Education Under Company Rule: Charter Act of 1813 to Macaulay’s Minute

At a Glance

• Early colleges Calcutta Madrasah 1781; Benaras Sanskrit College 1791
• 1813 One lakh rupees a year for education
• Macaulay’s Minute 1835; English medium for Western learning
• Theory Downward filtration
• Exam link UPSC Prelims, Modern History: Press, Education, Peasants and Workers

Where Does It Fit?

This is the third topic of the category on the press, education, peasants and workers. The previous topic covered the Vernacular Press Act and later press laws. This topic covers education under Company rule up to Macaulay’s Minute. The next topic covers Wood’s Despatch of 1854. Previous topic: Vernacular Press Act, 1878 and Later Press Laws.

What Did the Company Do for Education at First?

For the first 60 years of its dominion in India, the East India Company, a trading and profit-making concern, took no interest in promoting education. There were some minor exceptions from individual efforts.

The Madrasah and the Sanskrit College were meant to give a regular supply of qualified Indians to help administer law in the Company’s courts, and knowledge of classical and vernacular languages was useful in correspondence with Indian states. Enlightened Indians and missionaries began to press the government to promote modern, secular, Western education, seen as the remedy for the country’s social, economic and political ills. The missionaries thought modern education would destroy Indians’ faith in their religions and lead them to Christianity, and the Serampore missionaries were especially keen on spreading education. The missionaries’ role is in Charter Act of 1813 Allies Radicals, Imperialists and business Reformers Rammohan Roy, Vidyasagar, Malabari…">Role of Christian Missionaries and the Indian Renaissance.

What Did the Charter Act of 1813 Provide?

The Charter Act of 1813 adopted the principle of encouraging learned Indians and promoting knowledge of the modern sciences in the country, and directed the Company to sanction one lakh rupees a year for this. Even this small sum was not made available until 1823, mainly because of a controversy over the direction the spending should take. Meanwhile the efforts of enlightened Indians such as Raja Rammohan Roy bore fruit: a grant was sanctioned for the Calcutta College, set up in 1817 by educated Bengalis to give English education in Western humanities and sciences, and the government set up three Sanskrit colleges at Calcutta, Delhi and Agra. The Act is in Pitt’s India Act: Board of Control 1793 to…">Constitutional Development 1773-1858: Regulating Act to the Act of 1858.

What Was the Orientalist-Anglicist Controversy?

Within the General Committee on Public Instruction, the Anglicists argued that government spending on education should be exclusively on modern studies. The Orientalists said that while Western sciences and literature should be taught to prepare students for jobs, emphasis should be placed on expanding traditional Indian learning. Even the Anglicists were divided on the medium: one faction favoured English, the other the Indian languages, the vernaculars. There was great confusion over English and the vernaculars as media of instruction and as subjects of study.

What Did Macaulay’s Minute Decide?

Lord Macaulay’s Minute of 1835 settled the dispute in favour of the Anglicists: limited government resources were to go to teaching Western sciences and literature through the English language alone. Macaulay held that Indian learning was inferior to European learning, which was true so far as the physical and social sciences of the time were concerned. The government soon made English the medium of instruction in its schools and colleges and opened a few English schools and colleges, instead of a large number of elementary schools, thus neglecting mass education.

The British planned to educate a small section of the upper and middle classes, creating a class Indian in blood and colour but English in tastes, opinions, morals and intellect, who would act as interpreters between the government and the masses and would enrich the vernaculars, through which knowledge of Western science and literature would reach the masses. This was called the downward filtration theory. Modern ideas, if not education, did filter down to the masses, though not in the way the rulers wished, through political parties, the press, pamphlets and public platforms. Modern education only helped by making basic literature on the physical and social sciences available to nationalists and so strengthening their capacity for social analysis, though the content, structure and curricula of modern education served colonial interests. The press is in Development of the Indian Press: Early Regulations and the Struggle for Freedom.

What Were Thomson’s Efforts?

James Thomson, Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces from 1843 to 1853, developed a comprehensive scheme of village education through the vernaculars. In these village schools, useful subjects such as mensuration and agricultural science were taught. The purpose was to train staff for the newly created Revenue and Public Works Departments. As an analytical point, Macaulay’s decision and Thomson’s scheme show the two directions open to the Company: a narrow English education for a small class that would help administer the country, or a wider vernacular education that would serve the village, and the first won, with the consequence that literacy remained low and the divide between the educated few and the masses grew. The Despatch that tried to correct this is in Wood’s Despatch, 1854.

Why Is This Topic Important?

• Macaulay’s Minute A stock Prelims and Mains topic
• Downward filtration A defined theory
• Charter Act of 1813 grant The first state commitment to education

What Came Next?

The next topic covers Wood’s Despatch of 1854. Next topic: Wood’s Despatch, 1854.

Key People and Terms

• Orientalists Supporters of traditional Indian learning
• Anglicists Supporters of Western studies in English
• Macaulay’s Minute The 1835 decision for English education
• Downward filtration theory Educating a few to pass knowledge down to the masses
• General Committee on Public Instruction The body in which the controversy took place
• Serampore missionaries Missionaries keen on spreading education

Exam Corner

Mains Angle

Questions ask about early education policy and Macaulay’s Minute. These points add depth.

• Oriental institutions Law and administration
• Controversy Orientalists and Anglicists
• Result English medium and filtration