comprehend, to the extent it is possible for this author, through
material of this kind relating to the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries, the reality of the India of this period: its
society, its infra-structure, its manners and institutions, their
strengths and weaknesses. The book touches on another aspect
of this India in more or less the same manner as the author’s
two earlier books in this field, Indian Science and Technology in
the Eighteenth Century,^19 and Civil Disobedience in Indian
Tradition.^20 Furthermore, an attempt has been made in the
Introduction to situate the information on the indigenous Indian
education of the period in its temporal context and, with that in
view, brief mention is made of the state of education in England
until the beginning of the nineteenth century.
A number of friends have taken interest in this material
and offered me their valuable advice and opinion during the past
several years. I am grateful to all of them. Without their support
and encouragement, this work may never have been completed.
Even more so, I am greatly indebted to the University of Oxford
for being kind enough to consult their University archives in
order to answer some of my queries pertaining to the academic
courses, etc., at Oxford at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. Similarly, I am much obliged to the India Office Library
& Records (I.O.R.), and to Mr Martin Moir in particular, for
supplying me with copies of the Hartog-Gandhi correspondence.
I am also obliged to the A.N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies,
Patna, for offering me a senior fellowship of the institute during
1972-73 and to the Gandhian Institute of Studies, Varanasi, the
Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi, the Gandhi Seva Sangh,
Sevagram, and the Association of Voluntary Agencies for Rural
Development, New Delhi, for interest in and support to this
venture, as occasion demanded.
The text of the Madras Presidency material (included in the
Annexures), though first consulted in the India Office Library, is
taken from the records in the Tamilnadu State Archives (pre-
viously the Madras Record Office). For this facility, and for much
kindness and consideration shown to me, my thanks go to the
fairly over-worked staff of the Archives. The note by Alexander
Walker, also reproduced here, is from the Walker of Bowland