UC-NRLF THIRD REPORT ON THE STATE OF EDUCATION IN BENGAL; INCLUDING SOME ACCOUNT OF THE STATE OF EDUCATION IN BEHAR, AND A CONSIDERATION OF THE MEANS ADAPTED TO THE IMPROVEMENT AND EXTENSION OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN BY WILLIAM ADAM. " The disposition to maintain and the skill to improve are the two elements, the union of which forms the great statesman." BURKE. " No system for any part of the municipal administration" (of India) " can ever answer that is not drawn from its ancient institutions or assimilated with them. 1 ' SIR. THOMAS MUNRO. PUBLISHED BY THE ORDER OF GOVERNMENT. CALCUTTA : G. H. HUTTMANN, BENGAL MILITARY ORPHAN PRESS. 1838. K - - CARPENTIER L57Z EDUCATION IN BENGAL AND BEHAR. CONTENTS. CHAPTER FIRST. STATISTICS OF EDUCATION IN THE DISTRICT AND CITY OF MOORSHEDABAD ; IN THE DISTRICTS OF BEERBHOOM, BCRDWAN, AND MIDNAPORE IN BENGAL ; AND IN THE DISTRICTS OF SOUTH BEHAR AND TlRHOOT IN BEHAR. Page SECTION I. Progress of the Inquiry 2 SECTION II. Plan of Investigation, 4 SECTION IH. District of Midnapore, 21 SECTION IV. Number and Distribution of Schools in the City and District of Moorshedabad ; and in the Districts of Beerbhooni, Burdwan, South Behar, and Tirhoot, 14 SECTION V. Bengali and Hindi Schools, 17 SECTION VI. General Remarks on the State of Vernacular Instruction,. . . . 37 SECTION VII. Sanscrit Schools 42 SECTION VIII. General Remarks on the State of Sanscrit Instruction, 59 SECTION IX. Persian and Arabic Schools, 63 SECTION X. General Remarks on the State of Persian and Arabic Instruc- tion, , 76 SECTION XI. English, Orphan, Girls', and Infants', Schools, 81 SECTION XII. General Remarks on the State of Instruction in the Schools mentioned in the preceding Section, ... 92 SECTION XIII. Population, 97 SECTION XIV. General Remarks on the Population Returns, 103 SECTION XV. Domestic Instruction, 107 SECTION XVI. General Remarks on the State of Domestic Instruction, in- cluding a View of the Amount and Proportion of Instruc- tion amongst the Entire Juvenile Population of the Teach- able Age, 108 SECTION XVII. Adult Instruction, 112 SECTION XV11I. General Remarks on the State of Adult Instruction, 117 SECTION XIX. The State of Crime viewed in Connection with the State of Instruction, 123 SECTION XX, Concluding Remarks, ,,,.,.,,.,,.,...., 128 S/J731271 IV CONTENTS. CHAPTER SECOND. CONSIDERATION OF THE MEANS ADAPTED TO THE IMPROVEMENT AND EXTENSION OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN BENGAL AND BEHAR. Page SECTION I. Preliminary Considerations, 131 SECTION II. Plan proposed and its Application to the Improvement and Extension of Vernacular Instruction, 139 SECTION HI. Application of the Plan to the Improvement of Sanscrit Instruction, 194 SECTION IV. Application of the Plan to the Improvement and Extension of Instruction amongst the Mohatnmadan Population, 211 SECTION V. Application of the Plan to the Instruction of the Aboriginal Tribes, 220 SECTION VI. Application of the Plan to Female Instruction, 225 SECTION VII. Application of the Plan to the Improvement of Regimental Schools, 223 SECTION VIII. Houses of Industry and Experimental Farms, 233 SECTION IX. Concluding Remarks, 235 EDUCATION IN I HAVE now arrived at that stage of the inquiry into native educa- tion that enables me to submit a final Report of my labours, and I proceed, for the information of Government, to discharge this duty. This Report will embrace, first, a view of the statistical results of the investigation ; and second, a consideration of the means adapted to the improvement and extension of public instruction. CHAPTER FIRST. STATISTICS OF EDUCATION IN THE DISTRICT AND CITY OF MOOK- SHEDABAD ; IN THE DISTRICTS OF BEERBHOOM, BuRDWAN, AND MIDNAPORE IN BENGAL ; AND IN THE DISTRICTS OF SOUTH BEHAR AND TIRHOOT IN BEHAR. In this Chapter it will be my object to present a view of the state of instruction in the different localities 1 have visited. For this purpose, instead of burthening this Report with long and numerous tabular statements which few would read, I have endeavoured to abridge the records that have accumulated on my hands, and to exhibit in a concise narrative form the principal information they contain. I hope in this way to convey a distinct impression of the existing state of native in- struction ; and the records and tables which I have prepared or caused to be prepared in the English and native languages may at any time be produced, if required, in support of the conclusions founded on them. Some notice of the origin and progress of the inquiry, of the dates at which the respective localities were visited, and of the plans of investi- gation adopted, is necessary to show the periods to which the informa- tion relates, the advantages or disadvantages under which it was collected, and the extent to which it may be entitled to confidence. SECTION I. Progress of the Inquiry. I was originally appointed by Lord William Bentinck's government to conduct inquiries into the state of native education in Bengal only ; and I subsequently received authority from the present government to extend them into the province of Behar. In Bengal the districts that have been visited are those of Rajshahi, Moorshedabad, Beerbhoom, and Burdwan ; and in Behar, those of South Behar and Tirhoot. My appointment by the Governor General in Council is dated 22d January 1835, placing me under the orders of the General Committee of Public Instruction, whose instructions I received 'dated 7th March. On the 8th of April I obtained the authority of the Committee, before A [ 3 ] proceeding into the interior of the country, to report the amount of information possessed in existing publications and official documents on the subject of native education in Bengal, and such a Report was accord- ingly submitted to the Committee on the 1st of July following and afterwards printed by the order of Government. In prosecution of the further instructions of the Committee, I pro- ceeded in the early part of July to the district of Rajshahi and re- mained there till the end of October, but it was only during the month of August and a part of September that the season of the year permitted me to pursue my investigations. During the remaining part of September and the month of October I prepared a Report on the State of Education in Rajshahi, which was transmitted to the Gene- ral Committee in December, and subsequently printed by the order of Government. Since leaving Rajshahi I have not found leisure to make any other Report, and with the exception of that district therefore the present Report includes all the localities I have visited. The months of Novem- ber and December 1835, were employed in the Moorshedabad district ; January and February 1836 in the district of Beerbhoom ; and March and April following in that of Burdwan. During the months of May and June I was employed by the orders of Government on another duty in Calcutta, but was directed to resume my educational survey in July and August. These two months were devoted to the city of Moorshe- dabad which at the time I visited the district of that name had been reserved for future investigation. Returning to Calcutta in the beginning of September I was detained there by the other duty already referred to until the end of January 1837, when I received orders to proceed into Behar in prosecution of the inquiry into native education, and to limit my investigations to two districts, one situated to the south and the other to the north of the Ganges, as samples of the province. I was accordingly occupied in this duty in the Gya district or South Behar during the months of February, March, aud a part of April ; and in the Tirhoot district or North Behar during the months of May and June, when I returned to Calcutta to arrange the materials I had collect- ed and prepare the present Report. It thus appears that I have been engaged an aggregate period of about fifteen or sixteen months, in all seasons of the year, in the actual business of local inquiry, during which the state of native education in seven separate localities, or six districts and one principal city, has been investigated. I have great pleasure in adding that I have been enabled by Mr. O. W. Malet, late Acting Joint Magistrate of the District of Midnapore, to communicate various details respecting the state of native education in that district. That gentleman, appreciating the utility of such inquiries, in March 1836, of his own accord, instituted an investigation into the state of education in the Midnapore district, and communicated the results to me, which will be embodied in this Report with this general acknowledgement of the source from which they have been derived. I have still further pleasure in acknowledging the ready and obliging assistance I received from the Magistrates of the different districts I visited, particularly from Mr. Bury and Mr. Dirom in Rajshahi, Mr. W. J. H. Money in Beerbhoom, Mr. W. Tayler in Burdwan, and Mr. Wilkinson in Tirhoot. SECTION II. Plan of Investigation. Some account of the plan of investigation adopted may be useful to future statistical inquirers, and it is necessary to explain the sources of error to which I deem the results still liable. The first object to which I directed my attention was to prepare the forms in which I desired to embody the information to be collected ; and in passing from district to district I continued to improve them accord- ing as experience, reflection, or local circumstances suggested. The language in which the forms were prepared was Bengali, Hindi, or Urdu, and the character respectively Bengali, Nagari, or Persian, determined in part by the prevailing language and character of the district where they were to be used, and in part by the attainments of the class of persons in each district who offered their services to me. In the Bengal districts Bengali was chiefly used, but in the city of Moorshe- dabad I found it necessary to have recourse partially to the Urdu language and Persian character. In South Behar I deemed it advisable to employ the Hindi language and the Nagari character, and in Tirhoot the Urdu language and the Persian character. I believe that in the [ 5 ] latter districts I should have experienced fewer difficulties if I had adopted both the Persian language and character, for those of my agents who were acquainted with Hindi only, although very steady and in- dustrious, were peculiarly obtuse and unintelligent, and those who understood Persian were continually diverging into the use of that language in their weekly reports of work done, although this was con- trary to my express injunctions. The forms I prepared were adapted to ascertain, first, the state of school-instruction ; and second, the state of domestic and adult instruc- tion. For the former purpose a separate form was employed for each description of school, one for Bengali or Hindi schools, another for Sanscrit schools, a third for Persian and Arabic schools, &c., each em- bracing with modifications the following details, viz. the name of the town or village in which the school was situated ; the description of place employed as a school-house ; the name, religion, caste, and age of the teacher ; the sources and amount of his receipts ; the extent of his instructions ; the number of his scholars, present and absent ; their religion and caste ; the age at which each had entered school, his pre- sent age, the probable age at which he would leave school, and the pro- gress he had made in the course of instruction ; and finally the books, if any, read in the school, and the works, if any, written by the teacher. To ascertain the state of domestic and adult instruction, another form was prepared including the following particulars, viz. the number of families in each town or village ; the name, religion, caste, and prin- cipal occupation of the head of each family ; the number of persons in each family, male and female, above fourteen years of age, the num- ber, male and female, between fourteen and five, and the number, male and female, below five ; the number of families in each town or village giving domestic instruction to the children, and the number of children in each such family receiving domestic instruction ; the number of per- sons of adult age in each family who had received a learned education ; the number who, without having received a learned education, knew something more than mere reading and writing, whether Bengali or Hindi accounts, the Persian or the English language, or any two or more of these ; the number who could merely read and write ; and the number who could barely decipher or write their own names. Having prepared the necessary forms, my first purpose was to visit every village in person and ascertain its exact condition by actual in- [ 6 ] spection and inquiry in direct communication with the inhabitants. This course I found liable to several objections. The sudden appear- ance of a European in a village often inspired terror, which it was al- ways difficult and sometimes impossible to subdue. The most influen- tial or the best informed inhabitant was sometimes absent, and it requir- ed much labour to enable others to comprehend the object of my visit. Under the most favourable circumstances the time consumed in explana- tions for the satisfaction of the villagers caused such delays as would have ultimately constituted a serious objection to the efficiency and economy of the investigation. The first measure adopted to facilitate and expedite the inquiry was the employment of waqifkars, or agents of intelligence and local ex- perience, whom I sent before-hand into the surrounding villages to ex- plain to the inhabitants the nature and objects of the inquiry, and thus to prepare them for my arrival. These agents were furnished with written forms which were fully explained to them, and which they were required in like manner to explain to those to whom they were sent. The effect of this arrangement was good, for I often found the inhabitants fully prepared to understand my object and to give me the information I sought. Still the necessity I imposed on myself of visiting every village in person was a great drawback on the dispatch with which I was desirous of conducting the investigation, in so far as that object could be attained consistently with efficiency. It next occurred to me that my pandit and maulavi, whom I had hitherto employed merely as assistants under my own eye, and the waqifkars who had hitherto acted only as avant- couriers, might be sent separately to different villages or groups of villages with the necessary forms to collect the information required, while I should exercise a general superintendence and control over their movements, and they should at fixed intervals report their proceedings to me. This was accordingly done, and thus increased vigour was infused into the operations. Up to this point the forms I had employed were very imperfect, and a useful improvement of them was suggested by the people themselves. I found that while some were very careless about the correctness of the information they gave me, others were so desirous of securing accuracy and giving me satisfaction, that they made out a list of every house in t 7 ] the village, with the name of the head of each family and the number of its inmates of different ages. I took the hint, and thenceforth requested that such a list should be made out in all cases, with the addition of the caste and trade of the family and other details already mentioned. The particularity and minuteness of the forms constitute an important guard against mistake and error on the part of the agents employed, since the multiplication of details is the multiplication of the means of comparison and thereby of the means of checking oversight, culpable neglect, or intentional misrepresentation. It would be more difficult to invent such returns in any consistent form capable of bearing examination than honestly and diligently to search out and record the real facts. These were the modes of investigation I employed in the district of Rajshahi of which the results have already been reported, and all that I was able to effect from the end of July to the middle of September in that district was almost wholly limited to one out of thirteen police subdivisions. This was not equal to my own wishes and expectations, and yet I felt that I had done all that could be reasonably expected of me, having kept myself constantly in motion in the height of the rainy season in an inundated district. I immediately brought to the notice of the General Committee of Public Instruction the unavoidably limited local extent to which the inquiry had been carried, and in soliciting further instructions proposed that I should be authorized in like manner in every district I should visit to select one police subdivision as a sample of the whole district. This limitation was approved and sanctioned. I next moved into the adjoining district of Moorshedabad, and as my attention was to be confined to one Thana, it was important to select one that would form a fair specimen of the whole district. With that view, on the recommendation of those natives and Europeans who appeared to possess the best acquaintance with the interior of the district, I fixed upon the police subdivision of Daulatbazar for examination. The most improved mode of investigation to which I had attained in Rajshahi, in respect both of the agents and forms employed, was applied to this Thana ; but the result disappointed me, for I found at the close of the inquiry that there was not a single Sanscrit or Arabic School in the Daulatbazar Thana, although the existence of such institutions in the district was undoubted. The next district I visited was that of Beerbhoom, and there I adopted a modification of the plan of investigation which spread the inquiry over [ 8 ] a much wider surface in an equal period of time and with equal security for accuracy of detail. In Rajshahi and Moorshedabad with the sanc- tion of the General Committee I had limited my investigations to one Thana in each district; but it now occurred to me that as I employed agents in that single Thana under my own superintendence in collecting in- formation according to prescribed forms, this plan admitted of simul- taneous extension to the other Thanas of the same district. Accordingly, having selected one Thana as before for special investigation the re- sults of which would fulfil the instructions I had received from the Ge- neral Committee, I extended a more limited survey by means of separate agents over all the remaining Thanas. The difference was that in the latter the inquiry was confined to the state of school-instruction, whereas in the selected Thana it embraced also the state of domestic and adult instruction. For the special and more minute investigation of the. selected Thana, four, five, and sometimes six agents were employed ; and for the more limited survey of the remaining Thanas, one agent to each was found sufficient. I did not deem it necessary to refer this modifica- tion of my plans to the General Committee for their approval, because no part of their instructions was superseded, and the modification con- sisted only in the additional labour and expense which I imposed on my- self. The result was highly satisfactory, for it enabled me to pronounce with confidence on the state of school-instruction not in one Thana only, but throughout all the Thanas of a district. This extended and com- prehensive course of investigation has been pursued in Beerbhoom and Burdwan, South Behar and Tirhoot. In the city of Moorshedabad the plan of investigation was made still more comprehensive, the special and minute inquiry into the state both of school-instruction and domestic and adult instruction having been extended to all the nineteen Thanas included within the city jurisdiction. With the exception of four or five waqifkars whom I permitted to accompany me from district to district, and whose superior intelligence compensated in some measure for the want of local experience in the districts where they were strangers, I had to instruct a separate set of persons in each district in a knowledge of my forms of business and modes of investigation. Those whom I employed generally belonged to the class of office-expectants numerous at every sudder station. Their objections to take employment were the smallness of the allowance I offered, generally seven and sometimes eight rupees a month; the shortness of the period allowed to do the work of one Thana, viz. one month ; and the severity of the labour in travelling from village to [ 9 ] village which was particularly felt in the rainy and hot seasons. The inducements I presented were the payment of half a month's wages in advance ; an ample supply of stationery at my expense ; the promise of travelling expenses if the work was well done ; every facility in the way of perwannahs from the Magistrate ; and the assurance, if satisfaction was given, of receiving a testimonial of character and service which the Magistrate had sometimes the goodness to intimate he would take into favourable consideration when occasion should occur. The promise of this bit of paper, the testimonial, especially when accompanied by an expression of the Magistrate's good feeling towards the object and those who should aid it, generally removed all objections. Those who acceded to my terms and whose general intelligence created a favourable impression in my mind received copies of the tabular forms I employed which they were directed to read with care and to copy correctly with their own hands. Every separate column was then explained to each candidate by my pandit, who having pronounced him sufficiently instructed and qualified brought him to me for examination. Generally I had occasion to confirm the decision of the pandit, sometimes to send the candidate back for further instruction, and occasionally to reject him altogether for stupidity and ignorance. Those who were finally approved always claimed and re- ceived a letter of appointment specifying their duties and their compen- sation, to which I added a warning against making any exaction or committing any oppression on the humbler classes of natives and an order to report progress weekly according to a prescribed form. They also received a perwannah addressed to the Darogha of the thana by the Magistrate requiring him to assist the waqifkars, and another from the same authority addressed to zemindars, talookdars, c. re- questing similar assistance. The waqifkars finally received ruled forms as models of those in which they were expected to make their returns, and they were then dismissed with every necessary verbal admonition and encouragement. During their absence a regular correspondence was maintained with each person ; and when difficulties arose they were removed by advice or orders communicated by letter, or by personal supervision according to the nature of the case. When the waqifkars returned, their papers were minutely inspected ; and if such discrepancies and inconsistencies were discovered as implied negligence, another person was sent to go over the same ground. When the returns made appear- ed satisfactory, a correct copy of them was made for record, of which I prepared a very full abstract in English to provide against possible accident to the native returns. The payments due to the agents employ- ed were made in my presence and into their own hands. One source of error to which the results are liable is inseparable from the nature of the investigation. I was instructed that the only mode in which the desired information should be sought must be with the full consent and good will of the parties with whom I might come into com- munication, and that the employment of authoritative or compulsory means was to be avoided. I was fully disposed to act up to these instruc- tions, which were indeed given at my own suggestion and were dictated by the obvious spirit and intent of the inquiry. Adherence to them however made me and my agents dependent on third parties for the cor- rectness of certain details ; for instance, the number of persons, male and female, of the teachable age in a family. It was of course not permitted to enter the houses and count the females or the children, and on these and similar points the statements of heads of families and of the head- men of villages were necessarily received ; but in such cases there was generally a check against inaccuracy by the presence of many of the villagers whose curiosity drew them together to listen, and who often corrected each other in the answers that were made. Notwithstanding this partial check, the discrepancy in the returns of males and females between fourteen and five years of age, that is, the much less number of females than of males of that age, seems to prove that concealment was systematically practised. I cannot adequately account in any other way for the difference that exists in the returns, and which will afterwards more fully appear. Another source of error belongs to the plan of employing agents under me to collect information. I have already explained how I was induced to adopt this plan ; and I am satisfied that by means of it the inquiry has been made far more extensive in its scope, and probably even more complete and accurate in its details, than if I had attempted to see every thing with my own eyes and do every thing with my own hands. The efficiency of such agency must depend on the efficiency of the supervision to which it is subjected ; but although I laboured to render my superintendence vigilant and searching, and although I believe that the returns I received are in general worthy of confidence as far as they go, yet I have no security that they are not defective. In traversing a district, my agents could not visit all the villages it contained amounting to several thousands. This was physically impossible [ 11 ] without protracting the inquiry beyond all reasonable limits. They were therefore compelled to depend either upon their personal knowledge or upon the information that could be gathered from others as to the places possessing schools, every one of which was invariably visited and examined ; but that in no instance a village-institution has been over- looked is more than I dare affirm, and in point of fact I have sometimes discovered instances in which such institutions had at first escaped atten- tion. I have thought it right to show that this source of error did exist; but I believe that such oversights still remaining undetected are, if any, very few. In undertaking and conducting this inquiry, a danger which I have kept constantly in view, is lest the agents and servants whom I have found it necessary to employ, should be guilty of levying exactions in my name from the villagers. I therefore from the first had it fully understood by all whom I permanently or temporarily employed, that if I could discover any of them, from the highest to the lowest, in any act of oppression, violence of deed or of language, or assumption of autho- rity over the villagers, I should instantly dismiss him from his situation. In consequence of this intimation some of my servants stipulated for an increase of wages beyond what they had previously demanded. This claim I allowed, conceiving that I had a stronger hold upon them than upon others who were not so open and candid. The occasions have been very few on which I have had any reason to believe that oppression was attempted or exercised, and on such occasions the guilty parties were instantly displaced. The rich were more difficult to manage than the poor, sometimes for purposes of their own grovelling to the dust before me ; at other times superciliously refusing all communication and demand- ing that a separate perwannah should be addressed to them indi- vidually before they would give or permit their dependents to give any of the information required. The difficulty from the selfishness and self-sufficiency of the rich was only greater than that arising from the extreme ignorance of the poor. Many villages did not contain a single person able to write or even to count ; and in such cases all the information had to be collected direct from house to house with very little aid from the villagers themselves. On one occasion I experienced open and pertinacious opposition from a single individual, a Government gomaslita, who influenced a circle of villages by his authority, and when [ 12 ] his objections were removed, those of the villagers also disappeared. On other occasions teachers both of common schools and schools of learning, from some misapprehension have concealed themselves to escape the dreaded inquisition. On the other hand I have had a message sent to me from a village, the inhabitants of which understood that I did not intend to visit them personally, requesting that I would not pass them by ; and two pandits followed me to Calcutta from the Burdwan district to com- municate the details respecting their schools of which when in the district itself I had not been able to find any trace. Generally, wherever the object of the inquiry has been understood, the disposition of the people has been friendly. It is only the recollection of this object that will give any interest to the dry and minute details on which I am now about to enter. The object is to improve and extend public instruction ; and the first step towards this object is to know, with all attainable accuracy, the present state of instruction in native institutions and in native society. The in- structions given by the French Government with a series of statistical questions addressed to its diplomatic and consular agents furnish both a useful guide and a just criterion of such inquiries : " Le principal merite des experiences consists dans la precision ; et si 1'estime attach ee a un travail est un premier encouragement a 1'executer, vous devez etre persuades que le Gouvernement attache un grand prix a celui dont vous etes charges ; qu'il en connait les obstacles, les difficultes ; et qu'il sait d'avance, que telle reponse en deux lignes vous aura coute souvent un mois de recherches ; mats ces deux lignes seront une verite 9 et une verite est un don eternel d r/iumanite."* In the spirit of these views I have sought to contribute some facts illustrative of the moral and intellec- tual condition of a branch of the human family ; and in the prosecution of this purpose I have endeavoured to keep constantly present to my own mind, to the minds of my native assistants, and to the minds of all with whom I have come into communication on the subject, the necessity of that rigid and undeviating adherence to accuracy of detail which can alone give to alleged facts the sacred and salutary character of truths. SECTION III District of Midnapore. The information respecting this district communicated by Mr. Malet is contained in tables framed differently from those which I employed, * See Hemso's Theorie de la Statistique, p, 78. and to prevent confusion all the details derived from this source will be included in the present Section. Mr. Malet states that the tables may to the best of his belief be depended on as correct, having been drawn out by the different Daroghas when under his orders as Acting Joint Magistrate. Like those which I have myself prepared, they are too voluminous to be embodied entire in this Report; but the following abstract shows the number of Bengali, Ooriya, Persian, and English schools found in each thana and in the whole district. Thanas. Bengali. Ooriya. Persian. English. 51 10 1 2. Kasseegung-e, 78 121 2 5 5 4. Gurh Bettah, 41 33 1 1 4 6 IV1 usluuclpore 1 4 32 1 17 9. Sildrih, 16 4 23 3 11. IVIohespore .... .. 03 21 37 4 13. Pertabpore, 39 7 2 108 19 7 15. Rymorbhandar, .... 16. Sirsah, 18 12 5 i 17. Chutrapal, 22 548 182 48 1 The total number of Bengali, Ooriya, and Persian schools is thus ascertained to be 778 ; and the proportion of each is also shown. The average number of schools in each thana is 45.7. Each school has a single teacher attached to it : there does not appear to be any instance in which two teachers are employed in the same school. The receipts of the teachers vary from one to seven or eight rupees per month, and the average of receipts by the whole body of teachers is Rs. 1-12-10. The total number of scholars is 10,129 of whom 9,819 are Hindus and SlOMusal- mans, the average number of scholars in each school being thus 13.02. In the English school both English and Bengali are taught, and it is supported by voluntary contributions from the European and native gentlemen of Midnapore. The teacher receives a monthly salary of 50 rupees, and each scholar pays a monthly fee of one rupee. The number of scholars is 42, of whom 34 are Hindoos, 6 Christians, and 2 Moham- [ 14 ] madans. In one of the highest classes Christian books are read, it being optional with the scholars to enter it or not. SECTION IV. Number and distribution of schools in the City and District of Moorshedabad ; and in the Districts of Beerbhoom, Burd- ivan, South Behar, and Tirhoot. The following tables show at one view the different classes of institu- tions found to exist in each locality I have visited ; the total number of each class in each district ; and the distribution of that number in the different thanas or police divisions. City and District of Moorshedabad. Thanas. 1 S "8 [5 1 Persian* Arabic. Ok c | 5 1. Pul Hasanullah Khan, .. 1 1 i 1 1 _ 5 IVIahajcUitoli, 6. Nengta Khali, i 2 2 3 1 2 2 4 1 1 3 10 Rajbari, 3 6 Q 1 1 12. Kasimbazar, 1 1 1 2 2 16 Akhra Rani Sahai i \\ 10 2 i 18. Jan Mohammadpur, .... 2 1 23 62 5 24 17 2 2 i The city and district of Moorshedabad contain in all thirty-seven Thanas of which nineteen belong to the city jurisdiction and eighteen to the dis- trict. I have already mentioned that when I first visited the district, I limited my attention to one thana, that of Daulatbazar or No. 20 of the above table . and it was on the occasion of my second visit that I extended my inqui- ries on the most comprehensive plan to the remaining nineteen thanas of the table embracing the whole of the city jurisdiction. Of these nineteen, the first ten, viz. eight on the eastern and two on the western side of the Bhagirathi, are said to constitute the old city of Moorsheda- bad, or the city properly so called ; and in point of fact several of the thanas included in the city jurisdiction are in every just sense Mofussil thanas, containing only small and scattered villages and interspersed with cultivated fields, jungle, and morass. The table shows the distribu- tion of schools to be very unequal. Of the above twenty thanas there are four without any institution of education whatsoever ; four others in each of which there is only one vernacular school ; and two others in which there are a Persian and an Arabic school, or a Sanscrit and a Persian one, but no vernacular school at all. In twenty thanas the total number of schools of every description is 113, averaging 5.6 to each thana. District of Beerbhoom. Thanas, I 5 fiq 1 EC Sanscrit. { Pcron. Arabic. < 3 s E4 1 30 2 4 23 1 4 6 5 10 1 5. S.iAulyapur, 36 2 3 4 29 1 8 2 37 _ 2 2 10 1 10 Siuri, 27 10 12 1 1 34 7 11 52 . 5 21 15 7 14. Kasba, 34 , , 6 6 j 27 7 5 2 2 7 407 5 56 71 2 2 1 The Beerbhoom district was the first to which the comprehensive plan of investigation was applied, and the total number of schools of every description in the district is 544-, averaging 32 to each thana. There are three thanas in which vernacular schools only are found without any institutions of Hindu or Mohammadan learning ; and in those three thanas the number even of vernacular schools is consider- ably lees than in the majority of the remaining thanas, where schools of learning in greater or less number are ascertained to exist. District of Burdwan. Thanas. | ! Sanscrit. Persian, Formal Arabic. Learned . Arabic, i i i ^ ! "0 1 1. Culna, 73 37 6 1 i i 2. Purbasthal, 3. Ganguriya, .... 33 16 72 18 7 14 3 1 10 2 1 - __ 5. Selimabad, , ... 6 Indas . . 66 43 8 2 8 3 7. Mantreshwar, . . 8. Balkrishna, .... 9 Polna 43 26 53 6 25 12 9 12 9 31 13 i - 37 2 10 j 3 2 2 1 12. Mangalkot, .... 13. Ausgram, 45 91 10 32 4 19 629 190 93 3 8 3 4 1 These thirteen thanas include the whole of the district which con- tains in all 931 schools of every class, averaging to each thana 7 1 .6. There is no thana without both vernacular schools and schools of Hindu learning, and the number of each is greater than in any of the other districts I have visited. District of South Behar. Thanas. Hindi. Sanscrit. Persian, Arabic. English, 52 2 33 5 13 29 3. Daudnagar, ...... 4. Aurungabad, 10 7 17 7 3 x 23 23 16 1 13 22 7. Behar, 12 1 37 2 8. Nawabada ...... 4l 4 26 9. Sahebgun'e . . . 121 9 70 4 ] 286 27 279 12 1 [ 17 ] The total number of schools in the district is 605, averaging to each thana 67.2. The increase of Persian schools, nearly equalling the number of Hindi schools and accompanied by an increased number of schools of Arabic learning, is the fact which most arrests attention in this when compared with the preceding tables. District of Tirhoot. Thanat. Hindi. Sanscrit. Persian Arabic. 5 7 I 2. Bahera, 3 3 4 3, Mozuflferpur, ...... 6 67 1 4 2 7 7 27 , 4 1 5 7 6 _ 8. Jala, 1 2 2 3 3 10 3 16 _ __ 11. Mohua, 1 5 22 8 2 3 . 13. Dulsingh Serai, 7 14 7 14 45 3 15. Katra, 2 2 9 _ 16. Riga, 13 9 80 56 234 4 The total number of schools in the district is 374-, averaging to each thana 23.3. The very small number of Hindi schools and the large proportion of Sanscrit and Persian schools deserve attention. There are two thanas in each of which there is only one vernacular school, and a third in which not even one is to be found. It will be seen also that the last mentioned thana is the one in which there is the largest num- ber of Sanscrit schools. SECTION V Bengali and Hindi Schools. The preceding general view of the number and classes of native institutions of education will serve for the purpose of comparison ; com- parison of one district with another, and of the different divisions of the same district. But to understand the state of native instruction, a more minute consideration of each class is required ; and for that c C 18 ] purpose I begin with the vernacular schools, because they are upon the whole the most numerous and because they most directly and most powerfully influence the character of the people. To prevent the repetition of remarks and statements of general application, I shall assume that the readers of this report are acquainted with the two reports by which it has been preceded. City and District of MoorsJiedabad. In 20 Thanas of this city and district there are 67 vernacular schools, of which 62 are Bengali and 5 Hindi. The latter are an effect of the residence of natives of the Western Provinces in the city. Some of these settle only for temporary purposes of service and trade, and do not bring their families with them. Another class consists of those who settle permanently, are surrounded by their friends and relatives, and generally engage in the business of shop-keepers, money-lenders, or cloth-merchants, retaining the Hindi language and for the most part the customs and practices of Western Hindus. It is these permanent settlers that have established Hindi schools for the instruction of their children. There are eleven villages, mohallas, or bazars, containing each two ver- nacular schools, or twenty-two in all, of which twenty are Bengali and two Hindi. The remaining forty-five are found each in a different village or mohalla. The number of teachers is the same as the number of schools, and their average age is 44.3 years. The following list exhibits the different castes of the Hindu teachers and the number of each caste. Kayastha, 39 Brahman, 14 Aguri, 3 Sunri, 2 Kaivarta, 2 Vaidya, 1 Suvarnabanik, 1 Kshetriya, 1 Chhatri, 1 Sadgop, 1 Chandal, 1 Besides these, there is one Bengali school taught by a Musalman. To teach reading, writing, and accounts is considered the proper duty of the Kayastha or writer-caste, and a Brahman, a Vaidya, or a Kshetriya, is supposed to degrade himself by engaging in such an occupation, while on the other hand any of the castes inferior to the Kayastha acquire by the same means increased respect. Parents of good caste do not [ 19 ] hesitate to send their children to schools conducted by teachers of an inferior caste and even of a different religion. For instance the Musal- man teacher above mentioned has Hindus of good caste among his scholars, and this is equally true of the Chandal and other low-caste teachers enumerated. Of these teachers there are five who give their instructions gra- tuitously, of whom two are family-priests, one is a weaver, and another a retail-dealer. One of the priests, although he receives no fixed payment either in the form of monthly wages from the parents or in the form of fees for each scholar, accepts at the period of the great annual festival or Durga Puja, a present consisting of uncooked rice, pulse, salt, oil, vege- tables, wood, cooking utensils, c. ; and the weaver, although he does not exact any fees from his scholars, receives what they offer him. His school was opened only about a month before I visited the district and he had received within that time ten pice from the different scholars to aid him in bearing incidental expenses. By day he works as a weaver for his livelihood, and teaches in the evening. There are also many cases in which paid teachers instruct a greater or less number of their scholars gratuitously. It gives me great pleasure to mention these in- stances of unostentatious benevolence in the humblest ranks of native society. They prove both the merit attached to the communication of knowledge, and the readiness to receive instruction on the part of many who can offer no compensation for it. A people amongst whom such dispositions are found presents both good materials to work_ upon and good instruments to work with. The majority of teachers are remunerated for their services in various ways. Some receive monthly wages which are generally paid by one person ; others monthly fees from each scholar varying from one to eight annas ; and others, with or without wages or fees, receive per- quisites of various kinds, consisting of uncooked food (shidha) in quantity and value at the option of the giver, subsistence-money (kho- rakij generally amounting to two or three annas a month from each scholar, or to two or three rupees a month from the whole, weekly pre- sents for making Saturday a holiday varying from one pice to four pice a month from each scholar, or presents at the Durga Puja (parvani) either in money or clothes varying from eight annas to four or five rupees per annum from the whole body of scholars. The following enumeration shows the various modes of remuneration adopted, and the [ 20 ] amount of monthly receipts by all the teachers of Bengali and Hindi schools : 2 teachers receive monthly wages only, Rs. 10 15 10 fees only, 39 4 6 1 perquisites only, 030 18 fees and perquisites, 87 3 3 1 fees and uncooked food, ,, 511 6 5 fees and subsistence-money, 38 3 1 fees and weekly presents, , , 2 14 4 fees and annual presents, 20 8 1 fees, uncooked food, and subsistence-money, 4 14 5 . fees, uncooked food, and weekly presents, 24 5 3 2 fees, uncooked food, and annual presents, 5113 5 fees, subsistence-money, and annual pre- sents, 23 9 9 3 fees, weekly presents, and annual presents, 13 3 9 2 fees, uncooked food, weekly presents, and subsistence-money, 14 4 3 1 fees, uncooked food, weekly presents, and annual presents, 015 1 fees, uncooked food, annual presents, and subsistence-money, 5 9 3 It thus appears that 62 teachers receive in all Rs. 297-6-9 which averages to each teacher Rs. 4-12-9 per month. The school house is sometimes built at the expense of the teacher ; sometimes at the expense of some comparatively wealthy person whose son attends school ; sometimes by general subscription, the teacher con- tributing a little, the parents a little, the scholars aiding by their labour, and some benevolent person granting a donation of land, of money, or of materials. In a majority of instances there is no school- house, in which case the house of the teacher, a family or village tem- ple, an out-house of one of the parents, the hut assigned for the entertainment of travellers, the corner of a shop, the portico of a mosque, or the shade of a tree is employed for that purpose. In 67 schools the total number of scholars is 1080, giving to each school an average of 16.1. The average present age- of 1080 scholars, that is, their average age at the time when the different schools were visited, was 10.1 years. The average age of 778 scholars at the time when they entered school was 6.03 years ; and their average age at the time when they would probably leave school was estimated to be 16.5 years. It would appear ten years at school. I 21 ] from this that they generally pass about The total number of Hindu scholars is 998, of whom 18 were absent at the time the schools were visited ; and the total number of Musalman scholars is 82, of whom 4 were absent. The following is an enumera- tion of the castes of the Hindu scholars and of the number belonging to each : . .. 