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Under the new regulations of the Calcutta University, English History has been practically “boycotted.” In the Matriculation course there is no room at all for the history 4 England, and even the history of India is optional.” In the Intermediate-in-Arts there we to be two papers in history, one in English ind the other in Greek and Roman history. 3ut in this examination, history is optional. Chis i is the case in the B.A., too. Soit comes o this that a man may hereafter obtain the highest distinction in the Calcutta University without knowing any history, not even that f his own country ! We suppose the Calcutta University will not “boyeott” English literature, But how is English literature to e taught or understood without a knowledge f English history ?

The tabooing of English history is amusing S a political move. English history is he history of English Freedom, but when ut out of the curriculum, it is not elimi-

ted from modern Indian culture,—it is be liberalised and emancipated. Many ultured persons are now of opinion that it is ot in freedom that Western countries differ tom Eastern. They think that a more hilosophic view of human institutions than is ow common will teach us that in the actual njoyment of freedom, Hastern countries have nder purely Asiatic systems of Government, een superior to Western. They have enjoyed $a natural right what Western peoples have ad to struggle for and achieve gradually. is a European professor of wide culture and beral opinions writes to us:

“Asa matter of fact democraey in England has sen little more than a form till quite recent times, ven now the peasants are in almost complete sub- ‘etion to the farmers and landholders.”

It is unfor tunately only too obvious, of ourse, that India has not always had the good sense in applying and using and guarding her

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freedom and her aomocieaitin the past: just as she was perfectly childlike in failing to aunder- stand that the passionate love of the ansestral village and the worship of the Geages and other sacred rivers are intense for>me of the stuff that lies behind all patriotism, an eons- titute a fundamental unity amongst the Indian peoples, the like of which has neverbeen seen. It may come into realisation more or less effectively at any moment, just as,though the gold found ina mine may or may not be coined, the thing itself is there and hasalways been there. In this, India is the inf=rior to none.

But, whatever view may be takea of the relative degrees of freedom enjoyed by the self-governing countries of the Hast end the West, there can be no doubt that bis the spectacle of the organisation of the struggle for freedom in the West, the gradwa emer- gence of point after point in the rigotsof man, that makes Western history valuabB to us, and instructive under our present ¢ reamstan- ces. That of France would perhaps :e even more formative than that of Englaad. Or an Indian historian may some day arise who will take a wider view than is possitle te the small writers of school text-books, ef she pro- gress of Kuropean freedom, and will write the story of the Birth and Development of Na- tions under Feudalism, the Church ane modern finance. And his would be a comoaarative history of Europe and would invelw much: recasting of the very notion of what eonstitu- tes the historical frame-work. But we believe in the power of the Indian mind ane w- believe the brain to do this will yet be born.

We rather suspect that the Struzge of Na tions in Europe follows a spiral ine. Louis XI does in France in the 15th ceatusy what the early Tudors doin England m -he 16th William III does for England in the t2ginning of the 18th century what Henry =V Joes for France at the end of the sixteenth. One destroys the church in the sixteeath century

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