DEL IMPUESTO SOBRE ESPECTÁCULOS PÚBLICOS

would create "difficulty *•• in parliament* 11 On 11 July, he wrote to Canning:

They are getting up a great agitation here for a bible class in school hours, the attendance to be quite

voluntary* I am sorry for it for I believe my dispatch lays down the true ground on which education in India should be based* They are very angry with Stanley's dispatch which asks for information on every other point and lays down the principle on this alone*

The mutiny had made him all the more concerned about the "danger *** of a national religious movement* 11 Bible classes in government schools may, he wrote to Canning, "be considered as an attempt at

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See below* B*T* McCully has discussed the development of higher and secondary education during the third quarter of the nineteenth century at some length (op* cit*, pp* 145-66)*

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Paras* 59-61*

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Wood to Elphinstone, 2 September 1 8 5 9, W*P*

proselytizing & ••• produce a feeling against us in a political 58

sense* 11 On 1 August, he told the House of Commons of the need

to ”be very careful not to give the Natives of India any reason” / to suspect the government of wishing ”to attack the religious

feelings and prejudices which they ••• [held]] so dear*” If the country was to be retained "in peace and tranquillity” it was necessary to ”take care so to govern it as • •• to consult *••

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the feelings of the Native p o p u l a t i o n * ” But even if forming

Bible classes did not create a political problem, it might still impede the extension of education* It tfmight convert the in-* difference now shown as to missionary labours into hostility*”^ As the missionaries comprised the major English agency for

establishing schools on the grants— in-aid principle, this was a serious matter* Further, forming Bible classes would give ”any fanatical Native a right to say that the Govt* school ••* [ was] made an engine of proselytism*” ”He would withdraw his children,” Wood reflected later, ”& the real good which they get, & the real

learning ••• would be lost so far as the children are concerned*”8* During August, Wood faced a powerful array of agitators,

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”encouraged by Sir g* Lawrence1s authority” , for the discreet

58Letter of 26 July 1859, W.P. ^ Hansard, civ, col* 7 8 1#

8<^Wood to Trevelyan, 26 July 1 8 5 9, W*P* 8 *Wood to Denison, 27 February 1 8 6 5, W*P*

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Wood to Canning, 26 July 1859? see also Baring to Clerk, 23 September i860, Clerk Papers; R* Bosworth Smith, Life of Lord Lawrence, 2 vols*, London 1 8 8 3, II, p* 377*

introduction of Bible classes* He wrote to Canning: "Palmerston and I had a deputation of the Archbishop of Canterbury^ D* of

63 Marlborough, Lord Shaftesbury etc about the Bible in schools• " Wood made a small concession to the deputation, allowing that

1finstruction in the Bible might be given out of school hours to voluntary applicants; • #• and [that^ if the applicants formed themselves into a class there ••• [would be3 no objection# It

would be permitted "to schoolmasters to assemble, for % an hour before or after school hours, any pupils who attended voluntarily, & to

teach them Christianity - of course a Mahomedan or Hindoo teacher 6r

might in like manner teach Islamism or Hindooisra*" The concession averted the "difficulty" which Wood had expected in parliament

during the 1 8 5 9 session* And when, a year later, the Duke of Marlborough brought a motion before the Lords for the removal of ,fthe authoritative exclusion of the Word of God from the course of education afforded in the Government coDeges and schools,"

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discussion of the question was unceremoniously gagged* Even 6 7

Shaftesbury pleaded with Marlborough not to bring in his motion*

^ 2 6 August 1 8 5 9, W*P* 64 .

Ibid*

Wood to Elgin, 4 May 1 8 6 3, W*P#

^ H a n s a r d , clix, 2 July i8 6 0, cols* 1237-53# See also the Lords' peremptory dismissal of a petition, drawn on similar lines, which the Bishop of Oxford laid before them on 6 July i860 (ibid*,

cols* 1514-7)*

Wood avoided conflict with the missionaries by steering the course of impartiality* About the time of Marlborough's motion, he feared that Canning was giving them "a handle to make attacks on the irreligious and un-Christian character" of the

68

government in India* In October 1859t Wood had proscribed the

6 9

appointment of missionaries as "inspectors"* Canning had declared "that a person engaged •*• as a Missionary shall not

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be employed in the Education Department*" Wood complained that 71

this was an unnecessary extension of his instruction*

Missionaries could "not be supposed to be impartial in the

inspection of schools" but they might still be employed "in certain places connected with education"* He stressed that during the 1859 elections in England, "everybody ••• was attacked" over the

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government's allegedly "placing a ban on the Bible*" He did

"not wish in any way to give an opportunity to the fanatical people to make an attack*" Throughout his term at the India Office, he kept to the letter of his 1859 arrangement with the missionaries concerning Bible classes* During 1 8 6 4 and 1865, he censured the

Wood to Canning, 27 June i860, W*P» 6 Q

S* of S* to G*G* in C*, 14 October (Educational No* 15) 1859*

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Government of India Notification of 30 March (No* 8 6) l860»in Coll* to Educ* Desps*, vol* 65 Canning to Wood, 6 August i860, W*P*

7*Wood to Canning, 27 June i860; S* of S* to G*G* in C«, 9 August (Educ* No* 8 6) i860*

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Governor of Madras for going beyond it by allowing schoolmasters 73 ftto form Bible classes in connection with Government schools«,f He drew a distinction between combining voluntary applicants into a class, and forming a class and inviting pupils to attend it, even though in each case the class assembled out of school hours* Nothing must be done by the schoolmaster which had "the appearance of Govt* influence, or the influence derived from his 74 situation under Govt*, being brought to bear upon the pupils*"

On the other hand, Wood censured the Director of Public Instruction at Bombay for being "disposed to refuse sanction to schoolmasters giving information on the Bible or Christian religion, at times

75