This 5-volume set tracks the various legal, administrative and social documentation on the progress of Indian education from 1780 to 1947. This first volume features commentaries, reports, policy documents from the period 1781-1853. The documents not only map a cultural history of English education in India but capture the debates in and around each of these domains through coverage of English (language, literature, pedagogy), the journey from school-to-university, and technical and vocational education. Produced by statesmen, educationists, administrators, teachers, Vice Chancellors and native national leaders, the documents testify to the complex processes through which colleges were set up, syllabi formed, the language of instruction determined, and infrastructure built. The sources vary from official Minutes to orders, petitions to pleas, speeches to opinion pieces. The collection contributes, through the mostly unmediated documents, to our understanding of the British Empire, of the local responses to the Empire and imperial policy and of the complex negotiations within and without the administrative structures that set about establishing the college, the training institute and the teaching profession itself.

Table of Contents:
Vol. 1 Commentaries, Reports, Policy Documents Introduction Warren Hastings, ‘Minute on Madrasas, 17th April 1781’, in H. Sharp (ed.), Selections from Educational Records Part I, 1781-1839 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1920), 7-9. J. Duncan, ‘Letter, 1st January 1792’, in H. Sharp (ed.), Selections from Educational Records Part I, 1781-1839 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1920), 10-11. ‘Rules for Hindoo College, 1792’, in H. Sharp (ed.), Selections from Educational Records Part I, 1781-1839 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1920), 11-12. Charles Grant, extract from Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of Great Britain (1792/1797), 148-167. Holt Mackenzie, ‘Note on Public Education, 17th July 1823’, in H. Sharp (ed.), Selections from Educational Records Part I, 1781-1839 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1920). 57-64. ‘Letter from the Committee on Public Instruction, 18th August 1824’, in H. Sharp (ed.), Selections from Educational Records Part I, 1781-1839 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1920), 93-98. H. T. Prinsep, ‘Note on Vernacular Education, 15th February 1835’, in H. Sharp (ed.), Selections from Educational Records Part I, 1781-1839 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1920), 117-129. T. B. Macaulay, ‘Minute on English Education, 2nd February 1835’, in H. Sharp (ed.), Selections from Educational Records Part I, 1781-1839 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1920), 107-117. William Bentinck, ‘Resolution, 7th March 1835’, in H. Sharp (ed.), Selections from Educational Records Part I, 1781-1839 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1920), 130-131. H. T. Prinsep, ‘Minute on Vernacular Education, 20th May 1835’, in H. Sharp (ed.), Selections from Educational Records Part I, 1781-1839 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1920), 134-139. Letters and Debates from the Calcutta Monthly Journal, November, 1836, 271- 278, 299-308 Lord Auckland, ‘Minute on Native Education, 24th November 1839’, in H. Sharp (ed.), Selections from Educational Records Part I, 1781-1839 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1920), 147-170. Charles Trevelyan, extract from On the Education of the People of India (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1838), 36-43, 50-57, 78-91, 106-115. ‘Appendix: Extract from the Report of the Committee Appointed by the Indian Government to Inquire into the State of Medical Education’, in Charles Trevelyan, On the Education of the People of India (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1838), 207-220. Sarah Tucker, extract from ‘Central School for Native Girls’, in South Indian Sketches. Part I 3rd ed. (London: James Nisbet, 1848), 73-84. William Adam, extracts from Report on Vernacular Education in Bengal and Behar (1835, 1836, 1838) (Calcutta: Home Secretariat Press, 1868), 1-6, 19-20, 131-132, 217-220, 258-262, 271-274, 307-309, 314-317. Extract from Report of the General Committee on Public Instruction of the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal for the Year 1839-40. Calcutta: G.H. Huttman, 1841. i-iv, xxxvii, ccxxxii, clv-clix, xciv-civ, ccxxxiii-ccxxxiv Priscilla Chapman, extract from Hindoo Female Education (London: R.B. Seeley and W Burnside, 1839), 64-97. Extract from Report on Public Instruction in the North-Western Provinces, 1850-51, in J. A. Richey, Selections from Educational Records Part 2 1840-1859 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1922), 257-258. J. D. Bethune, ‘Minute, 23rd January 1851’, in J. A. Richey, Selections from Educational Records Part 2 1840-1859 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1922), 28-31. J. E. D. Bethune’s speeches at Kishnaghar, in General Report on Public Instruction in the Lower Provinces of the Bengal Presidency (Calcutta: F. Carberry, Military Orphan Press, 1852), iii-xv. Extract from General Report on Public Instruction in the Lower Provinces of the Bengal Presidency, 1844-45. Calcutta: Sanders and Cones, 1845. iii-v, xlii, xliv-xlviii, lxxi-lxxxiii. C. H. Cameron, extract from Address to Parliament on the Duties of Great Britain to India, in Respect of the Education of the Natives, and Their Official Employment (London: Spottiswoode and Shaw, 1853), 50-51, 60-64, 80-81, 101-103, 114-121, 137, 149-151, 153-155.