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YEAR has elapsed since the Civil Service of India was actually thrown open to general competition, and though the results of the new system can scarcely as yet be spoken of with confidence, it is now time to say a few words as regards both the prospects and training of the successful competitors, and the influence they may exercise on the condition of India and its population. It will be in the recollection of our readers that, about a year and a half ago, there appeared before the public a Report signed by the Commissioners appointed by Sir Charles Wood to consider the question of throwing open the Indian Service. The gentlemen who affixed their names to the document were, Lord Ashburton, an enlightened nobleman; Mr. J. G. Lefevre, who from his position must have enjoyed ample opportunities of observing the effect of various kinds of training, on the character and conduct of public men; the Rev. H. Melvill, the eloquent preacher and Principal of Haileybury, who for more than ten years has seen about forty or fifty young men annually depart from the institution of the Hon. Company to their vocation in the East; Mr. Jowett, whose influence over a large section of young men of first-rate talents at Oxford can hardly be over-estimated; and Mr. T. B. Macaulay. We have no doubt that each of the above gentlemen contributed to the common stock a valuable addition from their different experience, careful observation, and matured views. But the essay, for it is nothing else, which combined or consolidated their opinions, can have proceeded only from one hand. There is, indeed, no mistaking the polished style, the graceful diction, the rich illustration, the antithesis, sometimes humorous and always pointed and effective, the acquaintance with Indian topics, the appeal to great English names, the temperate vindication of historical knowledge, the resolute assertion of a classical standard of taste, which mark the early and the late pub

lications of the great essayist, orator, poet, and historian of the day. Any one who has had to wade through piles of dreary official documents, must have wished that Blue-books, and Reports in general, could always be placed before him in the same attractive dress. This literary production-which doubtless found itself strangely misplaced during its official circulation, and which, if printed leaves can feel, must have sighed for the congenial society of the Edinburgh Review-we purpose now to consider. It lays down general principles for the education. of the future civil servant. It opens to him a large field of study, and in some measure defines the bounds of his knowledge. It gives him a choice of many languages. It refers him to certain authors; and somewhat vaguely, it indicates certain forms and periods of study to be observed. We must remark that, with the exception of Mr. Macaulay, not one of the Commissioners had ever been in India. nor, with the exception of Mr. Melvill, had any one of them, that we know of, ever turned their attention to Indian subjects. This, however, is quite in keeping with the principles of English state-craft.

We shall dismiss briefly the first part of the Report. Wisely and judiciously did the Commissioners give due prominence in the scheme of examination to those classical and mathematical studies which the experience of many generations and the consent of great authorities have shown to be the best calculated to strengthen, enrich, and adorn the mind. With equal judgment did they secure a fair hearing for the advocates of foreign languages, for natural and moral sciences, and for English literature and composition. The result of the first year's examination justified some of the anticipations of Mr. Macaulay and his colleagues. The Report had said, 'a candidate who is at once a distinguished classical scholar and a distinguished mathematical scholar, will be, as he ought to be, certain of success. A classical scholar who

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is no mathematician, or a mathematician who is no classical scholar, will be certain of success if he is well read in the history and literature of his own country. A young man who has scarcely any knowledge of mathematics, little Latin, and no Greek, may pass such an examination in English, French, Italian, German, geology, and chemistry, that he may stand at the head of the list.'

With certain alterations, inasmuch as we know that some of the best men in particular branches were not successful, the above sentences might have been written after the examinations of July, 1855. The public schools and the universities carried off the greater part of the prizes. In some instances, private tuition turned out men who could compete with those trained in the best and largest of our institutions, as private tuition often will do, with a singularly apt and industrious pupil. Success in one instance was due to a remarkable familiarity with the literature and the language of Dante, of Pascal, and of Schiller. Scotchmen alone were unfortunate, owing probably to their deficient classical training, for which they could not make up by any wonderful readiness in the acquisition of foreign tongues. It will be curious to observe whether men born north of the Tweed will now be excluded from the Civil Service. But we trust that if Scotchmen be somewhat backward in classical composition, or unfitted for the mastery of the continental languages, they will contrive either to remedy these deficiencies, or to counterbalance them by renewed exertions in those departments for which their proverbial shrewdness and their powers of thinking qualify them to excel.

