some interests. I have to appeal to rulers to put themselves
in the position of the ruled, if they wish to understand
them...and both the writer of these pages and the reader
must endeavour to divest themselves of every
preconception. Indeed, the man has so often described the
struggle with the lion, that it would be well to sketch a
picture which the lion might have drawn had he been a
painter.
Referring to the educational glory of the Punjab before
annexation he writes:
Respect for learning has always been the redeeming feature
of the East. To this the Punjab formed no exception. Torn
by invasion and war, it ever preserved and added to educa-
tional endowments. The most unscrupulous chief, the
avaricious money lender, and even the free-booter, vied
with the small land-owner in making peace with his
conscience by founding schools and rewarding the learned.
There was not a mosque, a temple, a Dharamsala, that had
not a school attached to it, to which the youth flocked
chiefly for religious education. There were few wealthy men
who did not entertain a Maulvi, Pandit, or Guru to teach
their sons, and along with them the sons of friends and
dependents. There were also thousands of secular schools,
frequented alike by Mahomedans, Hindus and Sikhs, in
which Persian or Hindi was taught. There were hundreds of
learned men who gratuitously taught their co-religionists,
and sometimes all comers, for the sake of God, “Lillah”.
There was not a single village who did not take a pride in
devoting a portion of his produce to a respected teacher. In
respectable Mahomedan families husbands taught their
wives, and these their children; nor did the Sikhs prove in
that respect to be unworthy of the appellation of “Learners
and disciples”. In short the lowest computation gives us
3,30,000 pupils in the schools of the various
denominations who were acquainted with reading, writing
and some method of computation, whilst thousands of
them belonged to Arabic and Sanskrit Colleges, in which
oriental literature and system of oriental law, logic,
philosophy and medicine were taught to the highest
standards. Tens of thousand also acquired a proficiency in
Persian which is now rarely reached in government and
aided schools and colleges. Through all schools there
breathed a spirit of devotion to education for its own sake,
and for its influence on the character and on religious
culture; whilst even the sons of Banias who merely