“Another instance may be said to be still before our eyes.  Within the last hundred and twenty years a nation which had previously been in a state as barbarous as that in which our ancestors were before the Crusades has gradually emerged from the ignorance in which it was sunk, and has taken its place among civilised communities.  I speak of Russia.  There is now in that country a large educated class, abounding with persons fit to serve the state in the highest functions, and in no way inferior to the most accomplished men who adorn the best circles of Paris and London.  There is reason to hope that this vast Empire, which in the time of our grandfathers was probably behind the Punjab, may, in the time of our grandchildren, be pressing close on France and Britain in the career of improvement.  And how was this change effected?  Not by flattering national prejudices; not by feeding the mind of the young Muscovite with the old woman’s stories which his rude fathers had believed; not by filling his head with lying legends about St. Nicholas; not by encouraging him to study the great question, whether the world was or was not created on the 13th of September; not by calling him ‘a learned native,’ when he has mastered all these points of knowledge; but by teaching him those foreign languages in which the greatest mass of information had been laid up, and thus putting all that information within his reach.  The languages of western Europe civilised Russia.  I cannot doubt that they will do for the Hindoo what they have done for the Tartar.”

This Minute, which in its original shape is long enough for an article in a quarterly review, and as businesslike as a Report of a Royal Commission, set the question at rest at once and for ever.  On the 7th of March, 1835, Lord William Bentinck decided that “the great object of the British Government ought to be the promotion of European literature and science among the natives of India;” two of the Orientalists retired from the Committee of Public Instruction; several new members, both English and native, were appointed; and Macaulay entered upon the functions of President with an energy and assiduity which in his case was an infallible proof that his work was to his mind.

The post was no sinecure.  It was an arduous task to plan, found, and construct, in all its grades, the education of such a country as India.  The means at Macaulay’s disposal were utterly inadequate for the undertaking on which he was engaged.  Nothing resembling an organised staff was as yet in existence.  There were no Inspectors of Schools.  There were no training colleges for masters.  There were no boards of experienced managers.  The machinery consisted of voluntary committees acting on the spot, and corresponding directly with the superintending body at Calcutta.  Macaulay rose to the occasion, and threw himself into the routine of administration and control with zeal sustained by diligence and tempered by tact.  “We were hardly prepared,”