to proceed in the capacity of writers to either of the Presidencies of Fort William, Fort St. George, or Bombay.' The minutes of the last Court having been read The Chairman (W. Wigram, Esq.) briefly stated the business which the Proprietors were assembled to consider.. INDIA BONDS. General Thornton wished to know, before the regular discussion commenced, whether he could not request an answer to a question relative to India bonds which he had put at a former Court? Those bonds, which were at 80s. premium, carried an interest of 3 per cent. If the interest were lowered it would be serviceable to the public; and he was desirous to learn whether any intention to lower the interest was entertained? The Chairman submitted to the gallant General that he was out of order, and that he must see the impropriety of interrupting the discussion by a question so totally irrelevant. General Thornton was aware that the question was not connected with the discussion: but, as he understood, the general rule was occasionally departed from, and he thought that this was a case which peculiarly warranted an exception. Mr. Trant requested that the Chairman would give directions that the bye-law, which forbids the putting or entertaining any question but the one for which a special Court was called, should be read. The Chairman thought that the gallant General must see, that the Court were now, in fact, to be considered as having entered on the discussion of the question of the day, and that it was not a proper time to propose any other. General Thornton said, that the subject of his inquiry was a thing of most essential importance. The Chairman said, that the gallant General could not be allowed to proceed, unless he was to speak to the question before the Court, or to move an adjourn ment. Sir Geo. A. Robinson prayed the gallant General to consider, that if this were in the middle of a speech, it could not be a more disorderly interruption. Mr. S. Dixon proposed that the debate should be postponed for a few minutes, in courtesy to the original mover, who was not present, but would soon be here. General Thornton said, in that case, perhaps there could be no objection, meanwhile, to answer the question which he had put.-(Laughter, and cries of Order.) HAILEYBURY COLLEGE-FINAL DEBATE. The Hon. D. Kinnaird now entered the Court, and was preparing to reply to the Asiatic Journ.-No. 101. arguments urged on the previous day to of saying a few words upon the ques- ments. He confessed that he had, at one destined to act alone in important and confidential stations, should be early trained to self-command. He was far from saying that he was satisfied with all the rules and discipline of the College; he was convinced that, in some particulars, they were capable of amendment. But, whatever defects were to be discovered, the Court of Directors, with the Board of Commissioners, had at present power to remedy them, without the proposed motion. As to the proposition of going to Parliament, it required much consideration: for, whoever might be appointed to present the petition, would, in all probability, have a question of this nature proposed to him: "If you repeal this act, with what do you intend to replace it?" What answer could be given? Were the Court of Proprietors ready with any wellformed plan to put in its place? Surely it would be better to leave the Institution as it stood, open as it was to receive corrections and alterations, such as the Court of Directors may be able, from time to time, to introduce, than to hazard all its advantages for the chance of some supposed improvement, in an institution which he was convinced operated for the Company's benefit. He was for these reasons entirely opposed to the motion. The Hon. W. F. Elphinstone did not wish to do away with the College, as had been charged against some of the Members of the Court; he would, on the contrary, do all in his power to raise it, and with that view he would support the motion. There were means provided in the college to attain the highest acquirements. The Professors were gentlemen of great learning, talent, and respectability he did not question it; but there did appear to him a want of the great stimulus of opposition and rivalry. Another grand defect, was the shortness of the time that the boys spent with the Professors, being, for the greater part of the twenty-four hours, absent from them. Now, though he was nearly eighty-four years of age, he had not forgotten the dispositions he felt when he was from sixteen to nineteen; nor could he lose sight of the amusements in which it was most likely he would have indulged had he been left, as the boys at Haileybury, to do as he pleased, in the absence of all controul, from two in the afternoon till perhaps three in the morning. His complaint was, that the Professors had so little intercourse with the boys, and that the boys for the greater part of the time were thus free, without any examples by which they could form their conduct. He believed that the college had done, and would continue to do, much good; but he could not forget that there was a time when he had no such hope; when there could not be a worse sink of criminality than it presented. Unluckily for himself, in making this avowal, he was among those persons who were first entrusted with forming this College, and he well remembered the great pains taken to order things so that it might be a finishing, good school. Unfortunately it was changed to a college. They had failed, therefore, in securing that great object, of having the boys carefully looked after throughout the whole of the day to this it might be attributed, in some measure, that the College produced so many self-sufficient young men. They left their parents' homes under an assurance given to them on all hands, that they were going to be made into statesmen to govern India. They found nothing in the system at Haileybury to take down their conceit; no mixture of classes, as in the universities, where the attainments of the poorest enabled him to look down upon the rank and wealth of those more proudly born. At the Haileybury College they were all alike to be Indian statesmen!