[1] Argyll Street
15th Jany 1824
My dear Sir,
I have waited to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of 27th Ulto until Sir Alexander Johnston and I should have arranged our plan in concert with Mr Lassen for your young pupils’ journey. We now propose that they should set off the beginning of the last week of this month, say about the 25th Instt; and they will hope to wait on you at Bonn very early in February. The winter which had hitherto been unusually mild, & which encouraged me in fixing an early time for the journey, has recently set in with much severity. But I hope the worst of it will be passed by the time the young folks set off.
Since I had the pleasure of writing to you last month, I have had the gratification [2] to hear from Bengal that the Government there has authorized a large undertaking superintended by Mr Wilson for indexing and abstracting the whole of the extant Sanscrit literature or in other words making a copious Catalogue raisonné of all that is forthcoming. Mr Wilson writes to me that he gets translations by his assistants of copious extracts and has already made great progress towards a complete version of the Agni Purána which is quite a Sanscrit Encyclopedia. I trust the India Company at home will sanction the undertaking – & defray the charge of so useful and magnificent a work.
You desire me to specify my wishes in regard to the tuition of my son. The objects which I have chiefly in view for him are the acquisition of the German language and a foundation laid in the study of civil law. He is destined for the legal profession. I wish him likewise to be well grounded in Mathematics; and to get as much more knowledge as he has time and opportunity to acquire. No science is to a lawyer superfluous.
[3] The particular course of study ordinarily followed at Bonn, or that which might be there most conveniently pursued; I do not know; and I wish to leave it to your judgment to chalk out that which you deem most advisable. I should be glad that he should attend lectures conducive to the attainments of liberal knowledge; and those especially which prepare for the profession to which he is destined: the bar.
To be more particular, I may say that I wish him to learn French and German; & to pursue his classical studies; attending particularly to the Greek & Latin O[r]ators, and Historians. Mathematics in a[ll] its branches; from arithmetic to astronomy. If there are lectures in Chemistry and natural philosophy; I should wish him to attend them: lectures on History, the belles lettres, and jurisprudence, of course.
I am desirous he should learn drawing; and he may take lessons of fencing, dancing and riding.
For the rest I commit it all to your good judgment and kindness.
I am
Dear Sir
very sincly Yours
HColebrooke
[4] A Monsieur
Monsieur A W de Schlegel
a Bonn
Terr. du Roi de Preusse sur le Rhin
15th Jany 1824
My dear Sir,
I have waited to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of 27th Ulto until Sir Alexander Johnston and I should have arranged our plan in concert with Mr Lassen for your young pupils’ journey. We now propose that they should set off the beginning of the last week of this month, say about the 25th Instt; and they will hope to wait on you at Bonn very early in February. The winter which had hitherto been unusually mild, & which encouraged me in fixing an early time for the journey, has recently set in with much severity. But I hope the worst of it will be passed by the time the young folks set off.
Since I had the pleasure of writing to you last month, I have had the gratification [2] to hear from Bengal that the Government there has authorized a large undertaking superintended by Mr Wilson for indexing and abstracting the whole of the extant Sanscrit literature or in other words making a copious Catalogue raisonné of all that is forthcoming. Mr Wilson writes to me that he gets translations by his assistants of copious extracts and has already made great progress towards a complete version of the Agni Purána which is quite a Sanscrit Encyclopedia. I trust the India Company at home will sanction the undertaking – & defray the charge of so useful and magnificent a work.
You desire me to specify my wishes in regard to the tuition of my son. The objects which I have chiefly in view for him are the acquisition of the German language and a foundation laid in the study of civil law. He is destined for the legal profession. I wish him likewise to be well grounded in Mathematics; and to get as much more knowledge as he has time and opportunity to acquire. No science is to a lawyer superfluous.
[3] The particular course of study ordinarily followed at Bonn, or that which might be there most conveniently pursued; I do not know; and I wish to leave it to your judgment to chalk out that which you deem most advisable. I should be glad that he should attend lectures conducive to the attainments of liberal knowledge; and those especially which prepare for the profession to which he is destined: the bar.
To be more particular, I may say that I wish him to learn French and German; & to pursue his classical studies; attending particularly to the Greek & Latin O[r]ators, and Historians. Mathematics in a[ll] its branches; from arithmetic to astronomy. If there are lectures in Chemistry and natural philosophy; I should wish him to attend them: lectures on History, the belles lettres, and jurisprudence, of course.
I am desirous he should learn drawing; and he may take lessons of fencing, dancing and riding.
For the rest I commit it all to your good judgment and kindness.
I am
Dear Sir
very sincly Yours
HColebrooke
[4] A Monsieur
Monsieur A W de Schlegel
a Bonn
Terr. du Roi de Preusse sur le Rhin
