As Tom and I bore master home, both speaking under breath;

tion of appointments in the Indian Civil Service the best men in open comamong petitive examination. The scheme of the examinations was devised by a committee which had Lord Macaulay for its chairman. The plan of this committee was meant to ensure the fair testing, not of one particular form, but of any form, of good education.

his death.

HINDOO CIVIL SERVANTS.

A MISTAKE has been made lately by the Civil Service Commissioners which is not the less grave for being the mistake of able men, who, on the whole, discharge arduous duties very efficiently. The mistake is that the commissioners have sacrificed to an official crotchet, two out of four Hindoo candidates who, at the recent open competition for the Civil Service of India, earned fairly their right to serve the Queen. Two of these four Hindoos, who won good places among the selected fifty out of three hundred and twenty-three candidates for public office in India, were civilly strangled before the altar of the said crotchet; and a third, upon the same grounds, was scarified with a reservation that might set a lasting mark upon his character. Before we tell how this was done, let us show what is meant by open competition for the Civil Service of India.

Before the year eighteen 'thirty-four no native of India could hold, under the British government of India, any high employment in the public service. But in that year an Act was passed ordaining "that no native of British India, or naturalborn subject of His Majesty, should by reason of his religion, place of birth, descent or colour, be disabled from holding any place, office or employment under the said company.' And when all imperial rights of the East India Company were resumed by the Crown, it was emphatically declared to be Her Majesty's will "that so far as may be, our subjects of whatever creed or race be fairly and impartially admitted to offices in our service, the duties of which they may be qualified by their education, ability, and integrity duly to discharge." We come now to the means taken for testing these qualifications.

Before the year eighteen hundred and fifty-three, offices in India were obtained by private interest with the East India Directors. But the old system was succeeded in that year by the annual distribu

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knowledge, a certain number of marks, and allowed candidates to offer themselves for examination in as many or as few of the twelve as they pleased. It did not enforce knowledge of Latin and Greek. A youth trained upon Latin, Greek, and Mathematics, might get to the head of the list with knowledge of that sort; but another might get to the head of the list with scarcely any knowledge of Mathematics, little Latin, and no Greek, by passing a good examination, say, in English, French, Italian, German, Geology, and Chemistry. In the scale of marks no value was given to the vernacular languages of India, which were to be studied at a later stage; but there was recognition of the two great classical languages of the East, Sanskrit and Arabic. "These two languages," said the report of the committee, are already studied by a few young men at the great English seats of learning. They can be learned as well here as in the East; and they are not likely to be studied in the East unless some attention has been paid to them here." To the native of India they are very much what Latin and Greek are to the Englishman. In the year 'fiftythree, the Indian Universities were not established; and there was practically no expectation of a native candidate from India. But, for the recognition of Sanskrit and Arabic studies in England, there were allowed to each of those subjects three hundred and seventy-five marks in a scale which gave seven hundred and fifty to Greek or Latin. The examinations thus established were conducted by the India Board till the year 'fifty-eight, when the control of them was made over by Lord Ellenborough to the Civil Service Commissioners. In the preceding year, during the mutiny, the University of Calcutta had been established.

A

The Universities of Bombay and Calcutta belong to a plan devised by the East India Company before its extinction by the Sepoy Mutiny of eighteen 'fifty-seven. despatch of the Court of Directors, prepared in the year 'fifty-four under the direction of Sir Charles Wood, laid down a

mination papers which have been set, and to the numerous native students which it has already attracted, we cannot doubt that it will afford sufficient opportunities of a sound education to enable those who receive it to compete successfully with the young men of this country in the examinations for the Civil Service of India." In the same report it was said: "They will undoubtedly be at some disadvantage as compared with natives of the United Kingdom in respect of the ordinary subjects of classical education; but this will be, in part, compensated by the greater facilities they possess as regards Sanskrit and Arabic."

In the following year, there was the first arrival from India. A Parsee came over to compete the limit of age for competitors being then twenty-three, and he in his twenty-third year. While he was working in London for examination, the limit of age was reduced to twenty-two, and he became disqualified. It was not until the year eighteen hundred and sixtythree that the first of the expected Hindoo candidates appeared in the examinationroom, in the persons of Mr. Satyendra Nath Tagore and Mr. Manomohan Ghose. In that year there were a hundred and eighty-nine competitors. Mr. Tagore of fered himself for examination in six subjects-English literature and history, English composition, French, moral science, Sanskrit and Arabic-got the highest marks of his year in Sanskrit and Arabic, passed a fair examination in his four other subjects, and came out forty-third of the selected fifty. The place of the other Hindoo candidate was outside the border line of the selected. Mr. Tagore was thus the first, and for the next six years-in fact, until last June- he was the only native Indian who won his way into the Indian Civil Service by success in open competition. He won it in June, 'sixtythree, and he did so because he could add to a competent knowledge of four other subjects, a very good knowledge of Sanskrit and Arabic. In October of the same year, the number of marks obtainable by Sanskrit was reduced from five hundred to three hundred and seventy-five!