181 Sutar, ... 13 ... 129 Osawal, ... 12 ... 96 Swarnakar, .. 11 ... 62 Yugi, .. 10 Kayali Chhatri, 9 Tanti, ... 56 Kamar, 9 Kahar . 2 . .. 39 Jalia Teli, . .. 36 2 Mayra, ... 29 Kansyabanik, ... 7 Bagdhi . .. 26 Tili, 6 Vaisya . .. 24 5 Kaln .. 24 Pashi . .. 22 .. 19 4 Dhoba .. 16 Mali, Kairi . .. 15 4 14 This enumeration shows in what classes of Hindu society vernacular instruction is chiefly found, and in what classes it becomes increasingly deficient. It would be a mistake however to suppose that the latter as compared with the former are losing ground. The fact is quite the reverse : they are gaining ground, and are almost imperceptibly acquir- ing a sense of the value even of that humble instruction which is within their reach, but from which by the customs of society they were for- merly almost wholly debarred. The time is not distant when it would have been considered contrary to all the maxims of Hindu civilization that individuals of the Malo, Chandal, Kahar, Jalia, Lahari, Bagdhi, Dhoba, and Muchi castes should learn to read, write, and keep accounts ; and if some aged and venerable brahman who has passed his life remov- ed from European contamination were told that these low castes are now raising their aspirations so high, he would deplore it as one of the many proofs of the gross and increasing degeneracy of the age. The encroachment of these castes on the outskirts of learning is a spontane- [ 22 ] ous movement in native society, the effect of a strong foreign rule unshackled by native usages and prejudices and protecting all in the enjoyment of equal rights. It has been mentioned in former reports that there are four stages in a course of vernacular instruction ; but there is this difference between Bengali and Hindi schools, that whereas in the second and third stages of the former the palm-leaf and plantain-leaf are generally used, in the same stages of the latter a wooden-board and brazen plate are employed as the materials on which lessons in writing and accounts are given. Two modes are adopted of writing on the brazen plate ; first, by dissolving chalk in water to a consistence that permits the scholar to rub it on the plate where it dries and receives the impression of a hard pin or reed-pen ; and second, by writing on the plate with chalk-ink. The former is the mode chiefly employed in writing on the board, and mud is sometimes substituted for moistened chalk. The following statement exhibits the distribution of the total number of scholars into the four stages of instruction : (a} Scholars who write on the ground, ................ ., ..... 71 b . < on the palm-leaf, ................ 525 ^ ( on the wooden-board, ............ 35 j the plaintain-leaf, ............ 3 ^ . , ............ C on the brazen plate, .............. 95 W on paper, ............ . ............... 437 It thus appears that nearly the whole number of scholars is employed in the second and fourth stages, the former embracing the commence- ment and the latter the completion of instruction in accounts. Limited as is the utmost scope of vernacular instruction, there are several gradations in the attainments of the teachers and in the instruc- tions which they bestow. Thus in 4 Hindi schools commercial accounts only, in 14? Bengali schools agricultural accounts only, and in 10 Bengali schools both commercial and agricultural accounts are taught. In 3 schools of which one is Hindi and two are Bengali, written works chiefly in the vernacular language are taught in addition to commercial accounts; and in 36 Bengali schools those works are taught in addition both to commercial and agricultural accounts. In the only Hindi school in which vernacular works are used, those works are the Dan Lila and Dadhi Lila, both describing the boyish [ 23 ] amusements of Krishna, the former his boating pleasures on the Jumna in the neighbourhood of Brindavan, and the latter the tricks he played the milkmen of that place with his youthful companions. In only one Bengali school the Guru Bandana was found in use, a doggerel compo- sition containing an expression of the respect and devotion due from the scholar to his teacher. The arithmetical rules of Subhankar were em- ployed in 32 schools. The Guru Dakshina, another doggerel composition which is sung by the elder boys of a school from house to house to elicit donations for their master, was taught in three schools. In addi- tion to these vernacular works, a small portion of the Sanscrit vocabu- lary of Amara Singh was found to be in use in one Bengali school ; in another a work called Sabda Subanta containing the rules of Sanscrit orthography, the permutations of letters in combination, and examples of the declension of nouns ; and in 14? schools the Sanscrit verses of Chanakya, containing the praises of learning and precepts of morality, were read or committed to memory. All the preceding works both vernacular and Sanscrit were taught either from manuscripts or memoriter ; but in five schools the Shishu Bodh was employed, a modern compilation in print, containing Subhankar, Chanakya, and Guru Dakshina. One teacher I found in possession of the following works in manuscript which he professed to employ for the instruction of his scholars ; viz. the arithmetic of Ugra Balaram, consisting of practical and imaginary examples which are worked; the modes of epistolary address by the same author ; Subhankar ; Saraswati Bandana ; and Aradhan Das's Man Bhanjan or Anger Removed, and Kalanka Bhanjan or Disgrace Removed, both relating to the loves of Radha and Krishna. In addition to the preceding which were all in Bengali, he had also in Sanscrit the verses of Chanakya and the conjugation of the substantive verb bhu. Another teacher had the following printed works ; viz. Hitopadesh, a Serampore school-book ; the School Book Society's Nilikatha or Moral Instructions, first part, 3d ed. 1818 ; the same Society's Instructions for modelling and conducting Schools, 1819 ; Do.'s Geography, chapter III. Introduction to Asia, 1819; Jyotis Biba- ran t a Serampore school book on astronomy ; the seven first numbers of the Serampore Digdarsan or Indian Youth's Magazine ; and a Seram- pore missionary tract called Nitivakya. This person was formerly in the employment of a European gentleman who supported a Bengali school subsequently discontinued, and the books remaining in the teach- er's hands are preserved as curiosities or as heir-looms to be admired not used. [ 24 ] District of Beerbhoom. The seventeen thanas enumerated in Section IV. comprise the whole of this district and contain 412 vernacular schools, of which 407 are Bengali and 5 are reckoned as Hindi schools, but in fact Hindi is exclusively taught in one only, and in the remaining four both Bengali and Hindi are taught. In one school the Hindi language is written in the Ben- gali as well as in the Nagari characters. Hindi instruction even to this limited extent is in demand only in one thana, that of Deoghur, which is the most north-westerly of the police divisions, and adjoins the districts of Bhaugulpoor and Monghir where Hindi prevails. There are eight villages that contain each three vernacular schools; fifteen that contain each two ; and three hundred and fifty-eight con- taining each one. The number of teachers is 412 of whom one is a Christian, four are Musalmans, and the remainder are Hindus. The average age of all the teachers is 38.3 years. The following list exhibits the castes of the, Hindu teachers and the number of each : Kayastha, 256 Brahman, 86 Sadgop, 12 Vaishnava, 8 Gandhabanik, 5 Suvarnabanik, ...... 5 Bhatta, 4 Kaivarta, 4 Mayra, 4 Goala, 3 Vaidya, 2 Aguri, 2 Yugi, 2 Tanti, 2 Kalu 2 Sunri, 2 Swarnakar, , Rajput, .. Napit, ..... Barayi, .. C hhatri, ... Dhoba, .., Malo, Chandal... The Kalu, Sunri, Dhoba, Malo, and Chandal castes are of those that were generally deemed to be excluded from the benefits of instruction in letters; but the above enumeration shows that some individuals of those castes have even become instructors of others. The Christian teacher mentioned above is employed in teaching a Missionary school. There are not fewer than eleven teachers who instruct their scholars gratuitously, and of these there are not less than four in one thana, that of Sakalyapur. The scholars of one are poor and he is contented to teach them without pay, receiving his subsistence from the other members of his family. Another is the head-man of the village, 1 ' and from motives of benevolence or piety he instructs the children who t 25 ] pfease to attend him. A third is a respectable inhabitant of the village in which he resides who employs his declining age in the gratuitous instruction of the young, having a farm by which he supports himself and family. Five others support themselves and families by farming, of whom one is a paralytic. The paid teachers are remunerated as follows : 2 teachers receive monthly wages only, Rs, 940 71 fees only, 157 7 1 perquisites only, 10 2 wages aqd perquisites, . . 480 325 fees and perquisites, .... 1125 7 9 It thus appears that 401 teachers receive in all Rs. 1297-4-9, averaging to each Rs. 3-3-9 per month. At the time I visited this district I had not adopted the practice of noting the different sorts of perquisites received by teachers, every thing coming under that denomination being recorded in one sum. Regarding the school-houses of this district I shall transcribe only a few of my notes which appear to contain any thing peculiar or characteristic. In one village the school-house was built by the teacher at a cost in money of Rs. 1-4 with the aid of his pupils who brought materials from the jungle. In another the school-house was built by the scholars at a cost of Rs. 1-8, in addition to their own labour. The house is thatched and the walls consist of branches and leaves of the palm and sal trees interlaced. In a third the scholars assembled in the village place of worship and they were engaged in building a school-house with thatched roof, beams and rafters, and mud-walls, which was expected to cost in all about ten rupees, besides their labour. Several school-houses are noted as having been built by subscription amongst the parents. Baithak-khanas, kachahris, store-houses, verandas, shops, and temples, are used here as elsewhere. The temples consecrated to Yama, the Judge of the Departed, the Minos of Hinduism, I have found frequently used as school-houses in this district in consequence of the extent to which the worship of that deity under the title of Dharmaraj prevails. In 412 schools the total number of scholars is 6,383, giving to each school an average of 15.14 ; and the average age of the whole number at the time when the different schools were visited was 10.05 years. The age of entering and the probable age of leaving school were not ascertained in this district. D Of the whole number of scholars 3 are Dhangars, a tribe of Coles ; 3 are Santhals, another forest tribe ; 20 are Christians, the children of native converts taught in a Missionary school ; and 232 are Musalmans. All the rest amounting to 6,125 are Hindus, and the number of each- Hindu caste is exhibited in the following list : Brahman, 1853 Goala, 560 Gandhabanik, 529 Kayastha, 487 Sadgop, 290 Kalu, 258 Mayra, 248 Tanti, 196 Suvarnabanik, 184 Sunri, 164 Vaishnava, 164 Tamli, ... t 127 Kamar, 109 Kaivarta, 89 Napit, 79 Vaidya, 71 Rajput, 68 Barayi, 62 Swarnakar, 53 Kshatriya, 52 Sutar... 50 Kumar, Teli, Tili, Aguri, Dhoba, Chhatri, .... Punra, , Dom, , Daivajna, .., Keot, Bagdhi, ..... Baiti, Hari, Mai, Vaishya , Sankhabanik, Kansyabanik, Bhatta, .... Vugi, Net, Sarak, . Kurmi, 7 Lahari, 5 Mali, 4 Bubila, 4 Muchi, 3 Bhumiya, 2 Dhanuk, 2 Konra, 2 Ganrar, 2 Matiya, 2 Agradani, Magadha, Sanyasi, Halwaikar, Baiiri, Dulia, Jalia, Byadha, Chandal, This is the first district in which my arrangements enabled me to obtain a complete view of the amount and distribution of vernacular instruction, with a confidence nearly approaching to certainty that no important omission had been made. From the number of scholars of the brahman caste, we may infer not only the large number of brahman families in the district, but also in some measure the extent to which they have engaged in the worldly employments prohibited to their caste. Another circumstance worthy of notice is the comparatively large num- ber of scholars of the Kalu and Sunri castes, which are not only on religious grounds excluded from association with brahmans, but, accord- ing to former custom and usage, were generally deemed unworthy of participating in the advantages of literary instruction even in its humblest forms. The appearance also of the Dom, Keot, Hari and other low castes in the list of scholars, although in less numbers, affords additional and still stronger illustrations of the increasing desire [ 27 ] for instruction and of the unforced efforts to obtain it ; for those castes are the lowest of the low and were formerly as undesirous of instruction in letters as they were deemed unworthy of it. In the only Mis- sionary school of this class in the district there are only two Hindu scholars, one of the Dom and the other of the Hari caste, from, which it will be seen that all the other scholars of low caste are found in schools of exclusively native origin and entirely under native management. In the Hindi schools of this district the wooden board is used, but not the brazen plate to write upon ; and in the Bengali schools, besides the plantain leaf, the leaf of the sal tree is used in the third stage of instruction. The following is the distribution of the scholars into the four established grades : (a} Scholars who write on the ground, 372 .onthepa^eaf, *?' { 70 I on the wooden board, 19 > on the plantain-leaf, 299) on the sal-leaf, 98 \ * (d) on paper, 2044 The former remark applies here also, that nearly all the scholars are in the second and fourth stages of instruction. In one school Christian instruction is communicated ; in 35 schools commercial accounts only ; in 47 schools agricultural accounts only ; and in 316 schools both commercial and agricultural accounts are taught. In one school commercial accounts and written works, and in 12 schools both commercial and agricultural accounts with written works are taught. Subhankar was found in use in eight schools ; and in one school a Bengali translation from Sanscrit called the Nataka of Jayadeva or Gila Govinda relating to the amours of Radha and Krishna. In one school two works were employed as school books called Ashta Dhatu and Ashta Sabdi, containing respectively the conjugation of eight Sanscrit verbs and the declension of eight Sanscrit nouns ; and in four schools the verses of Chanakya were taught ; in one with, and in three without a Bengali translation. District of Burdwan. The thirteen thanas of this district contain in all 629 Bengali schools of which seven are found in one village, six in another, and five in a [ 28 ] third. Nine villages contain three each ; fifty-nine, two each ; and four hundred and sixty-six, one each. The number of teachers is 639, being ten in excess of the number of schools. Nine Missionary schools and one supported by the Raja of Burdwan are conducted each by two teachers. Six hundred and sixteen common village schools and four Missionary schools are taught by the same number of teachers. The average age of all the teachers is 39.05 years. Three of the teachers are Christians, nine are Musalmans, and six hundred and twenty-seven are Hindus. The following are the castes of the Hindu teachers and the number of each ; Kayastha, 369 Brahman, 107 Sadgop, 50 Aguri, 30 Vaishnava, 13 Tili, 10 Bhalta, 9 Gandhabanik, 6 Kaivarta, 5 Chandal, 4 Kumar, 3 Napit, 3 Suvarnabanik, 2 Goala, 2 Bagdhi, 2 Naga, 1 Tanti, I Daivajna, ....*... 1 Vaidya, Yugi, .. Barayi, Kamar, Mayra, Dhoba, Rajput, Kalu, .. Sunri, > . In this list the Sunri, Kalu, Dhoba, Bagdhi, and Chandal castes are those which the long established usages of the country would have either discouraged or altogether excluded from a knowledge of letters. Two of the teachers are lepers. In this district I ascertained that there were four teachers who taught gratuitously, of whom one was a Musalman and three Hindus, and of the latter one was a Chandal. The paid teachers are thus subdivided according to the nature and amount of the remuneration which they receive : 26 receive monthly wages only, ^ Rs. 126 58 2 384 8 12 53 57 feesonly, wages and uncooked victuals, . . ,, fees and uncooked victuals, .... fees and weekly presents, fees and annual presents, ...... ,, fees, uncooked victuals, and week- ly presents, fees, uncooked victuals, and an- nual presents, ,,,,..,.. c .. 136 1 10 8 1049 35 11 49 9 261 14 217 8 6 [ 29 ] 1 receives monthly fees, weekly presents, and annual presents, ,, 4 1 34 fees, uncooked victuals, weekly presents, and annual presents, ,, 186 Thus 635 teachers receive in all Rs. 2076-5-9, which averages to each teacher per month Rs. 3-4-3. Many of the teachers who do not acquire sufficient for their livelihood by teaching, eke out their income by en- gaging in farming, in money-lending, in retail-trade, in weaving, in world- ly service, in temple-service, &c. ; and all of them have occasional pre- sents from the scholars during the progress of their education and even after they have left school which cannot be ascertained or estimated. The teachers of the Missionary schools and of the school supported by the Raja of Burdwan are paid but not by the parents of the scholars. In the Missionary schools, the pupils besides receiving gratuitous instruc- tion are also furnished with paper, pens, ink, leaves, and books. In the school of the Raja of Burdwan similar materials are supplied, together with a daily payment of the one-sixteenth part of an anna (five gundas of cowries, i. e. 20 cowries or 1 buri) to each scholar for refreshments. Three of the Hindu scholars are wholly fed at the expence of the Raja for a period of four years, after which they may continue to prosecute their studies as long as they please, but without that indulgence. In one of the schools under Mis- sionary superintendence one rupee per month is allowed for the hire of a boat to bring some of the scholars over a stream and to convey them back. The remarks respecting the school-houses in the district of Beerbhoom are generally applicable to those of Burdwan, except that in the latter I have met with more numerous instances in which school-houses have been built by general subscription amongst the parents of the scholars. In 629 schools conducted by 639 teachers the total number of scholars is 13,190, giving to each school an average of 20.9 scholars. The average age of the whole number at the time when the different schools were visited was 9.9 years ; the average age at the time when they entered school was 5.7 years ; and the average age at the time when they would probably leave school was estimated to be 16.6 years. The average period passed at school would thus appear to be about eleven years. Of the whole number of scholars 13 are Christians, 769 Musalmans, and 12,408 Hindus. The following enumeration exhibits the castes of the Hindu scholars and the number of each : Brahman, 3429 Kayastha, 1846 Sadgop, 1254 Aguri, 787 Gandhabanik, 606 Teli, 371 Goala, 311 Mayra 281 Kamar, 262 Suvarnabanik, 261 Tanti, 249 Tamli, 242 Kaivarta, 223 Kalu, 207 Till, 200 Napit, 192 Vaishnava, 189 Sunri, 188 Ksliatriya, 161 Bagdhi, 138 Yugi, 131 Vaidya, 125 Sutar, 108 Kumar, 95 Swarnakar, 81 Dom, 61 Cliandal, 61 Chhatri, 35 Kansyabanik, .... 34 Daivajna, 33 Barayi, 32 Jalia, 28 Sankhabanik, 27 Mali, 26 Dhoba, 24 Rajput, 21 Haiti, 16 Muchi, 16 Bhatta, 11 Hari, 11 Agradani, 8 Kin-mi, 8 Tior, 4 Kunyar, 3 Lahari, 3 Garar, 2 Kahar, Mai, Kandu, Matiya, Pashi,.. Compared with the preceding districts there is a much larger number of scholars, and all the castes, both high and low, partake of the in- crease. There are some low castes also which here appear for the first time as the Tior, Garar, and Mai castes. The number of scholars of low caste is so considerable that without explanation it might be sup- posed that they were chiefly found in the Missionary schools which are more numerous in this district than in any other I have visited, and which of course do not recognize distinctions of caste. The fact however is otherwise, for the number of scholars belonging to sixteen of the lowest castes amounts to 760, of whom only 86 are found in Missionary schools, and the remaining number in native schools. This fact appears to be of sufficient interest to be exhibited in detail. 1 | 1 1 -N 1 1 5 . 3 i 1 1 S j ^ 5 ^ i s Si I ^ 13 Missionary i Schools V 33 20 21 3 i 5 2 1 contain J 616 Native -> Schools S contain j 174 168 117 58 60 28 19 16 11 2 3 2 2 i 2 f 'i u [ 31 ] It thus appears that the proportion of scholars of these low castes in Missionary schools is high ; but the total number of the same castes in native schools is so considerable as to prove that other and in- dependent causes are in operation stimulating the humbler classes of native society to the improvement of their condition and to the attain- ment of those advantages, hitherto for the most part denied to them, that arise from a knowledge of letters. The following is the distribution of the scholars into the four estab- lished grades of instruction : (a) Scholars who write on the ground, 702 (1} palm-leaf, 7113 (c) plantain-leaf, 2765 (d) paper, 2610 In 13 schools Christian instruction is communicated ; in one school commercial accounts only ; in three schools agricultural accounts only ; and in 1 86 schools both accounts are taught. In one school commer- cial accounts and written works ; in two schools agricultural accounts and written works ; and in 4?23 schools both descriptions of accounts and written works are taught. Most of the written works mentioned as school books under the heads of Moorshedabad and Beerbhoom are also used in this district ; and in addition the following works were found in various schools, viz. the Ganga Bandana, describing the virtues of the river-goddess ; the Yuga- dya Bandana, describing those of the goddess Durga; Data Kama, the generous Kama, illustrating the beneficence and hospitality of Kama, the prime minister of Duryodhana, and the Hatim Tai of India ; and the Adi Parva, or first chapter of the Mahabharat, translated into Bengali by Kasi Das. District of South Behar. The nine thanas of this district contain in all 285 Hindi schools, of which two villages contain seven each, two contain four each, two con- tain three each, twelve contain two each, and two hundred and thirty- three contain one each. The number of teachers is the same as the number of schools and their average age is 36 years. One of them is a Musalman, and the rest [ 32 ] are Hindus. The following are the castes of the Hindu teachers and the number of each : Kayastha, '278 Teli, 1 Magadha, 2 Kairi, 1 Gaudhabanik, 1 | Sonar, 1 From this list it is evident that vernacular instruction is almost wholly in the hands of the Kayastha or writer caste> and that the institutions of the country are still in this respect in almost unabated force. There are no brahman-teachers, and only two of a caste considered superior to the Kayastha or writer caste, viz. the Magadha caste, which gave its name to the country when it was under Bauddha rule. There are no teachers who give gratuitous instruction. The teachers are thus remunerated : 2 receive monthly wages only, Rs. 600 8 fees only, 750 1 wages and subsistence-money, .... 2 8 5 fees and uncooked food, ,, 11 9 10 fees and subsistence -money, 17 1 9 10 fees and weekly presents, 1015 6 9 ,, ,, fees and annual presents, 12 9 2 ,, fees, uncooked food, and subsist- ence.money, 3 3 1 fees, uncooked food, and weekly presents, ,, 3 15 2 ,, fees, uncooked food, and annual presents, 212 3 11 n ft fees,subsistence-money, and weekly presents, 17 5 9 24 fees, subsistence-money, and annu- al presents, n 3914 6 23 fees, weekly presents, and annual presents, 59 1 9 1 f ees > uncooked food, subsistence- money, and weekly presents, 093 1 wages, uncooked food, subsistence- money, and annual presents,.. 199 3 ,, fees, uncooked food, subsistence. money, and annual presents,.. 740 1 , wages, uncooked food, weekly pre- sents, and annual presents, . . ,, 3 11 6 39 fees, uncooked food, weekly pre- sents, and annual presents, . . 81 6 [ 33 ] 80 receive monthly fees, subsistence-money, weekly presents, and annual presents, Rs. 173 2 52 fees, uncooked food, subsistence- money, weekly presents, and annual presents, >, 125 9 Thus 285 teachers receive in all Rs. 585-12-6, which averages to each teacher Us. 2-0-10 per month. For school-houses the teachers in this district have recourse to the various expedients adopted in the Bengal districts, and amongst others employ shops, sugar-houses, thresholds and verandas of private dwellings, and vacant spaces at the sides of the roads. In 285 schools the total number of scholars is 3,090, giving to each school an average of 10.8. The average age of the scholars at the time when the different schools were visited was 9.3 years ; their average age at the time when they entered school was 7.9 years ; and the average age at the time when they would probably leave school was 15.7 years. The average period passed at school would thus appear to be between seven and eight years. Of the scholars 172 are Musalmans, and 2,918 are Hindus, of whom 14 were absent at the time when the schools were visited. The follow- ing are the castes of the latter and the number of each : Gandhabanik, 540 Magadha, 468 Teli, 271 J> rah man, 256 Kayastha, 220 Kairi, 200 Rajput, 150 Kuhar, 102 Halwaikar, 66 Sunri, 56 Kurmi, . . 55 Swarnakar, 51 Mahuri, 42 Napit, 39 Goala, 38 Barhai, . .... 35 j Suvarnabanik, 31 Dosad, 23 Pashi, 2-2 Aguri, 21 Luniar, 21 Kansyabanik, 20 Kshatriya, 18 Kalawar, 18 Mali 16 Tamli, 16 Bhatta, 15 Banawar, 14 Sanyasi, 14 Lohar, 13 Lahari, 13 Kumar, ....., 10 E .... 9 Yugi, .... 8 Beldar, .... 8 4 .... 4 .... 2 Khalki, .... 2 Chhatri, .... 1 Tanti, 1 I Baiti, , .... 1 Dhoba, .... 1 .... 1 .... 1 .... 1 Mahla, .... 1 [ 34 ] The small number of Kayastha scholars contrasts with the almost exclu- sive possession by that caste of the business of vernacular teaching ; and we meet here also for the first time with three inferior castes each of which furnishes a larger number of scholars than the brahman-caste. The very low and degraded castes, as the Dosad, Pashi, Luniar, &c. are comparatively numerous and have begun here also to seek a participa- tion in the benefits of vernacular instruction. In Behar leaves are not in use as a material for writing on : in the second and third stages of instruction the wooden-board and brazen- plate are exclusively employed. The following is the distribution of the scholars into the four established grades : (a) scholars who write on the ground, 1506 (b} on the wooden-board, 1503 fcj on the brazen-plate, 42 (dj on paper, 39 In 36 schools commercial accounts only ; in 20 schools agricultural accounts only ; in 229 schools both commercial and agricultural accounts are taught ; and in only two schools vernacular works are employed. The works of this description are the Dan Lila and Dadhi Lila already des- cribed ; Sudam Charitra, an account of Sudani, one of the juvenile com- panions of Krishna ; RamJanma, an account of the birth of Ram, trans- lated from the Ramayana by Tulasi Das ; and the Sundar Kanda of the Ramayana, one of the books of that poem all in the Hindi language. District of Tirhoot. The 16 Thanas of this district contain in all 80 Hindi schools, of which one village contains three, six villages contain two each, and sixty- five villages contain one each. The number of teachers is also 80 and their average age is 34.8 years. They are all Hindus, and are thus divided in respect of caste. Kayastha, 77 I Gandhabanik, 2 | Brahman, 1 This sufficiently shows that here also the writer-caste is almost exclu- sively engaged in the business of teaching common schools. [ 35 ] There are no teachers \vho gire gratuitous instruction ; and the teachers are thus remunerated : 1 receives monthly wages only, Rs. 10 3 ,, fees only, ,, 14 1 subsistence-money only, 1 4 9 1 monthly wages and uncooked food, 2 8 1 wages and subsistence-money, .... 200 6 fees and subsistence-money, 9 2 6 1 fees and weekly presents, ........ 4 6 9 fees and annual presents, 9 10 6 1 weekly presents and annual presents, 2 11 9 2 monthly wages, uncooked food, and sub- sistence money, 240 3 fees, uncooked food, and subsist- ence-money, 3 4 1 fees, uncooked food, and annual presents, .......... 8 4 ,, fees, subsistence-money, and week- ly presents, 410 1 ,, ,, wages, subsistence-money, and an- nual presents, 343 11 ,, fees, subsistence-money, and an- nual presents, 30 3 3 7 ,, fees, weekly presents, and annual presents,. 439 12 wages, uncooked food, subsist- ence-money, and weekly pre- sents, 21 10 6 5 ,> fees, uncooked food, subsistence- money, and weekly presents,. . 866 1 fees, uncooked food, subsistence- money, and annual presents, .. ,, 13 6 1 fees, uncooked food, weekly pre- sents, and annual presents, 119 1 wages, subsistence-money, weekly presents, and annual presents, ,, 150 4 fees, subsistence-money, weekly presents, and annual presents, 7 10 3 3 fees, uncooked food, subsistence- money, weekly presents, and an- nual presents, . 4 13 6 Thus eighty teachers receive in all Rs. 123-4-3, which averages to each teacher R. 1-8-7 per month. Among the eighty teachers there are only two that have school-houses, and those are miserable huts, one built at a cost of five and the other at [ 36 ] a cost of three rupees. The others accommodate their scholars in verandas, shops, out-houses, baithak-khanas, &c. In eighty schools the total number of scholars is 507? giving to each school an average of 6.3. The average age of the scholars at the time that the schools were visited was 9.2 years ; their average age at the time when they entered school was 5.03 years ; and their average age at the time when they would probably leave school was 13.1 years. The average period passed at school would thus appear to be about eight years. Of the scholars 5 are Musalmans and 502 are Hindus, all of whom were present when the schools were visited. The following are the castes of the Hindu scholars and the number of each : Sunri, 72 Rajput, 62 Kayastha, 51 Kalal, 40 Gandhabanik, ...... 32 Teli, 29 Mayra, 2*s Brahman, 25 Swarnakar, 25 Magadha, 18 Kandu, 18 Aguri, 17 Kurmi, 11 Luniar, 9 Goala, 8 Kshatriya, 7 Mahla, 6 Kairi, 5 Dhanuk 5 Pashi, 5 Tamli, 4 Napit, 4 Kamar, 4 Kansari, 4 Kaivarta, 2 Chhaipikar, 2 Parasua, 2 Kahar, 2 Lahari, 2 Sutar, 2 Khatki, 1 Of all the districts I have visited vernacular instruction is here at the lowest ebb, denoted both by the small number of schools and the small proportion of scholars. As in the preceding district, the number of scholars of the writer-caste is less than even the number of teachers of that caste; and there are not fewer than seven castes each yielding a greater number of scholars than the brahman-caste to which they are inferior in social estimation. It will be seen from the list, that the very low castes as the Luniar, Mahla, Kairi, Dhanuk, Pashi, &c. have here also begun to seek the advantages of instruction in the common schools. The following is the distribution of the scholars into the four estab- lished grades of instruction : (a} scholars who write on the ground, 250 (b) ?> on the wooden-board, 172 (c) on the brazen-plate, 55 {*) on paper, , 30 [ 37 ] In three schools commercial accounts only ; in four agricultural accounts only ; and in fifty-eight both accounts are taught. In one school commercial accounts and vernacular works ; in four agricultural accounts and vernacular works ; and in ten both accounts and vernacu- lar works are taught. The vernacular works read are Dan Lila, Gita Govinda, and Ram Janma formerly described ; and Surya Purana, a translated extract from the Purana of that name. Sundar Sudama is another native work which was stated to be occasionally read in the common schools, but I did not meet with it, nor could I ascertain whether it was the same with Sudani Charitra formerly mentioned. Those productions are written in the Hindi language and Nagari character ; but in the northern and eastern parts of the district the Trihutiya is prevalent, which as a charac- ter is nearly identical with the Bengali, and as a language differs from the Hindi and Bengali chiefly in its inflections and terminations. SECTION VI. General Remarks on the State of Vernacular Instruction. It may be useful to bring under one view the principal conclusions deducible from the preceding details which include all the information I have collected respecting the state of education in the common schools of the country. First The languages employed in the communication of vernacular instruction are of course chiefly Bengali in the Bengal, and Hindi in the Behar districts. In Burdwan Bengali and in South Behar Hindi are exclusively used ; but in Midnapore Uriya is largely employed as well as Bengali ; in the city of Moorshedabad and in the district of Beerbhoom Hindi is used to a very limited extent in addition to Bengali ; and in some parts of Tirhoot Trihutiya in addition to Hindi prevails as the language of conversation, of verbal instruction, and of correspondence, but it is never employed as the language of literary composition. Second. Vernacular instruction prevails to a greater extent in the Bengal than in the Behar districts visited. Comparing the two districts of each province that have been most thoroughly investigated, South Behar and Tirhoot are found to contain 365 common schools, and Beer- [ 38 ] bhoom and Burdwan 1,041. In the latter the proportion of scholars in each school is also greater. In Tirhoot the proportion is 6.3 to each school ; in South Behar 10.8 ; in Beerbhoom 15.4- ; and in Burdwan 20.9. Third. Both in Bengal and Behar the business of teaching common schools is chiefly in the hands of the Kayastha or writer-caste. In the Bengal districts this hereditary privilege has been largely invaded by other castes both superior and inferior to the Kayastha, but still so as to leave the latter a decided majority in the class of vernacular teachers. In the Behar districts this privilege is enjoyed in nearly its pristine com-, pleteness. The following is a comparison of the number of Kayastha teachers with those of other castes. Total teachers Writer caste. Other castes. 67 39 28 412 256 156 639 369 270 285 278 7 80 77 3 This is not an idle fact. It is one of the tests that may be applied to judge of the comparative integrity of native institutions and of the com- parative condition of the people in different districts. Both the Bengal and Behar districts need an improved system of vernacular instruction ; but the former appear to have undergone a social change, partaking of the nature of a moral and intellectual discipline, which removes prejudi- ces still to be met and provides facilities not yet to be found in the latter. Fourth. The reality of this social change in the one class of districts and its absence in the other become further apparent by a consideration of the castes by which vernacular instruction is chiefly sought. Hindu society on a large scale may be divided into three grades ; first, brahmans who are prohibited by the laws of religion from engaging in worldly employments for which vernacular instruction is deemed the fit and indispensable pre- paration ; second, those castes who though inferior to brahmans are deemed worthy of association with them or to whom the worldly em- ployments requiring vernacular instruction are expressly assigned ; and third, those castes who are so inferior as to be deemed unworthy both of [ 39 ] association with brahmans and of those worldly employments for which vernacular instruction is the preparation. This would exclude the first and third grades from the benefits of such instruction, and in the Behar districts few of them do partake of it ; while in the Bengal districts the proportion of both is considerable. Fifth. As another point of comparison, it is worthy of note that in each of the Bengal districts a greater or less number of the teachers bestow their instructions gratuitously, and even teachers who are paid instruct many scholars who pay nothing ; while in the Behar districts I did not discover any instance in which instruction was given without compensation. The greater poverty of the people in Behar than in Bengal may in part explain this fact ; but the principal reason probably is that the same religious merit and social consideration are not attached to learning, its possession, and diffusion, in the former as in the latter province. Sixth. In the preceding details an attempt has been made to de- scribe the various modes in which the teachers of common schools are remunerated, and to ascertain the mean rate of payment in each district, reducing all the items to a monthly estimate. The mean rate is, in the city and district of Moorshedabad, Rs. 412 9 in the district of Beerbhoom, 3 3 9 in the district of Burdwan, . 