robably the only one in Madras, and
certainly the only native of India in Madras, who had come into any kind
of personal contact with Lord Tennyson.--_Speech of the Hon. the Rev.
Dr. Miller at the Tennyson Commemoration Meeting_.

LIFE IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE.

BY T. RAMAKRISHNA, B.A.

With an Introduction by the Right Hon. Sir M.E. GRANT DUFF, G.C.S.I.

(_London: T. Fisher Unwin_, 1891.)

* * * * *

OPINIONS.

The Occidentals led by Macaulay had too complete a victory for the good
of India. Much that they said and did was wise, but their system has
failed in many ways, and was, indeed, never intended to breed up men
interested in the past of their own land. Nearly all that has been
learned about it has been learned by the labour of Europeans, and yet
natives trained to European methods of research have facilities of kinds
for prosecuting research which we have not.... I had a great deal to say
on that subject, and on many other cognate ones in an address which I
delivered in my capacity of Chancellor of the University of Madras,
shortly before I left the country, but I do not know that it has had
much effect since, though an excellent little book by Mr. Ramakrishna on
the village life of South India is a step in the right direction. We
want, however, quite a small library of works of that kind before the
harvest that is ready for the sickle of intelligent native observers is
gathered in.--_The Right Hon. Sir M.E. Grant Duff, G.C.S.I., in the
Contemporary Review_.

The subject is interesting, and I do not doubt from the specimen which I
saw that you would treat it in a fresh and agreeable way. What we need
in Europe is to have the reality, the actual working of these Indian
institutions which we have so often mentioned brought home to us, and
probably such a writer as yourself may do this better than a European
could do.--_The Right Hon. James Bryce, D.C.L_.

Ramakrishna,--a literary gentleman belonging to Madras, who has written
a charming book called "Life in an Indian Village."--_Professor Eric
Robertson in Macmillan's series of Orient Readers_.

I can name more than a dozen Indian authors whose works can fairly rank
with some of the best productions of Englishmen. The well-known author
of "Maxima and Minima," viz., the late Professor Ramachundra, was
considered by no other than De Morgan, the famous mathematician, as an
original genius of a remarkable order. A celebrat