India’s educational problems

AS a brilliant and masterly exposition of the sublime ideals of liberal education, it would be difficult to beat the inaugural speech delivered by the Viceroy (Lord Reading) while opening the Indian Universities Conference in Simla on Monday last. Occasions were not rare when His Excellency, in his enthusiasm, rose to heights that it is the privilege of very few to scale. After expressing his thanks to the delegates for responding to his Government’s invitation to attend the Conference, (the first of its kind held in India), and expressing appreciation of the sense of public duty, of interests in the objects of the Conference and of keenness evinced by them to take part in any measure to advance the well-being of the universities, His Excellency referred to his having availed of every opportunity of visiting various universities of India. He stated that during these individual visits, he had been able to convey his high conception of the great mission of the universities’ teaching and training and his personal conviction of the extreme importance of university work in India in its effect, both on the individual and the country as a whole. The Viceroy had to take great pains in explaining the necessity that had impelled his Government to call this Conference, to the objects of which, it must be admitted, the required amount of publicity has not been given. “It is true,” he said, “that each university is self-contained. It has its own work to perform and the needs of its own centre and clientele to provide for to a large extent. Its destiny lies in its own hands and it is a master of its own fortunes and alone responsible for its own success or failure.”