3 4 3 in the district of South Behar 2 010 iu the district of Tirhoot, ,,187 The returns on this subject are to be taken with some explanations. It is possible that some sources of regular profit to teachers in themselves insignificant, but to them not unimportant, may have been overlooked ; and occasional profits, such as presents from old scholars, are too fluc- tuating and uncertain to be known or estimated. Teachers moreover often add other occupations to that of giving instruction ; and when a teacher does not have recourse to any other employment, his income from teaching is most frequently valued chiefly as his contribution to the means of subsistence possessed by the family to which he belongs, since by itself it would be insufficient for his support. When a teacher is wholly dependent upon his own resources, and those are limited to his income in that capacity, the rate of payment is inva- riably higher. [ 40 ] Seventh. The mutual disposition of Hindus and Musalmans towards each other is not an unimportant element of society in this country, and it may be partly estimated by the state of vernacular instruction. In the Beerbhoom and Burdwan districts there are thirteen Musalman teachers of Bengali schools ; in the South Behar and Tirhoot districts there is only one Musalman teacher of a Hindi school, and that one is found in South Behar. In the Beerbhoom and Burdwan districts there are 1001 Musalman scholars in Bengali schools ; and in the South Behar and Tirhoot districts 177 Musalman scholars in Hindi schools, of whom five only are found in Tirhoot. The Musalman teachers have Hindu as well as Musalman scholars ; and the Hindu and Musalman scholars and the different castes of the former assemble in the same school-house, receive the same instructions from the same teacher, and join in the same plays and pastimes. The exception to this is found in Tirhoot, where there is not one Musalman teacher of a Hindi school and only five Musalman scholars in the schools of that class. As far as I could observe or learn, the feeling between those two divisions of the population is less amicable in this district than in any of the others I have visited. Eight. The distribution of vernacular instruction amongst the different classes of native society, considered as commercial, as agri- cultural, or as belonging determinately to neither, may be approximately estimated by a reference to some of the preceding details. Commercial accounts only are chiefly acquired by the class of money-lenders and retail-traders ; agricultural accounts only by the children of those families whose subsistence is exclusively drawn from the land ; and both accounts by those who have no fixed prospects and who expect to gain their livelihood as writers, accountants, c. The following Table shows the number of schools in which each sort of accounts is taught separately or both together. Commercial Accounts only. Agricultural Accounts only. Commercial and Agricul- tural Accounts. 7 14 AR Beerbhoom, .. .... ...... . . 36 47 0(1(2 2 5 600 South Behar, 36 20 20 Tirhoot, 4 g 6ft This statement tends to show that vernacular instruction is chiefly sought by the class neither strictly commercial nor strictly agricultural, but it must be considered only an approximation to the truth, for it is evident that scholars who \vish to acquire commercial accounts only or agricultural accounts only may attend a school in which both accounts are taught. Still if the demand for both accounts was not general schools in which both are taught would not be so numerous. Ninth. -Exclusive of native accounts taught in native schools and Christian instruction communicated in missionary schools, we have here some means of judging of the extent to which written works are em- ployed in the former and of the nature of those works. The following table exhibits the number of schools in which native written works are, and the number in which they are not, employed : Native schools in which writtenworks are enijtloyed. Native schools in which written rrorhs are not employed. 39 28 13 398 426 190 South Behar, 2 283 Tirhoot, 11 09 With regard to the nature of these works, the employment of the Ama- ra Kosha, the Ashta Sabdi, Ashta Dhatu, Sabda Subanta, and the verses of Chanakya as school-books in some of the vernacular schools of the Bengal districts indicates a higher grade of instruction than I had pre- viously believed to exist in those schools. With the exception of the verses of Chanakya, the other works mentioned are grammatical, and their use is said to have been at one time general, which would imply that they are the remains of a former superior system of popular instruc- tion preparatory, in the case of those who could follow it up, to the more enlarged course of learned study. The remaining works used in the common schools rank low as compositions, and consist for the most part of the praises and exploits of the gods recognized by the estab- lished religion of the country. Most of the topics noticed under this section would admit of extended illustration but I have preferred merely suggesting them to the reflection of the readers of this report. t 42 ] SECTION VII. Sanscrit Schools. The next class of schools is that in which the literature, law, philoso- phy, and religion of the Hindus are taught through the medium of the Sanscrit language ; and with reference to the number of seminaries and students, the nature of the influence which learned Hindus possess, and the amount of the population over whom it is exercised, this can be con- sidered inferior in importance only to the class of vernacular schools from which the great body of the people derive the chief part of the instruction they receive. City and District of Moorshedabad. In twenty thanas of this city and district there are 24 Sanscrit schools with the same number of teachers whose average age is 46.2 years. All the teachers are brahmans, 13 being Varendra, 8 Rarhi, and 3 Vaidika brahmans. The various sources of income to vernacular teachers, as far as they could be ascertained, were reduced to a monthly rate ; but the receipts of learned teachers although generally larger in amount, are obtained at such uncertain intervals that they found it more convenient to give me an annual estimate. The average of the annual receipts of 24 teachers is 123 rupees, derived principally from the presents received on the occa- sion of ceremonial invitations, and occasionally from other sources. One teacher receives a pension from Government of five rupees per annum paid quarterly. I could not ascertain the origin of this payment. Ano- ther teacher has a pension of 60 rupees per annum originally bestowed by Rani Bhawani and paid through the Government. The first order of Government on the subject is dated 12th November 1799 ; on the 17th July 1822 the Collector reported the institution to be well at- tended and the pensioner qualified ; and on the 10th September of the same year the Board of Revenue authorized the present incumbent to receive the allowance in succession to his father. As far as I could ascertain the sole object of the endowment is the encouragement of learn- ing without any reference either to religious worship or hospitality to strangers. A third teacher holds an endowment of ten bighas of land yielding about one rupee per bigha per annum : it is the remnant of 100 bighas originally granted by Raja Rama Kanta to his grandfather and subsequently divided and sub-divided, amongst descendants who do not belong to the profession of learning, from which it would appear that the [ 43 ] object of the endowment has been in a great measure defeated. It was stated to me that the original sanad for 100 bighas was lost, but that a certificate of the validity of the endowment given by Mr. Hely, the col- lector of 1801, is in existence. Connected with the present means of subsistence enjoyed by learned teachers is a consideration of the amount of encouragement formerly given to the same class. One teacher stated that at one time he received five rupees a month from one and four rupees a month from another neighbouring zamindar, both of whom had discontinued these payments for the last three years on the plea of diminished means. The pandit did not appear to doubt that the cause assigned was the real one. In another case it was stated that about ten or twelve years ago an endow- ment of 60 rupees a year established by Rani Bhawani and paid through the Government was discontinued. It was paid first to Jayarama Nyaya Panchanana and afterwards to his nephew Chandreshwar Nyayalankara, on whose death it was withheld as he left no heir. Those who mention- ed this endowment considered that it was exclusively designed for the encouragement of learning and that it was intended to be of permanent obligation. A similar opinion was not expressed respecting numerous other endowments stated to have been resumed about 20 or 25 years ago, and amounting to 8,000 or 10,000 rupees per annum. They were grants of the Rani Bhawani, and were enjoyed by upwards of thirty individuals, but it was distinctly admitted that they had been given only for life and that the resumption was proper. The object of these en- dowments was stated to be^the encouragement of learning, which was very carefully distinguished from the object of certain other endow- ments established by the same Rani and still enjoyed to the extent of 30,000 rupees by upwards of sixty persons, brahmans, vaishnavas, female devotees, musalman faqirs, and reduced zamindars. The information I obtained respecting those resumed endowments was not of that deter- minate character which it would have been satisfactory to me to report ; and I endeavoured to procure more precise details in the collector's office but without success. I shall not be surprised if the state- ments made to me should be found erroneous, and I have the satis- faction of knowing that means have been taken to obtain through the appropriate channel of resumption-officers complete information respecting endowments for educational purposes whether resumed or unresumed, with the purpose of faithfully applying all that may be dis- covered to their legitimate objects. [ 44 ] Krishnanatha Nyaya Punchanana, the pandit already mentioned as enjoying an endowment of 60 rupees per annum paid through the Government, possesses a distinguished reputation amongst learned natives throughout Bengal. Several of his pupils are settled as teachers of learning at Nucldea ; he is in official employment as the pandit^attach- ed to the court of the civil and sessions judge of Moorshedabad ; and both his learning and office, as well as his wealth, which amounts how- ever only to a moderate competence, give him high consideration in native society. The only species of literary composition he appears to have attempted is that description of propositions which it is usual for the professors of logical philosophy to discuss at the meetings of the learned. None of the other pandits are authors. Almost every pandit has a separate school-house either built at his own expense or at the cost of a former or present benefactor. The amount varies from 25 rupees to 400 and of course the extent of the accommodation varies with the outlay. In 24 Sanscrit schools there are 153 students averaging 6.3 to each school. Of the total number of students 106 were present and 47 absent at the time the schools were visited ; 41 are natives of the villages in which the schools are situated and 112 natives of other vil- lages ; and one is of the kayastha or writer caste, and 152 are brahmans. The following are the different studies pursued in these schools and the number of students engaged in each at the time the schools were visited : Grammar, . ... 23 Lexicology, 4 Literature, , 2 Law, 64 Logic, 52 Mythology, 8 The age of each student was recorded with reference to three dis- tinct periods ; viz. the age at which he commenced the study he was then pursuing, his present age, and the probable age at which he would complete the study of the branch of learning on which he was then engaged. It will be noted that two of these periods are certain and that one is prospective and conjectural. The following is the average age, at each period, of the students belonging to each branch of learning : Grammar, 11.9 15.2 ...... 18.8 Lexicology, 18 , 19.2 20.2 [ 45 ] Literature, 16 25 26.5 Law, 23.6 28-7 33.2 Logic, 21 26.5 34.6 Mythology, 29-1 31.1 33.6 Grammar, lexicology, and literature which includes poetical and dra- matic productions, although begun in succession are generally studied simultaneously and the same remark is in some measure applicable to law and logic. Taking however each branch of learning separately it would appear that the study of grammar occupies about seven years ; lexicology about two ; literature about ten ; law about ten ; logic about thirteen ; and mythology about four. In describing the works employed as text-books in each branch of learning all that can be attempted in this place is to give the names of the principal books. In grammar the Mugdhabodha with the Ram- tarkavagisi commentary and the Kalapa with the commentary of Tri- lochana Dasa are chiefly used. In lexicology the Amara Kosha is the only work employed. In general literature the Hitopadesa and Bhatti Kavya are read. In law, the following Tat was or treatises of Raghunandana, viz. Tithi, Prayaschitta, Udbaha, Suddhi, Sraddha, Ahnika, Ekadasi, Malamasa, Samayasuddhi, andJyotisha are first studied ; and these are followed by the Dayabhaga and Prayaschitta Viveka. In logic the works in use are the Mathuri commentary of Vyapti Pan m chaka ; the Jagadisi commentary of Purva Paksha, Savyabhichara, and Kevalanwaya ; and the Gadadhari commentary of Avayava and Sat" pratipaksha, all of course including their respective texts : the Sabdasak- tiprakasika by Gadadhar is also read. In mythology the Bhagavata Purana, and the Bhagavad Gita a book of the Mahabharata, are read. Students as well as teachers sometimes receive presents on public occasions, and in certain seasons of the year the more indigent travel about as religious mendicants, the small sums thus obtained being em- ployed to defray those expenses which their relations or teachers do not enable them to meet. Of the 24 Sanscrit schools the students of 10 receive nothing in either of the ways above mentioned, and the students of 14 receive various sums the annual average of which is Rs. 7-13. This is the annual average, not to each student, but to all the students of each school taken collectively ; and with reference to the average num- ber of students in each school it gives little more than a rupee annually to each student. [ 46 ] District of Bcerbhoom. This district contains 56 Sanscrit schools of which one village con- tains five and another three ; four villages contain two each ; and forty villages contain one each. The number of teachers is 58, of whom 53 are Rarhi and four are Varendra brahmans, and one is of the Vaidya or medical caste. The number of teachers is greater by two than the number of schools, one school being taught by a father and son and another by an uncle and nephew. The average age of the teachers is 45.6 years. Two of the teachers receive no invitations or presents, but like most of the rest give their instructions gratuitously to the students. The others derive their support from the following sources : 50 teachers estimate that they receive annually at assemblies to which they are invited, Rs. 2528 1 teacher receives in the form of presents and annual salary, 150 1 receives in the form of annual salary, ,, CO 1 receives in the form of fees and perquisites, 43-8 1 receives in the form of presents, salary, and fees, 108 Thus 54 teachers receive in all Rs. 2889-8 which averages to each teacher Rs. 53-8-1 per annum. One of those who receive nothing sup- ports himself and contributes to the support of his pupils by farming. One of those who accept invitations and presents adds to his income by the ceremonial recitation of the puranas ; another has the proceeds of a temple assigned to him by the officiating brahman ; and a third refuses to accept invitations and presents from all of the Sudra caste. One teacher now dependent on occasional presents formerly had an annual allowance of 100 rupees from the Rani Bhawani which has been dis- continued since her death ; and in another case the inhabitants of the village subscribed to give the father of the present teacher an endow- ment of sixty bighas of land for which they paid the zamindar 24 rupees a year, but since the death of the father the zamindar has resumed the land although he still requires and receives the increased revenue from the villagers. The sole object of the endowment was the encouragement of learning. Three teachers are in the enjoyment of endowments of land consisting, two of 25 bighas each, and one of about 50 bighas. It is the medical teacher who receives rupees 108 [ 47 ] mentioned above, which sum includes both presents and an annual allowance from his patron and also the proceeds of his general practice. Among the learned teachers of this district the following are the names of those who claim the distinction of being authors, and of the works they profess to have written : Jagaddurlabha Nyayalankara, dwelling at Nandur in the Sakalyapur thana, has written four works in Sanscrit ; first, Uddhava Chamatkar containing 175 slokas relating to an incident in the life of Krishna con- nected with his friend Uddhava ; second, a commentary on the preced- ing ; third, Pratinataka, a drama divided into seven parts containing 532 slokas on the history of Rama ; and fourth, a commentary on the preceding. Viseswar Siddhantavagis, dwelling at Tikuri in the Ketugram thana, has written a work in Sanscrit called Duti Sambad containing 4-1 slokas on the history of Krishna. Viswambhar Vidyaratna, the medical teacher, dwelling at Sonarundi in the Ketugram thana, is now engaged in the composition of a work in Sanscrit in support and illustration of the doctrines of Susrusha Charaka, a medical text book : he purposes printing his own production. Rukmini Kanta Vidyavagis, dwelling at Banwari Abad in the Ketu- gram thana, professes to have written the following works ; first, a commentary called Vichar Tarangini containing 400 pages in prose on Alankara Kaustubha a work on rhetoric ; second, Rasa Tarangini containing 80 pages in verse on the amours of Krishna ; and third JSanamali Charitra Chandrica, a drama of about 100 pages in mixed verse and prose, chiefly in Sanscrit, but intermixed with the Pracrita, Magadhi, Sauraseni, Maharashtri, Paisachi, and Apabhransa dialects according to the characters of the persons introduced. Good school-houses are not common in this district particularly towards the north and west. The teachers very frequently accommodate their pupils in baithak-khanas and c'handi mandaps. One school- house built by a patron cost 1200 rupees and another built by the teacher cost five rupees. There are others of an intermediate character, but generally built by the teachers. In 56 Sanscrit schools there are 393 students averaging 7.01 to each school ; of the students one is a Daivajna, a degraded class of brahmans ; three are Vaishnavas or followers of Vishnu ; nine are Vaidyas or of the medical caste ; and the rest are regular brahmans. The natives of the villages in which the schools are situated amount to 254- and those of other villages to 139 ; and the average age of 371 students was 20.7 years. The following is an enumeration of the studies pursued and the number of students attending to each : Grammar, 274 Lexicology, 2 Literature, 8 Rhetoric, 9 Law,.. , 24 Logic, 27 Vedanta, 3 Medicine, 1 Mythology, 8 Astrology,. 5 It will be observed that while the number of students of the medical caste is nine, there is only one actually engaged in the study of medical works. The reason is that before commencing the study of medical works, it is deemed requisite to pass through a course of grammar and general literature, and in this preliminary course the remaining eight students were engaged when the school in question was visited. In grammar, the works used as text-books are Panini with the Kau- mudi commentary, Sankshipta Sar with the Goyichandri commentary, and the Mugdhabodha ; in lexicology the Amara Kosha ; in literature the Bhatti Kavya, Raghuvansa, Naishadha, and Sakuntala ; in rhetoric the Kavya Prakasa, Kavya Chandrica, and Sahitya Darpana ; in law the Tithi, AJinika, and Prayaschitta Tatwas of Raghunandana, and the Daya Bhaga ; in logic the Jagadisi commentary of Siddhanta Lakshana and Vyaddhikaranadharmavachinnabhava, and the Mathuri commentary of the Vyapti Panchaka ; in the Vedanta or theology of the Veds, the Ve- danta Sara; in medicine Nidana ; in mythology the Bhagavata Purana; and in astrology the Samaya Pradipa and Dipika. The students of 21 schools receive nothing in the form of presents or by mendicancy. Those of 35 schools receive Rs. 252-12, averaging about Rs. 7-3-6 annually to the students collectively of each school. District of Burdivan. This district contains 190 Sanscrit schools of which two villages con- tain six each ; one village contains five ; three villages contain four each ; [ 49 ] seven villages contain three each ; twenty-seven villages contain two each ; and eighty-six villages contain one each. The number of learned teachers is the same as the number of schools and their average age is 45.2 years. One hundred and eighty are Rarhi, four Varendra, and two Vaidika brahmans ; and four are of the Vaidya or medical caste. The following are the annual receipts estimated by themselves, of the whole body of teachers : 185 receive in the form of presents at assemblies, Rs. 10,928 1 receives in presents and monthly allowance, 376 2 receive by medical practice, 500 1 receives by medical practice and in the form of monthly allowance, 156 1, a medical professor, practises as well as teaches gratuitously. Thus 189 professors of learning receive in all Rs. 11,960, averaging to each per annum Rs. 63-4-5. Of the two teachers who receive monthly allowances one is a learned brahman and the other a learned vaidya, and the Raja of Burdwan is the patron of both. There are only two teachers holding endowments of land, one amounting to eight and the other to ten bighas of land, the former yielding about eighteen and the latter about fifteen rupees a year. Kalidasa Sarvabhauma, dwelling at Ambika in the Culna thana, has made a translation into easy Sanscrit and also into Bengali of those portions of Menu and Mitakshara which relate to criminal law ; and also a translation into Bengali of that portion of the Mitakshara which treats of the law of usury. Gurucharana Panchanana, dwelling at Baguniya in the Ganguriya thana, is the author of a drama in Sanscrit, entitled Srikrishna Lilam- budki, containing 50 leaves or 100 pages, in mixed prose and verse on the amours of Krishna. Iswarachandra Nyayaratna, dwelling at Bara Belun in the Balkrishna thana, has written three works in Sanscrit, viz. Gaura Chandramrita on the incarnation of Chaitanya ; Manoduta, legendary ; and Mukti Dipika, a comparative view of the means of obtaining final absorption according to the six schools of philosophy. These three works contain G [ 50 ] about 1,200 slokas. He is also engaged on a commentary illustrative of the Nyaya doctrine. Krishnamohana Vidyabhushana, dwelling at Mahtab in the Balkrishna thana, claims to have written a commentary on Alankara Kaustubha,'a work on rhetoric, containing 300 leaves or 600 pages ; and Bayu Duta, a work of general literature in verse, containing 10 or 12 leaves. The most voluminous native author I have met with is Raghunandana Goswami, dwelling at Maro in the Potna thana. The following is an enumeration of his works. 1. A commentary on the Chandomanjari, a treatise on prosody, so framed as to express the praises of Krishna. 2. A commentary on Santi Sataka, a work on abstraction from the world. 3. Sadachara Nimaya, a compilation from the laws on the Vaishnava ritual containing 140 leaves or 280 pages in prose and verse : a copy is in my possession. 4. Dhatu Dipa, a metrical explanation of Sanscrit roots in the order of the ten conjugations, containing 500 slokas. 5. Aunadika Kosha, a metrical dictionary of works comprising the Unadi postfixes in two parts, of which one contains words having more meanings than one, and the other words of only one meaning, 300 slokas. 6. Rogarnava Tarini, a compilation from various medical works on the treatment of disease, containing 174 leaves or 348 pages, part being in verse extending to 6,000 slokas. 7. Arishta Nirupana, a description of the various signs or symptoms of approaching death, a compilation in verse of 400 slokas, contained in 14 leaves or 28 pages. 8. Sarira Vivritti, a treatise on the progress of gestation and on the seats in the human body of the various humours, &c. in prose and verse, comprised in 22 leaves or 44 pages. 9.* Leh ha Darpana, on letter- writing, principally in prose, 15 leaves or 30 pages. 10. Dwaita Sid- dhanta Dipika, a defence of the distinction between the human and di- vine spirits in opposition to pantheism, contained in 71 leaves or 142 pages. 11. ffariharastotra, the praises of Vishnu and Siva, in 9 slokas, so com- posed that every sloka has two senses of which one is applicable to Vishnu and the other to Siva : a copy is in my possession. 12. Siva Sarmadastotra, 8 slokas, containing a double sense, one expressing the praises of Siva, and the other some different meaning. 13. A com- mentary on the preceding. 14. Yamakavinoda, 8 4 slokas, containing the praises of Krishna, written in a species of alliteration by a repeti- tion of the same sounds : a copy is in my possession. 15. A commen- ta-"y on the preceding : a copy is in my possession. 16. Bhavamtprasa,- [ 51 ] 8 slokas, containing the praises of Krishna, in a species of alliteration. 17. Antaslapika, 4 slokas, in question and answer so framed that the answer to one question contains the answers to all the questions in the same sloka. 18. Radha Krishnastotra, 8 slokas, containing the praises of Radha and Krishna, and so framed that they may be read either backward or forward. 19. A commentary on the above consisting of 2 leaves or 4 pages. 20. A specimen of Alata Chakra Bandha, 2 slokas, so framed that each sloka contains materials for 64 slokas by the trans- position of each letter in succession from the beginning to the end, first the thirty-two syllables from left to right, and afterwards the thirty-two from right to left. 21. Sansaya Satani, a commentary on the Bhaga- vata Purana, now in progress of composition. 22. A commentary on Yama Shatpadi which contains the praises of Narayana by Yama. 23. Stavakadamba, 76 slokas, containing the praises of Saraswati, Ganga, Yamuna, Nityananda, Chaitanya, Vrindavana, Krishna and Radhika. 24. Govindarupamrita, 41 slokas, containing a description of the quali- ties of Krishna. 25. Krishna Keli Suddhakar, 400 slokas, on the loves of Iladha and Krishna, principally occupied with the period extending from the jealousy of Radha to her reconciliation with Krishna. 25. Commentary on the above of 37 leaves or 74 pages. 26. Govinda Mahodaya, 800 slokas, containing the history of Radha's eight female friends or attendants. 27. Govinda Charitra, 350 slokas, containing the lamentations of Radha on account of her separation from Krishna- 28. BhaJda Mala, 5,000 slokas, explanatory of the different forms in which Krishna has been propitious to his votaries, translated from Mar- wari into Sanscrit. 29. Durjnana Mihira Kalanala, a defence of the doctrine of the Vaishnavas. 30. Bhakta Lilamrita> a compilation from the eighteen puranas of every thing relating to Krishna. 31. Parakiya Mata Khandana, an attempt to establish that the milkwomen of Vrinda- vana with whom Krishna disported were his own wives, and not those of the milkmen of that place. 32. A commentary on Kavi Chandra's praise of Kara and Gauri (Siva and Parvati) consisting of 10 leaves or 20 pages. 33. Dcsika Nirnaya, a compilation on the qualifications of a spiritual guide and on the tests by which one should be selected : a copy is in my possession. 34. A commentary on Srutyadhyaya, one of the books of the Bhagavata Purana on the history of Radha and Krishna, consisting of 22 leaves or 44 pages. 35. Krishnavilasa, 109 slokas, on the amours of Krishna. The preceding works are written in Sanscrit : the following chiefly in Bengali, viz. 36. Rama Rasayana, the history of Rama, written on 889 leaves or 1,778 pages, containing 30,000 slokas 37. Patra Prakasa, 8 leaves or 16 pages on letter writing, die example in Sanscrit and the explanation in Bengali. Ram Comala Kavibhushana of the medical caste, dwelling at Burdwan in the Burdwan thana, has written Nayanananda Nataka, a drama of about 300 slokas, illustrative of the life and actions of the late Raja of Burdwan ; and Vadarthadarsa, a treatise on grammar, contained in about 50 leaves or 100 pages. Radha Kanta Vachaspati, dwelling at Chanak in the Mangalkot thana, has written the following works, viz. Nikunjavilasa, a drama consisting of 60 leaves or 120 pages, illustrative of the loves of Radha and Krishna, and written in Sanscrit, Pracrit, Paisachi, Apabhransa, Maharashtri, Magadhi, and Sauraseni ; Surya Panchasata, a poem in praise of the sun, consisting of 30 leaves or 60 pages ; and Durga Sataka, containing the praises of Durga in a hundred slokas. The majority of the teachers have school-houses either built at their own charge, or at the expense of patrons and friends, or by the subscrip- tions of the most respectable inhabitants of the village where the school is situated. In those instances in which there is no regular school- house, the Baithak-khana or Chandimandap of the pandit or of some wealthy friend answers the purpose. In 190 Sanscrit schools there are 1,358 students averaging 7.1 to each school. Of the total number 590 are natives of the villages in which the schools are situated and 768 natives of other villages. They are thus distributed in respect of caste : Brahmans, .............. 1,296 Vaidyas, 45 Daivajnas, 11 Vaishnavas, 6 The students of 105 schools receive nothing in the form of presents or by mendicancy. Those of 85 schools receive Rs. 391, averaging about Rs. 4-9-7 annually to the students collectively of each school. The following is an enumeration of the studies pursued and the num- ber of students engaged in each : Grammar, ,, 644 Lexicology, 31 Literature, 90 Rhetoric, 8 Law, 238 Logic, 277 Vedanta, 3 Medicine, 15 Mythology, 43 Astrology, 7 Tantras, , ,,... 2 [ 53 ] The following is the average age of the students belonging to each branch of learning at each of the periods formerly mentioned : Lexicology, 15.7 16.4 17.8 Literature, . 18.6 214 24.9 23 6 23 8 27 I 23 2 275 335 17.8 22 2 29.0 Vedanta, ,.,..... .... 24 3 . ... 31 3 . .. 34 6 Medicine, ,. 16.2 20.5 24.2 Mythology, .......... 24.6 27.7 31.6 Astrology, 23.4 26.7 30.5 27.5 32.0 , 32.5 The following works are read : in grammar the Daurgadasi and Ramtarkavagisi commentaries of the Mugdhabodha, and the Harinam- amrita grammar by Mulajiva Goswami ; in literature the Kumar Sam- bhava, Magha, and Padanka Duta ; in law the Suddhi, Udvaha, Srad- dha, Ekadasi, Malamctsa, and Jyotisha Tatwas, and the Mitakshara ; in logic the Jagadisi commentary of Vyapti Panchaka, Sinha Vyaghra, Avachhedoktanirukti, Vyapti Grahopaya, Samanya Lakshana, Pakshata, Paramarsa, Kevalanwayi, and Sainanya Nirukti, the Mathuri commentary of Tarka, the Gadadhari commentary of Anumiti and Satpratipaksha, the Jagadisi and Gadadhari commentaries of Visesa Vyapti, Avayava Savyabhichara, and Hetwabhasa, and the Sabdasahtiprakasika, Sakti- badha, Muktibada, Bauddha Dkikkara, Pramanyabada, Lilavati, and Kusumanjali; in the Vedanta Sankarabhashya and Panchadasi ; in me- dicine Sarangadhara Sanhita, Charaka, Vyahhya Madhu Kosha, and Chakrapani ; in mythology Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita ; in astro- logy Jyotisha Sara ; and in the Tantra Tantra Sara. District of South Behar. This district contains 27 Sanscrit schools of which one village contains six, three villages contain two each, and fifteen villages contain one each. The number of teachers is the same as the number of schools and their average age is 4*3.9 years. They are all brahmans, seventeen Sakadwipi brahmans, four Kanyakubja, four Maithila, one Sarajupariya, and one Sonadhya. Of the whole body of teachers, seven give their instructions gratui- tously without deriving any emoluments from patrons. Of these, one [ 54 ] in consequence of the resumption of a small endowment he had, has withheld the pecuniary aid he formerly gave to his pupils ; and three rent each a small farm which they cultivate by hired labour. The rest appear to be dependent on the other members of their own families. Twenty teachers furnished the following estimates of the amount of their annual receipts : 1 receives a monthly allowance from a patron, Rs. 120 2 receive by officiating as priests about, r 85 ] receives proceeds of an endowment, 100 1 receives monthly allowance and proceeds of endowment, .... 104 1 receives monthly allowance and by public recitations, .... 340 2 receive in presents of money and uncooked food, 274 1 receives proceeds of an endowment and by officiating as a priest, 76 1 receives as an initiating priest and by public recitations,.. .. 10 1 receives as a family priest and by public recitations, 200 1 receives a monthly allowance, village subscriptions, and proceeds of an endowment, 49 1 receives a monthly allowance, proceeds of an endowment, and presents of uncooked food, 64'2 1 receives in presents of money and uncooked food and pro- ceeds of an endowment, 60 5 receive monthly allowances and presents of money and uncooked food, '1,942 1 receives as an initiating priest, as an officiating family priest, as a reciter of the Puranas, and in the form of occasional presents, . .... E ...,..., 400 Thus 20 teachers receive in all about Rs. 7,402, averaging to each Rs. 370-1-7 per annum. The endowed lands in extent vary from five to a hundred and fifty bighas and in value from one to four rupees per bigha. As far as I could ascertain there are only two teachers in this district who are known as authors. Chakrapani Pandit, dwelling at Tikari in thana Sahibgunge, has composed the following works in Sanscrit, viz. 1. Durga Ratnamala, a commentary on Sapta Sati, a sub-division of the Markandeya Purana, contained in 200 leaves or 400 pages. 2. Dur- jnanamukhachapetika, (a Slap on the Face to the Ignorant) a treatise on the law of inheritance, &c. opposed to the school of Raghunandana, written on 150 leaves or 300 pages. 3. Sarada, a commentary on Sab- dendu Sekhara, itself a commentary on the Siddhanta Kaumudi or Panini grammar, written on 200 leaves or 400 pages. 4. Mani Prakasika, a commentary on Kaustubha, itself a commentary on the 8th Chapter of Panini, written on 180 leaves or 360 pages. 5. Sakti Khandiha, a logical treatise on the powers of words in the form of a commentary on Manjusha on the same subject, written on 70 leaves or 140 pages. Hara Lai Pandit, a resident of the same place, is the author of two works, viz. 1. Sabda Prakasa, a commentary on Sab- clendu Sekhara, written on 500 leaves or 1,000 pages; and 2. Paribhasha Tatwa Prakasa^ a commentary on Pari Bhashendu Sekhara, itself a com- mentary on the Siddhanta Kaumudi, written on 125 leaves or 250 pages. About half of the pandits have school-houses built at their own cost or that of their patrons ; and the rest avail themselves of the accom- modation afforded. by a threshold, an out-house, or a temple. In 27 Sanscrit schools there are 437 students, averaging 16.1 to each school. They are all brahmans; and of the whole number 154 are natives of the villages in which the schools are situated and 283 are natives of other villages. The students do not acquire any portion of their subsistence by mendicancy. The majority of them are supported by family-funds, and others participate in the allowances of food granted by the patrons of the teachers. In one instance the allowance of uncooked articles of food made to the teacher expressly for the benefit of the students was estimated at Rs. 1,104 per annum ; in another at Us. 960 ; and in a third at Rs. 360; in the last mentioned case the number of students enjoying this aid being limited to fifteen. The whole of these have been included in the preceding estimate of the receipts of teachers. The following are the studies pursued and the number of students engaged in each : Grammar, 356 Lexicology, 8 Literature, , 16 Rhetoric.......... 2 Law, 2 Logic, 6 Vedanta, . 5 Mimansa, ,. 2 Sankhya, 1 Medicine, ...,...,. 2 Mythology,. 22 Astrology, 13 Tantras, 2 The following is the average age of the students belonging to each branch of learning at each of the periods formerly mentioned : Grammar, 11.5 Lexicology, 15.5 173 19.6 244 23.8 Rhetoric, 20.0 18.5 22.0 21.0 24.0 26.5 22.1 24.1 28.5 Vedanta 13 2 .... 138 . ... 16.6 225 245 28.5 Snnkhya > . 21.0 23 28.0 18.0 25.0 290 Mythology. ........ . . 196 21.9 ...... 26.8 Astrology ....... . . . 17 198 28.1 Tantras,..., 26.5 27.5 33.0 The following works are read in the schools : in grammar Mahabha- shya by Patanjali, interpreting or correcting Katyayana's annotations on Panini's rules ; Sabda Kaustubha by Bhattaji Dikshita, consisting of scholia on Panini, left incomplete by the author ; Siddhanta Kaumudi by Bhattaji Dikshita, a grammar in which Panini's rules are used, but his arrangement changed ; Manorama by the same author, containing notes on his own work ; Sabdendu Sekhara by Nagoji Bhatta, a com- mentary on the Siddhanta Kaumudi ; Sabdaratna by Hari Diksita, a commentary on Bhattaji's notes on the Manorama ; Chandrica by Sway- amprakasananda, interpreting the Paribhashartha Sangraha, a commen- tary on the maxims of interpretation from ancient grammarians cited in the Varticas and Bhashya as rules for interpreting Panini's aphorisms ; Paribhashendu Sekhara by Nagoji Bhatta, a brief exposition of the same maxims ; Vaiyaharanabhushana by Konda Bhatta, on syntax and the philo- sophy of grammatical structure ; Vaiyakarana Siddhanta Manjusha by Nagoji Bhatta on the same subjects ; and Saraswati Prakriya by Anubhuti Swarupacharya, a grammar founded on seven hundred rules or aphorisms pretended to have been received by the author from the goddess Saras- wati ; in lexicology the Amara Kosha ; in literature Raghuvansa, Magha> Purva Naishadha., and Bharaviya or Kirata Kavya ; in rhe- toric Kavya Prakasa ; in law Mitakshara and Saroja Kalika ; in logic Siddhanta Muktavali, the Gadadhari commentary of Vyapti Panchaka, the Jagadisi commentary of Vyaddhikaranadharmavachhinnabhava, and Bhasha Parichheda ; in the Vedanta Vedanta Paribhasha ; in Miman- sa Adhikarana Mala ; in Sankhya Sankhya Tativa Kaumudi ; in medicine Sarangadhara ; in mythology Harivansa, and Sapta Sali a chapter of the Markandeya Purana ; in astrology Muhurta Chintama' ni, Muhurta Martanda, Muhurta Kalpadrmna, Lilavati, and Sighrabo- dha ; and in the Tantra Sarada Tilaka. [ 57 ] District of Tirhoot. This district contains fifty-six Sanscrit schools, of which one village contains five, four villages contain three each, six villages contain two each, and twenty-seven villages contain one each. The number of teach- ers is the same, and their average age is 47.3 years. They are all brah- mans, fifty Maithila brahmans, three Sarajupariya, two Kanyakubja, and one Sakadwipi. Of the body of teachers six are independent of patronage and are either supported from the resources of their own families or support themselves by farming. The following are the sources of income of the remaining fifty teachers : 30 teachers receive in the form of presents, Rs. 1165 4 receive proceeds of endowments, 535 3 receive as officiating priests, 134 2 receive by divination, 100 1 * receives annual allowance, 4 5 receive presents of money and proceeds of endow- ments, 297 4 receive presents of money and by divination,.. .. 