Four great subjects of study are recommended to successful candidates during their period of probation in England. We take them in the order of the essay.

The

first is Indian History, which is to be studied in the largest sense of the word; in the sense, in short, in which Mr. Macaulay has studied and written it himself. This branch is to embrace the past and present constitution of the Indian

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Government, its changing political relations with native states, its geography, the manufactures and natural productions of its varied tracts, and the curious rites which occupy so much of the Hindu's time, as well as the doctrines which so remarkably influence the character of the Mohammedan. All this is excellent. An Indian statesman, though in embryo, should know the by-ways as well as the high-roads of the history of his adopted country. He will consider no peculiarity as foreign to his subject; he will not be ashamed of falling below the dignity' of a mere narrative of battles and treaties. But we are not quite sure whether the books enumerated for this end, are precisely such as we should have chosen. The battles are to be gathered from Orme, Wilks, and Mill; and the customs and peculiarities from Bernier, and Bishop Heber, and from the translations of Hindu and Persian poetry by Sir W. Jones. Now Orme, indeed, has given a most full and accurate account of our early struggles in Bengal and the Madras coast. He was contemporary with Clive and with Hastings. He had, no doubt, talked with some of the survivors of the Black Hole tragedy. He collected his materials on the spot, with all the advantage of frequent intercourse with the natives, and observation of their manners. But he is dreadfully longwinded, taking forty-eight pages to narrate the events of as many hours; and though he may be advantageously consulted by those who wish to learn how the rise of Clive or the policy of the first Governors appeared to their contemporaries, we would much sooner send a young man, for this object, at once to the two famous essays of Mr. Macaulay himself. Wilks is invaluable as an authority with regard to Southern and Central India; and Mill has written a long history which, however valuable in many respects, is fearfully overweighted, and wants that life and vivid colouring which residence in the country alone can give. The travels of Bernier are more judiciously selected. Some readers may perhaps not know who this gentleman was. He lived rather less than two hundred years ago, in an age and

country which produced Molière and Racine, Bossuet and Fénélon, Sevigné and La Bruyère. From some family misfortunes, the particulars of which we are not acquainted with, he left his profession, that of medicine, and wandered about the East. Arriving in India, he was patronized by one of the aristocracy of the court of Arungzebe, was a witness to that crafty Emperor's remarkable career, gazed on the riches, detected the hollow ness, and recorded the vices of imperial Delhi and Lahore. We strongly recommend his entertaining volumes to all Englishmen, and especially to the party termed 'Young India,' who are fond of maintaining the excellence of those good old times, when the British had barely a factory or two, with a few acres of ground round them, at a stray Indian sea-port, and when 'annexation' had not yet been thought of in a dream. The lively, shrewd, and intelligent French Doctor had no set theory to carry out. For seven years he travelled over all India. The tent in the cold season, the unwieldy budgerow in the rains, the palaces of Delhi, the tombs of Agra, were all equally familiar to him. He could quote Persian odes, and talk fluently in Hindustani. No suspicion seems ever to have crossed his mind that one day India would really become subject to the British power, or indeed to any other. But the tyranny of the palace, the desolation of the provinces, the corruption of the officials, and the exaggerated estimate of the great Mogul's strength, did not escape his piercing observation, and he does once breathe a quiet sigh for some twenty-five thousand of the braves troupes of Condé, who might be able to walk right over-passer sur le ventreof thrice their number of Mussulmans and Rajpoots. The journal of Bishop Heber is the journal of a scholar, a gentleman, and a Christian. It proves the earnestness with which that excellent man set to his task, and how, coming to India late in