In eighteen 'sixty-four there was a general raising of the required minimum of knowledge.

Mr. Ghose tried again once or twice and failed, and then in 'sixty-five, the limit of age was again reduced by a year, and became as it now is-twenty-one. This, of

way

of

course, put another difficulty in the native Indian candidates; who have special difficulties to overcome, in conquest of domestic prejudices, before they can, at great cost to themselves or their families, come four thousand miles to the place of examination, and there compete in a foreign language with men born to it. No wonder that a native Indian paper wrote, in January, 'sixty-six: "The impression is gaining ground amongst the people of India that the Civil Service examination is a delusion; that the Queen's proclamation is destined to remain a dead letter; and that it is useless to send to England Indian youths at enormous expense and trouble, for the chances of their success are remote."

No more Indian candidates appeared. Mr. Tagore was still the only Hindoo who had passed.

This was the state of affairs when there appeared, a few weeks ago, the list of fifty candidates selected from among three hundred and twenty-three for the Indian Civil Service, in the open competition of June, eighteen 'sixty-nine. There appeared in it not merely the name of, at last, another Hindoo, but the names of four Hindoos, who, moreover, all stood in good places among the fifty, and one of whom had the distinguished position of third in the list. It fortunately happens that this gentleman, Mr. Romesh Chunder Dutt, is not open to the technical objection brought against the other three, and adopted, by misjudgment of the commissioners, for the discrediting of one and the exclusion of two from the places they so hardly and well earned.

Of the four Hindoos who took rank among the selected candidates at the last open competition for the Indian Civil Service, three are from Calcutta, one is from Bombay. The three from Calcutta are Messrs. Dutt, Gupta, and Banerjea: who passed third, fourteenth, and thirty-eighth in the list of the selected fifty. The one from Bombay, is Mr. Thakur, who passed thirty-ninth. Messrs. Dutt and Gupta, before they came to England, had been studying for three years at Presidency College, and had passed their first examination in arts at the Calcutta University. Mr. Banerjea had studied for four years at Doveton College, and was B.A. of the Calcutta University. These gentlemen reached England in April, 'sixty-eight, entered themselves at once to classes in University College, London, and worked hard during vacation with those professors and teachers who had time to spare for them. Wherever

they became known, they made friends. They came to this country well educated, were liberal of mind, most friendly to England, amiable, upright, and indefatigably hard-working men, in character and general attainment answering to the best class of English students. They worked steadily for at least twelve, usually fourteen, fifteen, sixteen hours a day, as men well might who had staked so much as they were staking on success in the required examination. It was against their coming that they must break caste, oppose religious prejudices of their friends, cut themselves off in many things from their own people, travel four thousand miles, and maintain themselves alone in a strange country, for the chance -which experience declared to be a bad chance of beating two or three hundred Englishmen on their own ground in their own subjects of study.

Mr. Thakur, who is of a high caste Brahmin family, came from Bombay, where, after education at Elphinstone College, he had taken the degree of B.A. in his university. He arrived in England only about five months before the examination, and did not connect himself with any English college. We have heard less of his story than of the others, and only assume its general resemblance to that of the three Hindoos from Calcutta.

All these gentlemen had fulfilled every requirement of the law. Each had deposited exact evidence of his age with the commissioners, passed his examination, received formal notification of the place obtained among selected candidates, and seen it announced in the newspapers, when the difficulty was first raised which disturbed the official judgment. Justice was then tied hand and foot, and lies now in some danger of being strangled with red tape. One evening during their period of study in London, these Hindoos, being in friendly talk with fellow-countrymen (one of whom, settled in London as a teacher of his language to selected candidates, we will call Mr. Blank), were discussing what chance any of them had of offering himself for a second examination if he were rejected at the first. But, said Mr. Blank to two of them, you were entered as sixteen when you matriculated at Calcutta, and by that reckoning you would already be over twenty-one.

Now the university of Calcutta requires that a student upon matriculating should have, "to the best of his belief, attained the age of sixteen years." The university of Bombay requires that he shall have

