भारत के इस भाग में विज्ञान को देशी दरबारों की ओर से पहले जो सहायता और उत्तेजना दी जाती थी वह अंगरेज़ी राज के आने के समय से, बहुत दिन हुए, बन्द कर दी गई है।
"इस ज़िले में अब घटते घटते शिक्षा सम्बन्धी ५३३ संस्थाएँ रह गई हैं और मुझे यह कहते लज्जा आती है कि इनमें से किसी एक को भी अब सरकार की ओर से किसी तरह की सहायता नहीं दी जाती।"
इसके बाद प्राचीन भारत में इन असंख्य पाठशालाओं के ख़र्च की व्यवस्था को बयान करते हुए कैम्पबेल लिखता है— प्राचीन पाठशालाओं की ख़र्च की व्यवस्था "इसमें कोई सन्देह नहीं कि पुराने समय में, विशेष कर हिन्दुओं के शासन काल में, विद्या प्रचार की सहायता के लिए बहुत बड़ी रक़में और बड़ी बड़ी जागीरें राज की ओर से बँधी हुई थीं x x x।
"x x x पहले समय में राज की आमदनी का एक बहुत बड़ा हिस्सा विद्या प्रचार को उत्तेजना और उन्नति देने में ख़र्च किया जाता था, जिससे राज का भी मान बढ़ता था, किन्तु हमारे शासन में यहाँ तक अवनति हुई है कि राज की इस आमदनी से अब उलटा अज्ञान को उन्नति दी जाती है। पहले जो ज़बरदस्त सहायता राज की ओर से विज्ञान को दी जाती थी उसके बन्द हो जाने के कारण अब विज्ञान केवल थोड़े से दानशील व्यक्तियों की अकस्मात उदारता के सहारे ज्यों त्यों कर जीवित है। भारत के इतिहास में विद्या के इस तरह के पतन का दूसरा समय दिखा सकता कठिन है × × ×।"[१]
- ↑ "The economy with which children are taught to write in the native schools and the system by which the more advanced scholars are cused to teach the less advanced, and at the same time to confirm their own knowledge, is certainly admirable, and well deserved the imitation it has received in England. …
"… there are multitudes who can not even avail themselves of the advantages of the system, …
" I am sorry to state, that this is ascribable to the gradual but general impoverishment of the country. The means of the manufacturing classes have been of late years greatly diminised by the introduction of our own English manufactures in lieu of the Indian cotton fabrics. The removel of many of our troops from our own territories to the distant frontiers of our newly subsidized allies has also, of late yers affected the demand tor grain; the transfer of the capital of the country from the native government and thetr officers, who liberally expended it in India, to Europeans, restricted by law from employing it even temporarily in India, and daily draining it from the land, has likewise tended to this effect, which has not been alleviated by a less rigid enforcement of the revenue due to the state. The greater part of the middling and lower classes of the people are now unable to defray the expenses incident upon the education of their offspring, while their necessities require the assistance of their children as soon as their tender limbs are capable of the smallest labour.
"… of nearly a million of souls in this District, not 7,000 are now at school, a proportion which exhibits but too strongly the result above stated. In many villages where formerly there were large schools, there are now none, and in many others where there were large schools, now only a few children of the most opulent are taught, others being unable from powerty to attend, …
"such is the state in this District of the various schools in which reading, writing and arithmetic are taught in the vernacular dilects of the country, as has been always usual in India, … learning, … has never flourished in any country except under the encouragement of the ruling power, and the countenance and support once given to science in this part of India has long been withheld.
" Of the 533 institutions for education now existing in this District, I am ashamed to say, not one now derives any support from the State, …
"There is no doubt, that in former times, especialy under the Hindoo Governments, very large grants, both in money and in land, were issued for the support of learning. …
" … considerable alienations of revenue, which formerly did honour to the state by upholding and encouraging learning, have deteriorated under our rule into the means of supporting ignorance; whilst science, deserted by the powerful aid she formerly received from Government, has often been reduced to beg her scanty and uncertain meal from the chance benevolence of charitable individuals; and it would be difficult to point out any period in the history of India when she stood more in need. . . "— The Report of A. D. Campbell Collector of Bellary, dated 17th August, 1823, from the Report of the Select Committee etc., vol. i, published 1832.