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he laboured hard to gain some ght into native feelings and thoughts. But much in Heber will be obsolete now, especially the mode of travelling. In mentioning

the odes of Sir W. Jones, Mr. Macaulay no doubt meant that it were desirable that a young man proceeding to India should know with what eyes a Persian or an Hindu poet had looked on the face of nature, what were his ideas of female excellence and beauty, what was the influence of woman on the excitable imagination of Orientals, and by what key their secret feelings might best be unlocked. Viewed in this light, Eastern poetry may be dipped into, especially when transformed to English under the scholarly and skil ful hand of the companion of Johnson, Gibbon, and Burke. But we can hardly picture to ourselves a young man from Oxford or Cambridge setting down gravely to fit himself for India by poring over interminable laments uttered by lovers, the smoke of whose hearts was ascending like incense on an altar, and whose wings were like moths burnt in the flame of the taper, to graceful Leilas possessed of the stature of the cypress, the eye of the antelope, and the cheek of the rose! With all deference to the examiners, we venture to suggest to the probationers the following works on Indian politics and history. Elphinstone's two volumes, classical, learned, and correct. Thornton's India, for a clear narrative of battles, sieges, and wars. For the internal administration and advancement of the country, Mr. Kaye's volume on the subject, and Mr. Campbell's admirable Modern India; while for a book which combines the fearful incidents of a Greek trilogy with the interest of a romance, and with the sad and sober lessons of history, there is none like Mr. Kaye's War in Affghanistan. The above works, carefully perused, with Ward on the Hindus, and similar works; with such biographies as those of Sir T. Munro and Lord Metcalfe, and such lighter works as the late Sir W. H. Sleeman's Rambles, and A Lady's Letters from Madras, will put the young civilian in possession of nearly everything that he ought to know on starting, and certainly with quite as much as his head can

contain.

and

The next subject recommended for study is jurisprudence. On this

remarking that many of the most important functions of the Collectors in India are strictly judicial, confine themselves to a quiet and general encomium on the advantage of knowing law. What law the probationers must study; from what sources, under whose guidance, they are to quench that thirst for jurisprudence; how they are to prove their knowledge of the science, on all this the Report says very little.

It is true that we have something about the law lectures at Haileybury being too easy or too elementary for civilians selected on account of superior attainments; and we are told that the probationers ought to attend English trials, take notes of the evidence, and draw up reports. Now, with regard to the elementary character of the lectures on law and political economy at Haileybury, we do not see in what degree the best classical and mathematical education in the world can make any man, off-hand, a lawyer or a political economist; or how a B.A. or First Class man in the Litere Humaniores, can, on legal subjects, begin anywhere except at the very beginning. And, if by elementary be meant boyish and below the stature of a man, we have only to say that we have never yet seen the Fellow, or the University scholar, who might not have derived a great deal of benefit, and gained a deal of knowledge, from one lec

ture-room in which the late Rev. Richard Jones used to hold forth on rents and wages, on capital and on credit; or from another, where the late lamented Mr. Empson explained to a knot of young men, often headed by some shrewd and clear-thinking Scotchman, the principles on which property had been acquired, wrongs were punished, and rights of all sorts maintained. We think that any civilian who enjoyed the privilege of listening to those two professors, will only regret that he did not make more use of his advantages, and will not complain that the style and tone of the lectures were at all lowered to the capacity of the dullest or youngest student in the room. With regard to the second point-the attendance on law courts-the suggestions of the Commissioners are most worthy of

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attention. It was perhaps their office only to indicate the object, without pointing out the means; but we have not heard, since their Report, what steps have been taken to define exactly the nature and extent of the law studies, or the mode in which a due supervision shall be exercised over the students. Nor, again, has any particular branch of jurisprudence been especially recommended. Yet we think that with such a vast subject, with so many branches spreading themselves on all sides, a few of the most important and useful topics ought to have been pointed out.

