পাতা:সাহিত্য পরিষৎ পত্রিকা (দ্বিতীয় ভাগ).pdf/২১৮

( 18 ) achieved in the last half-century, of the great principle of vernacular education in secondary studies, I do not consider it necessary to re-open the question ;-the only debateable grounds are (II) whether, as a matter of fact, an organisation of vernacular studies is worked into the course of secondary instruction that leads up to our University, and (2) whether, if this is not so, it is not necessary that, in order to secure this result, as well as for other reasons applicable to the peculiar circumstances of this country, that the University should give a separate recognition to the vernacular by appointing text-books for the Entrance and F. A. Examinations, instead of merely setting a paper of translation or original composition at either examination. I have already stated (1) that, in Higher English Schools, no well-orgamised and systematic course of vernacular instruction is pursued as a matter of fact, (2) that the University alone can give effect to the principle and in the way I have mentioned, and (3) that the peculiar circumstances of this country, displacing the vernacular in the University from most of its normal and legitimate spheres, make such a recognition doubly necessary. I have said I do not wish to enter into the grounds that may be urged in favour of a vernacular education in the secondary stage in addition to a classical grounding, as that question has been fought out as a historic cause celebre, and the vernacularists have achieved a memorable triumph; but I may be pardoned if I briefly touch on one consideration, which, as inapplicable to European countries, has never been urged before in the Controversy as carried on in Europe but which is of paramount importance in its bearing on this country and its people. One reason why the educated Bengali is intellectually barren is that he is an intellectual hybrid. Biologists tell us that in the case of a cross between two species the organisation of cells and tissues goes on too imperfectly for the complete differentiation of the reproductive from the Somatic cells, and there is consequent sterility of the hybrid offspring. The mental organisation of the present day educated Bengali with its incoherent and imperfectly integrated layers of tissues furnished by two hostile and uncongenial civilizations, resembles too closely the condition of a hybrid in the Animal Kingdom to reach that stage of reproductive maturity in which life gives of life, and the death of the indivi. dual is but a step in the endless, the ever-renewed resurrection of the species. Thus it is that the great meeting point of two civilizations in India, instead of giving birth to a new and invigorated stock, has been bringing forth an ever-dwindling race of pigmies. The promise of our golden harves has turned to ashes and stubble: Saxon and Norman of old built up the all-conquering English type, the sovereign type of the world. to-day ;-the Vaterland and the Giant Republic of the Far-West, have witnessed mighty broods brought forth of the commingling of races and civilizations -the