and explained the faculties of the mind; but, the favourite study
of the Indian sages, was a metaphysical and abstruse
philosophy, founded on superstition and error. They regarded
logic, rhetoric and grammar with particular approbation; and
those who aspired to a superior reputation, acquired those
sciences with unceasing labour, and intense application. They
spent their lives in their cultivation. The Hindoos made no use of
experiments, and it is extraordinary that without this aid, they
should have become acquainted with the most difficult and
hidden branches of Mathematics, Astronomy and Algebra. Have
the acquisitions been the fruits of their own study and reflection;
or have they been obtained from extraneous and a more ancient
source which is now forgotten and lost? It is not possible to
determine these questions; and as we cannot prove that they
derived their knowledge from another people, it is but fair to
consider them as the inventors of all which they possess, which
they have preserved through so many perils and which they
must have cultivated with so much ardour.
The learning of the Malabar is probably more limited than
that of the more central people of India; but they are not
inattentive to the cultivation of letters. They are particularly
anxious and attentive to instruct their children to read and to
write. Education with them is an early and an important
business in every family. Many of their women are taught to read
and write. The Bramans are generally the school masters, but
any of the respectable castes may, and often do, practice
teaching. The children are instructed without violence, and by a
process peculiarly simple. It is the same system which has
caused so much heat and controversy, as to the inventors of it,
in this country, and the merit of which was due to neither of the
claimants.^1 The system was borrowed from the Bramans and
brought from India to Europe. It has been made the foundation
of National schools in every enlightened country. Some gratitude
is due to a people from whom we have learnt to diffuse among
the lower ranks of society instruction by one of the most
unerring and economical methods which has ever been invented.
The pupils are the monitors of each other, and the characters
are traced with a rod, or the finger on the sand. Reading and
writing are acquired at the same time, and by the same process.
This mode of teaching however is only initial. If the pupil is
meant to study the higher branches of learning, he is removed
from these primary schools, where the arts of reading, writing
and accounts