fend caste only to the extent of the
ancient fourfold division of society into brahmans, rulers, merchants
and agriculturists (one caste), and servants. What, we may ask, is to
become of the 1886 sub-divisions of the brahman caste alone, all
mutually exclusive with regard to inter-marriage? The text-book actually
quotes sacred texts to show that caste depends on conduct, not on birth,
and refers to bygone cases of promotion of heroes to a higher caste
without rebirth. Its final pronouncement on caste is that "unless the
abuses that are interwoven with it can be eliminated, its doom is
certain." So far has the opinion of orthodox conservative Hinduism
progressed with reference to its fundamental social feature, caste.

CHAPTER IV

THE CHIEF SOLVENT OF THE OLD IDEAS

"Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul according well,
May make one music as before."

TENNYSON, _In Memoriam_.

[Sidenote: English education the chief solvent.]

English education is the chief solvent of old ideas in India and the
chief source from which the new are supplied. English is the language of
the freest peoples in the world. It is only to be expected, therefore,
that with the spread of English education in India the idea of
individual freedom and the feeling of nationality should grow and the
caste idea decline. The beginning of the process is often witnessed
among the boys in Secondary Schools in India. You lay your hand upon the
arm of a boy, a new-comer to the school, and you ask him in English,
"What class?" He answers "Brahman," giving you his caste instead of his
class in school. The boy will not be long in the English school before
he will classify himself differently. In a dozen ways each day he is
made to feel that the school and the modern world have another standard
for boys and men than the caste. Or take another example of the
educative effect of a study of English--I can vouch for its genuineness.
In your house in India you get into friendly conversation with a
half-educated shopkeeper or native tradesman. You ask in English how
many children he has, and his reply is, "I have not any children, I have
three daughters." Just a little more reading in English literature would
have taught him that elsewhere the daughter is a child of the family
equally with the son.

There, in these two examples, the great social problems of India present
themselves--caste