--they were all of one class -- no diversity of station, hopes, or of ambition; consequently there was no race for superiority of knowledge, as in other colleges. They left the College in equal ignorance, and upon their arrival in India, the consequences to themselves and the service were too well known; their conduct perfectly corresponded with that which they displayed before going He was convinced that the proposition now made to the Court would tend to raise the College, which would produce better men for the future, if the discipline should be reviewed and improved in this and other respects which called for reformation. He would detain the Court no longer than to say, that he supported the motion. out. Mr. Daniell said that he came into Court the first day of the discussion with an indisposition to vote against the Hon. Proprietor's motion, and that having attended to the arguments on both sides, he should support it, from a conviction that much good and no possible evil could arise from it. He should have preferred a motion for totally revising the system, and converting the College into a school, where much more of the boys' time might be occupied, and the masters present to see that it was properly applied. In a college, as Mr. Elphinstone observed, a very small proportion of the time of either was taken up; and whilst the students were present at lectures, they might, for aught he knew, amuse themselves by drawing caricatures. He was glad that the present discussion had taken place, and that the subject had not been referred to the Court of Directors, convinced as he was, from the present state of things, that they could never realize the expectations of the public; they had often tried their hands at it, but certainly to no good purpose. The Professors were answerable to the Collegecouncil alone, and were independent of the Court; who could not, therefore, enforce the adoption of any regulations which they might propose. Mr. Brown objected chiefly to the power of expulsion lodged with the College-council by the statute of selection. It had been said, that the Directors did wisely in divesting themselves of the power of expulsion; but he thought that they did not do wisely in investing it in the Council. They all knew how fond human nature was of power and authority, and how apt to abuse it. In case of disturbances at the College, when the parties could not be immediately identified, the council had the power of selecting any one, or any number of boys, and saying "we do not know who were the real actors in the riot, but as you were concerned in the last disturbance, it is very likely that you were concerned in this, and you must leave the College." A stranger, hearing of this proceeding, might naturally ask, who are the accusers? -- the College-council. And who are the offenders?-the College pupils. And who are the judges?-the College-council! Were there no judges nor any jury who might be appointed to do right between the parties? The constitution of the realm had most wisely provided that the powers of judge, jury, and accuser should be kept separate the Court of Directors had most blunderingly blended all together in the College-council. He did not say that the Professors had abused the powers entrusted to them; on the contrary, he believed they had acted as well as could be expected from any men so circumstanced. Had the Court of Directors wished to divest themselves of this power, they ought to have devised some other means for securing an impartial examination and decision of every case of accusation; then upon expulsion no party would have had any right to complain. In respect to the indiscriminate selection of boys to be sacrificed for examples, where the real offenders were unknown, the power was now theirs; and much as they differed upon the other points, he rejoiced to observe that they all were agreed upon this. He could allow the purest motives to the Professors in the exercise of it, and yet certain it was that the parties chosen as victims could never have any other notion, than that they suffered extreme cruelty. It was not necessary for him to go further. Common humanity supported that maxim of our laws which required conviction before punishment, and which preferred that a hundred guilty persons should escape, rather than that one innocent person should suffer. There must be a continual growth of evil, under powers so monstrously large as those given by the statute of selection. It was but last year that they had occasion to admire and applaud the brilliant career of several young men, now serving with the army in India, whose talents and assiduity in the College had distinguished them before they went out. What a reflection, had any of these persons happened, notwithstanding his innocence and merits, to be expelled under the statute of selection, for an offence in which he had never participated! He did not say that the College should be done away; but he did think that this statute should be expunged from the College statutes. (Mr. Kinnaird said that it was enforced in the Act of Parliament.) He would not contradict the Hon. Mover, but he thought not. He did not approve of going directly to the House of Commons: yet rather than allow the continuance of the statute of selection, he would go the whole length of the measure. The Chairman said that the power of expulsion was given by the College statutes. The Hon. D. Kinnaird said that it was not the object of his motion to take away the power of expulsion, but only to take away the disqualifying effects of that expulsion. Mr. Macaulay had hoped that the judicious and conciliating speech of the Hon. Chairman would have had the effect of preventing any farther discussion, and of uniting