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March 1847, was 3369; and this in the centre of Asia, in spite of the prejudices of caste, which have existed through thirty centuries! The number of native students in the college at the close of the late session was 75 in the English class, and 119 in the Hindustani class; of which aggregate of 194, there are 114 Mussulmans, chiefly from the north-west provinces; 42 Hindus, including eleven Brahmins; and the remaining 38 Ceylon students, and native Christians.*

Colonel Sykes, in his paper on the Charitable Dispensaries in India, before referred to, supplies abundant evidence of the humanity and ability of the native sub-assistant surgeons. Besides those in Bengal, there are a number of dispensaries (eleven or twelve) in the Presidency of Madras, though, not as the former, under native, but European surgeons. In the public letter authorizing their formation, however, is this important suggestion- On the establishment of these hospitals ample opportunity of instruction should be afforded to such 'native students of medicine as may be in a condition to avail 'themselves of such an advantage.'t In Bombay Presidency, too, there are dispensaries (of the number we are not informed) placed as those in Madras, under European surgeons. When to these promising institutions in the provincial towns, we add the hospitals and dispensaries of the three presidential cities and the medical college in each, there surely can be nothing visionary in assuming that the way to the attainment of a competent native medical staff, on the part of every mission station in Hindustan and Ceylon, is fairly open. It is no part of our design, in this article, to enter upon details; we have no detailed plan to propose for general adoption. We present a number of important facts, lay down certain principles, endeavour to obviate objections, and suggest the course that may be, as we believe, successfully pursued. But we have perhaps too imperfect knowledge of the wants of a mission station in India, as well as of the description of persons, among their converts,

* For students not of the English class, text-books in medicine, anatomy, and surgery, have been prepared in the Hindustani language. The London Pharmacopoeia circulates in a Bengali, Gregory's Outlines of Chemistry in a Hindustani, dress. Also, the letter-press accompanying an Atlas of Anatomical Plates, has been written in, or translated into, the same language. There is, besides, for the use of the military class, which is composed chiefly of Mussulmans from the north-west provinces, a good general library of European books, which have been translated into the Urdu by the Vernacular Translation Society of the northwest provinces.

† Stat. Jour. vol. x., p. 22.

Besides the Bengal Medical College in Calcutta, there is a Medical College or Seminary, for the benefit of the natives, in Madras, and another in Bombay. As to the extent of the operations of either we have no information.

whom the missionaries would find it expedient to select for the medical profession-to do more than this. Thus much, however, is obvious-in selecting natives of either sex, converts only ought to be considered eligible. Of native medical men, educated in the new colleges, there will probably in a few years be an abundant supply; from which, (were no other qualification requisite than professional competency) choice might be made. But such a course is not even to be thought of. Whatever the intellectual ability, unless the moral character of the Hindu be purified and restrained by the true religion, he is unfit for the society of a Christian settlement. The first experiment of the kind that might be ventured would probably be the last. It is, however, reasonable to assume that the same description of persons now chosen for catechists, assistants, teachers, assistant schoolmasters, &c., would equally answer, regard being had to natural aptitude and disposition, for physicians and surgeons; and these, where the locality rendered it convenient, might be put apprentice to a provincial dispensary; or be sent at once to study in one of the presi dential cities; while for the duties of midwife and sick-nurse the native female schools would afford an ample supply of proper candidates.*

Should any one be still tempted to doubt the natural ability of the Hindus for the medical profession, we gladly refer all such to Colonel Sykes' elaborate statistical papers on the Educational Institutions of India; in which they will discover proofs, such proofs as few could expect, sufficient to dissipate all doubts on the subject. The truthfulness and purity of the Hindu character in both sexes, even in promising converts, is a matter about which there may be room for misgiving; but in respect of mental ability and manual dexterity, supposing proper culture, there can be none whatever. We only wish the Colonel's educational papers might find a larger body of readers than the somewhat select circle who patronize the Statistical Society's Journal; for they well deserve perusal, especially by the friends of missions, as furnishing extremely valuable infor mation, not elsewhere to be found, on the condition of that countless population whose spiritual and temporal welfare so many Christian societies are seeking to promote.t

* The able Hindu physician, Moodoosoodun Gupta, in his evidence regarding the establishment of a school of midwifery, says, in allusion to the female scholars of a well known eminent missionary, in Calcutta, I think Mrs. Wilson's female pupils will be anxious, some of them, to be admitted students of midwifery. Hindu women have no objection to Christian or Mussulmanee midwives, if skilful, to act as midwives only.'-Appendix, p. 88.

In the last annual Report of the Medical College of Bengal, appears a highly interesting lengthened account of the progress of the four Hindu medical students

Apart altogether from a consideration of immediate benefits to suffering humanity, which would flow from the adoption of the scheme we suggest, we hold that great ultimate good to missions and to Indian civilization, and that at no remote period, would result from a general diffusion of a knowledge of medicine; especially of that branch on which as a science it mainly rests-human anatomy and physiology, including the natural history of man. No department of knowledge merely human is so much needed and would be so beneficial-tending, as it must, to open the eyes of the effeminate Hindus to the abominable character of a number of their social customs-in particular to the evils of marriage at so early an age as it usually takes place among them; to Polygamy; to the feebleness of the marriage tie; to their unjust contempt for the character of woman, and their utter ignorance of her position relatively to the man. These are traits which bespeak the deepest moral debasement; and which, as they have existed from time immemorial, oppose at every point the entrance of a holy religion. To suppose the general prevalence of pure, scriptural Christianity in Hindustan, is to imagine a transformation in the people, such as would occur in no other part of the known world; for the religion of Christ is really more opposed to the Brahminical system (that is, in a greater number of particulars) than to all other false religions taken together. The Hindu, with excellent natural parts, is politically now, as he has for many centuries been, a timid, feeble being; patient to endure oppression and insult, but impotent to pursue the means of his own elevation. The causes of this infirmity of character may be various:-some may incline to

