g extent to which inferior secondary
education had been allowed to degenerate in second-and third-rate
schools with second-and third-rate masters into a mere teaching machine,
clumsy and imperfect at that, for the passing of examinations that
tested memory rather than intelligence, and character least of all. The
unfortunate youths who could not stand even that test were left
hopelessly stranded on the road, equally disqualified for a humbler
sphere of life which they had learnt to despise and for the higher walks
to which they had vainly aspired. Soured by defeat, and easily persuaded
to impute it solely to the alien rulers responsible for a system which
had led them merely into a blind alley, they formed the rank and file of
a proletariat that could only by courtesy be called intellectual, but
was just the material out of which every form of discontent is apt to
breed desperadoes. But many were no mere vulgar desperadoes. Amongst
those who were engaged in making bombs and collecting revolvers and
organising dacoities or who actually committed murder not a few
sincerely believed that they were risking or giving their lives in a
great patriotic and religious cause. The _Yugantar_, their chief
Bengalee organ, which had an enormous circulation and sold often at
fancy prices in the streets of Calcutta, was written, according to a
statement made in the High Court by the Government translator whose
business it was to study it, in language so lofty, so pathetic, so
stirring that he found it impossible to convey it into English. The
writers made no secret of their purpose. The young Indian's "mind must
be excited and maddened by such an ideal as will present to him a
picture of everlasting salvation." Murder had its creed to which Dr.
Farquhar assigns a definite place in his _Modern Religious Movements in
India_ with the following as its chief dogmas:

Indian civilisation in all its branches,--religion, education, art,
industry, home life and government,--is healthy, spiritual,
beautiful and good. It has become corrupted in the course of
centuries, but that is largely the result of the cruelty and
aggression of the Muhammadans in former times and now of the
British. The Indian patriot must toil to restore Indian life and
civilisation.

Western civilisation in all its parts,--religion, education, art,
business and government,--is gross, materialistic and therefore
degrading to