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places as London, York, Liverpool, Durham, and Exeter; and you will yearly qualify five hundred persons fitted for diffusing a perfect system of instruction all over the country. These training seminaries will not only teach the masters the branches of learning in which they are now deficient, but will teach them what they know far less, the didactic art,-the mode of imparting the knowledge they have or may acquire, -the best methods of training and dealing with children, in all that regards temper, capacity, and habits, and the means of stirring them to exertion and controlling their aberrations."

How far these long-sighted anticipations have been justified by results, we need not stay here to prove. All we urge is, that, if it be true of this country, and if the testimony be confirmed, as it most assuredly is, in both Europe and the United States, there can be no reason why the same rule should not apply to India.

But if India require well-trained masters for its schools, why must they all be native? Why should not England help to supply the market? Because, to be really and widely effective, the masters must teach in the vernacular language. Is it not obvious that knowledge will be much more accurate when imparted in a language already familiar, than when the medium used is a foreign tongue? Does not all experience prove that we cannot evangelize a nation through a foreign language? Does not all history prove, that a country, though conquered, ever clings to its own mother tongue? Why has the English language covered the United States? Only because the native races have been exterminated. On the other hand, in Wales, where the native population remains, the native tongue is still the dearest to the people; even though efforts the most violent and persevering have been made, since the days of queen Elizabeth, for the purpose of supplanting it. The same may be said of the Irish. So long as we attempted to protestantize the Roman Catholic population of the south and west of Ireland through the medium of English, we failed. But when the Irish Society sent forth its Irish-speaking readers, they were welcomed as friends, and made converts rapidly. Can we wonder? The foreign tongue is necessarily an exotic plant, capable only of being reared within favored spots, and under artificial culture. The vernacular, as indigenous, will find sympathy everywhere; and it will improve under proper cultivation, with a power and success which is both astonishing and cheering. Besides which, in India the conflict would not lie between the English language and one mother tongue, but between the English and fourteen vernaculars, each spoken by millions of people, and all of them as distinct as Dutch is from Italian, or Spanish from German.

We are quite ready to allow that the offer of an English education to many of the native youths of India would be a great temptation to their entrance into Christian schools. Dr. Duff has proved this. Yet there is no stronger advocate for the entire exclusion of English from village teaching than Dr. Duff himself.

He tells us, that even in the case of the more clever and capable youths, six years would be needed as the very minimum for acquiring an effective knowledge of English. To attempt it in a shorter time, would be "strength lavishly and fruitlessly wasted in the substitution of a very imperfect and inaccurate knowledge of it, with a still smaller knowledge of other things, for that higher education through the vernacular which, while giving full and accurate information of a practical kind, would, at the same time, strengthen the mind." But the greatest difficulty would arise in the supply of teachers. For while a native, who was conversant with the vernacular alone, would be satisfied with such a moderate allowance as might be fairly expected from village communities earnestly desirous of instruction for their children, the veriest smatterer in English would be a dissatisfied and heartless grumbler were he to be offered any less than double or treble that sum." To proceed on the Anglo-vernacular principle would, therefore, be ruinously expensive. In short, it would defeat the object it was intended to promote.

Under these circumstances, we naturally turn to the various missionary societies labouring in this vast field, for the purpose of seeing whether they can furnish India with what is wanted. But, alas, they have no means of training up a proper supply even for their own schools; much less for supplying any portion of these 32,000,000 of neglected children lying beyond them! One missionary, writing from Ceylon, says, "There are many vernacular mission schools among the Singhalese, but in general they are comparatively of little use, owing to the incompetency of the teachers. We are working with blunt tools." Another writes. from Assam, "For want of a Christian teacher, I am just now obliged to defer the establishment of a school in the midst of a heathen population of 6000 souls." Amongst others, the bishop of Madras thus expresses himself: "The greatest want we have is, without doubt, able native Christian schoolmasters, men who feel really sensible of the importance and value of the office." The following statement was also lately made by an eminent missionary,—“The great want is good schoolmasters. We have the scriptures, preachers of the word, tracts, and various other means of instruction; but there is a great lack of qualified teachers— Christian schoolmasters; and without these, all efforts will be productive of but little good."

These are melancholy admissions; and their significance becomes the more painful, when we learn that many of the inefficient teachers here spoken of, are not only untrained, in the proper sense of the word, but are openly and avowedly heathen. we wonder at the slow progress of Christianity among the young, Can under such circumstances? What inducement can the pupils have to declare themselves Christians, when they see that posts of trust and influence are thus committed by the missionaries them

Vol. 59.-No. 272.

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selves to men who still remain unbaptized? It is alleged by the Missionary Societies, that sad as the case may appear, it is an inevitable necessity; that an efficient supply of trained Christian teachers is not to be had; and that, therefore, multitudes of heathen children must either remain untaught altogether, or be taught, in many instances, by such masters. We are inclined to dispute this necessity. We believe it arises from the fact that, at present, the preparation of vernacular teachers is chiefly carried on by the missions in establishments which are devoted to the study of the English language,-a mixture which is found by experience to work very prejudicially to the interests of vernacular education. These English institutions are no more adapted for raising up an effective set of elementary village schoolmasters in India, than the universities of Oxford and Cambridge would be for a similar purpose in this country. They elevate the natives into a position of importance, from which they will not afterwards descend to embrace the drudgery of village schools. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions felt this so strongly a few years ago, that they withdrew all instruction in the English language from the regular course of study in their seminaries, and reorganized them on a vernacular basis. Even Dr. Duff, who may be called the apostle of English education in India, and the late Calcutta Missionary Conference also, emphatically declare that for training vernacular teachers they must have schools which are quite distinct" from English institutions, and in localities which European society has not reached :

"In order to answer the purpose for which they are trained, the village teachers must, with reference to food, style of dress, house accommodation, and personal bearing, generally retain much of their own primitively simple and inexpensive habits. Now all experience has taught us that the ways and appliances of city life are, as a general rule, utterly incompatible with the retention of such habits. It ought, therefore, to be a settled point-settled definitely and at once that a rural locality in the very heart of a dense rural population, capable of furnishing abundance of pupils on which to exercise the gifts of the normal students, and that alone, should be the site of any vernacular normal institution."