all present in his suggestion of leaving the whole matter to the deliberation of the Executive Body. Some things, however, had since occurred in the debate, which made it impossible for him to remain silent. He was not unwilling to admit, for the sake of argument, that there might be material defects in the constitution and discipline of the College; but surely a remedy might have been found for these defects, without having recourse to this most injurious measure of publicly agitating, for three successive days, all the important and delicate questions connected with this institution. He certainly did not think that, in pursuing the course which he had taken, the Hon. Mover had proceeded very prudently as it respected the College, or with due consideration for the Court of Directors or the Proprietary. Before bringing forward a motion of this description, he thought that some inquiry should have been instituted, that some ground should have been laid for it in the production of papers, and the official statement of facts on which to ground an opinion as to the expediency of the proposed measure. An important change in the constitution of the College was proposed, without any previous information having been afforded to the Proprietors as to the circumstances which had called for it. And not only was there this total absence of information, beyond the opposing and absolutely contradictory statements which had been made in the course of the discussion, but there was before the Court no rational or consistent proposition with respect to the system which was to be pursued, in case the present motion should be adopted. Indeed, no two gentlemen agreed either as to the evil which was to be remedied, or as to the course of proceeding which it would be expedient to pursue. The Hon. Mover, indeed, had spoken with respect of the College and its Professors, and had admitted its utility. But what said one Hon. Proprietor (Mr. Trant)? His sentence respecting the College was, that, under any system that could be devised, things could not be worse than they were at present. The whole of his argument, therefore, went to the destruction of the College. And yet what were the facts which he produced to warrant so sweeping a charge, and so unsparing a decision? In the course of eighteen years that Haileybury had been supplying the civil service of India with servants, ONE of these servants had misconducted himself, and had been sent home! But then came the Hon. Director (Mr. Bebb), with a formidable array of charges against the institution, unsupported, however, by any proof. He talked of the prevalence of gross immorality, of gaming, licentiousness, habits of profuse and extravagant expense, idleness, irregularity, and various evils of the most pernicious kind. He charged the Professors with want of action, and the College with a total want of discipline; and, in short, represented the institution as a nuisance to be put down, rather than a system to be cherished. He reprobated, also, the rules of the College, as unjust and oppressive. One of them he characterized as worthy of the inquisition; nay, the mind, he said, who framed it, would, if it could, have instituted torture. " Differing most entirely, as I do, on every point from the Hon. Director, I would nevertheless ask, supposing all this to be true, how is it that the Hon. Director has taken no steps for remedying these evils? Is there any one rule of the College which the Court of Directors have not the power of altering? Is there any one evil to which they are not empowered to apply a remedy? Has that Hon. Gentleman, in his capacity of Director, taken a single step to amend that state of things of which he now so vehemently complains? Was it not his duty, with the strong feeling which he has manifested on this subject, to have proposed in the Court of Directors these reforms, which that Court is fully empowered to effect? With a state of things so appalling existing in this seminary, how could he, in conscience, have forborne so long to take the means which were in his power for applying a remedy to the evil? Could he not at least have proposed the abrogation of that rule which he has chosen to describe in such indignant terms? He does nothing of all this, but he comes down to this Court to complain of evils, which, if they really existed, he ought not to have continued a Director for a day without endeavouring to remedy. And, though he knows that at this very moment the Court of Directors are fully competent to the work of reform, he supports a motion for a petition to Parliament to change the whole constitution of the College, in fact to destroy it; and all this before ground has been laid in a single statement officially made to warrant any proceeding whatever. But I object to this motion, not only because no adequate ground has been laid for it, not only because whatever evils have ever been alleged to exist are remediable, as far as a remedy in any such case can be applied by the Court of Directors, but because neither the Mover nor any other Proprietor who supported this motion has offered for the adoption of the Court any proposition as a substitute for the present system which was worthy of attention." Besides this, no two gentlemen agreed either in their principles or their plans. The Hon. Mover was of opinion, and he agreed with him, that the power of the Professors ought to be increased, in order to perfect the discipline of the College. But what was the sentiment of his Hon. Friend near him (Mr. Weeding), and of others, on that vital point? It was, that the Professors had too much power already. And yet, with a most singular infelicity of argument, which surprised him much, knowing as he did the acuteness of that Hon. Proprietor's mind, be maintained, as the grand cure for all existing evils, that the College of Haileybury should be assimilated to our universities and public schools. The evil to be remedied, in his Hon. Friend's