to that which I have instanced on the brain of the Indian youth when he emerges from our schools and colleges.