HL Deb 17 July 1876 vol 230 cc1465-9
LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY

rose to ask the Secretary of State for India, If he will move the Civil Service Commissioners to re-distribute the marks given at the examination for Indian appointments so as to notify that Sanskrit, Arabic, or Persian are more important than German and Italian for Indian Civil Servants; and to ask him to take into consideration the expediency of making one of those three Eastern classical languages obligatory on probationers before proceeding to India; and to call the attention of the House to Colonel Yule's recommendation that a small defined number of men who have taken honours at the Universities should be nominated to the Indian Civil Service without competition. The noble Lord said that the three propositions which he had placed on the Notice Book were quite separate; but the second was the one to which he attributed most importance, and against which the fewest objections could be raised. Under the Rules of the Civil Service Commissioners, the languages and literature of Germany and Italy received 375 marks in the preliminary examination, and the same number of marks were assigned to Sanskrit and Arabic; and he wished to urge a redistribution of the marks in respect of the relative value of these languages, because the knowledge of German and Italian was inferior as an educational study to the knowledge of Sanskrit and Arabic; and because Italian and German were comparatively useless and unimportant for Indian Civil Servants, whilst the study of either Sanskrit, Arabic, or Persian might be considered as absolutely essential for them:—and not only that—the acquirement of either of these languages by an unsuccessful candidate would qualify him for other employment, and consequently the time he had devoted to the study would not be time wasted. It would be too much to ask that one of these Indian classical languages should be required of all candidates at the first examination, but he thought that a larger number of marks assigned to these languages would in- crease the number of students taking them up. Another stronger argument in favour of his proposition was that even a moderate knowledge of Sanskrit, enough, say, to pass an examination in the Hitopadésa, would give the student a grounding and a considerable start in the acquisition of Guzeratti, Bengali, Mahratti, and other vernacular dialects of India, which bore the same relation to Sanskrit that the new Latin languages did to Latin, and a knowledge of Sanskrit was as necessary for the vernacular dialects of India, as was that of Latin for good scholarship in French, Spanish, or Portuguese. Some knowledge of Sanskrit would also be of great assistance to the student of Hindustani, Malay, and other languages, into the vocabularies of which it entered largely. One of the writers in the Blue Book, whose opinion was asked on the point, remarked, with truth, on the difficult character of Sanskrit, and in a less degree of Arabic—difficulties which were more easily overcome earlier rather than later in life. The late Viceroy (Lord Northbrook) referred to the fact that the instruction in Sanskrit and Arabic to be obtained in India was inferior to that which might be obtained in England; but the best reason for insisting on the study of the Eastern classics in England was that the Civil Servants, when once in India, would probably not find time for Sanskrit or Arabic. The importance of Arabic could not be overrated. Some knowledge of it was necessary for the study of modern Persian, and it entered very largely into the vocabulary of Hindostani. The Arabic language was current from the Atlantic to the Pacific—and it was unnecessary to say anything of the value of its literature. Persian, though not a classical language in the sense of which Sanskrit and Arabic might be so described—for unlike them its grammar was as simple as that of English—deserved the place which the late Governor General and others in the Blue Book had given to it among the studies to be required from probationers before proceeding to India. Much of the Hindostani vocabulary was derived from Persian, and a knowledge of it was necessary for the higher Officers in the North-West Provinces and part of the Bombay Presidency. From his own experience at Cambridge and Paris he knew the value of tuition in Eastern languages in Europe, and he doubted whether he should ever have acquired the little he knew of any Eastern language without having first obtained a grounding in them there. In conclusion, the noble Lord quoted the following opinion of Colonel Yule as given in his Minute of the 22nd of January last in support of the third proposition in his Notice:— Taking the mass of our candidates young, I should be disposed to support also the scheme which would provide for the nomination of a small, defined number of older men who had taken honours at the Universities without competition. In this way we should get a few men of maturer culture who might be valuable in various special lines of employment.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

said, his noble Friend (Lord Stanley of Alderley) wished the Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit languages to be included in the competitive examination by which candidates for the Indian Civil Service were selected, and also to enter into the probationary course through which the candidates had to pass before proceeding to India. Now, the object of the competitive examination was not to select persons ready at once to take part in the Indian Civil Service, but to select the raw material out of which Indian Civil servants might be manufactured. The probationary course was the process of that manufacture, and those languages to which the noble Earl referred might form a part of that course. But, if they allowed those languages to be a principal element in the preliminary competitive examination, they would not attain their object—which was to get the best educated English youth of the time. Therefore he could not recommend any great change in the arrangement of subjects for the preliminary examination. Butas to the subsequent probationary course, there was such an amount of authority in favour of the cultivation of Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian that his noble Friend might rest satisfied there was no danger of their being neglected. The third part of his noble Friend's Question raised on a very small point a very large controversy—namely, as to competitive examination. Now, he (the Marquess of Salisbury) was himself no superstitious admirer of competitive examination, and if sufficient cause were shown he would not object, in certain cases, to an alter- native system. But the principle of competitive examination had this advantage—that it was suited to our present social and political condition. It did not inflict a sense of injury or of inequality in those persons who might be anxious to obtain appointments in the Civil Service; while it also saved our public men from the temptation, or—what was still more important—from the suspicion of using their patronage for Party ends. For those objects—and especially for the last—competitive examination, though it might not be the best system that could be devised, was a good one; and from what he had seen of official life, he thought in these days the position of the head of a Public Office would be simply intolerable but for that system; whatever effect it might have on the candidates or the public, it was the very charter of safety to the heads of those Departments. But it nevertheless had drawbacks. For instance, it treated literary proficiency as if it were the sole qualification, or rather as if it were a sufficient guarantee, for all other qualifications requisite for the government of men—whereas there were historical examples in which men of no literary proficiency whatever had shown remarkable fitness for the government of men and the administration of kingdoms. But, whatever those drawbacks might be, they had the satisfaction of knowing that in the opinion of the highest Indian authorities they had not been serious. Moreover, the suggestion of his noble Friend that they should take men who had won University honours would not meet the difficulty of the case. If there was any other way of getting at the qualities they required besides literary proficiency to fit men for high position, he should be glad to know it. For himself he had given up the search in despair. In their present political condition he did not think any principle of selection which savoured of nomination would work satisfactorily. He was now only speaking of the Indian Civil Service, with which he was acquainted.

EARL GRANVILLE

said, he quite agreed with the noble Marquess as to the two reasons he had given in favour of competitive examination. He could not conceive of a more complete answer to the objections which had been taken to that system than was furnished by the Blue Book on that subject. The evi- dence contained in those Papers was most conclusive that not only did the principle of competitive examination enable them to avoid the difficulty of selection on which the noble Marquess had laid great stress, but also to hit upon a method which, upon the whole, gave them the best material for their purpose. With regard to any advantages to be held out to young men undergoing a probationary training for the Indian Civil Service at the Universities, he hoped that the University of London would not be excluded from the benefits of such an arrangement. Young men trained at King's College and University College, London, would not only have the advantages of University discipline and instruction, but could follow the practice of the Courts much better in London than in a University town.

In reply to Lord WAVENEY,

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY,

said, that in the regulations which had been made in reference to the teaching of the languages in question, there had been no desire to make any special provision which should be more favourable to Oxford or Cambridge than to any other University, but simply that an advantage should be given to the University which made provision for such teaching. The University of London had a concrete form, various Colleges being combined with it. There was nothing in the regulations which limited them to Oxford and Cambridge, and it might be desirable to bring the University of London within them.