In the absence of any definition of their studies, we venture to suggest that they should attend to the following branches. I. A little of the Roman civil law, as it is to be gathered from some of the late compendious publications by barristers of eminence. The law of evidence: what is good evidence in a court of law, and what is not. No amount of study in this branch, we fully admit, can ever make an Indian official competent to decide when a voluble native witness has been tutored, or when he is speaking the convictions of his own heart, or of the events which he has really witnessed. This important and indispensable knowledge will come by intercourse and by observation. No store of English law can supply its deficiency; but, on the other hand, no knowledge of native character will enable a judge or magistrate, without legal training, to say exactly what evidence is admissible in court, or what is really legal evidence at all. We think, also, that some acquaintance with commercial law, with the law of bailment, with partnerships, contracts, and other similar cases which arise in a growing or complicated society, is much to be desired. It is calculated that about one-third of the civil cases adjudicated in the Indian courts turn on points of the above kind; the remaining two-thirds turn on real property-the acquirement and transfer of land, the rights of landowners, village proprietors, and under-tenants of a dozen different denominations. Nothing that a young man can study in England will here help him much, or, at any

rate, nothing will compensate for the time he must devote to strange, illsounding, and at first, inexplicable names. The experience of his daily work, and the laws and regulations of the Indian Government, will alone put him in a position to decide suits affecting the landed interests of India. To the above branchesthat is, to the civil law, the law of evidence, and the law of commerce and partnership-he should add, of course, an acquaintance with the great principles of the criminal code, and some little insight into the main characteristics of international law. Anything illustrative of the maritime, ecclesiastical, chancery, or common law courts of England, would be, we think, entirely misplaced in the course of study. The third subject is that of financial and commercial science, and of political economy. On the last point full information would have been furnished at Haileybury, had Haileybury been kept up.

As it is, we can only point to Smith, Malthus, and the works of the late Professor Jones, as containing the rise and progress of a science just attaining its youth and vigour. But we really cannot see, except on the principle that no sound knowledge can ever come amiss, of what possible use it would be to a young civilian to understand the mode of keeping and checking accounts, the principles of banking, the laws which regulate the exchanges, and the nature of public debts, funded and unfunded.' As to accounts, those of the various collectorates and other offices in India are kept on a system and with a precision that will render all knowledge gained in this country superfluous. And with regard to the other points, it is not one officer in three hundred who will ever be called on to express any opinion on any one of them, or to apply any information he may have acquired therein to any practical purpose or aim. Moreover, with regard to the general question of Indian finance, it has no kind of connexion or similarity with English finance; and the probability would be, that a man with a smattering of financial knowledge hastily acquired at home, would attempt to apply it to Indian budgets, would do no good what

ever, and would end by being a bore.

On the question of languages the Report is well worthy of attention. Of the many-languaged lore' of India, Hindustani is recommended for universal adoption. This composite language, derived in its primary and original form of Hindi mainly from the Sanskrit, with copious additions of Persian and Arabic words, mostly nouns and adjectives, holds in India somewhat the same position that French does on the Continent. There is, in India, a kingdom where it is spoken by every one, from the peer to the peasant, with greater or less purity, as French is in France. There is a capital city whose dwellers boast that they have the best accent and the judicious mixture of old and new words. There are isolated parts of the kingdom where it is debased or spoken only in the older form. There is, in short, in the East, a Picardy and a Provence, a Gascony and an Auvergne. Then, again, beyond the limits of this kingdom are other kingdoms where this eastern French is employed only as the language of one particular sect or class, or as the language of the courts of justice, or as the language of ceremonious intercourse, or as the language in which two men speaking strange dialects can converse with each other. No European but will have occasion to use it at some time. No one speaking it with purity and correctness can fail to secure respect. Many who do not, will, in some parts of India, be the object of covert sarcasm or quiet contempt. But it would be absurd to suppose that a man speaking Hindustani even as it is spoken at Delhi or Lucknow, would be capable of doing justice to the natives in very many other parts of India. The Report, indeed, contemplates that other dialects should be mastered ; but it proposes to give men the option between Hindustani and Bengali in the lower division of the Bengal Presidency; between Hindustani, Hindi, and Persian, in the upper division of the same Presidency; between Hindustani, Tamul, and Telugu, in Madras; and between Hindustani, Guzeratti, and Mahratta, in Bombay. The two smaller