250 1 receives as an officiating priest and by divination, 30 Fifty teachers thus receive an estimated income of Rs. 2515, averaging to each Rs. 50-4-9 per annum. The practice of divination is very com- mon in this district, and it is a source of income to men of learning which has not come to my knowledge elsewhere. None of the teachers have distinguished themselves by written com- positions, and amongst the whole body only two are to be found having separate school-houses for the accommodation of their students, and those built at their own cost, in one instance amounting to two, and in the other to ten rupees. The rest assemble their pupils in the verandas of their own dwelling-houses. In 56 Sanscrit schools there are 214 students averaging 3.8 to each school. They are all brahmans, 147 of them being natives of the vil- lages in which the schools are situated, and 67 natives of other villages. The students of three schools receive in the form of occasional presents Rs. 65, which averages to the students of each school collectively Rs, H [ 58 ] 21-10-8 per annum. The practice is for the teacher to give food only to foreign students if he can afford it, but it does not affect his repute if he cannot and does not give them that assistance. The majori- ty of the students derive their chief, many their sole, support from the resources of their own families. The following are the studies pursued and the number of students engaged in each : Grammar, 127 Lexicology, , 3 Literature, 4 Law, 8 Logic, 16 Vedanta, 2 Mythology, I Astrology, 53 The following is the average age of the students belonging to each branch of learning at each of the periods formerly mentioned : Grammar, 9-0 Lexicology, 20.6 Literature, 20.2 Law, 21.8 Logic, 17.5 Vedanta, 15.0 Mythology, 20.0 Astrology, 12.3 10.6 243 20,5 22.6 21.0 255 25 2 31 2 26.2 35.5 15.0 21.0 20.0 240 18.4 26.2 The following works are read in the schools of this district : in gram- mar Sabda Haustubha, Siddhanta Kaumudi, Manorama, Sabdendu Sekhara, Laghu Kaumudi, Chandrica, Siddhanta Manjusha, and Sa- raswati Prakriya ; in lexicology Amara Kosha ; in literature Raghu- vansa, Magha, and Kirata Kavya ; in law Sraddha Viveka, Vivaha Tatwa, Daya Tatwa, Ahnika Tatwa, and Mitakshara ; in logic the Jagadisi commentary of Siddhanta Lakshana, Samanya Lakshana, and Hetwabhasha, Abachhedoktanirukti, the Gadadhari commentary of Vyapti Panchaha, and Pratyaksha Khanda, Pramanyabada, and Vyaddhikaranadharmavachhinnabhava ; in the Vedanta philosophy the Vedanta Sara ; in mythology the Bhagavata Purana ; and in astrolo- gy Nilakanthiya Tajaka, Laghu Tajaka, Vija Ghanta, Vija Ganita, Graha Laghava, Siddhanta Siromani, Sripati Paddhati, Sarva Sangraha, Surya Siddhanta, Ratna Sara, Brahma Siddhanta, and Bala Bodha. SECTION VIII. General Remarks on the state of Sanscrit Instruction. The preceding Section comprises the most important details respecting the state of Sanscrit learning in the districts visited, and a few general remarks may contribute to a clearer apprehension and estimate of them. First: There is not, as far as I have been able to observe and judge any mutual connection or dependence between Vernacular and Sanscrit, schools. The former are not considered preparatory to the other, nor do the latter profess to complete the course of study which has been begun elsewhere. They are two separate classes of institutions, each existing for distinct classes of society, the one for the trading arid agricultural, and the other for the religious and learned classes. They are so unconnected that the instruction in Bengali and Hindi read- ing and writing which is necessary at the commencement of a course of Sanscrit study is seldom acquired in the vernacular schools, but generally under the domestic roof; and unless under peculiar cir- cumstances it is not extended to accounts which are deemed the ultimate object of vernacular school instruction. It has been already shown that an unusually small number of vernacular schools is found in certain parts of the Beerbhoom district which have no institutions of learning, and it now appears that in the Burdwan district where verna- cular schools comparatively abound, there also schools of learning are most numerous. On the other hand in that division of the Tirhoot dis- trict which contains the greatest number of schools of Hindu learn- ing there are no vernacular schools at all ; and in the whole district the vernacular schools are fewer, while the proportion of schools of learning is greater than in any other district. It seems to follow that the prosperity or depression of learning in any locality does not imply the prosperous or depressed condition of vernacular instruc- tion, and that the two systems of instruction are wholly unconnected with and independent of each other. Second : Sanscrit learning is to a certain extent open to all classes of native society whom inclination, leisure, and the possession of adequate means may attract to its study, and beyond that limit it is confined to brahmans. The inferior castes may study grammar and lexicology, poetical and dramatic literature, rhetoric, astrology, and medicine; but law, the writings of the six schools of philosophy, and the sacred mytho- [ 60 ] logical poems are the peculiar inheritance of the brahman caste. This is the distinction recognized in the legal and religious economy of Hin- duism, but practically brahmans monopolize not only a part, but nearly the whole, of Sanscrit learning. In the two Behar districts both teachers and students without a single exception belong to that caste, and the exceptions in the Bengal districts are comparatively few. Of the class of teachers in Moorshedabad all are brahmans ; in Beerbhoom, of 56 teachers one is of the medical caste; and in Burdwan, of 190 four are of the same caste. It thus appears that the only exceptions to the brahmanical monopoly of Sanscrit teaching are native physicians. In the class of students in Moorshedabad, of 153 there is only one Kayastha ; in Beerbhoom, of 393 students nine are of the Vaidya or medical caste, three are Vaishnavas or followers of Chaitanya, and one is a Daivajna or out-caste brahman in all 13 ; and in Burdwan, of 1358 students forty-five are Vaidyas, eleven Daivajnas, and six are Vaishnavas in all 62, the others in each case being brahmans. Com- paring Bengal and Behar, the former appears to have taken a step in advance of the latter in communicating to some of the inferior castes a portion of the learning which it possesses, but even in Bengal the pro- gress in this direction is not so great as might have taken place without running counter to the opinions and habits of the people. Still it is an advance, and it has been made in Bengal where in the department of vernacular instruction also a corresponding advance has been made and is making by the very lowest castes ; showing that, while there is no established connection between the two systems of instruction, the same general influences are contributing to the extension of both. Third : The teachers and students of Sanscrit schools constitute the cultivated intellect of the Hindu people and they command that respect and exert that influence which cultivated intellect always enjoys, and which in the present instance they peculiarly enjoy from the ignorance that surrounds them, the general purity of their personal character* the hereditary sacredness of the class to which most of them belong, the sacredness of the learning that distinguishes them, and the sacred- ness of the functions they discharge as spiritual guides and family priests. The only drawback on the influence they possess is the general, not universal, poverty of their condition increased by the frequent resumption of former endowments. They are, notwithstanding this, a highly venerated and influential portion of native society, and although as a body their interests may be opposed to the spread of knowledge, yet their impoverished circumstances would make them ready instruments to carry into effect any plan that should not assail their religious faith or require from them a sacrifice of principle and character. The num- bers of this important class of men in the districts visited are here exhi- bited at one view : Moorsheda- bad. Becrbhoom. Burdwan. S. Behar. Tirhoot. Teachers,. . 24 56 190 27 56 Students, . . 153 393 1358 437 214 Fourth : The most favorable would probably not be a high estimate of the practical utility of the different branches of Sanscrit learning cultivated in these schools, but neither is that learning to be wholly despised. So long as the language shall exist, the literature it contains will constitute one of the most precious remains of antiquity connecting itself by links clearly perceptible but not yet fully traced with the his- tory of almost every people of Western Asia and of Europe ; and so long as the Hindus shall exist as a distinct people, they will derive some of their most inspiring associations and impulses from the great literary monuments which belong to their race, and which the progress of time will render more venerable even when from the progress of improvement they may cease to be regarded as sacred. Viewed with reference to the present constitution and wants of native society, San- scrit literature may be considered either as sacred, profane, or of a mixed character. The Tantra Scriptures prescribing the ritual ob- servances of Hinduism are exclusively religious. Law includes not only the prescriptions of religion but the rules of inheritance, contract, &c, which are recognized by the British Government and are essential to the working of civil society. The six Darshanas of which I have found four taught in the schools, viz. the Nyaya, Vedanta, Mimansa, and Sankhya, contain expositions not only of theological doctrine and ritual observance but systems of philosophy on logic, on spirit and matter, and on moral and legal obligation. The mythological poems, the Mahabharata, and the Bhagavat Purana which are generally read, con- tain a system of metaphysical philosophy, disquisitions on political morality, and probably remnants of true history mixed up with the fables of heroes and of gods. Astrology would be more correctly deno- [ 02 ] minated arithmology, for it is the science of computation in the widest sense and embraces not only divination and the casting of nativities by the situation and aspect of the stars, but also mathematical and as- tronomical science. The native medical writings may be worthy of much, but not of all, the contempt with which the native medical pro- fession is regarded by Europeans at the present day, for to a calm ob- server the very supremacy of their authority which is so absolute and undisputed as to have repressed all independent inquiry, observation, and experiment, would seem to imply no inconsiderable degree of merit in the works to which such an influence has been so long conceded. Finally, the works on grammar, general literature, and rhetorical composition \vill be valued as long as the philosophy of language shall be studied or the Sanscrit language itself employed as an instrument for the expression of thought and sentiment. These and the collateral branches of learning constitute the national literature of the Hindus, a literature which needs not to be created, but which may be improved by the transfusion into it of those discoveries in art, in science, and in philosophy, that distin- guish Europe and that will help to awaken the native mind from the sleep of centuries. Fifth : The native mind of the present day although it is asleep, is not dead. It has a dreamy sort of existence in separating, combining, and re-casting in various forms the fables and speculations of past ages. The amount of authorship shown to exist in the different districts is a measure of the intellectual activity which, however now misdirected, might be employed for useful purposes. The same men who have wasted and are still wasting their learning and their powers in weaving compli- cated alliterations, re-compounding absurd and vicious fictions, and revolving in perpetual circles of metaphysical abstractions, never ending still beginning, have professed to me their readiness to engage in any sort of literary composition that would obtain the patronage of Government. It is true that they do not possess the knowledge which we desire should be communicated to their countrymen, but where the desire to bestow information exists on our part and the desire to receive it on theirs, all intermediate obstacles will speedily disappear. Instead of regarding them as indocile, intractable, or bigoted in matters not connected with religion, I have often been surprized at the facility with which minds under the influence of habits of thought so different from my own, have received and appreciated the ideas which I have suggested. Nor is it authors only who might be employed in promot- [ 63 ] ing the cause of public instruction : it is probable that the whole body of the learned, both teachers and students, might be made to lend their willing aid towards the same object. SECTION IX. Persian and Arabic Schools. The class of institutions next in importance to Vernacular and Sanscrit schools consists of those in which the Persian and Arabic languages and the learning they contain are taught. Persian and Arabic schools are so intimately connected that they are regarded here as one class. City and District of Moorshedabad. In 20 thanas of this district there are 17 Persian and 2 Arabic schools ; but it is to be understood in this and in similar cases that Persian is taught in the Arabic schools also, and that sometimes an Arabic is distinguishable from a Persian school only by the circumstance that one or two of the pupils have begun the study of one of the earliest and easiest works on the grammar of the Arabic language. One village contains two Persian schools and the remaining seventeen, Persian and Arabic, are contained in the same number of villages or mohallas. There are nineteen teachers, all Musalmans, whose average age is 36.5 years. The following are the modes and amount of the remuneration given to the teachers : 6 teachers receive monthly wages, Rs. 68 1 fees and uncooked food, 3 8 3 fees and subsistence money, 17 8 1 monthly wages and annual presents, 4 2 8 1 monthly wages and annual allowance, 728 3 monthly wages and perquisites, 38 2 fees, subsistence money, and annual presents, 21 2 8 1 n w fees, subsistence money, and uncooked food, 6 8 1 fees, subsistence money, and weekly and annual presents,........, 432 [ 64 ] Nineteen teachers thus receive in all Rs. 168-11-10 which averages to each Rs. 8-14-1 per month. There are no teachers who give all their instructions gratuitously, but in several of the schools there are some scholars who are taught without making any payment to the teachers. Those teachers who receive monthly wages or fixed salaries are generally dependent on the head or heads of one family ; and of such families five are Hindu whose allowances to the teachers are considerably in excess of the above average. In one of the Arabic schools instruction is given gratuitously to all the scholars and the teacher receives his remuneration from Munshi Sharaf Khan. The institution has existed long and has descended to the care of the Munshi its chief patron. Fifteen of the schools have no other accommodations as school-houses than are afforded by the baithak-khanas and garden-houses of the principal supporters. Of the remaining two, one, a Persian school, has a school-house built by a respectable Hindu inhabitant at a cost of 40 rupees ; and the other, an Arabic school, has a school-house built by the Musalman patrons at a cost of about 4-00 Rs. The latter is a brick building, and is used also as a dwelling-house by the Maulavi and some of the scholars. In 19 schools there are 109 scholars averaging 5.7 to each school* Of the total number, 102 are engaged in the study of Persian, and 7 in that of Arabic. Of the Persian scholars 61 are Hindus and 41 Musal- mans ; and of the Arabic scholars one is a Hindu of the brahman caste, and six are Musalmans. The following are the castes of the Persian scholars who are Hindus and the number of each : Brahman, ...... 27 Kayastha, 15 Kurmi 6 Kaivarta, 4 Aguri, 4 Suvarnabanik, .. 2 Napit, 1 Mali, 1 Sutar, 1 The following are the average ages of the Persian and Arabic scholars at the three periods formerly mentioned, viz. the age of admission to school, the age at the time the schools were visited, and the estimated age of leaving school : Persian scholars, 9.5 13.5 20.8 Arabic scholars, 11.0 17,4 21.1 The following works comprize the course of Persian reading, viz. the Pandnameh ; Gulistan ; Bostan ; Payindeh Beg, embracing forms of [ 65 ] epistolary correspondence ; Insha-i-Matlub, containing forms of corres- pondence and contract ; Joseph and Zuleikha, the history of Joseph ; Asafi consisting of odes ; Secandar Nameh, poetical history of Alexander the Great ; Bahar-i- Danish, tales ; and Allami, consisting of the corres- pondence of Shah Akber, Abulfazl, &c. &c. About one-half of the Per- sian teachers limit their instructions to the Bostan and Gulistan ; arid the other works are more or less taught by the remaining number. The only works read by the Arabic students are grammatical, viz. Mizan, Tasrif, and Zubda on the inflections, and Sharh-i-Miat Amil on the syntax, of the Arabic language. District of Beerbhoom. This district contains 71 Persian and 2 Arabic schools ; of which two villages contain four each, two contain three each, three contain two each, and fifty-three contain one each. The number of teachers is the same as the number of schools. Of the teachers of the Persian schools, sixty-six are Musalmans and five Hindus ; and of the latter three are brahmans, one is a kayastha, and one a daivajna. The teachers of the Arabic schools are Musalmans. The average age of all the teachers is 36.3 years. Six Persian teachers and one Arabic teacher instruct gratuitously. The following are the modes and rates of remuneration of the remaining number : 1 Arabic teacher receives monthly wages, Rs. 700 2 Persian teachers receive monthly wages, 15 23 fees, 135 4 3 ,, monthly wages and perquisites, 21 12 37 fees and perquisites, 232 4 6 Thus 66 paid teachers receive in all Rupees 411-4-6, averaging to each Rs. 6-6-1 per month. Of the unpaid teachers, one not only instructs gratuitously but also gives his scholars food and occa- sionally clothes ; three support themselves by farming of whom two are in possession of Lakhiraj land, and of these one is a retired Darogha ; a fifth gains his livelihood as a Mulla ; a sixth instructs gratuitously from religious motives ; and the object of the seventh was to keep in recollec- tion his former acquirements. Of the paid teachers, a few only are [ 66 J dependent upon individual patrons, and those patrons arje both Hindus and Musalmans : several of the scholars of these salaried teachers receive gratuitous instruction. There are in all ten school-houses of which one was built at the ex- pense of the teacher ; two by the subscriptions of the parents ; and seven by private individuals, either from general motives of benevolence or with a view to the advantage of their own children. One teacher instructs his scholars from house to house, and the remainder find accommodation for their scholars in kachharis, mosques, and especially baithak-khanas. In 73 schools there are 490 scholars, averaging 6.7 to each school. The number of Persian students is 485 and of Arabic 5. Of the Persian students 240 are Musalmans and 245 Hindus, and the Arabic students are all Musalmans. The average age of the Persian scholars at the time the schools were visited was 13.5 years, and of the Arabic scholars 18.4 years. The following are the castes of the Persian scholars who are Hindus and the number of each : Brahman, Ill Kayastha, 83 Kaivarta, ........ 11 Vaidya, 10 Suvarnabanik, .... 8 Sadgop, 6 Gandhabanik, .... 4 Kumar, .......... 4 Vaishnava, 2 GSala, 2 Sunri, 2 Aguri, 1 Svvarnakar, 1 In addition to nearly all the works already enumerated, the following are included in the course of Persian reading in this district, viz. Am- adnameh on the conjugation of verbs ; the formal reading of the Koran ; Tutinameh or tales of a parrot; Ruqaat-i-Alamgir, the correspondence ofAlamgir; Insha-i-Yusafi, forms of epistolary correspondence ; Mula- tafa, a collection of letters exhibiting different styles of penmanship ; Toghra, an account of Cashmir ; and the poems of Zahir ; of Nasir Ali ; and of Sayib. The only additional work in Arabic employed as a school-book in this district is the Munshdab on Arabic conjugations. District of Burdwan. In this district there are 3 schools in which nothing more than the formal reading of the Koran is taught as described in the Second Report p. 2729 ; 93 Persian schools ; and 8 Arabic schools. [ 67 ] Seven of these schools are found in one village and three in another ; six villages contain two each and eighty-two villages contain one each. There are three Musalman teachers to the three schools for the formal reading of the Koran, and twelve Musalman teachers to the eight schools of Arabic learning ; two of these schools having each three teachers, of whom one teaches Arabic, the second Persian, and the third watches over the manners and general conduct of the pupils. The ninety-three Persian schools have the same number of teachers of whom eighty-six are Musalmans and seven Hindus. Of the latter four are kayasthas, two brahmans, and one a gandhabanik. The average age of all the teachers is 39.5 years. Twenty-two teachers instruct gratuitously and of that number six also support and clothe the whole or a part of their scholars. I have not found any instance in which Hindu students receive from a Musalman teacher or patron any thing beyond gratuitous instruction. Thus in one instance a maulavi gratuitously instructs seven Hindu scholars, but in addition to gratuitous instruction he gives also food and clothing to eleven Musal- man students ; in another, a maulavi gratuitously instructs two Hindu and six Musalman students, and he gives also food and clothing to five other Musalman students ; and in a third case, a maulavi has thirteen Musal- man students, all of whom he both instructs and supports. The rule appears to be that those students, whether Hindus or Musalmans, who are natives of the village in which the school is situated receive gratuit- ous instruction only, while those Musalman students who are natives of other villages and have come from a distance for the sake of instruction receive also food and clothing. On the other hand when a Hindu is the patron as in the case of the Raja of Burdwan who supports two Persian schools, Musalman and Hindu scholars enjoy equal advantages al- though the number of the former is less. Thus in one of the Raja's schools 13 Hindus and 2 Musalmans and in the other 13 Hindus and 1 Musalman receive instruction and food for four years after which they may continue to study, but without receiving food. Some of the patrons and gratuitous teachers are men of great wealth or high character, and others without possessing either of these are holders of land by the tenure of Ayma which was apparently regarded in several instances as involving an obligation to give gratuitous instruction. This is more apparent in one case from the fact that the holder of the land, after long [ 68 ] neglecting this obligation, lately sent three or four scholars to the neighbouring schools whom he supports at his own expense. The remuneration of the paid teachers is as follows : 11 teachers receive monthly wages, Rs. 156 14 receive fees, 70 8 1 ,, receives only his daily food, 200 10 receive monthly wages and uncooked food, 61 11 1 receives monthly wages and subsistence money, 25 29 ,, receive fees and uncooked food, 151 3 2 ,, receive monthly wages and annual presents, 11 6 ,, receive fees and annual presents, 20 3 1 receives weekly and annual presents, 2 14 11 receive fees, uncooked food, and annual presents, 67 4 Thus 86 paid teachers receive in all Rs. 573-11, averaging to each Its. 6-10-8 per month. Out-houses, baithak-khanas, chandi mandaps, and kachharis are em- ployed as school-houses here as elsewhere, the place occupied generally belonging to the principal supporter of the school and sometimes to the teacher himself. In one instance, one of the scholars in a Persian school in payment of the instruction he receives supplies the teacher with a school-house rent-free. Of the Persian schools about a dozen have school-houses expressly built for that purpose, and varying in the estimated cost of erection from six rupees to two hundred. Three of the Arabic schools have buildings estimated to have cost 50, 200, and 250 rupees respectively. Another has a school-house with a dwelling- house attached in the upper story of which the teacher lives, while the scholars are lodged below. Two of them have large endowments with buildings estimated to cost, in one instance 15,000 and in the other 50,000 rupees. Each endowment is applied to the support not only of a school, but of a hospital, a mosque, and a sacred relic. In 104 schools there are 971 scholars averaging 9.3 to each school. Of the total number 17 are engaged in the formal reading of the Koran, 899 in the perusal of Persian works, and 55 in the study of Arabic learning. All the Koran-readers are Musalmans ; of the Persian scholars, 451 are Musalmans and 44-8 are Hindus; and of the Arabic students 51 are Musalmans and 4 are Hindus. Of the four Hindu students of Arabic, two are of the aguri caste, one is a kayastha, and one a teli. The following are the castes and numbers of the 448 HinJus who are Persian scholars : Kayastha, 172 Brahman, ........ 153 Sadgop, 50 Aguri, 42 Suvarnabanik, .... 8 Vaidya, 4 The following are the average ages of the scholars at the three periods formerly mentioned : Chhatri 3 Swarnakar, 2 3 1 2 Teli, 1 2 1 2 1 * Mavra. 1 Koran readers, . Persian scholars, Arabic students, 8.7 ... 10.03 ... 16.3 10.4 15.6 21.2 13.2 26.5 28.1 The following works, in addition to some mentioned under the preced- ing heads, are read in the schools of this district : In Persian, Tis Takhti, a spelling-book; Farsi Nameh or Sirab Dhokay a vocabulary ; Insha-i-Herkern, forms of correspondence ; Nal Daman, translation from Sanscrit of a love-story ; the poems of Urfi, of Hafiz, of Wahshati, of Ghani, of Badr, and of Khakani, the last in- cluding both the Tahfut-ul~Irdkin and Kasaid-i-KJiakani ; Waqaia Nyamat Khan Alt, an account of the campaigns of Aurungzebe ; Hadi- kat-ul-Balaghat, a grammar of rhetoric ; Shah Nameh, Firdusi's national poem ; and Kuliyat-i-Khosro, the works of Khosro. In Arabic, Sarf Mir and Hidayat-us-Sarf on the etymology of the Arabic ; Miat Amil, Jummul, Tatamma, Hidayat un-Nahv, Misba, Zawa, Kajia, and Sharh-i-Mulla on syntax, Zawa being a commentary on Misba, and Sharh-i-Mulla on Kafia ; Mizan-i-Mantik, Tahzib, Mir Zahid, Kutbiy Mir, and Mulla Jala/on logic, Kutbi and Mulla Jalal being commentaries on Mir Zahid, and Mir a glossary to Kutbi ; Sharh-i- Waqaia, on the circumstantials of Islam, as the ceremonies of religion and the law of inheritance ; Nurulanwar, on the fundamentals of Islam, as the unity of God and the mission of Mohammad; Sirajiya, com- pendium of Mohammadan law ; Hidaya, on the law of inheritance ; Miscat-ul-Misabih, on Mohammadan observances ; Shams-i-Bazigha and Sadra, treatises on natural philosophy; Sharh-i-Chaghmani, a [ 70 ] treatise on astronomy according to the Ptolemaic system ; and Tauji, Talbi, and Faragh, treatises on metaphysics. District of South Behar. This district contains 291 schools of which 279 are Persian and 12 Arabic. One town contains nineteen, another eleven, a third seven, a fourth six, and a fifth five schools. Five villages contain three each ; twenty- four, two each ; and a hundred and eighty, one each. The number of teachers is the same as the number of schools and their average age is 34?.2 years. One of the Persian teachers is a Hindu of the writer-caste, and all the other teachers, both Persian and Arabic, are Musalmans. Two of the teachers instruct gratuitously, and two others give both food and instruction to their pupils. The remaining teachers are re- munerated as follows : 1 teacher receives monthly wages and clothes and food for himself and scholars, Rs. 46 8 1 monthly wages, food for himself and scholars, and the proceeds of an endowment of land, .. 165 5 4 2 receive monthly wages, 300 2 ., fees, 770 5 monthly wages and uncooked food,. ......... ,. .. 16 8 14 ,, fees and uncooked food, 49 6 2 monthly wages and subsistence money, 880 22 fees and subsistence money, 75 11 2 fees and weekly presents, 8 10 3 monthly wages and annual presents, 510 10 fees and annual presents, 27 3 9 6 monthly wages, uncooked food, and annual presents 8015 3 57 fees, uncooked food, and annual presents, 243 11 3 29 monthly wages, subsistence money, and annual presents, - 101 8 9 95 fees, subsistence money, and annual presents,.... 454 7 3 1 ,, fees, subsistence money, and weekly presents,..., 700 1 monthly wages, weekly presents, and annual presents, 3 2 3 [ 71 ] 1 teacher receives fees, uncooked food, weekly presents, and annual presents, Rs. 4 6 10 monthly wages, subsistence money, weekly presents, and annual presents, 47 5 22 fees, subsistence money, weekly presents, and annual presents, 110 80 1 w fees, uncooked food, subsistence money, weekly presents, and annual presents, ... 5 6 9 Thus 287 teachers receive in all Rs. 1472-3-7, averaging to each Rs. 5-2 per month. There is another source of gain to the teachers of Persian schools in this district called Shurudti or a payment made by every scholar at the commencement of a new book. This is so uncertain that it cannot strictly be regarded either as a monthly or an annual gain. In 579 instances in which I ascertained that this payment had been made, the total amount was Rs. 138-9-6 which averages only three annas and about ten pie in each case ; and as it is seldom that a school-book is changed oftener than once a year, and the average number of scholars to each school is about five, this will give each teacher an additional sum of Rupee 1-3-2 per annum or about an anna and a half monthly. Two maulavis in this district are highly distinguished for learning and they are both authors. Maulavi Gholam Hossein, dwelling at Sahebgunge in the thana of that name, has written in Persian a compilation called Jam-i-Bahadur Khani, from various Arabic works on arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and the natural sciences with additions of his own. This work has been printed and contains 720 pages. He is now engaged in the prepara- tion of astronomical tables to be entitled Zij Bahadur Khani. The names of both works are intended as a compliment to his patron Bahadur Khan, one of the sons of Mitrajit Singh, the Raja of Tikari. Maulavi Mohiyuddin, dwelling at Erki in the thana of Jehanabad, has composed in Persian Sharh-i- Abdul Rasul, a commentary on the work of Abdul Rasul on Arabic syntax, consisting of 288 pages in manuscript ; and Jawab Chabbis Musciir, a treatise on Mohammadan observances containing 12 pages, also in manuscript. In Arabic he has written Majmua Taqrir Mantiq Amani, explanatory of Majmua, a work on logic, and consisting of 32 pages in manuscript, [ 72 ] Raja Mitrajit Singh also put into my hands a pamphlet on the agri- culture of the district, written in Persian and printed, of which he stated himself to be the author. On examination I have found it to be the same in substance as the Short Essay on Husbandry translated by Mr. Lewis Dacosta and appended to his translation of the Dewan Pusund. There are only two Persian and two Arabic schools that have appro- priate buildings or school-houses, the pupils of the remaining schools finding or making accommodations for themselves chiefly in the thresholds or verandas of the private dwelling-houses occupied by the patrons or teachers. In 291 schools there are 1,486 scholars averaging 5.1 to each school. There are 1,424 Persian scholars and 62 Arabic students. Of the Arabic students two are Hindus of the writer-caste and sixty are Musalmans ; and of the Persian scholars 865 are Hindus and 559 are Musalmans. The following are the subdivisions of the Hindus who are Persian scholars : Kayastha, 711 M agadha, 55 Rajput, 30 Kshatriya, 13 Brahman, 11 Gandhabauik, .... 11 Kairi, 10 Teli, 4 Swarnakar, 4 Bundela, 3 Mahuri, * 3 Vuishnava, 2 Sum i, , 2 Kamar, Luniar, Napit,.. Kurmi, Mayra, Aguri,.. Of the total number of Hindu scholars eight were absent and of the Musalman scholars three were absent at the time the schools were visited, the remaining number of each class being present. The average ages of the Persian and Arabic scholars at the three periods formerly- mentioned are as follows : Persian scholars, 7.8 .... 11,1 .... 21.5 Arabic students, 12.3 .... 16.0 .... 24.2 The following works were found in use in the Persian schools : Mamaqima, an elementary work; Nisab-us- Subyan, a vocabulary; Sawal Jawab, dialogues ; Bhagaivan Das, a grammar ; Insha-i-Madho Ram, Insha-i-Musallas, Mukhtasar-ul-Ibarat, Insha-i-Khurd, Mufid- ul-Insha, Insha-i-Munir, Insha-i- Brahman, and Murad-i-Hasil, forms of correspondence ; Alqab Nameh, on modes of address ; the poems of [ 73 ] Hilali and Kalim ; Zahuri, an account of one of the kings of the Deccan ; Kushaish Nameh and Kisseh Sultan, tales ; Nam-i-Haq names and attributes of God; Gauhar-i-Murad, on the doctrines of Islam; Kiranus Saadin, a poem by Khosro; and Mizan-ut-Tib and Tiba-i-Akber, on medicine. In the Arabic schools the following text-books were employed : Fasul Akberi, on inflection ; Nahv-i-Mir and Zariri, on syntax ; Sharh-i- Tahzib, commentary on Tahzib, a treatise on logic ; Mukhtasar-ul-Mani t a treatise on rhetoric ; Maibadi, on natural philosophy ; the elements of Euclid ; Sharh-i- Tazkira, on astronomy ; Sharafiya, on the law of inheritance ; Dair on the doctrines of Islam ; and Almijasti, astronomy of Ptolemy (Svvraie Meyi Arabic. Of these one town contains twenty-seven, another twelve, and a third eleven. Two villages contain four each ; six three each ; twenty-thre e two each ; and one hundred and sixteen one each. The number of Persian teachers is the same as the number of Persian schools. The number of Arabic teachers is six, one of the Arabic schools having three teachers. The average age of all the teachers is 33.9 years. One of the Persian teachers is a Hindu of the writer-caste, and all the other teachers both of Persian and Arabic schools are Musalmans. One teacher instructs gratuitously and five teachers give gratuitous instruction to all their scholars and food to twenty-two of them. The others are remunerated as follows : 1 teacher gives subsistence money to 14 scholars and receives month- ly wages from a patron,... Rs. 853 11 receive monthly wages, 27 2 1 ,i ,, fees, ., 160 4 ), subsistence money, 7 8 14 monthly wages and subsistence money, ,. 42 4 K C 74 ] 8 teachers receive fees and subsistence money, ......< 11 14 4 ty monthly wages and annual presents, 17 3 6 4 fees and annual presents, 19 6 9 1 fees, uncooked food, and annual presents, 5 3 3 2 monthly wages, subsistence money, and weekly presents, 312 74 } monthly wages, subsistence money, and annual pre- sents, 221 9 9 37 w J} fees, subsistence money, and annual presents, .... 95 8 3 3 fees, subsistence money, and weekly presents, .... 11 12 1 fees and weekly and annual presents, 4 4 9 3 monthly wages, subsistence money, uncooked food, and annual presents, 911 54 monthly wages, subsistence money, and weekly and annual presents, ....*........ 183 14 3 12 fees, subsistence money, and weekly and annual presents, 31 8 9 Thus 234 teachers receive in all Rs. 702-5-6 averaging to each about Rs. 3 per month. In 237 instances which were individually ascertained the sum of Rs. 84-13 was received by the teachers as Shuriiati which, giving two scholars and a half to each school and a year to each school- book, makes an average addition of one anna and two pie to the monthly income of each teacher. Mohammad Imam Shah and Bahram Shah two of the three teachers of an Arabic school at Darbhanga in the thana of that name, possess consi- derable property personal or endowed, and are men of high character, great intelligence, and extensive learning. They are brothers and are both authors. Maulavi Mohammad Imam Shah, the elder brother, has written in Persian Sharh-i-Kholasat-ul-Hisab, a commentary of 640 pages on Kholasat-ul-Hisab, a treatise on arithmetic ; and Daira-o-Jadwal-i- Najum, a pamphlet of 8 pages on astronomy. In Arabic he has written Nashya Sharh-i-Suttam, notes extending to 240 pages on Hamidullah's commentary on Sullam, a work on logic; Sharh-i-Kasideh Amali, a commentary of 34 pages on Kasideh Amali, a work on the doc- trines of religion ; Risaleh Rafaa Yadain, a pamphlet of 36 pages on the sayings of Mohammad ; Mabahisseh Imamiya> miscellaneous essays extending to 160 pages ; Durar-i-Mohammadi, a treatise of 40 pages on theology ; and Siraj-ul-Kalub, a tract of 18 pages on Sufeeism. [ 75 ] Maulavi Bahrain Shah, the younger brother, has written in Persian Risaleh Tauzih-ul-Biyan, a pamphlet of 48 pages on the doctrines of Islam, and Durur-ul- Islam one of 44 pages on the law of inheritance. In Arabic he lias written Risaleh Ramzul Hidayat, a tract of 8 pages on the doctrines of Islam ; and Risaleh Ashaar-ul-Mahjub, another of the same size on the law of inheritance. There are in all twenty-three school-houses averaging in the estimated cost of erection from twelve annas to a hundred rupees. Those schools that have no school-houses are accommodated in mosques, imambarahs, dwelling-houses, verandas, kachhris, and out-houses belonging to the patrons or teachers. In 238 schools there are 598 scholars averaging 2.5 to each school. All were present at the time the different schools were visited. Of the whole number 569 are Persian scholars and 29 Arabic students. Of the Arabic students two are Hindus of whom one is a brahman and the other a kayastha, and the remaining twenty-seven are Musalmans. Of the Persian scholars 126 are Musalmans and 443 Hindus, and the sub- divisions of the latter are as follows : Kalal, 4 Swarnakar, .. .. 1 Goala, 1 Gandhabanik, .. 1 The average ages of the Persian and Arabic scholars at the three periods formerly mentioned are as follows : Persian scholars, 6.8 10.8 19.3 Arabic students, 12.1 17.5 25.4 The following works were found in use in the Persian and Arabic schools, exclusive of others previously mentioned. In the Persian schools Mahmud Nameh, an elementary work ; Khush- hal-us- Subyan, a vocabulary; Nisab-i-Musallas, a dictionary; Mahzuf- ul-fTaruf, Jawahir-ut- Tarkib, and Dastur-ul-Mubtadi, on grammar; Mufid-ul-Insha, Fyz Baksh, Mubarik Nameh, and Amanullah Hossein, forms of correspondence ; the poems of Fahmi ; and Ruqaat-i-Abulfazl, the letters of Abulfazl. Kayastha, .. .. 349 Kshatriya, .. .. 6 Brahman, .. .. 30 Aguri, .. .. 5 Rajput, .. 22 Barnawar, . . 4 Magadha, , . .. 20 [ 76 ] In the Arabic schools, Mir Zahid Risaleh, on logic ; Akaideh Nisfi, on the doctrines of Islam ; Kanz-ud-Dakiiik, on the sayings of Moham- mad ; and Kalamullah fllajid, the sacred word of God (the Koran). SECTION X. General Remarks on the State of Persian and Arabic Instruction. First : The Hindustani or Urdu is the current spoken language of the educated Musalmans of Bengal and Behar, and it is a remarkable feature in the constitution of Mohammadan society in these provinces, and I infer throughout India, that the vernacular language of that class is never employed in the schools as the medium or instrument of written in- struction. Bengali school-books are employed by the Hindus of Bengal and Hindi school-books by the Hindus of Behar, but, although Urdu is more copious and expressive, more cultivated and refined than either, and possesses a richer and more comprehensive literature, Urdu school- books are wholly unknown. It is the language of conversation in the daily intercourse of life and in the business of the world, and it is the language also of oral instruction for the explanation of Persian and Ara- bic, but it is never taught or learned for its own sake or for what it con- tains. It is acquired in a written form only indirectly and at second hand through the medium of the Persian whose character it has adopted and from which it has derived almost all its vocables, and it is employed as a written language chiefly in popular poetry and tales and in fe- male correspondence and often also in the pulpit. The absence of Urdu schools for the Musalman population, corresponding with the Bengali and Hindi schools for the Hindus, may explain in some measure the greater degradation and ignorance of the lower classes of Musalmans when compared with the corresponding classes of the Hindu population ; and the first step to their improvement must be to supply this defect. Second : Except in those cases in which the Musalmans resort to Ben- gali and Hindi schools, Persian instruction is the only substitute for verna- cular instruction. Those Musalmans and Hindus who have received a Per- sian education have nearly the same command of the Persian as a written language that educated Englishmen have of their mother tongue. They acquire it in their earliest years at school ; in after life they continue to [ 77 ] read the works it contains for instruction or amusement ; they can con- verse in it, although it is not so employed in general society ; and they employ it as the means of communication in the private correspondence of friendship and in the written transactions of business. It is occasional- ly the language of the pulpit in the celebrations of the moharram ; it is the language of the long established manuscript Akhbars or Intelligencers of the native courts, and of the printed newspapers of modern times addressed to the educated classes of society ; and the employment of a less worthy medium in composition is generally considered inconsistent with the dignity of literature and science, philosophy and religion more as the relaxation than the exercise of an instructed mind. The Persian lan- guage therefore must be pronounced to have a strong hold on native society. Third : There is no connection between the Bengali and Sanscrit schools of Bengal or between the Hindi and Sanscrit schools of Behar : the teachers, scholars, and instruction of the common schools are totally different from those of the schools of learning, the teachers and scholars being drawn from different classes of society and the instruction directed to different objects. But this remark does not apply to the Persian and Arabic schools which are intimately connected and which almost im- perceptibly pass into each other. The Arabic teacher teaches Persian also in the same school and to the same pupils ; and an Arabic school is sometimes known from a Persian school only by having a single Arabic scholar studying the most elementary Arabic work while all the other scho- lars read Persian. The same scholars who are now studying Arabic formerly read or may still be reading Persian in the same school and under the same teacher ; and the scholars in an Arabic school who are now reading Persian only will probably in the same school and under the same teacher advance to the study of Arabic. The only distinction that can be drawn is that while there is no Arabic teacher who does not or may not teach Persian, there are many Persian teachers who do not and cannot teach Arabic. But the class for which both Persian and Arabic schools exist is the same, and that is the upper class of native socie- ty, whether Hindus or Musalmans are the scholars and whether Persian or Arabic is the language taught. Both languages are foreign, and both classes of schools are inaccessible, to the body of the people. Fourth : It is a question to what extent Persian and Arabic instruc- tion is directed and sought by Hindus and Musalmans respectively ; and the following table affords some means of estimating their relative proportion by exhibiting the actual number of teachers and scholars belonging to each class : Teachers. Scholars. Hindu. Musalman, Hindu. Musalman. 