CHAPTER XVIII.
THE INDIAN STUDENT.
The fundamental weakness of our Indian educational system is that the average Indian student cannot bring his education into any direct relation with the world in which, outside the class or lecture room, he continues to live.

For that world is still the old Indian world of his forefathers, and it is as far removed as the poles asunder from the Western world which claims his education.

I am not speaking now of the relatively still very small class amongst whom Western ideas are already sufficiently acclimatized for the parents to be able to supplement in their own homes the education given to their children in our schools and colleges.

Nor am I speaking of the students who live in hostels under the superintendence of high-minded Englishmen, and especially of missionaries such as those of the Oxford Mission in Calcutta, or the Madras Christian College, who have to reject scores of applicants for want of space.

Those also form but a small minority.