view, was the despotic power possessed by the Professors; and, as a remedy for this evil, he argued that it was necessary to assimilate it to institutions where the power lodged in the masters was much more despotic, and in fact altogether uncontrollable from without. What can this Court deduce from propositions so vague and unsatisfactory, so inconsistent with each other, and indeed with themselves, than that the motion ought not to be agreed to? Much had been said of the cruelty to parents which was involved in the power of expulsion possessed by the Professors, and of the fearful and appalling risks they incurred by sending their sons to this Col lege; risks, not only of ruined morals, but of ruined fortunes, and blasted prospects. The reply to these representations was, that they had no foundation in truth. He knew of no parent who would be deterred by any such fears from accepting a writership for his son, if he were in a condition of life to render such an appointment an object of desire on other grounds. "This dreaded appointment, unfortunately for the argument, continues to be an object of eager ambition with parents, and, I am persuaded, will continue to be so, notwithstanding all the appalling statements which have been made in the course of this debate. And as for the moral dangers of Haileybury, whatever they may be, are they greater than those of Calcutta ? And is it not somewhat strange that a parent, who sees nothing in the temptations of India to deter him from turning his son adrift, without any controul whatever, at an age when he is most assailable by these temptations, should yet shrink with so much sensitiveness from Haileybury College, notwithstanding the power of its Professors and the rigour of its discipline, of which so many have complained?" In short, he entirely dissented from the present motion, because there appeared to him to exist no necessity for a change; because, supposing a change to be hecessary, no reasonable or feasible plan had been suggested as proper to be laid before Parliament; and because he believed that the College, as at present constituted, was effectually fulfilling the great objects for which it had been instituted. It furnished a test, not only of literary qualification, but of moral character; a point of the utmost moment in deciding on the fitness of candidates to discharge the large and important trusts attached to the civil service in India. No man would consent to receive into his family a domestic servant, unless he obtained from some respectable person, in whose service the domestic had undergone a competent term of probation, a satisfactory assurance of his character and disposition, as well as of his fitness in other respects; and surely two years seem to form no very undue term of probation, in the case of young men who are to be charged with trusts and duties of such magnitude as those to which the civil servants of the Company are destined. If the College was still defective in any part of its administration, or if the discipline were not sufficiently vigorous, these were evils which he admitted ought to be remedied, in order to secure the advantages of a sound and useful education to the Company's civil servants, and to promote the usefulness of this excellent institution: but, convinced as he was, that the Court of Directors possessed ample powers for the attainment of these objects, he, for one, was disposed to leave the matter in their hands, fully persuaded, after the statements he had heard from the Hon. Chairman, that it was impossible to pursue a wiser or better course. His Mr. Weeding rose to explain. Hon. Friend had really done just what many other Hon. Proprietors had done during this debate:-he had raised up an argument upon that which was a mere mis-statement. He (Mr. Weeding) had certainly objected to the authority of the Professors,-but not upon the grounds that he was supposed to have assigned. The objection was, not so much to the power with which they were invested of expulsion, as, that the exercise of that power was almost without appeal. They, who were appointed and paid by the Directors, were not only not accountable to them, but their acts could not be reversed by them. Now he contended that he was right in what he had said as to a different course being observed in the great public schools and the universities of England. Let them take the CharterHouse for example; and let it be sup. posed that Dr. Russell, the head master, should expel a boy from that seminary. The Governors of the Charter-House, if they should think proper, could replace the boy, notwithstanding Dr. Russell's sentence. So also in universities-the Vice-President and heads of Colleges could restore. The Chairman here suggested, that Mr. Weeding, who had risen for the pur. pose of explaining, was going into a new speech. Mr. Trant also complained that his words had been taken down, and been erroneously quoted, by an Hon. Proprie tor. All that he (Mr. Trant) had stated, was-that in his opinion there was about the College something like a "malum in se. (Cries of" question, question.") Mr. Pattison. After the length to which the discussion had run, it was not his intention to frespass too much upon the Court: but observations had occurred in the speeches of some of the Hon. Proprietors, who had delivered their sentiments upon the matter, which he did think it necessary to say a few words upon. These schools, as they were called, had become a matter of extreme importance to all mankind; and with respect to the East-India Company, they had not been backward (the Hon. Director was understood to say) in perceiving the necessity and importance of some plan of preparatory education for the young men who were to take upon themselves the civil appointments in their service. With respect to this College at Haileybury-however forcibly the arguments of Hon. Proprietors (some of whom were friendly, while others were inimical to its |