5 7 1 1 19 68 101 200 237 62 245 452 867 470 47 245 519 619 128 Tirhoot, 14 715 2096 1558 Arabic instruction is wholly, and Persian instruction is almost wholly, in the hands of Musalmans, there being only 14? teachers of Persian who are Hindus, to 715 teachers of Persian and Arabic who are Musalmans. This is a consequence of the nature of the instruction communicated, the lan- guages, the literature, and the learning taught being strictly Mohamma- dan. The relative number of Hindu and Musalman scholars is very different there being 2,096 of the former to 1,558 of the latter, which is a very remarkable contrast with the number of teachers belonging to the two classes of the population. Is this comparative large number of Hindu scholars the effect of a laudable desire to study a foreign litera- ture placed within their reach ? Or is it the effect of an artificial stimulus ? This may be judged by comparing the number of Hindu teachers and scholars of Persian which until lately was almost the exclusive language of local administration with that of Hindu teachers and scholars of Ara- bic which is not called into use in the ordinary routine of government. With regard to teachers, there is not a single Hindu teacher of Arabic in the five districts : all are Musalmans. With regard to scholars, there are only 9 Hindu to 14-9 Musalman students of Arabic, and consequently 2,087 Hindus to 1,409 Musalmans who are learning Persian. The small comparative number of Arabic students who are Hindus and the large comparative number of Persian scholars of the same class seem to admit of only one explanation, viz. that the study of Persian has been unnaturally forced by the practice of Government ; and it seems probable that even a considerable number of the Musalmans who learn Persian may be under the same artificial influence. Fifth : The average monthly gain of the teachers varies from Rs. 8-14-1 in Moorshedabad to Rs. 3 in Tirhoot, the medium rates being Rs. 6-6-1 in Beerbhoom, 6-10-8 in Burdwan, and 5-2 in South Behar. The difference between the highest and the lowest rates may be explained by various causes. One cause will be found in the average number of scholars taught by each master, the high- est average being 9.3 in Burdwan, the lowest 2.5 in Tirhoot, and the medium averages being 6.7 in Beerbhoom, 5.7 in Moorsheda- bad, and 5.1 in South Behar. The lowest rate of monthly gain and the smallest average number of scholars are found in Tirhoot. Further, the persons acquainted with Persian and seeking employment are numerous, the general standard of living is very low, and both the number of those who receive and the poverty of those who give employ- ment of this kind combine to establish a very low rate of remuneration- In Behar too, and especially in Tirhoot, parents do not nearly to the same extent as in the Bengal districts unite with each other to support a teacher for the benefit of their children ; and thus each teacher is very much isolated, seldom extending his instructions beyond the children of four or three families, and often limiting them to two and even one. The effects are waste of power and degradation of character to teachers and taught. Sixth : An attempt was made to ascertain the age of each scholar at three separate periods, viz., the age of his entering school or commencing the particular study referred to ; his age at the time the school was visit- ed ; and the probable age of his leaving school or concluding the parti- cular study in which he was then engaged. The average results are exhibited in the following table, and from the results is shown the ave- rage duration of study. At the time the Beerbhoom district was visited, the then actual age only of each scholar was noted without the two other items which are consequently wanting in the table : Persian. Arabic. Average Ages. Duration of Study Average Ages. Duration of Study. Moorshedabad, Beerbhoom, . . Burdwan, . . . South Behar, . Tirhoot, . .... 95 10.03 7.8 6.8 13.5 135 156 11.1 10.8 20.8 26.5 21-5 19.3 11 3 16.4 13.7 12.5 11.0 16.3 123 12.1 17.4 184 21.2 160 17-5 21.1 28.1 242 25.4 10.1 11.8 119 13.3 t 80 ] Thus the average duration both of Persian and Afabic study is about eleven or twelve years, the former generally extending to the twentieth or twenty-first and the latter to the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth year of age, affording ample time for the introduction of new or the improve- ment and extension of old courses of study. Seventh : The nature of the instruction given in these institutions may be in some measure estimated by the subjects of the works used as school or text books. In Persian schools elementary and grammatical works, forms of correspondence, and popular poems and tales are chiefly read : occasionally a work on rhetoric or a treatise on theology or me- dicine is also met with. In the Arabic schools the course of study takes a much wider range. The grammatical works are numerous, systema- tized, and profound ; complete courses of reading on rhetoric, logic, and law are embraced ; the external observances and fundamental doctrines of Islam are minutely studied ; the works of Euclid on geometry and Ptolemy on astronomy in translation are not unknown ; other branches of natural philosophy are also taught ; and the whole course is crowned by the perusal of treatises on metaphysics deemed the highest attain- ment of the instructed scholar. Perhaps we shall not err widely if we suppose that the state of learning amongst the Musalmans of India resembles that which existed among the nations of Europe before the invention of printing. Eighth : In estimating the amount of intellectual ability and acquire- ment that might be brought into requisition for the promotion or im- provement of education amongst the Mohammadan population, it may be remarked that the Persian teachers as a class are much superior in intelligence to the Bengali and Hindi teachers, but they are also much more frequently the retainers or dependents of single families or indivi- dual patrons, and being thus held by a sort of domestic tie they are less likely to engage in the prosecution of a general object. The Arabic teachers are so few that they can scarcely be taken into the account, and in the Bengal districts I did not find that any of them had attempted any form of literary composition. Among the few Arabic teachers of South Behar and Tirhoot the case was very different, four being authors of high repute for learning. With three of these I came into personal communication and they were evidently men of great mental activity and possessing an ardent thirst for knowledge. Various Persian and Arabic works of native learning given to me by the General Committee of Public Instruction for distribution were presented to these teachers [ 81 ] and their pupils, and they were not only thankfully but most greedily received. They had also a vague, but nevertheless a very strong, desire to acquire a knowledge of European systems of learning, and I could reckon with confidence on receiving their co-operation in any measure which without offending their social or religious prejudices should have a tendency to gratify that desire. SECTION XI. English, Orphan, Girls, and Infants Schools. These schools are generally of European origin. They are few in number and are often under the same management, and for these reasons they are noticed here under one head. City and District of Moorshedabad. There is no English school throughout the district ; and in the city the Nizamat College, in which English, as well as Persian and Arabic, is taught, was by the tenor of my instructions excepted from my inquiries inasmuch as it is a Government institution or rather an institution under Government control. The duty assigned to me was to collect informa- tion regarding the state of education which Government had no other direct means of obtaining, and as regular reports are furnished of the Nizamat College, that institution did not come within my province. The only school in the city thanas in which the teaching of English is made the sole object is one under the direction of the Revd. Mr. Paterson of the London Missionary Society. His instructions are gra- tuitous to the scholars, and they assemble in an out-office attached to his dwelling-house. The number of pupils is 13, of whom one is an Arme- nian, two are Musalmans, and ten are Hindus. Of the Hindus, six are kayasthas, three are brahmans, and one is a kaivarta. Others give an irregular attendance, and are therefore not included in the list of scholars. Mr. Paterson has leisure from his other avocations to instruct them only three days in the week from one hour and a half to two hours each day. The school-books used are Murray's Spelling Book, the English Reader, Murray's Grammar, Woollaston's Grammar, and Gold- smith's History of England which are provided by the scholars, and from the irregular supply of books the classification of the boys is found impossible. In penmanship the scholars write on slates and paper. Some of them learn Persian elsewhere. The average age of the thirteen L [ 82 ] scholars when they entered school was 12.9 years ; their average age at the time the school was visited was 16.6 ; and the average of the different periods mentioned when they would probably leave school was 22.3. After the examination of the school, the elder boys expressed their gratitude to Mr. Paterson for his instructions, lamented that he could not devote more time to them, and entreated me to represent their ardent desire to be favoured with more ample means for acquiring a knowledge of English, a request in which Mr. Paterson himself joined. The boys afterwards came to my lodgings of their own accord to express the same sentiments in a more formal manner. It has given me pleasure to observe that an attempt has been made since I left the district to establish an English school by public subscriptions both amongst Europeans and Natives. The Berhampore Orphan Asylum is under the general superinten- dence of the Revd. Messrs. Hill and Paterson of the London Missionary Society, from whom the following details respecting it have been derived. The origin of the institution is ascribed to the late David Dale, Esq., who as Magistrate of the district had frequently to provide for destitute native children. He received three orphan boys into his own house and subsequently sent them for instruction to the Revd. Mr. Williamson of the Baptist Missionary Society, residing in the Beerbhoom district. About three years afterwards, and about four years before my second visit to the district in July, 1836, the Asylum at Berhampore was built at the expense of J. A. Pringle, Esq., and the orphans were removed to it from Beerbhoom, and supported by Mr. Pringle till his return to England. At the above-mentioned date, nineteen orphans had been received into the institution, of whom four had died of cholera and diseases contracted in their destitute condition before their admission into the institution ; two female orphans had been sent to the Chris- tian school in Calcutta attached to the London Missionary Society ; and thirteen boys remained in connection with the institution. Of these thirteen, twelve resided in the Asylum ; and one, a leper, on the farm belonging to it. The parents of the orphans were, as far as is known, Hindus or Musalmans ; and the orphans had been, some of them left destitute by the death of their parents, others rescued from starvation during a period of famine, and one, it was stated, had been abandoned in the fields by its mother. The age of the youngest child is about four years and of the oldest about fifteen. [ 83 ] The orphans receive instruction both in letters and in the arts of manu- al industry, and to aid the Missionaries in both objects, John Gainer, a private soldier in one of the King's regiments, was enabled, in part by means of the orphan funds, to purchase his discharge, and his services have been engaged for 25 Rupees a month. Besides a sircar at 8 rupees a month, he is the only person who receives a salary from the institution. The school-instruction embraces the Bengali and English languages, and reading and writing in both. All are taught Bengali, and those are taught English who discover a capacity to acquire it. Three of the boys read Bengali in the Roman character, but this is in addition to, not in substi- tution of, the Bengali character. The ordinary school-books are employ- ed, including the New Testament in both languages : the want of good school-books is stated to be very much felt. To teach trades and form habits of industry two arrangements have been made ; a workshop has been formed and a piece of ground rented for a farm. In the workshop tape and bobbin, buggy-whips, shoes, manifold letter-writers, and snake- paper-weights are or have been made. The ground for a farm estimated at 100 bighas has been recently rented. Twenty bighas were in prepara- tion for mulberry and it is hoped that the cultivation of the plant, the rearing of the silk-worm, and the weaving of the silk so produced will find employment and support for the orphans. There is a religious ser- vice morning and evening at which the pupils are present ; and with the exception of an hour for food and bathing, they are in school from six o'clock in the morning till mid-day, and in the workshop till four in the afternoon. Although orphans are the primary objects of the Asylum, it is also proposed to receive outcasts, persons destitute by the loss of employment or friends, and catechumens ; to locate them on the farm ; to teach them some art or business ; and to provide them with a home so long as obe- dience to the rules of the institution renders them worthy of protection and countenance. On this principle fourteen mendicant females have been received. Sickness and a laxity of morals have reduced their number, but eight of them who formerly lived on alms now maintain themselves by weaving tape and bobbin. The expenditure on account of the institution is small and its resources are limited. The building of the Asylum originally cost 400 rupees ; of the workshop, 500 ; and of the school-room or native chapel, 318 ; to which is to be added the cost of various improvements and additions [ 84 ] since made. The rent of the land for a farm is 100 rupees per annum, and the European artizan and native sircar receive together 33 rupees per month. No precise estimate could be furnished of the cost of main- taining the inmates of the Asylum and of providing them with tools, machinery, and materials. To meet this expenditure, the work of the orphans and widows in part contributes : in 1835 it sold for 398 rupees. The aggregate of local subscriptions has varied from 12 to 75 rupees per month, and occasional liberal donations have been received both from friends on the spot and at a distance. The number of orphans and widows received into the Asylum is limited only by the state of the funds. The orphans of native parents are the special objects of the institution and the purpose is to train them up as artizans and farmers. When they have completed their school-education it is not contemplated to leave them without further care or superintendence, but on the plan of Moravian settlements to form them into a community in which each when married and comfortably supported shall assist in promoting the prosperity of the whole. It is hoped that the institution, independent of charitable aid, will thus enlarge or at least continue its operations. It is 6 till in its infancy and promises more than it has yet performed, but not more than it may be expected to perform under the same management. Even in its present condition, it must be regarded as a highly laudable attempt to rescue the orphan, widow, and outcast from destitution and crime, to educate them in the principles of Christianity, and to make them industrious, moral, and religious. The only other institution in the city of Moorshedabad to be noticed is a girls' school superintended by Mrs. Paterson, with the assistance of a native teacher who receives five rupees a month. The number of scho- lars is 28 of whom 24? were present and 4 absent at the time the school was visited. The scholars are all Hindus, 17 of the bagdhi caste, 6 of the malo, 3 of the kaivarta, and 2 of the vaishnava caste. The teacher is an agradani or low-caste brahman. The average age of the girls entering school was 7.2 years ; their average age when the school was visited was 9 years ; and the average probable age of their leaving school was 12.6 years. Twenty-four of the girls receive each 1 pice per week for attendance, and four receive each 2 pice. Each girl every four months receives a piece of cloth for a garment to secure her de- cent appearance at school : the cloth is valued at 10 annas. Two female [ 82 ] messengers are employed to conduct the scholars to and from school, one having charge of 13 and the other of 15 scholars ; and each messenger receives one anna per week for each child who attends regularly every day of the week. Each girl receives an armlet every year ; and on the occasion of her own marriage or the funeral obsequies of a parent, a payment of one rupee. District of Beerbhoom. In this district there are two English schools, one under European and the other under native management. The former of these is at Siuri the chief town of the district, and is under the superintendence of the Rev. James Williamson of the Baptist Missionary Society, who gives his instructions gratuitously from two to three hours every day. The school-house was built for 130 rupees and was originally intended for a girls' school, but has since been applied to the purposes of an English school with the consent of the principal do- nors. The number of scholars is 57, of whom ten are the children of native Christian parents and forty-seven are Hindus. The following are the castes of the Hindu scholars : Brahman, 23 Suvarnabanik, . . 8 Kayastha, ...... 6 Sadgop, 2 Vaishnava, .... 2 Vaidya, 2 Gandhabanik, . . 1 Tanti, 1 Muchi, 1 Dhoba, 1 The average age of all the scholars at the time the school was visited was 16.6 years. The school is made in part to pay its own expences by means of the fees received from some of the scholars. The ten Christian scholars and thirty-four of the Hindu scholars pay nothing, and of the remaining thirteen Hindu scholars three pay four annas each per month, eight pay eight annas each, and two pay one rupee each, making the monthly receipts from the scholars amount to Rs. 6-12. This sum is employed in keeping the school-house in repair- and in furnishing books to those who are unable to purchase them. The other scholars have books from Mr. Williamson at the Calcutta cost-price with the addition of one anna per rupee for carriage. The school is also aided by local subscriptions which amounted in 1835 to 160 rupees, being 50 rupees less then the previous year. [ 86 ] The monitorial system of teaching is employed under Mr. William- son's superintendence. The subjects taught are spelling, reading, writ- ing, grammar, geography, morals, and religion. It was intended to introduce the study of general history and natural history. Mr. Williamson joined his scholars in earnestly soliciting that a Go- vernment institution should be established at Siuri to supersede the English school under his management. The second English school is at Raipur, a village situated in the Kasba thana. The patron is Jaganmohan Singh who built the school- house at a cost of 250 Rupees and pays the teacher Rasik Lai Ghose a salary of 40 Rupees per month. The scholars are 16 in number of whom twelve are kayasthas and four brahmans. Of the kayasthas four are sons ef the patron and all the other scholars receive instruction gratuitously. The scholars are divided into three classes. The young- est boys were reading Murray's spelling-book ; the more advanced, Wool- laston's grammar in addition to the spelling-book ; and the first class boys, Clift's Geography, the History of Greece, the Poetical Reader, and Murray's large grammar. This school has existed for three or four years, and its establishment is solely attributable to the patron's desire to give an English education to his children. The teacher was formerly a pupil in the English school established by the late Rammolmn Roy in Calcutta. There was formerly a girls' school under Mrs. Williamson's care at Siuri, but in October 1834 one of the scholars abandoned her caste and became a Christian and two others expressed a wish to follow her ex- ample. The school was in consequence nearly broken up so that few except the daughters of native Christian parents remained. The Mis- sionary Bengali school for boys about the same time from a similar cause met with a like fate ; and the two schools much reduced in num- ber were formed into one, classing the girls with boys of equal at- tainments. The boys' department of the school has partially reviv- ed ; but the girls' division contains only the daughters of native Christian parents. They are eleven in number and their average age was 10.9 years. The teacher is a native Christian and he receives two annas for each child per month or Rs. 1-6 in all. The girls are taught to write words and figures, to read the catechism and commit it to memory, and to read the miracles and parables of Christ, together [ 87 ] with a little arithmetic and geography. They are also taught to knit, to make bobbin and braid, and to sew. ' District of Burdwan. There are three English schools in this district, one at Japat in the Culna thana, the second in the town of Burdwan, both under Mission- ary control ; and the third also in the town of Burdwan but of native origin and under native management. The Missionaries of the Church Society, the Revd. Messrs. Alexander and Weitbrecht respectively, established and superintend the two former, and the Raja of Burdwan established and supports the latter. Each of the Missionary schools has one teacher, one a Musalman and the other an East Indian. The school of the Raja of Burdwan has two teachers, one a brahman and the other a kayastha. The following are the monthly salaries of the teachers : East Indian, Rs. 80! Kayastha...... Rs. 14 Musalman, 20 | Brahman, 12 At Japat the place of Christian worship is used as a school-room ; and the Missionary school at Burdwan has a very handsome school-room built at a cost of 2,500 Rupees contributed by the Raja of Burdwan and other benevolent persons. The Raja's own school is conducted in one of the buildings attached to his residence in the town. The number of scholars in the three schools is 120. Of these, two in the Japat school are children of native Christian parents. Six are Musalmans of whom one is in the Japat school and five are in the Mis- sionary school at Burdwan. All the scholars in the Raja's school are Hindus ; and the number of Hindus in the three schools is one hundred and twelve whose subdivisions are as follows : Brahman, 53 Kayastha, 36 Vaishnava, 5 Kshatriya, 3 Vaidya, 3 Chhatri, 3 Swarnakar, 2 Bhatta, 1 Tamli, . , 1 Mali, 1 Kamar, 1 Kaivarta, 1 Yugi, 1 Bagdhi 1 In respect of caste, there is no distinction between the scholars of the Raja's school and those of the Missionary schools. The average [ 88 ] age of entering school or beginning to learn English was 12.5 years, the average age when the schools were visited was 15.5 years, and the average of the ages at which it was considered probable the scholars would leave school was 21.4 years. The scholars in all the three schools are taught gratuitously. All the Raja's scholars are furnished with paper, pens, and ink, free of charge ; and eleven of them receive food for four years. They supply themselves with books. The instruction given in the two Missionary schools will be seen from the following details. The lowest class or youngest boys of the Bur- dwan school con the English spelling-book ; the scholars of the next grade add the English Reader without giving the meaning ; the next give the meaning both of the Spelling-book and Reader ; the fourth grade read the New Testament, learn Murray's abridged grammar, know something of the maps of Asia, Europe, and Africa, and of the use of the terrestrial globe, work sums in simple multiplication, and trans- late easy sentences from Bengali into English ; the fifth grade add to the preceding some acquaintance with syntactical parsing and with the out- lines of ancient history ; and the highest class still further read the his- tory of England, study the definitions, axioms, and a few of the proposi- tions of the first book of Euclid, work sums in compound addition, and translate rather more difficult sentences from Bengali into English. The books used in the Raja's school are Murray's Spelling Book and abridged grammar, the English Reader, the Universal Letter-writer, and Dyche's Guide to the English tongue. The teachers, never having enjoyed the advantages of competent instruction, possess a mere smat- tering of the language and can of course communicate only what they know. Under the superintendence of the Rev. Mr. Linke a school for orphan boys has recently been formed on the Church Mission premises at Burd- wan. They are to be taught English as well as Bengali, but they were acquainted with Bengali only at the time the school was visited, and they have therefore been enumerated in the account already given of the Bengali schools of the district in page 30. They are twelve in number and are the children of native Christian parents. In addition to instruction in letters and religion, they are also taught some of the mechanical arts as weaving, tailoring, and carpentry. The school is entirely supported by the subscriptions of benevolent persons in Burdvvan. There are four girls' schools in the district, of which one, situated at Japat in the Culna thana and superintended by the Rev. Mr. Alexander, is supported by the Ladies' Society of Calcutta ; a second, situated in the town of Burdvvan and superintended by the Rev. Mr. Linke, is supported by the same Society ; a third, situated on the Mission premises in the neighbourhood of Burdwan, is supported and superintended by the Rev. Mr. Weitbrecht ; and a fourth, situated in the neighbourhood of Cutwa hi the thana of that name and superintended by the Rev. William Carey of the Baptist Missionary Society, is supported by the Calcutta Baptist Society for promoting Native Female Education. In all these cases the wives of the Missionaries co-operate in the superintendence. Besides the above-mentioned gratuitous superintendence there are thirteen paid teachers employed in these four schools ; and of that number eight teachers are attached to the Japat school alone, two to the Cutwa school, two to the Burdwan school, and one to Mr. Weitbrecht's school. Six of the teachers are native Christians and seven are Hindus. Of the native Christian teachers four are males and two females. The following are the castes of the Hindu teachers : Raj bansi , ...,.,.,..,.... 2 Brahman, 1 Kayastha, I Kshatriya, Chhatri, .. Vaishnava, The teachers are paid by monthly salaries : Six of the teachers paid by the Ladies 1 Society receive Rs. 5 each, Rs. 30 Four receive One teacher receives from Mr. Weitbrecht, Two teachers paid by the Baptist Society receive 4 16 800 Rs. 12-8 each, 25 The average is Rs. 6-12-3 to each teacher. The average age of all the teachers is 26.7 years. The age of fjone of the female native Christian teachers is 16, and of the other J8 years. M t 90 ] The number of girls taught in the four schools is 175. Their average age when they entered school was 6.5 years ; their average age at thel time when the schools were visited was 9.1 years ; and the average! age at which they intended or were expected to leave school was 14-.9J years. Of the total number of scholars one is a Musulman girl ; thirty-six! are the daughters of native Christian parents or orphans rescued froin : starvation and supported by the Missionaries ; and one hundred and] thirty-eight are the daughters of Hindu parents. The Hindus are thusj subdivided according to their castes : Bagdhi, 58 Muchi, 18 Bauri, 17 Dom, 17 Hari, 12 Vaishnava, 6 Tanti 6 Chandal, 2 Kurini, 1 Baiti, 1 A sum of Rs. 1-8 per month is allowed by the Ladies' Society for refreshments to the children. Three female messengers are employed to bring the children to school and to conduct them home. If one mes- senger brings ten scholars every day for a month, she gets two rupees ; and more or less in proportion to the number. It is not necessary that the same scholars should always be brought by the same messenger : the number only is regarded. The only language taught in the girls' schools is Bengali. The books read are chiefly religious and the instruction Christian. They are also taught needle-work. The following is the distribution of the scho- lars into four grades of Bengali instruction: (a) girls who read only, 112 (b) who write on the ground, 2 (c) ,, on the palm-leaf, 57 (d) ,. on the plantain leaf, 4 The only other institution in this district to be noticed is an infants' school situated on the Church Mission premises in the neighbourhood of Burdwan. The children are about 15 in number of both sexes, partly native Christian children, and partly orphans. They are under the care of Miss Jones, lately arrived from England and well acquainted with the [ 91 ] modes of infant instruction in use there. The ear is chiefly taught and the exercises are pronounced in recitative. District of South Behar. In this district there is only one institution to be noticed under the present section. At Sahebgunge, the chief town of the district, a school in which English, Persian, and Arabic are taught has been established by Raja Mitrajit Singh of Tikari and is superintended by his son Mirza Bahadur Khan. Two Maulavis and one English teacher are employed, and as they discharge their respective duties without any connection or communication with each other, I have preferred considering them as at the head of three separate institutions. The Raja has granted the use of a garden-house for the purposes of the school, but one of the Maulavis causes his pupils, six in number, to attend him at his own dwelling-house, and the other meets his, five in number, in one of the apartments of the garden-house. These two schools have already been enumerated amongst the Persian and Arabic schools in Section IX. The only other branch of the institution is the English school which assembles in the principal apartment of the garden-house and is conduct- ed by Mr. Francis, an East Indian, who receives a salary of 40 rupees per month. The number of scholars is 23, of whom one is a Christian, three are Musalmans, and nineteen are Hindus. The following are the castes of the Hindus : Kayastha, 10 Brahman, 3 Vaidya, 2 Rajput, 2 Sadgop, 1 Mali,., I Of these nineteen Hindu scholars, ten are natives of Bengal. The average age of all the scholars at the time they entered school was 13.5 years; at the time the school was examined 14.7 years; and the probable age at which they would leave school, 22 years. The books read consist of the usual routine, viz. Murray's Spelling Book and abridged grammar, the English Reader, and Clift's Geography, with a little ciphering. t 92 ] The expense of the institution, including the English, Persian, and Arabic branches, is limited by the Raja to 200 rupees per month, of which 40 are paid to the English teacher, 60 to one of the Maulavis, and 30 to the other ; 14 Rs. are paid to the pupils of one of the Maulavis and 22 Rs. to those of the other ; and the remaining sum provides for the mis- cellaneous expenses incurred in common on account of the two Madrasas and the English school. District of Tirhoot. Of the classes of institutions considered under the present Section there is not a single example to be found in this district. As far as I could learn there is not a single institution of European origin, nor one of Native origin established for the acquirement and communication of European learning. SECTION XII. General Remarks on the State of Instruction in the Schools mentioned in the preceding Section. The preceding Section contains all the information I have been able to collect in the districts visited respecting those institutions in which English is taught or which have been established for the instruc- tion of orphans, girls, and infants ; and the following remarks are sug- gested by the statements it contains and by the facts which have come under my observation. First : It is impossible for me fully to express the confirmed convic- tion I have acquired of the utter impracticability of the views of those, if there are any such, who think that the English language should be the sole or chief medium of conveying knowledge to the natives. Let any one conceiving the desirableness of such a plan abandon in imagi- nation at least the metropolis of the province or the chief town of the district in which he may happen to be living, and with English society let him abandon for a while his English predilections and open his mind to the impressions which fact and observation may produce. Let him traverse a pergunnah, a thana, a district, from north to south, from east to west, and in all directions. Let him note how village appears after village, before and behind, to the right hand and to the left, in endless sue- cession ; how numerous and yet how scattered the population ; how uniform the poverty and the ignorance ; and let him recollect that this process must be carried on until he has brought within the view of his eye or of his mind about ninety or a hundred millions of people diffused over a surface estimated to be equal in extent to the whole of Europe. It is difficult to believe that it should have been proposed to communicate to this mass of human beings through the medium of a foreign tongue all the knowledge that is necessary for their higher civilisation, their intellec- tual improvement, their moral guidance, and their physical comfort ; but since much has been said and written and done which would seem to bear this interpretation, and since it is a question which involving the happiness and advancement of millions will not admit of compromise, I deem it my duty to state in the plainest and most direct terms that my conviction of the utter impracticability of such a design has strengthened with my increased opportunities of observation and judgment. Second ; Although the English language cannot become the univer- sal instrument, European knowledge must be the chief matter, of instruction ; and the circumstances in which the country is placed point out the English language, not as the exclusive, but as one of the most obvious, means of communicating that instruction. I have therefore watched with much interest and promoted by any suggestions I could offer every desire and endeavour on the part of natives to acquire a knowledge of our language. In the districts I have visited, the desire cannot be said to be general only because it is vain to desire that which is plainly unattainable ; but it has been found to exist in instances and in situations where its existence is very encouraging. I have met with a learned Hindu and a learned Musalman in different districts, each in the private retirement of his native village attempting by painful and unassisted industry to elaborate some acquaintance with our language and eagerly grasping at the slightest temporary aid that was afforded. Nor is it only in individual cases that this anxiety is displayed. The school at Raipur in the Beerbhoom district was established and continues to be supported through the desire of a wealthy native land- holder to give an English education to his children. The Raja of Burdwan's school is the more remarkable because it is established in Burdwan where another English school exists which, although under Missionary direction, has been liberally patronized by the Raja, and in \vhich the scholars receive superior instruction to that which is given by the Raja's teachers. The support he has bestowed on the Missionary [ 94 ] English school may be attributed to European influence or to a desire to conciliate the favor of the European rulers of the country ; but the establishment of a separate school in his own house and at his own sole expense can be ascribed only to his opinion of the importance of a know- ledge of English to his dependents and a desire to aid them in its acqui- sition. The English branch of the institution at Sahebgunge supported by Raja Mitrajit Singh and superintended by his son, does not appear to have been of native origin ; and generally speaking the desire to know English is found in fewer instances in the Behar than in the Bengal dis- tricts. In both it is chiefly learned and wealthy men that have sought it for themselves or their children; and with a view to purposes of practical utility, it is to those classes in the present condition of native society that it is most suitable. Third : The instruction given in these English schools is very ele- mentary and even that is sometimes crude and imperfect. The teachers are in some instances Missionaries who have only an hour or two to bestow every day or even every second or third day ; and in other instances the teachers are themselves very insufficiently instructed ; while in those cases in which a rather higher grade of qualification is possessed, the local superintendence is not vigilant, the attendance of the scholars is desultory and irregular, and the instruction is thus generally kept low and rudiincntal. Conducted as these schools are, all that can be gene- rally expected from them is that they should send forth tolerable readers of printed English books and tolerable copyists of English manuscript, but without the power of speaking or writing the English language correctly, and without either the will or the power, after leaving school, to prosecute the study of the language so as to acquire and cherish a taste for its literature. In some instances the scholars at the close of the course of English instruction through which they pass will have some acquaintance with the first rules of arithmetic and with some of the prin- cipal facts in geography, history, and the system of the world, but with- out understanding much, if any thing, of the principles on which these branches of knowledge depend. This account will be understood as strictly applying only to those schools that have been enumerated in the preceding Section, without pronouncing on the character of other schools of the same class in other districts. Fourth : The orphan schools at Berhampore and Burdwan belong to a class of institutions which deserves special notice and encourage- ment, not merely because such institutions supply the immediate wants [ 95 ] of destitute orphans, which alone constitutes a strong claim, provided the means employed are not allowed to weaken existing domestic ties ; but also because the object is to train them to the arts and habits of industry by which they may in after-life earn their own bread. In other schools a knowledge of books, of the words and phrases which books contain, and of the ideas which the understanding of children can ap- prehend or their memory retain, is taught : in these industrial institu- tions, some kind of art or trade is also taught, the physical powers are developed, enjoyment and profit are connected in the mind with labour as effect with cause, and thus both the capacity and the disposition are created that will prevent the youth so instructed from becoming a bur- den either to himself or to others and that will make him an industrious and useful member of society. I am not aware of the existence of other institutions of the same kind in other parts of the country, and the two I have mentioned are still in their infancy. The increase of their number with a view to the improvement of the condition and habits of the lower classes of the people, is eminently deserving of con- sideration. Fifth : The importance of the object contemplated by the establish- ment of native female schools and the benevolence of those who have established them cannot be questioned, but some doubt may be enter- tained of the adaptation of the means to the end. The native prejudice against female instruction, although not insuperable, is strong ; and the prejudice against the object should not be increased by the nature of the means employed to effect it. Now it appears nearly certain that, independent of the prejudice against the object, native parents of res- pectable rank must be unwilling to allow their daughters, contrary to the customs of native society, to leave their own homes and their own neighbourhoods and proceed to a distance, greater or less in different cases, to receive instruction ; and this unwillingness cannot be lessened if it should appear that they will be placed in frequent and unavoidable communication with teachers and sircars of the male sex and of youth- ful age and in some instances with the corrupt and vicious of their own sex. To re-assure the minds of native parents, native matrons are em- ployed as messengers and protectors to conduct the girls to and from school ; but it is evident that this does not inspire confidence, for, with scarcely any exception, it is only children of the very poorest and lowest castes that attend the girls' schools, and their attendance is avowedly purchased. The backwardness of native parents of good caste may be [ 96 ] further explained by the fact that the girls' schools are under the sole direction of Missionaries ; and the case of the Beerbhoom school shows that to combine the special object of conversion with the general object of female instruction, must be fatal to the latter without accomplishing the former purpose. These remarks must be understood as strictly limited to the schools I have specifically described, and as inapplicable even amongst them to those in which the scholars, as in the case of female orphans, are under the constant, direct, and immediate superintendence of their Missionary instructors. In such cases the object and the means are equally deserving of unqualified approval ; but it must be obvious that female instruction can never in this way become general. Sixth : In some districts there are no schools of European origin ; and in those districts in which there are such institutions, they owe their establishment principally to the