"This has been a bad year in some districts. Crops have failed. You can read that from the weekly reports in my office. Many cultivators have had to abandon their holdings and turn to day labour. Is that good? Are they to be congratulated on it?"
The boy looked downcast.
"No," he admitted.
"Well, then," I asked, "what will they think of a Government who says such things?"
He reflected for some time. "But," he said at length, "when one authority (the High Official) says one thing and another authority (you) says the reverse, what am I to believe?"
Then came my opportunity. "You are to believe nothing," I said. "You have eyes, you have ears, you have common sense. They are given you to use and see facts for yourself. The facts are all round you. You will never do any good work if you refuse to face facts and understand them. If you are to be worth your salt as an official you will have to work by sight, not by faith."
He laughed. At first he seemed puzzled; then he was pleased. He had been educated to accept what he was told and never to question. His mind had been stunted and the idea of exercising it again delighted him. To judge by himself was a new idea to him entirely and he welcomed it. He began to do so. For the first time since childhood he was encouraged to use that which is the only thing worth cultivating—his common sense. But even yet he could not emancipate himself.
Some time later a new subject came up. This time it was the disappearance of the Burman. He is supposed to be dying out. The Indian is "ousting" him. Before long there will be none left. My assistant had read it in the paper and heard it almost universally, therefore it must be true. I said nothing at the time, but that day when I went to office I sent him the volumes of the last two Census tables with a short note. "Will you kindly," I wrote, "make out for me:
the Burmese population in 1891
the same in 1901
district by district, and let me know where there have been decreases, also increases, and the percentage of increase."