( 37 ) medium of instruction to the students in the Entrance Schools, and of requiring students in college classes to read some standard vernacular work, and to state in reply thereto my views on the same as follows :- I feel a very strong conviction that the interests of sound education require that in our schools the instruction in History, Geography, Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry ought to be imparted to the students in their own vernacular, and that they should be permitted to answer questions on these subjects in the Entrance examination in their mother tongue. The present system of teaching these subjects through the medium of English-a foreign tongue, is unique the like of which is unknown in the annals of education, and being unnatural is attended with evils of a grave character. This system have given rise to the necessity for cramming of the worst type, it entails useless waste of mental energy, it causes destruction of the youthful mind, it requires unhealthy exercise of memory at the expense of judgment and natural association of ideas, it has deprived pursuit of knowledge of its pleasure, and has failed to promote the healthy growth and development of the intellectual faculties. To this vicious system may be attributed the utter failure of our University education to create a taste for learning, as is testified by the notorious fact that our graduates, as a general rule, do not engage themselves in the prosecution of study after leaving the college, to the majority of whom acquisition of knowledge seems to be distasteful. Although the University may have been perfectly justified in adopting this abnormal system at the commencement of its existence, there is no reason why it should be permitted to continue even now that the Bengali language has made such rapid strides towards improvement. It appears, therefore, to be absolutely necessary in the interests of education that, this useful change in the mode of instruction should be adopted and introduced without delay. But two objections may be raised against it. First, that it will prejudicially affect the aquisition of the knowledge of English. Second, that names of persons, places &c., will be misspelt by the students while writing English. As to the first objection, my answer is that there are cogent reasons for considering the apprehension to be groundless; on the contrary, students having a good knowledge of their own language are likely to learn more easily the English idioms by marking the difference between the two languages with respect to the forms of expression, than under the present system. The second objection may be obviated by placing in the hands of students such books in the vernacular language, as will give within parenthesis the names of persons, places and the like in English, just after the words in vernacular, and by requiring them to learn the English names