exertions of Christian Missionaries. Tirhoot, for instance, is not only one of the most ancient seats of Hindu learning, but at the present day it is still more distinguished as a locality where European settlers are more numerous and wealthy than in most other districts ; and yet there the ignorance and degradation of the people are most profound, unrelieved by a single European institution formed to enlighten their minds or improve their condition. In South Behar there is, with scarcely an exception, a similar absence of European institutions, but it differs from Tirhoot in not having, as far as I am aware, a single European resident who is not a public functionary. In Moorshedabad, in Beerbhoom, and in Burdvvan there are European residents, unofficial as well as official, and there are also institutions of European origin for the benefit of the natives, but those institutions have been projected and formed and are still maintained, often indeed with the aid of funds from other benevolent persons, but primarily and chiefly by the endeavours and labours of Missionaries who thus mainly contribute to redeem the European character from the charge that might otherwise seem to attach to it, of unalloyed selfishness. The spirit of the Government has descended to each of us individually. Government has seemed to exist for the purpose chiefly of collecting a revenue : no object is so prominent or is so energetically pursued. Every Englishman lives and toils to amass a fortune : no passion is so strong or so pervading. The people in the mean time whose labour gives revenue to the state and wealth to the individual are degraded by ignorance and poverty, and the obligation to instruct and elevate them is sometimes wholly denied and in all cases is feebly felt and acknowledged. Even Missionaries who [ 97 ] enjoying only a humble subsistence would seem to be less liable to the imputation of an exclusive regard to self- interest, do not receive cre- dit with the natives for the sacrifices they make, for they are known to be the paid agents of religious associations and to have proselytism chiefly in view. Government alone can act on those enlarged and com- prehensive views which will conciliate the prejudices and awaken and engage the sympathies of all classes in favour of the great and important object of public instruction. SECTION XIII. Population. The preceding Sections contain the substance of the information collected respecting the state of school-instruction ; and the state of domestic and adult instruction remains to be shown. A census of the population within the limits to which this part of the inquiry was con- fined was found an indispensable preliminary and the results of the cen- sus will therefore in the first place be given. City of Moorshedabad. In the nineteen thanas included within the city jurisdiction there are 372 mahallas and villages. The mahallas are the streets, quarters, or wards of the city properly so called. The villages contain the scattered agricultural population. The number of families is 34,754', averaging 93.4 families to each mahalla or village. The number of Hindu families is 24,094, of Mu- salman families 10,647, and of native Christian families 13. The number of persons is 124,804, of whom 84,050 are Hindus, 40,709 are Musalmans, and 45 are native Christians ; averaging 3.591 persons to each of the total number of families, 3.488 to each Hindu family, 3.823 to each Musalman family, and 3.461 to each native Chris- tian family. The proportion of Hindus to Musalmans and Christians is as 1 00 to 48.4. In the enumeration both of families and persons, the native soldiers cantoned at Berhampore, and Europeans whether pub- lic functionaries civil and military or private individuals, have been omitted. N [ 98 ] The number of males of all ages is 62,519, and of females of all ages 62,285, giving a proportion of 100 males to 99.6 females. In the enu- meration of males, sixty-three eunuchs, stated to be of Abyssinian birth and belonging to the household of the Nawab of Moorshedadad, have been included. The number of males above fourteen years of age is 46,670, and of females of the same age 51,148, giving a proportion of 100 males to 109.5 females above fourteen years. The number of males between fourteen and five years of age is 9,539, and of females of the same age 5,553, giving a proportion of 100 males to 58.2 females between fourteen and five. The number of males below five years of age is 6,310, and of females of the same age 5,584, giving a proportion of 100 males to 88.4 females below five. The number of persons, male and female, above fourteen years of age, is 97,818, and the number of persons, male and female, below five, is 11,894, amounting together to 109,712 ; the number of persons, male and female, between fourteen and five years of age, is 15,092 ; and the proportion of the population above fourteen and below five to the po- pulation between fourteen and five is as 100 to 13.7- District of Moorshedabad. Of the eighteen Mofussil thanas of this district the one selected for investigation was the Daulatbazar thana which was found to contain 183 towns and villages. The number of families is 12,832, averaging 70.1 families to each town or village. The number of Hindu families is 7,058, and of Musalman families 5,774. The number of persons is 62,037, of whom 33,199 are Hindus, and 28,838 are Musalmans, averaging 4.834 persons to each of the total number of families, 4.703 to each Hindu family, and 4.994 to each Musalman family. The proportion of Hindus to Musalmans is as 100 to 86.8. [ 99 ] The number of males of all ages is 31,560, and of females of all ages 30,477, giving a proportion of 100 males to 96.5 females. The number of males above fourteen years of age is 20,222, and of females of the same age 22,615, giving a proportion of 100 males to 111.3 females above fourteen years. The number of males between fourteen and five years of age is 6,801, and of females of the same age 3,627, giving a proportion of 100 males to 53.3 females between fourteen' and five. The number of males below five years of age is 4,537, and of females of the same age 4,235, giving a proportion of 100 males to 93.3 females below five. The number of persons, male and female, above fourteen years of age, is 42,837, and the number of persons, male and female, below five is 8,772, amounting together to 51,609 ; the number of persons, male and female, between fourteen and five years of age, is 10,428 ; and the proportion of the population above fourteen and below five to the po- pulation between fourteen and five is as 100 to 20.2. District of Beerbhoom. Of the seventeen thanas of this district the one selected for special investigation was the Nanglia thana which was found to contain 267 villages. The number of families is 9,117, averaging 37.1 families to each vil- lage. The number of Hindu families is 7,597, of Musalman families 612, of Santhal families 786, and of Dhangar families 122. The number of persons is 46,416, of whom 38,489 are Hindus, 2,977 are Musalmans, 4,261 are Santhals, and 689 are Dhangars, averaging 5.091 persons to each of the total number of families, 5.066 to each Hindu family, 4.864 to each Musalman family, 5.421 to each Santhal family, and 5.647 to each Dhangar family. The proportion of Hindus to the aggregate of Musalmans, Santhals, and Dhangars is as 100 to 20.5. The number of males of all ages is 23,496, and of females of all ages 22,920, giving a proportion of 100 males to 97.5 females. The number of males above fourteen years of age is 14,414, and of females of the same age 15,996, giving a proportion of 100 males to 110.9 females above fourteen. The number of males between fourteen and five years of age is 5,487, and of females of the same age 3,44-2, giving a proportion of 100 males to 62.7 females between fourteen and five. The number of males below five is 3,595, and of females of the same age 3,482, giving a proportion of 100 males to 96.8 females below five. The number of persons, male and female, above fourteen years of age, is 30,410, and the number of persons, male and female, below five years of age, is 7,077, amounting together to 37,487 ; the number of persons, male and female, between fourteen and five years of age, is 8,929 ; and the proportion of the population above fourteen and below five to the population between fourteen and five is as 100 to 23.8. District of Burdwan. Of the thirteen thanas of this district the one selected for special investiga- tion was the Culna thana which was found to contain 288 towns and villages. The number of families is 23,346, averaging 81.06 families to each town or village. The number of Hindu families is 19,047, of Musalman families 4,287? and of native Christian families 12. The number of persons is 116,425, of whom 93,923 are Hindus, 22,459 are Musalmans, and 43 are native Christians, averaging 4.986 persons to each of the total number of families, 4.935 to each Hindu family, 5.238 to each Musalman family, and 3.583 to each native Chris- tian family. The proportion of Hindus to the aggregate of Musalmans and native Christians is as 100 to 23.9. The number of males of all ages is 59,844, and of females of all ages 56,581, giving a proportion of 100 males to 94.5 females. The number of males above fourteen years of age is 38,974, and of females of the same age 42,071, giving a proportion of 100 males to 107.9 females above fourteen. [ 101 ] The number of males between fourteen and five years of age is 11,334, and of females of the same age 6,84-2, giving a proportion of 100 males to 60.3 females between fourteen and five. The number of males below five years of age is 9,536, and of females of the same age 7,668, giving a proportion of 100 males to 80.4 females below five. The number of persons, male and female, above fourteen years of age, is 81,045, and the number of persons, male and female, below five, is 17,204, amounting together to 98,249; the number of persons, male and female, between fourteen and five, is 18,176; and the proportion of the population above fourteen and below five to the population between fourteen and five is as 100 to 18.4. District of South Behar. Of the nine thanas of this district the one selected for special investi- gation was the Jehanabad thana which was found to contain 803 towns and villages. The number of families is 14,953, averaging 18.6 families to each town or village. The number of Hindu families is 12,549, and of Musalman families 2,404. The number of persons is 81,480, of whom 69,515 are Hindus, and 11,965 are Musalmans, averaging 5.462 persons to each of the total num- ber of families, 5.539 to each Hindu family, and 4.977 to each Musalman family. The proportion of Hindus to Musalmans is as 100 to 17.2. The number of males of all ages is 44,386, and of females of all ages 37,094, giving a proportion of 100 males to 83.5 females. The number of males above fourteen years of age is 29,936, and of females of the same age 27,637? giving a proportion of 100 males to 92.3 females above fourteen. The number of males between fourteen and five years of age is 9,781 and of females of the same age 5,814, giving a proportion of 100 males to 59.4 females between fourteen and five. [ 102 ] The number of males below five years of age is 4,669, and of females of the same age 3,643, giving a proportion of 100 males to 78.02 females below five. The number of persons, male and female, above fourteen years of age, is 57,573, and the number of persons, male and female, below five is 8,312, amounting together to 65,885 ; the number of persons, male and female, between fourteen and five years of age is 15,595 ; and the pro- portion of the population above fourteen and below five to the popula- tion between fourteen and five is as 100 to 23.6. District of Tirhoot. Of the sixteen thanas of this district the one selected for special inves- tigation was the Bhawara thana which was found to contain 402 villages. The number of families is 13,143, averaging 32.6 families to each village. The number of Hindu families is 11,946, and of Musalman families 1,197. The number of persons is 65,812, of whom 59,836 are Hindus and 5,976 are Musaltnans, averaging 5.007 persons to each of the total number of families, 5.008 to each Hindu family, and 4.992 to each Musalman family. The proportion of Hindus to Musalmans is as 100 to 9.9. The number of males of all ages is 35,961, and the number of females of all ages is 29,851, giving a proportion of 100 males to 83 females. The number of males above fourteen years of age is 23,224, and the number of females of the same age is 21,192, giving a proportion of 100 males to 91.2 females above fourteen. The number of males between fourteen and five years of age is 8,368, and the, number of females of the same age is 5,041, giving a propor- tion of 100 males to 60.2 females between fourteen and five. The number of males below five years of age is 4,369, and the number of females of the same age is 3,618, giving a proportion of 100 males to 82.8 females below five. [ 103 ] The number of persons, male and female, above fourteen years of age, is 44,416, and the number of persons, male and female, below five, is 7,987, amounting together to 52,403 ; the number of persons, male and female, between fourteen and five is 13,409; and the proportion of the population above fourteen and below five to the population between fourteen and five is as 100 to 25.5. SECTION XIV General Remarks on the Population Returns. First : The number of villages mentioned is the number of actual settlements of people or assemblages of houses inhabited by families at a greater or less distance from similar settlements or assemblages ; and it is different from the number of mauzas or villages recorded in the Magistrate and Collector's office as belonging to the respective thanas. It is probable that the latter were all originally inhabited villages, but through various causes some of them have ceased to be so, while in other instances the number of inhabited villages has increased without any increase in the official enumeration. The difference there- fore between that enumeration and the ascertained number of inhabited villages occurs in the way both of excess and defect, as will appear from the following comparison : Thanas. Number of villages record- ed in the Magistrate and Collector's Office. Ascertained number of inhabited villages. 203 183 224 267 328 288 859 803 340 402 The ascertained number of inhabited villages in thana Nanglia and Bhawara is greater, and in thanas Daulatbazar, Culna, and Jehanabad less, than the official number of villages. The excess in the two former may be attributed to the extension of cultivation in the Beerbhoom and Tirhoot districts leading to the gradual formation of new villages. The causes of deficiency in the three latter, I had not the means of satisfac- torily investigating, but I have met with individual instances of the aban- donment of villages which were popularly ascribed to pestilence, with others caused by the encroachments of the neighbouring river, with others that were attributed to disagreement with European settlers, and [ 104 ] with others that were alleged to have arisen from the quarrels of adjoin- ing zemindars leading to excessive exactions from the cultivators. Second: The average number of families in each village is an evi- dence and measure of a comparatively dense or sparse population. The following are the results in the different thanas : Daulalbazar, 70.1 Nanglia, 37.1 Culua, 81-06 Jehanabad, 18.6 Bhawara, 32.6 The extremes are Culna and Jehanabad, the former a populous thana of a very populous district, and the latter a thana of a district not remarkable for the scantiness, but for the dispersion, of its population. Intermediate degrees of social aggregation are found in the other three thanas. Compared with the other Bengal districts Beerbhoom is thinly peopled, but it will be observed that the average number of families in each village in thana Nanglia of that district, although the lowest of the Bengal averages, is greater than the highest of the Behar averages, tend- ing to show the comparative sparseness of the population throughout Behar. The cause of this and of other effects will probably be found in the extreme subdivision of landed property in that province; but what- ever the cause, the fact is necessary to be known in framing suitable measures for the promotion of general instruction. Third: For the purpose of comparison I subjoin in one view the number of persons in each family, taking the different classes of the population collectively and separately: Average Average Average Average A verage Average number number number number number number of per- of per- of per- of per- of per- of per- sons sons sons sons sons sons in each in each in each in each in each in each family. Hindu Musal- Santhal Dhan- native family man family. gar Chris- family. family. tian family. ity of Moorshedabad, .. 3.591 3.488 3.823 _ _ 3.461 Thana Daulatbazar, .... 4.834 4 .703 4994 5.091 5.066 4.864 5.421 5.647 ^_^ 4.986 x 4.931 5.238 3.583 Thana Jchanabad. ...... 5.462 5.539 4.977 ___ __ 5.007 5.008 4.992 t 105 ] The average number of persons in each family in the city of Moorsheda- bad is less than the corresponding results in the Mofussil thanas of the respective districts, and one cause of this will be found in the fact that the number of traders, shopkeepers, and day-labourers who resort to Moorshedabad from the surrounding or more distant districts without their families is great. There are also three classes of women who have no families and who are found in considerable numbers within the limits of the city jurisdiction, viz. public women ; aged women who reside on the banks of the Bhagarathi on account of the holiness which its waters confer ; and widows. The number of widows is alleged to be greater in the city than in the country, in consequence of the greater prevalence of epidemic diseases which are believed by the natives to be more fatal to the male than to the female sex. All these causes, affecting both the male and female population, combine to increase the number of families consisting of one or two individuals and consequently to lessen the gene- ral average of persons in each family in the city. The five Mofussil thanas differ very little from each other, the lowest average being less than a quarter of a unit below, and the highest less than a half above five persons in each family which may therefore be deemed the mean rate. The difference between the Hindu and Musalman averages is small and is sometimes in favour of the Hindu and sometimes of the Mohammadan division of the population. The difference is greatest in the Jehanabad thana where it is more than half a unit in favour of the Hindus. The Santhal and Dhangar averages in the Beerbhoom district are high compared with the Hindu and Musalman averages of the same district, which may be accounted for by the more peaceable habits of the former classes and the stronger disposition of relations to live together. The number of native Christian families is so small that no conclusion can be founded on the results exhibited. Fourth : The proportion of Hindus to Musalmans and others in the different localities is subjoined : In the city of Moorshedabad there are 100 Hindus to 48.4 Musalmans, &c. In thana Daulutbazar, to 86.8 In thana Nanglia, to 20.5 In thana Culna, to 23.9 In thana Jehanabad, to 17.2 ,, In thana Bhawara, to 9.9 These proportions must be considered as strictly limited to the localities mentioned, without extending them to the districts to which the respec- e [ 106 ] tive thanas belong, because the proportions differ not only in different districts, but in different thanas of the same district. The variety of results shows the necessity of a more complete and general census ; and the only positive conclusion possessing any value is that which respects the city of Moorshedabad because it embraces an entire and separate jurisdiction. Within that jurisdiction the proportion is as two Hindus to nearly one Musalman, while in the Daulatbazar thana of the Moorshe- dabad district the proportion of Musalmans is greater. Fifth : The following are the proportions of males to females in the different localities : Proportion of males of all ages to females of all ages is as 100 to Proportion of males above 11 to females of the same age is M.V 100 to Proportion of males be- tween \ 4 4* 5 to females of the same (i'ic. is as 1 00 to Proportion of males be- low 5 to fe- mrtfc.vofthe same ape is as 100 to City of Moorshedabad, . . Thana Daulutbazar, .... 99.6 96.5 97.5 1095 111.3 1109 58.2 53.3 62.7 884 93.3 96.8 Thana Culna, 945 83.5 107.9 923 60.3 59 4 80.4 78 02 Thana Bhawara, 83.0 91.2 60.2 82.8 The first remark which occurs here respects the obvious difference in the first and second columns between the proportions of the Bengal and those of the Behar thanas. I am wholly unable to offer any explanation of the difference. The second remark is the great excess of males be- tween 14 and 5 above females of the same age both in the Bengal and Behar districts, as exhibited in the third column. This may with some probability be accounted for by supposing that from doubt or suspicion of the object of the inquiry, the number of females of that age was often purposely diminished either by actual suppression or by transfer to the preceding column which in the Bengal districts especially contains an excessive proportion of females above 14-. I am not however per- fectly satisfied with this explanation, for the uniformity of the effect in all the districts as well as in the city of Moorshedabad seems to require a cause of more uniform operation than mere doubt or suspicion. Sixth : The proportion of the numbers above 14 and below 5, i. e. of those who have not yet attained the age of school instruction and who [ 107 ] have passed beyond it, to the number between 14 and 5, i. e. of those who are of the teachable age, is subjoined : In the city of Moorshedabad there are 100 above 14 and below 5 to 13.7 between 14 and 5. In 1 liana Daulatbazar, to 20.2 In thana Nanglia, to 23.8 In thana Culna, ,, to 18.4 ,, In thana Jehanabad, to 23.6 ,, In thana Bhawara, ,, to 25.5 If we could be sure of an approximation to truth in these results the advantage of it would be that we should possess the means of comparing the ascertained amount of instruction with the ascertained number of those who are of an age to receive it ; and of proportioning the supply to the wants of society without allowing excess in one place or deficiency in another. Seventh : I have not attempted to estimate the number of inhabitants to- the square mite, because I had not the means of ascertaining the superficial extent of the localities in which a census of the population was taken. SECTION XV. Domestic Instruction. The subject of domestic instruction was noticed in the Second Report p. 32 35 to which reference should be made. City of Moorshedabad.The number of families in which domestic instruction is given is 216 of which 147 are Hindu and 69 are Musalman families. The number of children receiving domestic instruction is 300 of whom 195 are Hindu and 105 are Musalman children. Thana Daulatbazar. The number of families in which domestic in- struction is given is 254 of which 201 are Hindu and 53 are Musalman families. The number of children receiving domestic instruction is 326 of whom 265 are Hindu and 61 are Musalman children. . Thana Nanglia. The number of families in which domestic instruc- tion is given is 207 of which 197 are Hindu and 10 are Musalman fami- lies. The number of children receiving domestic instruction is 285 of whom 267 are Hindu and 18 are Musalman children. [ 108 ] TJiana Culna. The number of families in which domestic instruction is given is 475 of which 414 are Hindu and 61 are Musalman families. The number of children receiving domestic instruction is 676 of whom 595 are Hindu and 81 are Musalman children. Thana Jehanabad. The number of families in which domestic in- struction is given is 360 of which 295 are Hindu and 65 are Musalman families. The number of children receiving domestic instruction is 539 of whom 435 are Hindu and 104 are Musalman children. Thana Bhawara* The number of families in which domestic instruc- tion is given is 235 of which 223 are Hindu and 12 are Musalman fa- milies. The number of children receiving domestic instruction is 288 of whom 275 are Hindu and 13 are Musalman children. SECTION XVI. General Remarks on the State of Domestic Instruc- including a View of the Amount and Proportion of Instruction amongst the entire juvenile Population of the teachable Age. First : When I was in the Rajshahi district I ascertained the number of families only in which domestic instruction was given to the chil- dren, without noting the number of children in each such family. In the localities subsequently visited this omission, it will have been seen from the preceding Section, was supplied, and the average number of children receiving domestic instruction in each family is sub- joined : City of Moorshedabad, 1.388 Thana Daulatbazar, 1 .279 Thana Nanglia, ., , 1.375 Thana Culna, 1.423 Thana Jehanabad, 1.219 Thana Bhawara, 1,225 I estimated the Rajshahi average at 1J which is in excess of all these averages subsequently ascertained, from which it may be inferred that the number of children receiving domestic instruction in that district was probably over-estimated. [ 109 ] Second : The limited extent of domestic instruction will appear from a comparison of the number of families Hindu and Musalman, in \vhich it is, with the number in which it is not, given : HIM du families . Musalman families. Total number. Giving domestic instruc- tion. Not giv- ing do- mestic instruc- tion. Total number. Giving domestic instruc- tion. Not giv- ing do- mestic instruc- tion . City of Moorshedabad,.. 24,094 7,058 7,597 19,047 12,549 1 1 ,946 147 201 197 414 295 223 23,947 6,857 7,400 18,633 12,254 11,723 10,647 5,774 612 4,287 2,404 1,197 69 53 10 61 65 12 10,578 5,721 602 4,226 2,339 1,185 Third : A comparison of the number of children receiving domestic instruction with the number capable from age of receiving it will furnish still more precise data : Total number of children between 14 and 5 years of age, i. e. capable of receiving do- Number of chil- dren receiving do- mestic instruction. Number of chil- dren not receiving domestic instruc- tion< mestic instruction. City of Moorshedabad,. . . . 15,092 300 14,792 Thaua Daulatbazar, 10,428 326 10,102 8,920 285 8 644 18 176 676 17 500 Thana Jehanabad . 15 59o 539 15 056 13 409 288 13 121 Fourth : One other step is necessary to arrive at a definite conclu- sion respecting the number and proportion of the instructed and unin- structed juvenile population, viz. by adding together the number of children receiving domestic and school instruction, and deducting the aggregate from the total number of children of the teachable age. The number of children given below as receiving school instruction include those who in the City of Moorshedabad and in the thanas specially men- tioned receive instruction whether in Bengali, Hindi, Persian, English, orphans', or girls' schools, and exclude the students in Sanscrit and Arabic schools as being generally above 14? years of age and belonging to the adult population. The students of the Nizamat College in the City of Moorshedabad are also considered as belonging to the adult population : II A i 4 i 61 v. E^-S 5^. ?s * s *< > ff ^ &s 2 ^ -A "s-s ^ o ^ o If P 11 h-i Is ts| ill K 1-1 J. li'li ^L .^ * 'to 2 1 " g jo 8.* Oi il i_ii . S "* '^2 -2 | ^ 1 'g m & 1 1 1 ifi Hi ill 1 J-| | o * ^ S ^ ** *- V 9 - = *S ? S 1 ^ w " ^ tj^5 City of Moorshedabad,. . 15,092 959 300 1,259 13,833 8-3 Thana Daulatbazar,.... 10.428 305 326 631 9,797 6.05 8,929 439 2h5 724 8,205 8.1 Thana Cukia . . 18,176 2,243 676 2,919 15,257 16.05 15.595 366 539 905 14,690 5.8 Thana Bhawara, 13,409 60 288 348 13,U61 25 The last column of the preceding table expresses, as far as mere number and proportion can express, the sum and substance of this Report. It shows that in the Culna thana of the Burdwan district where the amount of instruction is greater than in any other of the localities men- tioned, of every 100 children of the teachable age 16 only receive any kind or degree of instruction, while the remaining 84 are destitute of all kinds and all degrees of it ; and that in the Bhawara thana of the Tirhoot district where the amount of instruction is less than in any other of the localities mentioned, of every 100 children of the teachable age 2J only receive any kind or degree of instruction, while the re- maining 97^ are destitute of all kinds and all degrees of it. The intermediate proportions are those of thana Jehanabad in South Behar and thana Daulatbazar in the Moorshedabad district where there are about 6 children in every 100 who receive some instruction leaving 94 wholly uninstructed ; and those of thana Nanglia in the Beerbhoom district and the city of Moorshedabad in which there are about 8 chil- dren in every 100 who receive some instruction leaving 92 wholly unin- structed. While ignorance is so extensive, can it be a matter of wonder that poverty is extreme, that industry languishes, that crime prevails, and that in the adoption of measures of public policy, however salutary and ameliorating their tendency, Government cannot reckon with confidence on the moral support of an intelligent and instructed community ? Is [ 111 ] it possible that a benevolent, a wise, a just Government can allow this state of things any longer to continue ? Fifth : It has been already shown that the schools for girls are exclu- sively of European origin ; and I made it an object to ascertain in those localities in which a census of the population was taken whether the absence of public means of native origin for the instruction of girls was to any extent compensated by domestic instruction. The result is that in thanas Nanglia, Culna, Jehanabad, and Bhawara domestic instruction was not in any one instance shared by the girls of those families in which the boys enjoyed its benefits, and that in the city of Moorshedabad and in thana Daulatbazar of the Moorshedabad district I found only five and those Musalman families, in which the daughters received some instruc- tion at home. In one of these instances a girl about seven years of age was taught by a Kath Molla the formal reading of the Koran ; in another instance two girls, about eight and ten years of age, were taught Persian by their father, a Pathan, whose object in instructing his daughters was stated to be to procure a respectable alliance for them ; and in the three remaining families four girls were taught mere reading and writing. This is another feature in the degraded condition of native society. The whole of the juvenile female population, with exceptions so few that they can scarcely be estimated, are growing up without a single ray of instruction to dawn upon their minds. Sixth : In the account given of school-instruction it has been shown with considerable minuteness to what classes of society, in respect of religion and caste, the children belong ; but in the account of domestic instruction the only distinction drawn is between Hindus and Musalmans. The following are the results at one view : Families. Children. Hindu Musal- man, Total. Hindu. Musal man. Total. City of Moorshedabad,.. Thana Daulatbazar, , . . . 147 201 197 69 53 10 216 254 207 195 265 267 105 61 18 300 326 285 Thana Culna . . . . 414 61 475 595 81 676 Thana Jehanabad, ..... 295 223 65 12 360 235 435 275 104 13 539 288 The account given in the Second Report of the classes of Hindu society to which those families belong that give domestic instruction to the chil- dren is I believe in general correct, viz. zamindars and talukdars, shop- keepers and traders, gomashtas and mandals, pandits and priests ; but I have been led to conclude that the pandits or learned brahmans consti- tute a much larger proportion than any other class and probably than all the other classes put together. Few of them send their children to Ben- gali or Hindi schools where accounts are the chief subject of instruc- tion. Most content themselves with giving their children a knowledge of mere reading and writing at home which is the sole qualification to ena- ble them to begin the study of Sanscrit. Seventh: With regard to the subject matter of domestic instruction, the mere reading and writing of the vernacular language is all that is taught in the families of brahman pandits, but in other Hindu families I have found Persian taught. Thus in three families belonging to one village I found three boys who had completed their Bengali education, receiving under the domestic roof instruction in Persian. In another village, of five children who were receiving domestic instruction one was learning Persian and four Bengali. Again, seven boys in one village who were receiving domestic instruction were the sons of Kath Mollas and were merely taught the formal reading of the Koran ; while four Musalman children in another village were taught Bengali reading and writing. There can be no doubt that the instruction given at home is in general more crude and imperfect, more interrupted and desultory, than that which is obtained in the common schools. SECTION XVII. Adult Instruction. The state of school-instruction and of domestic instruction shows the nature and amount of the means employed to instruct the juvenile po- pulation. The state of adult instruction will contribute to show the effect which is produced by these means on the general condition of society. The general condition of society in respect of instruction may be estimated by the kinds and degrees of instruction existing in society and by the number of persons possessing each kind and degree. The following results have been obtained in attempting to form this estimate. City of Moorsheddbad: In this city the number of adults who have received a learned educa- tion and are engaged in the business of teaching is 33, of whom 24 are Hindus and 9 are Musalmans. The number of adults who have received a learned education and who are not engaged in the business of teaching is 75, of whom 58 are Hindus and 17 are Musalmans. The number of adults who have not received a learned education and who are engaged in the business of teaching with attainments superior to a mere knowledge of reading and writing is 60; of whom 42 are Hindu teachers of Bengali and Hindi schools, 2 are Hindu teachers of English in, the Nizamat College, 15 are Musalman teachers of Persian schools, and 1 is a Musalman teacher of a Bengali school. The number of adults who have neither received a learned education nor are engaged in the business of teaching, but who possess attainments superior to a mere knowledge of reading and writing is 4-767, of whom 4079 are Hindus and 688 are Musalmans. Of the Hindus, 3082, in addition to a knowledge of reading and writing, are acquainted with Bengali accounts, 592 with Hindi accounts, 342 with Bengali accounts and Persian, 55 with Bengali accounts and English, and 8 with Bengali accounts, Persian, and English. Of the Musalmans, 192, in addition to a knowledge of reading and writing, are acquainted with Bengali accounts, 88 with Persian, 399 with Bengali accounts and Persian, and 9 with Bengali accounts, Persian, and English. There are 5 native Christians who, besides a colloquial knowledge of the native vernacular language?, have some knowledge of English read- ing, writing, and accounts. The number of adults who can merely read and write is 1700, of whom 1555 are Hindus and 145 are Musalmans. One of the Hindus is a woman. The number of adults who can merely decipher writing or sign their names is 715, of whom 660 are Hindus including two women, 53 are Musalmans including three women, and two are native Christian women. District of Moorshedabad. In thana Daulatbazar of this district there are no adults who have received a learned education and are engaged in the business of teaching. p [ "4 ] The number of adults who have received a learned education and who are not engaged in the business of teaching is 13 who are all Hindus. The number of adults who have not received a learned education and who are engaged in the business of teaching with attainments superior to a mere knowledge of reading and writing is 25, of whom 23 are Hindu teachers of Bengali schools and 2 are Musalman teachers of Persian schools. The number of adults who have neither received a learned education nor are engaged in the business of teaching, but who possess attainments superior to a mere knowledge of reading and writing is 555, of whom 501 are Hindus and 54- are Musalmans. The number of adults who can merely read and write is 6 14-, of whom 553 are Hindus including one woman, and 61 are Musalmans. The number of adults who can merely decipher writing or sign their names is 565, of whom 474< are Hindus and 91 are Musalmans. District of Beerbhoom. In thana Nanglia of this district the number of adults who have re- ceived a learned education and are engaged in the business of teaching is 2 who are Hindus. The number of adults who have received a learned education and are not engaged in the business of teaching is 12 who are all Hindus. The number of adults who have not received a learned education and who are engaged in the business of teaching with attainments superior to a mere knowledge of reading and writing is 34-, of whom 30 are Hindu teachers of Bengali schools, 1 a Hindu teacher of a Persian school, and 3 are Musalman teachers of Persian schools. The number of adults who have neither received a learned education nor are engaged in the business of teaching but who possess attainments superior to a mere knowledge of reading and writing is 352, of whom 535 are Hindus and 17 are Musalmans. t 115 ] The number of adults who can merely read and write is 593, of whom 586 are Hindus and 7 are Musalmans. The number of adults who can merely decipher writing or sign their names is 620, of whom 601 are Hindus and 19 are Musalmans. District of Burdwan. In thana Culna of this district the number of adults who have received a learned education and are engaged in the business of teaching is 38, of whom 37 are Hindus and 1 is a Musalman. The number of adults who have received a learned education and who are not engaged in the business of teaching is 99, of whom 80 are Hin- dus and 19 are Musalmans. The number of adults who have not received a learned education and who are engaged in the business of teaching with attainments superior to a mere knowledge of reading and writing is 93 ; of whom 82 are Hin- du teachers of seventy-two Bengali schools, seventy-one for boys and one for girls ; 9 are Musalman teachers of six Persian, two Bengali, and one English school ; and two are native Christian female teachers of a girls' school. The number of adults who have neither received a learned education nor are engaged in the business of teaching, but who possess attainments superior to a mere knowledge of reading and writing are 2424-, of whom 2271 are Hindus and 153 Musalmans. The number of adults who can merely read and write is 2304, of whom 2115 are Hindus and 189 are Musalmans. The number of adults who can merely decipher writing or sign their names is 2350, of whom 2100 are Hindus and 244 Musalmans. District of South Behar. In thana Jehanabad of this district the number of adults who have received a learned education and are engaged in the business of teaching is 6, of whom 1 is a Hindu and 5 are Musalmans. The number of adults who have received a learned education and who are not engaged in the business of teaching is 19, of whom 9 are Hindus and 10 are Musalmans. The number of adults who have not received a learned education and who are engaged in the business of teaching with attainments superior to a mere knowledge of reading and writing is 53, of whom 26 are Hindu tea- chers of Nagri schools and 27 are Musalman teachers of Persian schools. The number of adults who have neither received a learned education nor are engaged in the business of teaching, but who possess attainments superior to a mere knowledge of reading and writing is 992, of whom 727 are Hindus and 265 are Musalmans. Of the Hindus, 503, in addi- tion to a knowledge of reading and reading, are acquainted with Hindi accounts, and 224 with Hindi accounts and Persian. Of the Musalmans, 2, in addition to a knowledge of reading and writing, are acquainted with Hindi accounts, and 263 with Hindi accounts and Persian. The number of adults who can merely read and write is 761, of whom 644 are Hindus and 117 Musalmans. The number of adults who can merely decipher writing or sign their names is 1004, of whom 927 are Hindus and 77 are Musalmans. District of Tirhoot. In thana Bhawara of this district the number of adults who have re- ceived a learned education and are engaged in the business of teaching is 7 who are Hindus. The number of adults who have received a learned education and who are not engaged in the business of teaching is 27 who are Hindus. The number of adults who have not received a learned education and who are engaged in the business of teaching with attainments superior to a mere knowledge of reading and writing is 6, of whom 5 are Hindus and 1 is a Musalman. The number of adults who have neither received a learned education nor are engaged in the business of teaching, but who possess attainments [ H7 ] superior to a mere knowledge of reading and writing is 425, of whom 409 are Hindus and 16 Musalmans. Of the Hindus 375, in addition to a knowledge of reading and writing, are acquainted with Hindi accounts, and 34 with Hindi accounts and Persian. Of the Musalmans, 2 in addition to a knowledge of reading and writing are acquainted with Hindi accounts, and 14 with Hindi accounts and Persian. The number of adults who can merely read and write is 303, of whom 302 are Hindus and 1 is a Musalman. The number of adults who can merely decipher writing or sign their names is 265, of whom 262 are Hindus and 3 are Musalmans. SECTION XVIII. General Remarks on the State of Adult Instruction. First : The proportion of the instructed to the uninstructed juvenile population has been shown, and it now remains to deduce from the pre- ceding details the proportion of the instructed to the uninstructed adult population : Proportion of total adult Total adult population. Instructed adult popu- lation. Uninstructed adult popu- lation. population to instructed adult popula- tion is as 100 to City of Moorshedabad, .. 