Later in January 1835 the advocates of the two systems, than whom ten abler men could not be found in the service, laid their opinions before the Supreme Council; and, on the and of February, Macaulay, as a member of that Council, produced a minute in which he adopted and defended the views of the English section in the Committee.
"How stands the case?
We have to educate a people who cannot at present be educated by means of their mother-tongue.

We must teach them some foreign language.

The claims of our own language it is hardly necessary to recapitulate.

It stands preeminent even among the languages of the West.

It abounds with works of imagination not inferior to the noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us; with models of every species of eloquence; with historical compositions, which, considered merely as narratives, have seldom been surpassed, and which, considered as vehicles of ethical and political instruction, have never been equalled; with just and lively representations of human life and human nature; with the most profound speculations on metaphysics, morals, government, jurisprudence, and trade; with full and correct information respecting every experimental science which tends to preserve the health, to increase the comfort, or to expand the intellect of man.