British Indian Grammar, Writing Pedagogies, and Writing for the Professions: Classical Pedagogy in British India

Abstract

One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions.

—Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (qtd. in Sheehan, 2010)

Nineteenth-century freshman composition instruction at Madras University, based on a classical paradigm, prepared students for writing in professional discourses. Examining this pedagogy from today's perspective raises, for the field of postcolonial theory, questions of whether the British, who offered Indians a curriculum comparable to those at important British universities, viewed Indians as inferior beings or those needing help to become modern.