97,818 7355 90,463 75 Thana Daulatbazar, .... 42,837 1772 41,065 4-1 30,410 1613 28,797 5.3 Thana Culna, 81,045 7308 73,737 9.01 57,573 2835 54,738 4.9 Thana Bhawara, 44,416 1033 43,383 2.3 The total adult population is the population, male and female, above 14 years of age, including the students both of Hindu and Mohammadan schools of learning as being generally above that age ; and the instruct- ed adult population is the total number of those who were ascertained to possess any kind or degree of instruction from the lowest grade to the highest attainments of learning. The result is a natural consequence of the degree of instruction found to exist amongst the juvenile population and is confirmatory of the proportions given in p. 110. The Cuina thana of the Burdwan district in which the highest proportion of juvenile instruction was found is that also in which the highest proportion of adult instruction is found, viz. about 9 in every 100, leaving 91 of the adult population wholly uninstructed. The Bhawara thana of the Tir- hoot district in which the lowest proportion of juvenile instruction was found is that also in which the lowest proportion of adult instruction is found, viz. 2 and three-tenths in every 100, leaving 97 and seven-tenths of the adult population wholly uninstructed. The intermediate pro- portions have also a correspondence, thana Jehanabad having a propor- tion of less than 5 and thana Daulatbazar a proportion of more than 4? in every 100 possessing some kind and degree of instruction, leaving about 95 in the former and 96 in the latter wholly uninstructed ; while thana Nanglia has a proportion of 5 and three-tenths and the city of Moorshedabad a proportion of 7J- in every 100 possessing some instruc- tion, leaving 94 and seven-tenths in the former and 92J in the latter wholly uninstructed. Thus in the comparison of one locality with another the state of adult instruction is found to rise and fall with the state of juvenile instruction, and although this is what might have been antici- pated on the most obvious grounds, yet the actual correspondence de- serves to be distinctly indicated for the sake of the confirmation which it gives to the general accuracy of the numerous details and calculations by which the conclusion has been established. Although this correspondence is shown to exist so that in comparing one locality with another the proportion of adult instruction rises or falls with the proportion of juvenile instruction, yet the proportions are by no means identical. Not only are the proportions not identical, but in comparing the proportion of juvenile instruction in one locality with the proportion of adult instruction in the same locality, the former is found to be uniformly higher. Still further, the excess in the proportion of juvenile instruction above that of adult instruction is found much higher in the Bengal than in the Behar thanas. These results are explained and confirmed by the conclusion at which we arrived on in- dependent grounds in the early part of this Report, viz. that within a comparatively recent period certain classes of the native population hitherto excluded by usage from vernacular instruction have begun to aspire to its advantages and that this hitherto unobserved movement in native society has taken place to a greater extent in Bengal than in [ H9 1 Behar. Such a movement must apparently have the effect which has been found actually to exist, that of increasing the proportion of juvenile instruction as compared with that of adult instruction and of increasing it in a higher ratio in Bengal than in Behar. The increase is not so great in the city of Moorshedabad as in the Bengal Mofussil thanas. Second : In speaking of the total amount of adult instruction, very different kinds and degrees of instruction are included under that ge- neral term. The attainments of those, both Hindus and Musalmans, who have received a learned education and who are engaged in the business of teaching, have been already described, and the character of the learn- ed who do not teach does not materially differ except that in general their acquirements are inferior and their poverty greater. They are most frequently engaged in the duties of the priesthood, but I met with two police Daroghas, one of whom had some pretensions to Hindu and the other to Mohammadan learning. The degree of instruction possessed by those who have not received a learned education and who are engaged in the business of teaching with attainments superior to a mere knowledge of reading and writing will be estimated from the account that has been given of the Bengali, Hindi, and Persian schools which they conduct. The next class composed of those who have neither received a learned education nor are engaged in the business of teaching but who possess attainments superior to a mere knowledge of reading and writing, includes various degrees of instruction, but it was not easy to discriminate between them and no attempt to do so was made in the districts of Moorshedabad, Beerbhoom, and Burdwan. In the city of Moorshedabad and in the districts of South Behar and Tirhoot such an attempt was made, and the result appears in the account given of the state of adult instruction in that city and in the Jehanabad and Bhawara thanas of those districts. That result is that beyond mere reading and writing, the instruction of the middle classes of native so- ciety extends first and principally to Bengali or Hindi accounts, next and to a much less extent to the Persian language, and lastly in a very limited degree to the English language. I met with only one person belonging to this class who devoted any portion of his attention to the cultivation of literature. His name is Kaliprasad Mukhopadhyaya, the sherishtadar of the magistrate of Beerbhoom. He is the author of a work in Bengali called Rasik Hanjan describing the loves and adventures of Jaya and Jayanti. It is part in prose and part in verse and contains [ 120 ] about S80 pages. A copy is in my possession. The two remaining classes are sufficiently described by the designations already given to them as those who can merely read and write, and those who can merely decipher writing or sign their names. Nine women are found to belong to these two classes in the city of Moorshedabad and in thana Daulut- bazar of the Moorshedabad district. In all the other localities of which a census was taken no adult females were found to possess even the lowest grade of instruction. Third : A knowledge of the number of instructed adults and of the nature and extent of the instruction they possess furnishes the means of estimating the amount of instrumentality existing in native society which in a greater or less measure may be made available for the im- provement and extension of popular education. The following table has been constructed with a view to such an estimate : || 1 g| 1 S ft |j| li 1 1 .0 I" 2 ? "s S a 2 i| |l ^ a "2 s-2- &>-2 ^ S s 1 s | &e TS 111 ^U!> || ^ * s SR A. * >* M ^1 "S .^ ^* .^^ ^ s * \ibcrofunlearm ents superior tc adiny and writ ibcr of scholar, \id teachers. I. 11 i! nbcr ofunlearn( ith attainment lowlcdye of rca nber of children cstic nor schooi e teachable aye. raye number ( zither domestic > each of the af< ms not teachers s s . % s ** s * g g ^ g ; >* s g a City of Moorshedabad, 60 959 15.9 4,767 13,833 2.9 Thana Daulatbazar, 25 305 12.2 555 9,797 17.6 Thana Nanglia, 34 439 12.9 352 8,205 23.3 Thana ('ulna, 93 2,243 24.1 2424 15,257 6.2 Thana Jehanabad, 53 366 6.9 992 14,690 14.8 'J hana Bhawara, 6 60 10. 4,25 13,061 30,7 The first column exhibits the number of Bengali or Hindi and Persian teachers in the localities where a census of the population was taken ; the second, the number of their scholars ; and the third, the average num- ber of scholars to each teacher. From these, it appears that the existing bodies of teachers in those localities are not sufficiently employed and that the same number of teachers could instruct a much larger number of scholars. The highest average number of scholars to one teacher is in the Culna thana of the Burdwan district, and if the other averages were raised only as high, a large addition would be made to the instructed children of the teachable age without any other instrumentality than that which is now engaged in the business of teaching. The fourth column contains the number of those adults who have neither received a learned education nor are engaged in the business of teaching but who possess attainments superior to a mere knowledge of reading and writing, constituting the most cultivated portion of the middle class of native society from which instruments must chiefly be drawn for the improvement of that class and of the classes below it. The fifth column exhibits from the table contained in page 110 the number of children of the teachable age, i. e. between 14? and 5 years, who receive neither domestic nor school instruction, constituting the class which needs the instruction that the preceding class is qualified to bestow. The sixth column shows the average number of children of the teachable age without instruction to each of the instructed adults capable of but not actually engaged in teaching, shewing that if the whole number of uninstructed children were distributed among the in- structed adults for the purpose of being taught, the number of the latter, particularly in the city of Moorshedabad and in the Culna thana of the Burdwan district, would be far more than sufficient to teach them all. This is on the supposition that the entire number of instructed adults could be spared from the other purposes of civil life to be employed solely in the business of teaching, but this supposition is as unnecessary as it is inadmissible, since especially in the two localities mentioned it is obvious that there would be a large surplus of instrumentality for the object required. The only locality of those enumerated in which there would apparently be no such surplus is the Bhawara thana of the Tirhoot district where the number of instructed adults would, in the present state of things, even if they did nothing else, be barely sufficient to teach the children who are destitute of instruction. According to these views the teachers of common schools and those who in native society possess analogous qualifications are the classes from which instruments must chiefly be drawn to promote general educa- tion, but these classes in their present state must not be deemed to re- present the permanent amount of intellectual and moral instrumentality. For, first, the influences now acting upon native society have a tendency to raise the qualifications of those two classes. The very lowest and Q [ 122 ] most degraded and hitherto wholly uninstructed classes have begun, as has been shown, to move upward into the class receiving the instruction of common schools. This will have the double effect of stimulating the class immediately above them to rise still higher in the scale of acquire- ment, and with the increased demand for instruction of increasing the emoluments of teachers, and thereby inducing more competent persons to engage in the business of teaching. Even therefore if the number of teachers and taught, instructed and uninstructed, should maintain the same proportions, still there will be an increased amount of moral means in the higher range of qualifications which those classes are now ac- quiring. But, second, by the very supposition, the same influences that are carrying the instructed classes forward in the race of improvement will also increase the number of the individuals composing them and their proportion to the uninstructed classes. This conclusion does not rest upon questionable grounds. It has been shown that the propor- tion of juvenile instruction is uniformly higher and in some of the localities much higher than the proportion of adult instruction, and it follows that when the present generation of learners shall become of mature age, the proportion of adult instruction will be found much higher and consequently the amount of moral instrumentali- ty existing in society greater than it now is. Every individual who passes from the class of the uninstructed to that of the instructed both lessens the proportion of the former and increases that of the latter both lessens the number to be instructed and increases the number of those who may be employed for the instruction of that lesser number. And the probabilities are great that a large number both of those who belong to the instructed class and of those who pass from the inferior to the higher grades of instruction would with very little encourage- ment be induced to engage in the instruction of others, for in proceed- ing from one district or from one part of a district to another, next to the general poverty and ignorance, few facts strike the mind more forcibly than the number of those who with attainments superior to a mere knowledge of reading and writing, are in search of employment and without any regular means of subsistence. Again, third, it is not only from below, from the uninstructed classes or from those who possess at present the inferior grades of instruction, but from above also, from the classes of the learned, that additional instru- [ 123 ] ments will be obtained for the extension of popular education. There can be no doubt that the habits and prejudices of the learn- ed, make them, if not hostile, certainly indifferent in most in- stances, to the spread of education among the body of the people, but with gentle and prudent handling those habits and prejudices may be easily modified. I have met with individuals among the learned who from benevolent motives appeared anxious to do every thing in their power to promote the instruction of their countrymen, and with numerous individuals who evidently wanted no other motive than their own interest to make them willing agents in the same under- taking. These individuals were found in that class of the learned which is engaged in the business of teaching ; and those of the learned who do not teach are in general so poor that I can have little doubt most of them would readily co-operate in any measures in which their assist- ance should be made advantageous to themselves. We have no right to expect that men in the gripe of poverty will appreciate the ad- vantages to society and to government which dictate to us the duty of promoting general education. They must perceive and feel that their own individual interests are promoted, and then their aid will not be withheld. SECTION XIX. The State of Crime viewed in Connection with the State of Instruction. The state of crime viewed in connection with the state of instruction is a subject of great interest but it is one on which all the means neces- sary to form a sound judgment have not yet been obtained. The re- cords of crime have not been framed with a view to derive from them data to determine the effects of instruction, and what I attempt under this head is rather to point to the importance ol this branch of the inquiry than to found conclusions on the facts which I have collected, although at the same time it will be seen that the conclusions which those facts suggest and support are not unimportant. I have been fa- voured with permission to examine the half yearly returns made to Go- vernment in the Judicial Department relating to crime in the localities of which an educational survey has been made, and from that source I subjoin the following abstract statement of crimes ascertained by the police officers or otherwise to have been committed within the city and district of Moorshedabad, and the districts of Beerbhoom, Burdwan, [ 124 ] South Behar, and Tirhoot in the six years beginning with 1829 and ending with 1834: . "^ r^ s 11 11 * c^ (1 V J ^ . 11 Q T3 25 fe- ll Q -e: *d 4 ?. . *- ^ e* S " 2 > Jv* 5 2 3 9 2 2 3 6 250 425 1186 2526 102 30 488 501 18 3 13 162 430 1326 262 16 22 56 Dacoity or GangRobbery Affrays, Theft, Cattle Stealing:, Burglary, RobbTr*/, "highway, 6 12 1 40 95 40 2 1 1 83 97 135 151 4 20 39 80 110 32 3 5 4 8 1 15 74 10 3 1 2 3 2 3 78 181 276 119 7 67 140 6 42 132 102 4 5 11 4 2 9 24 10 1 I 2 43 54 51 80 2 16 30 5 2' 27 57 88 1 1 1 2 5 9 17 1 10 7 4 12 11 2 8 143 329 1211 5". 2 1 33 513 438 5 6 159 356 431 16 56 34 =( unattended with aggravated cir- } without theft or attempting to com- ) l^with theft, value unknown, ...... value unknown and precluded from ~) investigation under Reg. 11. of 1832, . i 'with murder including the mur- } value unknown and precluded from \ investigation under Reg. 11. of C 1832 . . i with wounding or violent beat- ) [ 12-5 ] City and District j of Moorshedabad. District of Beer- bhoom. District of Bur d wan. II District of South Behar. ! .1 3 3 37 24 23 43 21 3 9 19 33 51 107 3 13 217 17 I 5 3 I 7 9 2 2 I 9 1 1 3 3 1 Adultery, 1 4 4 2 3 17 11 1 2 13 6 3 2 1 1 93 694 28 214 675 The official returns are made twice every year, embracing the periods from January to June and from July to December and the above table is merely an abstract of the returns for the six years 1829-34. I at first intended to include a period of ten years in the table, but I found on ex- amination that the returns for the two years preceding 1829 were imper- fect and those for the two years following 1834- were framed on a dif- ferent model, both circumstances preventing that strict comparison which I was desirous of making, and I therefore limited my attention to the six years for which the returns were complete and nearly uniform. The relation of crime and instruction to each other may be ascertain- ed by classifying all persons convicted of the same crime according to the kind and amount of instruction they have received. The returns of crime would thus exhibit whether the criminals were entirely destitute of instruction ; whether they could barely decipher writing or sign their names ; whether they could merely read and write ; whether they possess- ed attainments superior to mere reading and writing, including moral as \\ ell as intellectual instruction ; whether they had received a learned education ; and in each case whether it was a first or a second con- viction; and what was the age and sex of the convict. It is only such returns that can enable us to judge satisfactorily of the effect of the different kinds and degrees of instruction upon the increase, [ 126 ] diminution, or modification of crime, and of the consequent obliga- tion on this ground imposed on the governing authority in a State to give to its subjects any particular kind or degree of instruction or to withhold it altogether. Such returns are received by the Govern- ment of France from its judicial officers and it is worthy of the con- sideration of the British Indian Government whether with the above object the returns of crime in this country should be made to include the information which I have indicated. In the absence of this detailed information we must look at crime and criminals collectively ; not at the amount and degree of restraining in- fluences imposed by education on the individual, but at the number of criminals in the mass and the different kinds of crime of which they have been convicted as compared with the amount or proportion of instruc- tion previously ascertained to exist in society within the same local li- mits. The preceding abstract statement of crimes committed in five different districts during a period of six years affords the means of mak- ing this comparison which is attempted in the following table : -S S s 2 V H ^S ^i " "S 8 If IV !- ^wZ-i ^ ^ 5 s ! s ^^ ^ s * Sbl S ~ a-s:; a,'^ ~ Ml "* * si "e s | ~ v> |1 a S J "it* Ivl S i S 'i s i City and District of { Moorshedabad, .... i 969,447 65 to 35 630,141 1160 .184 58 District of Beerbhoom, . . 1,267,067 48 to 52 608,191 2162 .355 53 District of Burdwan, . . . . 1,187,580 57 to 43 676,920 579 .085 9.01 District of South Behar, 1,340,610 59 to 4 1 790,959 4662 .589 4.9 District of Tirhoot, .... 1,697,700 52 to 48 882,804 8836 1.0009 2.3 The statement of the population of the four last mentioned districts is derived from Mr. Shakespear's Police Report of 1824? to which I have had an opportunity of referring in the Judicial Department, and that of the city and district of Moorshedabad is the result of a census made by Mr. Hathorn in 1829. The proportion of the popula- tion above 14 years of age to the population below that age has been calculated from the population returns contained in Section XIII of this Report, and the estimate of the population above 14 is founded on the proportion ascertained by actual census to prevail in one entire thana of t 127 ] each district, and now assumed to prevail in all the thanas of the same district for the purpose of obtaining an approximation to the total adult population. It was necessary to obtain this approximation, first, because the aggregate number of crimes can be correctly compared, not with the total population of the district, but with the population which by reason of age may be assumed to be capable of committing crime ; and, second, because the proportion of instruction possessed by the population above 14 can be correctly compared only with the proportion of crime com- mitted by the population of the same age. The conclusion to which this comparison or rather contrast conducts is most curious and inter- esting and is the more so to me because it is wholly unexpected. It will be seen from the table that in the district of Burdwan where the proportion of instruction is highest, there the proportion of crime is lowest ; and in the district of Tirhoot where the proportion of instruction is lowest there the proportion of crime is highest. The intermediate proportions have the same correspondence. In South Behar where in- struction is double in amount of what it is in Tirhoot, crime is only one- half of what it is in the same district. "In Beerbhoom the proportion of instruction is a little higher than in South Behar and the proportion of crime a little lower ; and in the city and district of Moorshedabad where instruction rises still a little higher, there crime falls to a still lower proportion. I have said that this conclusion was unexpected, for although I had no doubt of the general salutary effect of education, yet I saw little in the native institutions and in the systems of native instruction from which to infer that they exercised a very decided moral influence on the community, and I therefore did not anticipate that the state of education would have any observable or striking relation to the state of crime. It is impossible however to resist the conclusion from the preceding data that the relation is most intimate, and that even the native systems of instruction, however crude, imperfect, and desultory, most materially contribute to diminish the number of offences against the laws and to maintain the peace and good order of society. If we pass from the consideration of crime in the aggregate to the particular crimes enumerated in the table at p. 124 and 125, other inferen- ces will be suggested illustrating the relation of instruction to crime, al- though the conclusions to be drawn are not very definite in consequence of the form in which the returns have been made, crimes against the person and crimes against property not being in all cases distinguished. Taking however the returns as they stand, we find that in Tirhoot [ 128 ] where instruction is lowest decoity or gang robbery was almost wholly unknown during the six years in question, and that it prevailed in an increasing degree in South Behar, Burdwan, Beerbhoora, and Moorshe- dabad in the order in which those districts are now mentioned. Thus, therefore, the description of crime ordinarily attended with the greatest violence to the person, is apparently neither promoted by ignorance nor checked by education. Highway robbery prevailed during the period under consideration more in South Behar than in any of the other dis- tricts ; but it is when we look at the records of burglary, cattle-stealing, theft, and affrays that we perceive the excess of crime in the less in- structed districts of Behar as compared with the better instructed dis- tricts of Bengal. Cases of homicide, assault, and wounding, are also much in excess in the Tirhoot district. Forgery deserves special attention. This is a description of crime which with much seeming probability has been usually supposed to be facilitated and increased by education, but we find that in the three Bengal districts during a period of six years there were only three convictions for forgery, while in the two Behar districts during the same period not fewer than nineteen occurred. The comparative prevalence of forgery in the less instructed, and of gang robbery in the more instructed districts shows the necessity of more extended and precise investigation into the connection between instruction and crime. I have not attempted to show the increase or diminution of crime from year to year in the different localities, because that would have no relation to the state of instruction unless it could also be shewn that education had advanced or retrograded during the same periods and in the same localities, for which no data at present exist. The future inquirer into the statistics of education in this country will derive some aid in this branch of his investigation from the results recorded in this Report. SECTION XX Concluding Remarks. The preceding Sections embrace all the most important information I have collected respecting the state of education, omitting many details which might have embarrassed the attention of the reader and lessened the distinctness of his impressions. For the same reason I abstain at [ 129 ] present from entering on the results of a census of castes and occupa- tions which was included in the census of the population, on the state of native medical practice, on the extent to which the most remarkable diseases prevail, and on the peculiar institutions and practices of the re- spective districts all illustrative of the physical, moral, and intellectual condition of the people, but only indirectly connected with the amount and means of general instruction. The information now placed upon record in this and the preceding Report may be summed up in a very few words. By means of a census of the population, the amount of domestic and adult instruction has been ascertained in the city of Moorshedabad and in one thana or police subdivision of the districts of Rajshahi, Moorshedabad, Beerbhoom, Burd- wan, South Behar, and Tirhoot respectively ; and by means of an educa- tional survey, the state of school-instruction has been ascertained in the city of Moorshedabad, in one thana or police subdivision of the districts of Rajshahi and Moorshedabad, in the entire districts of Beerbhoom, Burdwan, South Behar, and Tirhoot, and, with the aid of Mr. Malet, in the entire district of Midnapore. In so extensive a country inhabited by so numerous a population, it would have been impossible without far more ample means than were placed at my command, to extend the inquiry over the whole without exception and to exhaust the subject so as to leave nothing unexamined and unknown. The investigation therefore, with the distinct contem- plation of this impossibility, has been conducted on the principle of learning something with precision and certainty; of causing the informa- tion thus acquired to embrace such an extent of space, such an amount of population, and such a diversity of conditions and circumstances as would afford the grounds of legitimate inference ; and consequently of inferring from the known the unknown, from what is certain that which is doubtful. Accordingly, from the state of domestic and adult instruc- tion ascertained in one large city and in one thana of each district I infer the same or a similar state of domestic and adult instruction in all the thanas of the same districts. The population of which an actual census has been taken to afford the basis of such an inference is 692,270, and the additional population to which the inference is made to ex- tend is 7,332,500, together amounting to 8,124-,770. In like manner, from the state of school-instruction ascertained in one large city, in two thanas of two different districts, and in five entire districts, I infer the [ 130 ] same or a similar state of school-instruction in all the remaining districts of Bengal and Behar. The population of which an educational survey has been made to afford the basis of such an inference is 7,789,152, and the estimated additional population to which the inference is made to extend is 27,671,250 together amounting to 35,4-60,402. There is no reason to suppose that the state of domestic and adult instruction differs materially in the thanas in which that branch of the inquiry was carried on from its state in those to which it was not extended ; nor is there any reason to suppose that the state of school-instruction differs materially in the districts in which it was investigated from its state in those which the investigation did not embrace. There is probably no district in Bengal and Behar in which the amount and proportion of juvenile and adult instruction are so high as in Burdwan or so low as in Tirhoot, and we may thus assume without much danger of error that we have ascer- tained both the highest and the lowest existing standard of instruction in those two provinces. Actually, the state of instruction of nearly eight millions of its subjects is before the Government with a degree of minute- ness which, even if it should fatigue, may give some assurance of an approach to accuracy, and exhibiting an amount of ignorance which de- mands the adoption of practical measures for its diminution. Virtually, the state of instruction of more than thirty-five millions of its subjects is before Government, that portion of the Indian population which has lived longest under British rule, and which should be prepared or pre- paring to appreciate and enjoy its highest privileges. I trust that the expense which Government has incurred in collecting this in- formation will not be in vain and that the hopes which have grown up in the minds of the people in the progress of the inquiry will not be dis- appointed. CHAPTER SECOND. CONSIDERATION OF THE MEANS ADAPTED TO THE IMPROVEMENT AND EXTENSION OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN BENGAL AND BEHAR. The instructions which I received from the General Committee of Public Instruction stated that the inquiry which I have now completed was instituted " with a view to ulterior measures ;" and I was expressly directed to report on the possibility and means of raising the charac- ter and enlarging the usefulness of any single institution or of a whole class." In conformity with these views and instructions, in the Second Report, besides reporting on the state of education in the Nattore thana of the Rajshahi district, I brought to the special notice of the Committee the condition of the English school at Rampoor Bauleah in the Bauleah thana, and of the Mohammadan College at Kusbeh Bagha in the Bilma- riya thana ; but I abstained from recommending any plans or measures for the improvement of whole classes of institutions until I should pos- sess greater leisure and opportunities of more extended observation and experience. I however expressed the opinion that, as far as my infor- mation then enabled me to judge, existing native institutions from the highest to the lowest, of all kinds and classes, were the fittest means to be employed for raising and improving the character of the people that to employ those institutions for such a purpose would be " the simplest, the safest, the most popular, the most economical, and the most effectual plan for giving that stimulus to the native mind which it needs on the subject of education and for eliciting the exertions of the natives themselves for their own improvement, without which all other means must be unavailing." Subsequent consideration has confirmed me in this view ; arid, after noticing other plans which have been sug- gested or adopted, I shall proceed to illustrate it in detail and to explain the means that may be employed in order to carry it into effect. SECTION I. Preliminary Considerations. The object of this Section is to notice the most feasible of those plans for the promotion of general education which appear to me on consider- ation to be unsuited to the circumstances of this country and to the character of the people. [ 132 ] The first step to a sound judgment on the whole of this subject is to consider what features should characterize a plan likely to be attended with success. It will probably be admitted that any scheme for the pro- motion of public instruction should be simple in its details and thereby easy of execution ; cheap and thereby capable of extensive or general application ; not alarming to the prejudices of the people but calculated on the contrary to create and elicit good feelings towards their rulers ; not tending to supersede or repress self-exertion, but rather to stimulate and encourage it, and at the same time giving Government the lead in the adoption and direction of measures for the future moulding and development of the native character, native society, and native institu- tions. The simplest form in which Government influence could be employed for this object is that of mere recommendation, and in conversing w r ith natives on the means of infusing fresh vigour into their institutions of education, they have sometimes expressed the opinion that a mere inti- mation of the pleasure of Government and of the satisfaction with which it regards such efforts, would be sufficient to cause schools to spring up and revive in all directions. This opinion was most probably meant in a sense very different from that conveyed by the terms in which it was expressed. The object of Government in adopting such a course would be to avoid interfering or dictating in a matter like education which may be deemed to belong to domestic and social regulation ; but the adoption of such a course would be, and would be understood to be, the very interference and dictation which it is sought to avoid. The people in general are unable to appreciate such a procedure on the part of Government. They would neither understand the language employed nor the motives that dictate it. They would either suppose that there is some secret intention to entrap them into disobedience ; or giving full credence to the assurance that no authority is to be employed to enforce the recommendation, it would be neglected. In either case Government and the people would be placed in a false relative position. The people of this country in their present condition cannot under- stand any other language than that of command proceeding from Govern- ment. They do not perceive the possibility of their standing in any other relation to their rulers than in that which requires obedience. I had frequent illustrations of this in my own experience during the progress of my inquiries. Before seeing me, the mere announcement of my expected arrival was sufficient to inspire awe into the minds [ 133 ] of the inhabitants of a village, and a simple request that they would give me such and such information respecting their village was not regarded as a request with which they might or might not comply according to their own sense of the importance of the object, but usually as an order which it would be folly and madness to thwart or resist. They admitted the importance and utility of the object when it was explained to them, but it was not because of its importance and utility that they gave the information required, but because submission to au- thority is the confirmed habit of the people. Appearing among them instructed and authorized by Government to inquire into the state of native education they could regard me in no other light than as one whom it would be illegal to disobey. In such circumstances all that could be done was to make my request and direct my agents to seek for information after a full explanation afforded in the least offensive manner in order that the people might do heartily what they would otherwise have for the most part done coldly and slavishly. The un- authoritative modes of address thus adopted led on several occasions to an inquiry in return from them whether I was acting only on my private authority or was really empowered by Government to conduct such an investigation. I of course assured .them that I was fully au- thorized as the Perwanahs addressed by the Magistrate to his Daroghas and others showed, but that I had been expressly directed in deference to their feelings and to avoid the possibility of offense, to collect only such information as they themselves might after proper explanations voluntarily furnish. The adoption of such a style of address by a Government functionary was apparently new to them and scarcely in- telligible. The truth appears to be that they are so completely bowed down by ages of foreign rule that they have lost not only the capacity and the desire, but the very idea, of self-government in matters regarding which the authority of the state is directly or indirectly interposed. They have no conception of government as the mere Organ of Law and its sanc- tions. They view it simply as an Instrument of Power whose behests are absolute, indisputable, and wholly independent of the voluntary co- operation of the individual members of the community. We have thus a Government which desires to rule by law, and a People that wills to be ruled by power. Mere power unsupported by the moral co-operation of the community is weaker than law would be with that co-operation ; but to call the latter forth must be one of the objects and effects of [ 134 ] education by embodying with native public opinion the conviction that the interests of the state and its subjects are the same. It follows that in devising means to produce that conviction we must not assume that it already exists, and that the people will at the mere recommendation of Government, understood as such, adopt measures even for their own advantage, or that they will understand a recommendation from such a source in any other way than as a command. The chief exception to the general submissiveness to every person or thing bearing the form or semblance of public authority regards the subject of religion in which they do not discover the slightest disposi- tion to recognize the right of Government to interfere. On the contra- ry, joined to an exemplary tolerance of differences in creed and practice, there is a jealousy of any appearance of such authoritative interference. I had frequent occasions to remove from the minds of the learned and religious classes the fears they entertained on this point ; and I have reason to believe that the occasional instances of opposition or distrust that occurred to me in which no opportunity of explanation was afforded originated from the same cause. The next form in which Government influence may be conceived to be employed for the promotion of education is by making it compulsory and enacting that every village should have a school. I hope the time will come when every village shall have a school, but the period has not yet arrived when this obligation can be enforced. Such a law, di- rect and intelligible, would be preferable to a mere recommendation which might be understood in a double sense ; but it would be prema- ture. It would be ordering the people to do what they are too poor and too ignorant to do willingly or well, if at all. It would be neither to follow nor to lead but to run counter to native public opinion. Those who in respect of caste or wealth constitute the higher classes do not need any such coercive means to induce them to instruct their children. Those who in respect of caste may be called the middle classes are convinced of the advantages of education, but they are in general poor, and many of them would feel such a measure to be severe and oppres- sive. The lower classes consisting both of Hindus and Musalmans and of numerous subdivisions and varieties of caste and occupation greatly exceed the others in number, and they are for the most part by general consent consigned to ignorance. In many villages they are the sole, in others the most numerous inhabitants, and such a compulsory law as I [ 135 ] have supposed would be received with universal astonishment and dis- may with dismay by themselves and with astonishment if not derision by the superior classes. A national system of education will necessarily have chiefly in view the most numerous classes of the population, but in their present state of moral and social preparation we can approach them only by slow and almost imperceptible steps. We can effectually raise them only by aiding their voluntary efforts to rise ; and at present the prejudice against their instruction is nearly as strong and as general in their own minds as in the