Mountstuart Elphinstone and Indian Education

Abstract

Mountstuart Elphinstone was widely lauded by his contemporaries for his progressive views and advanced policies regarding education whilst he held senior colonial positions in western India from 1817 until 1827. The creation of Elphinstone College in his honor exemplifies this. This essay is an exploration of Elphinstone's educational views and policies, paying attention to various influences that explain his distinctive approach to education. These influences included the East India Company's ethos of pragmatic respect for Indian culture, religion and mores; educational policy and debates in contemporary British Bengal; Scotland's parish schools and Adam Smith's use of these to defend state-sponsored education; and German Romantic ideas regarding language, literature and national culture. The chapter concludes with Elphinstone's larger vision of a political education that would lead the Indian people to eventual independence but leave Britain with a "moral empire" that might rival the one that outlasted the Roman Empire.