The design of this institution is to train up and qualify a race of youths, for filling in succession the various and important offices of government in our Indian empire. "To dispense justice to millions of people of various languages, manners, usages, and religions; to administer a vast and complicated system of revenue, through districts equal in extent to some of the most considerable kingdoms in Europe; to maintain civil order in one of the most populous and litigious regions in the world; these," says Marquis Wellesley, "are now the duties of the larger portion of the civil servants of the Company. The senior merchants, composing the courts of circuit and appeal under the presidency of Bengal, exercise in each of these courts a jurisdiction of greater local extent, applicable to a larger population, and occupied in the determination of causes infinitely more intricate and numerous, than that of any regularly constituted courts of justice in Europe. The senior or junior merchants employed in the several magistracies and courts, the writers or factors filling the stations of registrars, and assistants to the several courts and magistrates, exercise, in different degrees, functions of a nature purely judicial, or intimately connected with the administration of the police, and with the maintenance of the peace and good order of their respective districts." The marquis points out, in the same strong manner, the arduous duties of the several departments which the Europeans are required to perform in India; and sums up by saying, "that the civil servants of the East India Company can no longer be considered as the agents of a commercial concern; they are in fact the ministers and officers of a powerful sovereign; they must be viewed in that capacity with a reverence, not to their nominal, but to their real occupations. They are required to discharge the functions of magistrates, judges, ambassadors, and governors of provinces, in all the complicated and extensive relations of those sacred trusts and exalted stations, and under peculiar circumstances, which greatly enhance the solemnity of every public obligation, and the difficulty of every public charge. Their duties are those of statesmen in every other part of the world; with no other characteristic differences than the obstacles opposed by an unfavourable climate, a foreign language, the peculiar usages and laws of India, and the manners of its inhabitants."

The system of education adopted holds a due medium between the strictness of our public schools and the laxity of the English universities. Upon being appointed, each youth must undergo an examination in Greek and Latin, and arithmetic, before the principal professors. This previous examination at once prevents persons from offering themselves who have not received the usual school education of the higher classes of society; and those who offer themselves, and are found deficient, are remanded till another period of admission. The lectures of the different professors in the college are given in a manner to make previous preparation necessary, and to encourage most effectually habits of industry and application. In their substance they embrace the important subjects of Classical Literature, the Oriental Languages, the elements of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, the Laws of England, General History, and Political Economy.

On all the important subjects above enumerated, examinations take place twice in the year. These examinations are conducted upon the plan of the great public and collegiate examinations in the universities, particularly of Cambridge, with such improvements as experience has suggested. The questions given are framed with a view to ascertain the degree of progress and actual proficiency in each particular department on the subjects studied during the preceding term; and the answers, in all cases which admit of it, are given in writing, in the presence of the professors, and without the possibility of a reference to books. After the examination in any particular department is concluded, the professor in that department reviews, at his leisure, all the papers that he has received, and places, as nearly as he can, each individual in the numerical order of his relative merit, and in certain divisions implying his degree of positive merit. These arrangements are all subject to the control of the whole collegiate body. They require considerable time and attention, and they are executed with scrupulous care and strict impartiality.

The course of study continues two years, and commences at such an age that the students may be qualified to proceed to India by the time they are eighteen or nineteen years old; and having begun the study of the oriental languages, they are prepared to prosecute them in Calcutta, so as to proceed to their official appointments by the time they have attained the age of twenty or twenty-one.