fix

upon one class of causes, and some upon another, to account for the indisputable fact. But, after long study of their character, we do not hesitate to declare that early marriages, and the other violations of the natural law in reference to the female sex, lie at the root of the degradation of the Hindus, from which nothing, except a knowledge of the true relation of the sexes, as taught and enforced by the Christian religion, and illustrated by human physiology, can ever raise them.

In pleading for the connexion of medicine with missions, everywhere in India, and the employment of native converts, trained up for this object in their own land, we would be understood as advocating the extension of the same advantage to missions in

brought to London from Calcutta, by Dr. Goodeve, for the purpose of completing their professional studies. This is the first occasion, it is remarked, with reference to an examination at the College of Surgeons, these young Indians have had an opportunity of showing publicly their capacity for acquiring the sciences and professional knowledge of the western world, and that in such contests they are equal to their European fellow subjects. If the capacity of these four students is to be taken as the Hindu standard, it is a high one indeed.

other parts. There is no reason why, at Sierra Leone, intel ligent negro Christians should not be taught scientific medi cine, with reference to the service of Protestant missions in Western Africa; Christian Hottentots and Caffres at Cape Town, for the missions in that great colony and the regions beyond; Polynesians, at Sidney, for those in the Pacific; and Chinese, at Singapore and Hong Kong, for the Protestant missions in China and the Indian Archipelago. Our beautiful colony of Ceylon, the seat of many flourishing missions, we may reasonably hope will, ere long, have a native medical college and auxiliary institutions of its own.

There is this, with regard to European medical science, worthy of attentive consideration; little or no impediment exists to its universal reception, and the remark will apply even to the anatomizing of dead bodies; for scruples, on this head, we have seen, disappear with surprising celerity. Other kinds of knowledge, with the exception, perhaps, of the art of war, (which the lowest savage will eagerly learn of his civilized brother), are often slighted through indolence or prejudice. Not so with medicine. Everywhere in the east, and, indeed, in all heathen countries, it is sought after with an avidity amounting to a passion; and the more its benefits are tasted, the more its professors are followed, honoured, and all but worshipped. Why, then, has so little been done for the diffusion of this noble science, especially in the populous regions of Southern Asia, so long connected with us by the twofold ties of politics and commerce? Simply because there has been no visible prospect of pecuniary advantage. The mercantile spirit has not been interested, and the matter, therefore, until, as it were, but yesterday, has been left to the benevolent few. But the impulse to diffuse a knowledge of the Gospel operates in another manner. It impels, in the career of practical benevolence, all true Christians with a steady force; and, conse quently, should the friends of missions learn to embrace, as part of their scheme, the instruction in medicine on an extensive scale, of suitable persons from among their converts, the few remaining years of the present century would suffice to effect a revolution in the opinions and habits of the Oriental world, greater and more profound than has hitherto been ac complished by all the other means combined-it being always to be borne in mind, as we have before hinted, that what Christianity, in social morals, authoritatively teaches, human physiology illustrates and confirms.

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(ÉS ART. V. (1.) Life of Jean Paul F. Richter, compiled from various sources, &c. 2 vols. Chapman's Catholic Series. 1845. (2.) Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces. By J. P. F. RICHTER. Translated from the German by E. H. NOEL. 2 vols. W. Smith. 1845.

(3.) Walt and Vult; or, the Twins. Translated from the Flegeljahre of JEAN PAUL by the Author of the 'Life of Jean Paul.' 2 vols. Boston. Munroe and Co. 1846.

WE have hailed with pleasure the appearance amongst us of a complete work of Jean Paul's, especially as it is one that not only affords us a full view of that sympathy with common life, and that tender-hearted stoicism, which were his noblest characteristics, but almost brings his individual self before us in the height of his conflict with poverty and neglect.

What we here propose is not a complete review of Richter, as a great imaginative and philosophical writer. We shall limit our present essay to a consideration of the most interesting points of Richter's character, genius, and life, as they are presented in the biography which is before us, and as they are illustrated and brought out in artistic relief and beautiful colouring in the two works of fiction that accompany it. We would especially endeavour to estimate the real nature and worth of that semi-religious philosophy, of which his fictitious narratives are a poetical exposition. To omit this part of our duty were to overlook that which is most distinctive, and of deepest import in our author, and that which gives to any powerful fiction its rank and dignity above the tales of the

nursery.

Time was when, to the ears of most of us, the name of Jean Paul was like the name of some far distant island, which adventurous navigators had discovered and coasted, but not explored. They had descried its lofty peaks, resting in sunshine, or wrapt in storms-had caught a glimpse of its tangled masses of verdure, its winding valleys, and dark defiles-and had even brought us from its shores some bright prickly shells, and lucid pearls, and flowers not destitute of beauty or perfume; but they told us, at the same time, of the strange wildness of the uncultivated region, where nature rioted in unchecked and unregulated luxuriance, and of the uncouth, obscure barbarian language, which seemed to render intercourse hopeless. But this is the age of victories over all obstacles to intercourse,

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