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"completed his sixteenth year." The university of Madras sets no limit of age; and at the two other universities there is good evidence to show that there has been much looseness of practice in registering the age of students at their entrance. It is the known and legal custom of a Hindoo to reckon age by the true year of his life, or that which he will complete on his next birthday. This custom is accepted in the Indian law courts; it was fully argued and admitted, years ago, in the case of a conversion of a Hindoo boy by a missionary ; and the best evidence of its common acceptance is the rule that a Hindoo is of age when sixteen: which, in the chief text book of native law, Macnaghten's Principles, is rightly laid down as meaning that, according to the doctrine of Bengal, the end of fifteen years is the limit of minority." This is, indeed, a custom beyond question. Mr. Chisholm Anstey, who has been a judge in the Bombay High Court, adds to a statement of it, that, "according to his judgment and belief, no native of British India, upon whom the condition of attaining a certain age is imposed by law would, unless the sense thereof were previously explained to him, understand it to be a condition of having completed such age." The reader will observe that we are now coming to the mistake made by the commissioners. Misled by a reference to the Indian University Calendars, they assumed against two of these Hindoos that their age exceeded twenty-one on the first of March last. Take one as an example. Mr. Banerjea duly deposited with the commissioners, before his examination, the required evidence of the exact date of his birth: which was the tenth of November, eighteen 'forty-eight. This evidence having been accepted as sufficient, he was duly admitted to examination, and in every respect had fulfilled his part in the conditional contract by which he was tempted to leave home four thousand miles behind him. After this, in fact, the commissioners had nothing to do with the books of the Calcutta University. But grant that they had, the source of the misunderstanding was most clear. That any question could arise out of it, did not occur to the young Hindoos until they heard it first raised by their countryman, Mr. Blank, who had been for some time in England. They proposed at once to take steps to avoid future misunderstanding. But Mr. Blank, as they afterwards explained to the commissioners, and had witnesses to prove, "told us very emphatically that it would be

absurd to do so, as it would be suggesting difficulties where none existed, and that if any one had his attention drawn to the matter it was easy enough to explain it." After his countrymen had passed, Mr. Blank, for reasons best known to himself, informed against them. When called upon to explain, they did explain. But the decision of the commissioners is told in these sentences from their subsequent petition for its reconsideration, showing that they forwarded to the commissioners the explanations asked of them, and offered to procure from India further corroboration of the fact that they had in respect of age at the time of examination strictly and faithfully fulfilled the conditions required of candidates in the open competition for the Civil Service of India. That four days after their explanation had been forwarded they received letters from the secretary to the commission, informing them that the Civil Service Commissioners had carefully considered their reply, and that they removed their names from the list of selected candidates because they regarded the statement of age made by them on matriculation as 'formal and authentic evidence.' Therefore they did not so regard the affidavits sworn by the fathers of their petitioners, supported in the case of one of them by the certificate of the Honourable Dwarkanath Mitter, a judge of the High Court of Calcutta, and in the case of the other by the original of his horoscope, with his father's solemn affirmation of its genuineness."

They argued modestly in their memorial that the exact and legal evidence as to their age was not rebutted by the entries made at their matriculation in the Universities of Calcutta and Bombay, because those entries included no sworn evidence; were never designed as exact evidence of age; and, moreover, according to the custom among Hindoos, and, in the case of the Calcutta University, according to the ordinary meaning of words in the English language, they were, and are, true, and also not inconsistent with the declarations of age made before the commissioners in the more precise form then required.

Mr. Banerjea matriculated in the University of Calcutta in December, 1863. Upon matriculation he was asked his age by the Principal of the Doveton College, who was filling up a form of particulars. He replied, "Sixteen," following the universal custom of his country. He had never read, or been required to read, the Calendar of the University, or seen any

part of it in print or in writing. No part of it was read or explained to him at the time when he stated his age, nor was any intimation given to him, that by stating his age to be sixteen he would be understood to say that he had completed his sixteenth year. Again, this statement of age at matriculation was made by himself only, and no corroborative document was required of, or put in by, any relative or friend on his behalf; and upon this statement of his own was founded a certificate by the Principal of Doveton College, to the effect that Surendra Nath Banerjea had, "to the best of his belief, attained the age of sixteen years." The certificate was probably signed with a mistaken belief that the boy had completed the age of sixteen, Doveton College being attended chiefly by students who are not Hindoos. But according to the custom of his country, and according also to what happened to be the meaning of the words of the certificate, he answered truly, although he had only attained or entered upon it. For the word "attained" is defined in Johnson's Dictionary to mean, in the only connexion in which it could be applied to a period of time, "to come up to, to enter upon;" meaning, according to its etymology, to touch upon, and even, as Professor Key has shown in a page of a volume of philological essays published last year, only just to touch upon." Therefore, neither technically nor equitably, was there at that time supplied to the Civil Service Commissioners"the formal and authentic evidence" that Mr. Banerjea had, in December, 1863, completed his sixteenth year, which is held to supersede the precise and legally attested evidence which had been laid before the commissioners in due and exact accord with their requirements.

The case is one that should not have needed argument. The commissioners made short work of it by determining that they would not hear argument. They would accept nothing but a boy's loose statement of age, not made to them, made without caution, and in accordance with the custom of his country; to this they would give a false interpretation, and this, so interpreted -this evidence not properly before them— they would affirm to be "formal and authentic evidence." In favour of this, they resolved to exclude all the exact evidence of horoscope (which is, for an Indian, legally equivalent to our certificate of birth), and sworn testimony which had been produced before them, and accepted