een published to weariness, and the bombastic compositions of
educated Indian students held up to ridicule, the fault does not lie
with the pupil but with ourselves, who are ultimately responsible for
the subjects which are set him to learn. So long as he is made to read
books in antiquated English, he will naturally suppose that the
flowery and bombastic language of Addison in the _Spectator_, or of
Dr. Johnson, is the style which he ought to imitate when he writes a
letter. Nor is it possible for him to discriminate, in what is to him
a foreign language, between what is antiquated and out of date, and
what is mere modern slang, and so he sometimes combines the two styles
in his compositions with startling effect.

It would seem to be more rational to give him the best modern authors
to study while he is still a learner, and to leave it to him to dive
into the recesses of English literature, if he is so inclined, after
he has ceased to be a pupil. Students bring their books of selections
from English authors to the missionary, and ask him to clear up their
difficulties. But a long and involved paragraph, with several obsolete
words and obscure satire, is a tangle which it is almost hopeless to
unravel satisfactorily, when you are dealing with a language so unlike
in construction and modes of expression to that of the learner. Nor
are some of the allusions in the selected passages particularly
edifying to the Hindu mind, ready to scent evil even where it does not
exist. And they tempt him to buy cheap reprints of the literature of
the past, in the hope that he will find matter congenial to a mind
easily attracted to that which is pernicious.

Indian students are sometimes asked in their examinations to explain
out-of-the-way or obsolete expressions which are little better than
slang. As a result of this, students when speaking English will
introduce some of these expressions into their talk, thinking that by
so doing they show their familiarity with the language. When they try
to embellish serious sentences in this way the result is sometimes
remarkable. They will also repeat words, never heard in polite
society, under the idea that they are in common use. Now and then
students swear freely, supposing that all Englishmen do so. When
taking shelter from the midday sun at a roadside police station--only
a little hut a few feet square--I listened to the Mohammedan policeman
as he talked to a beggar, who was exhibiting the