HISTORICAL SKETCH.

43

once petitioned the Governor, Sir R. Wilmot Horton, to
support it. The decision of Government was prompt and was
carried out with considerable liberality. In January, 1836,
the new school became a Government institution under the
title of the Colombo Academy, with the Rev. J. Marsh asita
Principal.
The experiment was watched and aided with the warmest
personal interest by Sir Wilmot Horton and his immediate
successor, the Right Hon. J. A. Stewart Mackenzie, who on
one occasion personally conducted the school examination.
The object of the school was to give to those that could
afford it a good education in English, Classics, Mathematics,
and Religions Knowledge. No very advanced work was
done, but the teaching was sound and thorough as far as it
went, and the effect on the students was certainly good.
Many of them rose rapidly to high positions in the service of
Government. The main cause of the success of the school
was the high personal character of its first Prineipal, the
Rev. J. Marsh, a remarkable man who had in a very marked
degree the gift of rousing and maintaining noble aims among
those who worked under him.
The policy into which after forty years of inaction Government
 tumbled in this somewhat accidental fashion has
much to be said forit. In the order of natural development
the higher education of the few has usually preceded the
elementary education of the many ; and if a new education is
to be artificially introduced, the best course, perhaps, is to
begin by training a small section of the population very
carefully under the best personal influences that can be
brought to bear upon them. |
The new interest of Government in education did not long
remain confined to the Colombo Academy. Since the year
1834 such Government schools as existed had been under the
supervision of a Commission, consisting mainly of clergy.
with the Archdeacon of Colombo as its President. In 1841
this Commission was reconstituted under the title of the
Central School Commission ; the majority of its members
were now laymen, its Secretary was a Government official,
and an Inspector of Schools was appointed. Ceylon owes a
great deal to this new Board, which directed education for
over a quarter of acentury. The most valuable part of its work
was the organization of Government English schools in all
the more important towns. The teaching in them, though
organized on what would now be considered old-fashioned
lines, was sound and efficient as far as it went, and the men
educated in them have formed a useful class in the Colony.
A considerable sum of money was also expended in the way