Empire, Civil Society, and the Beginnings of Colonial Education in India

About this book

"Empire, Civil Society, and the Beginnings of Colonial Education in India tells a story of radical educational change. In the early nineteenth century, an imperial civil society movement promoted modern elementary 'schools for all'. This movement included British, American, and German missionaries and Indian intellectuals and social reformers. They organized themselves in non-governmental organizations, which aimed to change Indian education. First, they introduced a new culture of schooling, centred on memorization, examination, and technocratic management. Second, they laid the ground for the building of the colonial system of education, which substituted indigenous education. Third, they broadened the social accessibility of schooling. However, for the nineteenth-century reformers, education for all did not mean equal education for all: elementary schooling became a means to teach different subalterns 'their place' in colonial society. Finally, the educational movement also furthered the building of a secular 'national education' in England. Studying these trajectories and developments in detail, this book contributes to a sharpening of the concept of 'colonial education' as one version of the modern nineteenth century grammar of schooling"--