Necessary, however, as this condition of things is here declared to be, it is a melancholy fact that at present there are only two such missionary vernacular training colleges in all India. The consequence is what we have before described-vernacular schools inefficiently conducted, an indigenous church imperfectly educated, and a native pastorate only just in its infancy.

What, then, is to be done? If well trained Christian vernacular teachers be the great educational want for 33,000,000 of children of British India, how are they to be obtained? If each missionary society can only be expected, at the best, to qualify teachers for its own schools, how are they to be obtained for the 32,000,000

of children who remain in the back ground? Is the church of Christ to stand still, and see a non-christian government covering this gigantic residuum with a knowledge only which "puffeth up?" The time may come, and that very unexpectedly, when the government will change its present policy, and when, as a consequence, the Bible being open in its schools, Christian teachers will be suddenly demanded. Ought we not to be ready?

It would be far beyond the limits of this article to do more than insist upon the duty. Whether the Christian Vernacular Education Society will ever effect the object it proposes, which, to a great extent, harmonizes with the principles here contended for, it is impossible for us to say. Looking, however, to the fearful darkness which still broods over Hindostan, and contemplating the frightful contingencies of the future, if England shall continue to allow her 32,000,000 of Indian children to be systematically excluded from all Christian instruction, we cannot but rejoice in such an effort as a happy sign of the times. To say the least of that effort, it is an attempt to solve a great problem, and an earnest large-hearted contribution toward the regeneration of India,-which, whatever its issue may be, is, we think, deserving of attention. The Lord grant, of his mercy, that we may all seek India's good; and never rest till, by our many multiplied agencies, its entire population shall bow the knee to Jesus!

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

Dr. Livingstone's Cambridge Lectures. Edited by the Rev. William Monk, M.A., &c. &c. Second Edition. Deighton, Bell, and Co., Cambridge; Bell and Daldy, London. 1860. 1 Vol., small 8vo. DR. Livingstone's larger volume, containing the full account of his discoveries in Central Africa, was eagerly expected, rapidly bought-up, and little read. Scientific men appreciated its merits, but religious people were rather severe upon its faults. And one fault it had which to the general reader is unpardonable-it was not very interesting. The narrative was confused, and wherever the book opened sameness prevailed; so that few purchasers probably read the book entirely through. Serious readers had another ground of complaint; they did not find that high tone of spiritual religion which they had been led to expect. In this perhaps they were unreasonable. Dr. Livingstone is a simple practical man, of earnest and enlightened piety; but still a enterprise rather than of meditative thought, a pioneer of missions rather than a missionary. He has now returned to Africa, in what we conceive to be his proper character-that of a Christian traveller; not

man of

that of a Christian teacher. His enterprise is a noble one, well worthy of all the sacrifices he makes, and of all the sympathy and encouragement he receives. It has been given him to bring to light a new continent; and we cannot reasonably expect that he should be at once the Columbus and the St. Paul of Central Africa. For it is true in spiritual things as in maritime discovery

"That time did never to one man allow,

Both to discover worlds and conquer too."

This smaller volume is, therefore, likely to be more popular than its more bulky and expensive predecessor. Dr. Livingstone's two lectures, with Professor Sedgwick's well-written and very interesting preface, give as much information on the subject of his African discoveries as will satisfy most readers. There are, besides, a sketch of the great traveller's life, and a number of letters addressed to various correspondents by Dr. Livingstone since his return to Africa. Nor ought we to overlook Mr. Monk's appendix, in which he discusses Dr. Livingstone's explorations and discoveries under four aspects; namely, the Historical, the Scientific, the Ethnological, and the Moral and Religious. Under the last of these we have a discussion on African missions, the earnest and devout spirit of which we cannot but admire. Mr. Monk writes his book with the avowed design of promoting the new "Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin Mission." Nor against this have we anything to object when the motive is candidly set before the reader, "in a book," says Mr. Monk, "originally published with the direct object of promoting such a cause, and designedly republished as a handbook for the same." Where the field is so vast, no jealousies ought to interfere between different societies. Yet we cannot say that this new scheme of missions has won our confidence. If we are asked, why not? we answer, For one thing, it begins in too boastful a spirit; and in illustration of what we mean, we will only quote the very next sentence of our author. "One of our most distinguished prelates characterized this mission as being the greatest event which has happened in our church since the reformation. This is no over estimate." More humility would surely become a society which has not yet made one convert, nor really established a single mission. We are dissatisfied again, because we suspect that the promoters of the Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin Mission have something more in view than the conversion of Africa. What is the meaning of the very next sentence which falls from Mr, Monk's pen ? "Its influence at home may revolutionize (so much to be desired) the present prevailing plan of sending out Christian missions." We must know what the revolutionists mean to give us in the place of our "present prevailing plan," before we can echo their somewhat premature shout of triumph. Our present plan, as carried out, for instance, by the Church Missionary Society for more than half a century, seems to us to possess many advantages over that of its youthful rival: at least it has a more chastened spirit; the ripe fruit of many a failure, and the consequence of many a painful lesson, sent, no doubt, to teach the utter inadequacy of the best-laid schemes, carried out by the wisest agents. At present, then, we prefer the older and well-tried society. Still, if this new model of missions should prove successful, not in setting up skeleton churches, and peopling them with the "dry bones" of baptised but uncon

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