hundred years. (b) The Reports of William Adam on Vernacular
Education in Bengal and Bihar 1835-38, and the legend of the
‘1,00,000 schools’, and (c) Dr G.W. Leitner and Education in the
Panjab 1849-82. These were published in early 1939 by the
Oxford University Press under the above title. In Memorandum
‘A’, using the low figures sent by A.D. Campbell for the district of
Bellary, Hartog questioned Thomas Munro’s calculation that ‘the
proportion of males educated in schools was nearer one-third
than one-fourth.’ He countered instead ‘that Munro’s figures
may have been over-estimates based on the returns of collectors
less careful and interested in education than Campbell.’ Hartog’s
conclusion at the end was that ‘until the action taken by Munro,
Elphinstone, and Bentinck in the three presidencies, the British
Government had neglected elementary education to its detriment
in India. But I have found no evidence that it tried to destroy or
uproot what existed.’ In a footnote, Hartog further observed: ‘In
Great Britain itself it was not until 1833 that the House of
Commons made a grant of 30,000 pounds for the purposes of
education.’ He also praised various Indian personalities, and
more so India’s quaint mixture of ‘most ancient and most
modern’.
In his Preface, after referring to ‘the imaginary basis for
accusations not infrequently made in India that the British
Government systematically destroyed the indigenous system of
elementary schools and with it a literacy which the schools are
presumed to have created’, Hartog observed: ‘When Mr Gandhi,
in an address given at the Royal Institute of International Affairs
on 20 October 1931, lent his powerful support to those
accusations, and challenged contradiction, it was obviously
necessary to re-examine the facts.’^76