e of the suggested books on a given
subject for examination. He learns by heart one book
and the notes of lectures of two or three of the favourite
professors in Calcutta. There is many a man who has even
got through his examinations without any text-book of any
kind to help him, simply by committing to memory volumes
of lecture notes.... I know of no student who labours
more strenuously than the Bengalee student. The question
is how to prevent this ridiculous wastage of students;
how to prevent the production of this disappointed man
who is a student only in name. He never had any desire
to be a student in nature; he was brought up without that
desire ... and indeed, if he be a boy with real scholarly
instincts, and he happens to fail in his examinations, it makes
it all the worse, for his parents will not recognize those
scholarly instincts of his--all they want is a quick return
for the money spent on his education, and he will have to
make that return from a Rs.30 salary instead of a Rs.50 one.

Can there be anything more pathetic and more alarming than the picture
that Dr. Williams draws of the student's actual life?--

He gets up about 6, and having dressed (which is not a
long process) he starts work. Until 10, if you go into his
mess, you will see him "grinding" away at his text-book,
under the most amazing conditions for work--usually stretched
out upon his bed or sitting on the side of it. The room is
almost always shared with some other occupant, usually
with two or three or more other occupants, mostly engaged
in the same task if they are students. At 10 the
boy gets some food, and then goes of to his college for about
four or five hours of lectures. A little after 3 in the afternoon
he comes home to his mess, and between 3 and 5 is usually
seen lounging about his room, dead tired but often engaged
in discussion with his room-mates or devouring the newspaper,
which is his only form of recreation and his only bit of excitement.
At 5 he will go out for a short stroll down College-street
or around College-square. This is his one piece of
exercise, if such you can call it. At dusk he returns to his
ill-lighted, stuffy room and continues his work, keeping it up,
with a short interval for his evening meal, until he goes to
bed, the hour of bed-time depending upon the proximity
of his examination.