They had really begun to believe in their ‘divinely ordained’
mission in India, and other conquered areas.^63
At any rate, Leitner’s researches showed that at the time of
the annexation of the Panjab, the lowest computation gave
‘3,30,000 pupils in the schools of the various denominations
who were acquainted with reading, writing and some method of
computation.’ This is in contrast with ‘little more than 1,90,000’
pupils in 1882. Furthermore, 35-40 years previously, ‘thousands
of them belonged to Arabic and Sanskrit colleges, in which
oriental Literature and systems of oriental Law, Logic,
Philosophy, and Medicine were taught to the highest standards.’
Leitner went into great detail, district by district, basing himself
on earlier official writings; and, then carried out a detailed
survey of his own regarding the position in 1882. A few brief
extracts from this work, pertaining to his general statement, the
type of schools which had existed earlier, and the list of books
used in the Sanskritic schools is included amongst the
documents reproduced in this work (Annexure E).
In the documents reproduced in this work, or in those
others of the eighteenth, or early nineteenth century on the
subject of education in India, while there is much on the
question of higher learning, especially of Theology, Law,
Medicine, Astronomy, and Astrology, there is scarcely any
reference to the teaching and training in the scores of
technologies, and crafts which had then existed in India. There
is also little mention of training in Music, and Dance. These
latter two, it may be presumed, were largely taken care of by the
complex temple organisations.
The major cause of the lack of reference about the former,
however, is obviously because those who wrote on education—
whether as government administrators, travellers, Christian
missionaries, or scholars—were themselves uninterested in how
such crafts were taught, or passed from one generation to