Muslim educational conference

Lahore, Friday, October 10, 1924

THE presidential address delivered by Khan Bahadur Sheikh Abdul Qadir, Bar-at-Law, at the Muslim Provincial Educational Conference held at Campbellpur is a remarkable pronouncement in many respects. It not only sets forth clearly the educational needs of the Mussalmans of the province, but is singularly free from that bitterness and communal bias which not unoften characterise similar pronouncements. The Khan Bahadur rightly emphasises the importance of liberal education, and we have no doubt that this impressive appeal to his co-religionists to pay greater attention to it will meet with a suitable response. It is, indeed, a welcome sign of the times that the Mussalmans of our province are awakening to a sense of their responsibility in this matter, and we have no hesitation in assuring them that the non-Muslim section of the population is in full sympathy with any reasonable efforts that may be made to further the progress of education amongst the Mussalmans. Illiteracy, be it amongst the Mussalmans or Hindus, and neither of them can be said to have attained even an appreciable measure of success in their fight against it, is a potent source of national weakness. No one, therefore, who has an iota of patriotic feeling in him can fail to sympathise with the effort of any section of the population to promote education, so long as it is not sought to do so at the expense of other communities. The Khan Bahadur seems to be fully conscious of this fact, and he does not plead for the government withdrawing the educational facilities enjoyed by the existing institutions of other communities and placing them at the disposal of newly started Muslim institutions.