minds of others. In the preceding pages I have shown that it has begun to give way in Bengal and Behar ; and in the records of the General Committee of Public Instruction I find an apt illustration both of the existence of the prejudice in the North Western Provinces and of the fact that there also it has begun to lose ground. Mr. S. M. Boulderson, in an account of the schools in the Barelly collectorship dated 29th January 1827 which he communicated to the Committee, makes the following statement : " A strange instance of narrow-mindedness occurs in the report of the Huzzoor Tehsil Paish- kar from whom the above detail is taken. He observes (and the Ca- noongoes have also signed the paper) that under the former Govern- ments none but ' Ashraf,' viz. Brahmans, Rajpoots, Bukkals, Kaits, and Khutrees among the Hindoos, and Sheikhs, Syeds, Moghuls, and Pa- thans of the Mohammadans, were permitted to study the sciences or even to learn the Persian language ; but that now all sects are learning Persian, Arabic, and Sanscrit. They therefore suggest the abolition of some schools where the children (of) Ahus, Guddees, c. are instructed." The strength and prevalence of the prejudice which could dictate such a suggestion will be understood when it is borne in mind that the native officers from whom it proceeded had been employed by Mr. Boulderson to collect information respecting the state of the schools in his district with the no doubt avowed purpose of encouraging education. The feeling however against the instruction of the lower classes although general is not universal, and the above statement shows that although strong, it is not overpowering. In any plan therefore that may be adopted what should be kept in view is to recognize no principle of ex- clusion, to keep the door open by which all classes may enter, and to abstain from enforcing what their poverty makes them unable and their prejudices unwilling generally to perform. Without employing recommendations or enactments that would be either futile or vexatious, another mode of applying the public resources [ 136 ] for the advancement of education might be by the establishment of new schools under the superintendence of paid agents of Government, who should introduce improved systems of instruction as models for the imitation and guidance of the general body of native teachers. It was with this view that the Chinsurah schools were patronized and the Ajmere schools established by Government, and it is on the same general plan, although with ulterior views to conversion, that most Missionary schools are also conducted. This plan contains a sound and valuable principle inasmuch as it contemplates the practicability and importance of influencing the native community generally by improving native teachers and native systems of instruction ; but the mode in which this principle is applied is liable to objection on various grounds. The first ground of objection is that it has the direct effect of pro- ducing hostility amongst the class of native teachers, the very men through whom it is hoped to give extension to the improved systems of instruction adopted. Every such Government or Missionary school when established displaces one or more native schools of the same class and throws out of employment one or more native teachers. If it has not this immediate effect, their fears at least are excited and ill-will is equally produced. It is too much to expect that those from whom we take, or threaten to take, their means of livelihood should co-operate with us or look with a favourable eye on the improvements we wish to introduce. It appears from the records of the General Committee of Public Instruction from which I derived the statements on this subject contained in my First Report p. 66, that this was to some extent the effect produced by the Government Chinsurah schools ; and in my recent journies I have witnessed the dissensions that have arisen in vil- lages by the rivalry of Bengali schools in which gratuitous instruction was given by paid agents of benevolent Christian societies with Bengali schools of native origin from which the teachers obtained their 'subsis- tence in the forms of fees and perquisites. Instruction rightly communi- cated should produce peace and good will ; and we may be sure that there is something wrong when the effect of employing means to extend education is perceived to be hate and contention leading even to breaches of the public peace. Another point of view in which the plan may be deemed objectionable is that to whatever extent it may succeed it will practically take the management of education out of the hands of the people and place it in [ 137 ] the hands of the Government superintendents. On such a plan school, houses are built, teachers appointed and paid, books and stationery sup- plied, instruction and superintendence given, all at the expense of Go- vernment ; and without any demand upon parents for exertion or sa- crifice or any room being left for their interference or control, their children have merely to attend and receive gratuitous instruction. It does not appear that this is the way to produce a healthy state of feeling on the subject of education in the native community. If Government does every thing for the people, the people will not very soon learn to do much for themselves. They will remain much longer in a state of pupillage than if they were encouraged to put forth their own energies. Such a course is the more objectionable because it is the substitution of a bad for a good habit, almost all the common or verna- cular education received throughout the country being at present paid for. Government should do nothing to supersede the exertions of the people for their own benefit, but should rather endeavour to supply what is deficient in the native systems, to improve what is imperfect, and to extend to all what is at present confined to a few. Again, a general scheme of new schools under public control and direction would entail on Government all the details of manage- ment, expenditure, instruction, discipline, correspondence, &c. ; and this superintendence would either be adequate or inadequate to the purpose. If inadequate, the schools would be inefficient and would serve other ends than those of public instruction. If adequate, the expense alone would be a valid objection to the plan. The table at p. 110 exhibits the total number of children between 14* and 5 years of age in five thanas of five different districts, and the average number of such children in each thana is 13,307. The highest average number of scholars taught by each teacher, as shown at p. 120, is not quite 25. Suppose each teacher was required to teach double that number, not less than 266 teachers will be required to instruct the children of the teachable age in one thana. Five rupees per month must be considered the very lowest rate of allow- ance for which under an improved system the services of a native teacher may be engaged, and this very low rate would require an expen- diture of 1330 rupees per month or 15,960 rupees per annum for the teachers of one thana, Besides teachers, school-houses must be built and kept in repair and books and stationery provided. At least one superintendent or inspector would also be required for such a number of schools, teachers, and scholars ; and this apparatus and expenditure [ 138 ] would after all furnish only the humblest grades of instruction to the teachable population of one thana. The number of thanas in a district varies from nine or ten to sixteen or seventeen, and sometimes extends even to a larger number ; and the number of districts in the Bengal Presidency alone amounts to about sixty-six with a constant tendency to increase by subdivision. On the plan proposed all the expenses of all these teachers, schools, and superintendents in every thana of every district niust be defrayed by Government. When the subject of national edu- cation shall receive the serious consideration of Government, I do not anticipate that its appropriations will be made with a niggard hand, but the plan now considered involves an expenditure too large, and promises benefits too inconsiderable and too much qualified by attendant evils to permit its adoption. Instead of beginning with schools for the lower grades of native society, a system of Government institutions may be advocated that shall provide in the first place for the higher classes on the principle that the tendency of knowledge is to descend, not to ascend, and that with this view we should at present seek to establish a school at the head-station of every zillah, afterwards pergunnah schools, and last of all village schools, gradually acquiring in the process more numerous and better qualified instruments for the diffusion of education. The primary objection to this plan is that it overlooks entire systems of native educa- tional institutions, Hindu and Mohammadan, which existed long before our rule, and which continue to exist under our rule, independent of us and of our projects, forming and moulding the native character in suc- cessive generations. In the face of this palpable fact, the plan assumes that the country is to be indebted to us for schools, teachers, books- every thing necessary to its moral and intellectual improvement, and that in the prosecution of our views we are to reject all the aids which the ancient institutions of the country and the actual attainments of the people afford towards their advancement. We have to deal in this country principally with Hindus and Mohammadans, the former one of the earliest civilized nations of the earth, the latter in some of the brightest periods of their history distinguished promoters of science, and both even in their present retrograde stages of civi- lization still preserving a profound love and veneration for learning nourished by those very institutions of which I have spoken, and which it would be equally improvident on our part and offensive to them to neglect. [ 139 ] Again, if the maxim that the tendency of knowledge is to descend, not to ascend, requires us to have first zillah, next pergunnah, and then village schools, it follows that we ought not to have even zillah schools, till we have provincial colleges, nor the latter till we have national universities, nor these till we have a cosmopolitan one. But this is an application of the maxim foreign to its spirit. Improvement begins with the individual and extends to the mass, and the individuals who give the stimulus to the mass are doubtless generally found in the upper, that is the thinking, class of society which especially in this country is not composed exclu- sively nor even principally of those who are the highest in rank or who possess the greatest wealth. The truth of the maxim does not require that the measures adopted should have reference first to large and then to small localities in progressive descent. On the contrary the efficiency of every successive higher grade of institution cannot be secured ex- cept by drawing instructed pupils from the next lower grade which consequently by the necessity of the case demands prior attention. Children should not go to college to learn the alphabet. To make the superstructure lofty and firm, the foundations should be broad and deep ; and, thus building from the foundation, all classes of institutions and every grade of instruction may be combined with harmonious and salutary effect. SECTION II.. Plan proposed and its Application to the Improvement and Extension of Vernacular Instruction. The objections that apply to the plans brought under review in the preceding Section should at least make me diffident in proposing any other for adoption. The considerations I have suggested show that the subject has been viewed in various aspects, and in what follows I shall endeavour impartially to point out the difficulties as well as the advantages of the measure which on the whole I venture to recommend. The leading idea, that of employing existing native institutions as the instruments of national education, has been already suggested ; and if their adaptation to this purpose had not been so much overlooked it would have seemed surprizing that they were not the very first means adopted for its promotion. Their importance however has been recogniz- ed at least in words by some of those who have been most distinguished [ 140 ] for their intimate practical acquaintance with the details of Indian administration. Of these I may cite here, on account of the comprehen- sive although cursory view it presents of the subject, the opinion expressed by Mr. Secretary Dowdeswell in his Report of September 22d 1809, on the General State of the Police of Bengal contained in Appendix No. 12 to the Fifth Report on East India Affairs. At the close of his Report Mr. Dowdeswell says : " I have now stated all the measures which suggest themselves to my mind for the improvement of the police, without entering into minute details, or deviating into a course which might be thought foreign to the subject. I am satisfied that if those measures be adopted they will be attended with considerable benefit in the suppression of the crimes most injurious to the peace and happiness of society ; an opinion which I express with the greatest confidence as it is founded on practical experience of the system now recommended, so far as the existing regulations would permit. I am at the same time sensible that a great deal more must be done in order to eradicate the seeds of those crimes : the real source of the evil lies in the corrupt morals of the people. Under these circumstances, the best laws can only have a partial operation. If we would apply a lasting remedy to the evil, we must adopt means of instruction for the different classes of the community, by which they may be restrained not only from the com- mission of public crimes, but also from acts of immorality by a dread of the punishments denounced both in this world and in a future state by their respective religious opinions. The task would not perhaps be so difficult as it may at first sight appear to be. Some remains of the old si/stem of Hindoo discipline still exist. The institutions of Mahomedanism of that description are still better known. Both might be revived and gradually moulded into a regular system of instruction for both those great classes of the community ; but I pretend not to have formed any digested plan of that nature, and at all events it would be foreign, as above noticed, to the immediate object of my present report." It does not appear what institutions Mr. Dowdeswell meant to describe and confessedly his views were general and not very defined. A closer attention will shew that Hinduism and Mohammadanism have certain institutions peculiar to them as systems of religious faith and practice, and certain other institutions peculiar to the people professing those systems but forming no part of their religious faith and practice. To attempt to interfere with the former would be equally inconsistent with the principles and character of a Christian government and opposed to the rights and feelings of a Hindu and Mohaminadan people. t But to revive the latter and gradually to mould them " into a regular system of instruction for both those great classes of the com- munity," is the dictate both of sound wisdom and of the most obvious policy. The question arises in what manner native institutions may be most effectually employed with a view to the gradual formation oi a regular system of instruction for the benefit of all classes of the community ; and the answer which after mature consideration I am disposed to give is by proposing the establishment of public and periodical exami- nations of the teachers and scholars of those institutions and the distribu- tion of rewards to the teachers proportioned to their own qualifications and the attainments of their scholars, the examinations to be conducted and the rewards bestowed by officers appointed by Government and placed under the authority and control of the General Committee of Public Instruction. This plan appears adapted to the character of the people and to the present condition of native society. Mr. Wyse in his recent work entitled Education Reform, Vol. I. p. 48, remark- ing on those dispositions which in some manner form the public character, the moral physiognomy, of nations, says : " This peculiar public character formed of the aggregate of private, again acts in a very striking manner upon the character of the individual. But this action is still further affected by the changes of the times. A period of total quiet resulting from a long continued acquiescence in old institu- tions, leaves a very different imprint upon the national mind, from that which is the necessary consequence of a general breaking up of old principles and forms and an earnest search after new. In the first instance an education of stimulants becomes necessary ; it is essential to the healthy activity of the body politic : in the second, steadiness, love of order, mutual toleration, the sacrifice of private resentments and factious interests to general good, should be the great lessons of National Educa- tion." At no period in the history of a nation can lessons of steadiness, love of order, mutual toleration, and the sacrifice of private to public good be deemed inappropriate ; but if any where an education of stimulants is necessary to the healthy activity of the body politic, it is here where a long continued acquiescence in old institutions and a long continued subjection to absolute forms and principles of government have produced and continue to perpetuate a universal torpor of the national mind. This education of stimulants I propose to supply on .the basis of native institutions and by means of a system of public and periodical examinations and rewards, and I hope to show in conformity with the characteristics that have been sketched of a scheme likely to be attend- ed with success, that while the plan will present incitements to self-exer- tion for the purpose of self-improvement, it will be equally simple in its details and economical in expenditure, tending to draw forth the kindly affections of the people towards the Government and to put into the hands of the Government large powers for the good of the people. The first proposed application of the plan is to the improvement and extension of vernacular education ; and to the importance of this branch of public instruction testimony has been at different times borne by the highest authorities in the state. Of these I shall quote two only in this place. Lord Moira in his Minute on the Judicial Adminis- tration of the Presidency of Fort William dated the 2d October 1815, after mentioning certain evils in the administration of the government and in the character of the people goes on to say : " In looking for a remedy to these evils the moral and intellectual improvement of the natives will necessarily form a prominent feature of any plan which may arise from the above suggestions and I have therefore not failed to turn my most solicitous attention to the important object of public educa- tion. The humble but valuable class of village schoolmasters claims the first place in this discussion. These men teach the first rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic for a trifling stipend which is within reach of any man's means and the instruction which they are capable of imparting suffices for the village zumeendar, the village accountant, and the village shop-keeper. As the public money would be ill appropriated in merely providing gratuitous access to that quantum of education which is already attainable, any intervention of Government either by superintendence or by contribution should be directed to the improvement of existing tuition and to the diffusion of it to places and persons now out of its reach. Improvement and diffusion may go hand in hand ; yet the latter is to be considered matter of calculation, while the former should be deemed positively incumbent" Twenty-two years have elapsed since these wise and benevolent views were expressed by one of the ablest and most distinguished rulers that British India has possessed, and no adequate means have yet been employed to discharge a duty declared to be positively incumbent by introducing improvement into the existing system of tuition practised by the humble but valuable class of village schoolmasters and to extend the improved instruction to persons and places which the old system does not reach. We appear [ 143 ] to have even retrograded, for not only has vernacular instruction been overshadowed and lost sight of by the almost exclusive patronage bestowed on a foreign medium of instruction, the English language ; but even some of the principal efforts to improve the village schools and schoolmasters have with or without reason been abandoned. It was I believe under Lord Moira's Government that the Ajmere native schools were established and the Chinsurah native schools patronized by Government, but both have proved signal failures and Government support has been withdrawn from them ; the grand mistake being that new schools were formed subject to all the objections that have been described in another place, instead of the old schools and schoolmasters of the country that enjoyed and still enjoy the confidence of the people being employed as the instruments of the desired improvements. The only other attempt known to me on this side of India to improve the system of vernacular instruction on a considerable scale unconnected with religion was that made by the Calcutta School Society which received the special approbation of the Court of Directors. In 1825, in confirming the grant of 500 Us. per month which had been made to this Society by the local Government, the Court made the following remarks : " The Calcutta School Society appears to combine with its arrangements for giving elementary instruction, an arrangement of still greater importance for educating teachers for the indigenous schools. This last object we deem worthy of great encouragement, since it is upon the character of the indigenous schools that the education of the great mass of the population must ultimately depend. By training up therefore a class of teachers you provide for the eventual extension of improved education to a portion of the natives of India far exceeding that which any elementary instruction that could be immediately bestowed would have any chance of reaching." The plan of the Calcutta School Society so highly approved was that of stimulating teachers and scholars by public examinations and rewards, and although it was very limited in its application and very imperfect in its details, the effects upon the state of vernacular instruction in Calcutta were for a time highly beneficial. Yet the plan has been relinquished, the Society has ceased to exist, and the donation of Government, confirmed by the Court of Directors on the grounds above stated, continues to be drawn by the nominal Secre- tary and is now applied to the support of an English school and to the gratuitous education of thirty students of the Hindu College. It is evi- dent therefore that in proposing to lay the foundations of national educa- tion by improving and extending the system of vernacular instruction, [ 144 ] and to improve and extend that system not by forming new and independent schools but by employing the agency of the long establish- ed institutions of the country, I am proposing nothing new. It is neces- sary only that we should retrace our steps and taught by past experience start again from the position we occupied twenty years ago. In 1815 Lord Moira saw the necessity either by superintendence or by contribution of improving and diffusing the existing tuition afforded by village schoolmasters; and in 1825 the Court of Directors by deeds as well as by words pronounced that upon the character of the indigenous schools the education of the great mass of the population must ultimately depend. These sentiments and opinions are worthy of the highest authorities in the government of a great empire, and they are confirmed by the whole history of civilization. It is deeply to be regretted that they have hitherto produced no fruit in this country ; and it is earnestly to be hoped that the time has now arrived to give them a practical, a systematic, and a general application. Assuming the importance of vernacular instruction as the very founda- tion-stone of a sound and salutary system of national education, and assuming also that the old and established village schools and school- masters, if they can be rendered available and qualified, present the most appropriate instruments for gaining a ready access to the people and a trustful acceptance of the improvements which we are desirous of introducing and diffusing, it remains for me to show with what preliminary arrangements, in what manner, and to what extent I would propose to employ their agency. The first step to be taken is the selection of one or more districts in which Government shall authorize the plan to be tried. It is desirable that the experiment should be made simultaneously in several districts for the purpose of comparing the results obtained under different circum- stances. The attempt may succeed in one district and fail in another, the failure arising from local and temporary, and the success from permanent and general, causes ; and if the experiment was made only in one district; it might be one in which local and temporary causes are in operation leading to failure and thus undeserved discredit might be entailed upon the whole scheme. The number of districts usually included in a Division subject to a Commissioner of Revenue and Circuit would probably afford a just criterion. [ 145 ] Having fixed upon the districts in which a trial is to be given to the plan, the next step will be to institute an educational survey of eack district or a survey of all the institutions of education actually found in it to determine the amount of juvenile instruction, and a census of the population of each district to determine the amount of domestic and adult instruction. With a view to the completeness of the results I would recommend that the census of the population should not be limited to one thana in each district, but should be co-extensive with the survey of the schools. This would undoubtedly entail much additional trouble and some additional expense, but it is by such means that the interests of humanity, the interests of a future as well as of the present age, are pro- moted. I have shown in the preceding chapter how such investigations have been and may be conducted economically and, I hope and believe, efficiently and inoffensively ; and as a means of throwing a strong light upon the moral and intellectual condition of native society I trust they will be continued pari passu with every attempt to extend vernacular instruction. If the suggestions offered or to be offered in this Report possess any value, it is derived from these inquiries conducted under the authority of Government without which a whole life's residence in India would not have given me the inwrought conviction I now possess of the unparalleled degradation of the native population and the large and unemployed resources existing in the country applicable to the improve- ment of their condition and character ; and it is only by the unwearied prosecution of such inquiries and by the detailed publication of their results that this conviction can be wrought out of the minds of the actual observers into the minds of the community at large, and especially into the minds of those members of the community who wield the powers and direct the measures of Government. I long entertained an opinion of the importance of such inquiries before I had undertaken, or had any prospect of undertaking, such a duty in person. In 1829 or 1830 at the request of Lord William Bentinck I sent him a Memorandum on the subject of education, in which I pointed out an educational survey of the country as an indispensable preliminary to every other measure, and four years afterwards the adoption of the suggestion showed that the utility of such a course was appreciated by his Lordship's govern- ment. Experience has confirmed the opinion I then expressed, and in perusing the Revenue and Judicial Selections during the past year I have discovered with pleasure that the advantage of inquiries into the actual state of native education is still further supported by the high authority of that truly great and good man, Sir Thomas Munro, the [ 146 ] late Governor of Madras, and by that of the Court of Directors. The importance of this branch of the subject and the weight due to these authorities induce me to embody their views in full in this Report from the Selections, Vol. III. p. 588, omitting only the tabular form in which Sir Thomas Munro directed the information to be collected : EXTRACT FORT ST. GEORGE REVENUE CONSULTATIONS, dated the 2d July, 1822. The President records the following Minute : MINUTE BY SIR THOMAS MUNRO. " Much has been written, both in England and in this country, about the ignorance of the people of India and the means of disseminating knowledge among them ; but the opinions upon this subject are the mere conjectures of individuals, unsupported by any authentic docu- ments, and differing so widely from each other as to be entitled to very little attention. Our power in this country, and the nature of its own municipal institutions, have certainly rendered it practicable to collect materials from which a judgment might be formed of the state of the mental cultivation of the people. We have made geographical and agricultural surveys of our provinces ; we have investigated their resources, and endeavoured to ascertain their population ; but little or nothing has been done to learn the state of education. We have no record to show the actual state of education throughout the country. Partial inquiries have been made by individuals, but those have taken place at distant periods and on a small scale, and no inference can be drawn from them with regard to the country in general. There may be some difficulty in obtaining such a record as we want. Some districts will not, but others probably will furnish it ; and if we get it only from two or three it will answer in some degree for all the rest. It cannot be expected to be very accurate, but it will at least enable us to form an estimate of the state of instruction among the people* The only record which can furnish the information required is a list of the schools in which reading and writing are taught in each district, shewing the number of scholars in each and the caste to which they belong. The collectors should be directed to prepare this document according to the form which accompanies this paper. They should be desired to state the names of the books generally read at the schools ; the time which scholars usually continue at such schools ; the monthly or yearly charge to the scholars ; and whether any of the schools are endowed by the t 147 ] public, and if so, the nature and amount of the fund. Where there are colleges or other institutions for teaching theology, law, astronomy, &c., an account should be given of them. These sciences are usually taught privately* without fee or reward, by individuals, to a few scholars or disciples ; but there are also some instances in which the native govern- ments have granted allowances in money and land for the maintenance of the teachers. " In some districts reading and writing are confined almost entirely to Brahmins and the mercantile class. In some they extend to other classes, and are pretty general among the potails of villages and principal ryots. To the women of Brahmins and of Hindoos in general they are unknown, because the knowledge of them is prohibited and regarded as unbecoming the modesty of the sex and fit only for public dancers ; but among the women of the Rujbundah and some other tribes of Hindoos, who seem to have no prejudice of this kind, they are generally taught. The prohibition against women learning to read is probably, from various causes, much less attended to in some districts than in others, and it is possible that in every district a few females may be found in the reading schools. A column has been entered for them in the form proposed to be sent to the collector. The mixed and impure castes seldom learn to read ; but as a few of them do, columns are left for them in the form. " It is not my intention to recommend any interference whatever in the native schools. Every thing of this kind ought to be carefully avoided, and the people should be left to manage their schools in their own way. All that we ought to do is to facilitate the operations of these schools, by restoring any funds that may have been diverted from them, and perhaps granting additional ones where it may appear adviseable. But on this point we shall be better able to judge, when we receive the information now proposed to be called for. 25rt June, 1822. (Signed) THOMAS MUNRO." EXTRACT REVENUE LETTER TO FORT ST. GEORGE, dated the I8t7i May, 1825. " We think great credit is due to Sir Thomas Munro for having originated the idea of this inquiry. We shall be better able when we have seen specimens of the report to judge whether the prescribed inquiry is sufficient to bring forth all the useful information capable of [ 148 ] being obtained. The proportion in which the great body of the people obtain the knowledge of reading and writing, the degree to which the means of obtaining them are placed within their reach, the extent to which the branches of knowledge esteemed of a higher kind are objects of pursuit and the means of instruction in them are afforded, are the most important points and these appear to be fully embraced. The most defective part of the information which will thus be elicited is likely to be that which relates to the quality of the instruction which the existing education affords ; but of this we shall be able to form a more correct opinion when we see what the reports contain. It was proper to caution the collectors against exciting any fears in the people that their freedom of choice in matters of education would be interfered with ; but it would be equally wrong to do any thing to fortify them in the absurd opinion that their own rude institutions of education are so perfect as not to admit of improvement." The four volumes of Revenue and Judicial Selections which I have seen and which are I believe all that have been published do not contain any reference to the reports made in conformity with Sir Thomas Munro's instructions. The utility of the statistical inquiries recommended by that sagacious and experienced statesman, and so explicitly approved by the Honourable Court with a distinct view to the improvement to be introduced into the existing rude institutions of education, is still further increased when they are regarded as introductory and auxiliary to a general system of popular instruction. The information thus collected is highly valuable in itself and for its own sake, for the insight it affords and the inferences to which it leads respecting the interior struc- ture and condition of native society ; but the details it supplies respecting the number and residence, the character, qualifications, and emoluments of the teachers, and the number, the payments, and the attainments of the scholars will come into constant requisition in the practical conduct of a system of popular instruction. Nor will the benefit to be deriv- ed stop here, for it is only by previously ascertaining the nature and amount of juvenile and adult instruction in a district or in a division that we can obtain a standard of comparison with the future condition of education in the same district or division after the experiment of a national system shall have been fully and fairly made. A further measure indispensable to the working of the plan is the preparation of a small series of useful school-books in the language of [ 149 ] the districts in which it is to be carried into effect. The entire subject of school-books in the native languages involves so many principles and details, both moral and literary, that to do justice to it would require a separate and full report. All that I shall attempt in this place is to indi- cate a few of the leading ideas connected with it that bear most directly upon my immediate object. For the purposes of vernacular instruction in Bengal, school-books should be prepared in the Bengali language, and for the same purposes in Behar in the Hindi language. These two languages will bring the instruction within the reach of the whole Hindu population of those two provinces and also of the rural Musalman population. Hindi school- books will be occasionally required in Bengal ; Bengali books never in Behar; and for a majority of the Musalman population in some of the principal cities and towns of both provinces, such as Calcutta, Moorshe- dabad, and Dacca, Patna, Behar, and Gya ? school-books in Urdu or Hindusthani will probably be the most appropriate. For the purpose of giving a trial to a system of vernacular instruction in the few districts of a Commissioner's division Bengali school-books only will be requir- ed, and a translation of them into English should be simultaneously printed and published in order that the members of the Government and the European community generally may know the nature and amount of the instruction proposed to be communicated. The question what shall constitute the subject-matter of school-books under a national system of instruction is one on which a great diversity of opinion may be expected to prevail ; and unless large and catholic views preside over their preparation, evil instead of good may be expect- ed to result from the attempt. I deem it proper to introduce and fortify my opinions on this subject by those of others whose sentiments and reasonings are more likely to obtain general assent. Lord Moira in the Minute of 2d October, 1815, from which I have already had occasion to quote, continuing to speak of the native system of education, says : " The general, the sad defect of this education is that the inculcation of moral principle forms no part of it. This radical want is not imputable to us. The necessities of self-defense (for all our extensions of territory have been achieved in repelling efforts made for the subversion of our power) and our occupation in securing the new possessions, have allowed us till lately but little leisure to [ 150 ] examine deliberately the state of the population which we had been gra- dually bringing beneath our sway. It was already vitiated. The un- ceasing wars which had harassed all parts of India left every where their invariable effects, a disorganisation of that frame-work of habit and opinion which enforces moral conduct and an emancipation of all those irregular impulses which revolt at its restraint. The village school- masters could not teach that in which they had themselves never been instructed, and universal debasement of mind, the constant concomitant of subjugation to despotic rule, left no chance that an innate sense of equity should in those confined circles suggest the recommenda- tion of principles not thought worthy of cultivation by the Government. The remedy for this is to furnish the village school-master with little manuals of religious sentiments and ethic maxims conveyed in such a shape as may be attractive to the scholars, taking care that while awe and adoration of the Supreme Being are earnestly instilled, no jealousy be excited by pointing out any particular creed. The absence of such an objection and small pecuniary rewards for zeal occasionally administered by the magistrates would induce the school-masters to use those compila- tions readily." The Honourable Mounstuart Elphinstone in his Report dated 25th Oct. 1819, on the Territories conquered from the Paishwa, (Calcutta edition, p. 74, reprinted in Revenue and Judicial Selections, vol. IV., p. 187) after describing the moral character of the people of the Deccan has the following remarks : " I do not perceive any thing that we can do to improve the morals of the people except by improving their education. There are already schools in all towns and in many villages, but reading is confined to Brahmins, Banyans, and such of the agricultural classes as have to do with accounts. I am not sure that our establishing free schools would alter this state of things, and it might create a suspicion of some concealed design on our part. It would be more practicable and more useful to give a direction to the reading of those who do learn, of which the press affords so easily the means. Books are scarce and the common ones probably ill- chosen, but there exist in the Hindoo languages many tales and fables that would be generally read and that would circulate sound morals. There must be religious books tending more directly to the same end. If many of these were printed and distributed cheaply or gratuitously, the effect would without doubt be great and beneficial. It would however be indispensable that they should be purely Hindoo. We might silently omit all precepts of ques- tionable morality, but the slightest infusion of religious controversy would insure the failure of the design. It would be better to call the prejudices of the Hindoos to our aid in reforming them, and to control their vices by the ties of religion which are stronger than those of law. By maintaining and purifying their present tenets at the same time that we enlighten their understandings, we shall bring them nearer to that standard of perfection at which all concur in desiring that they should arrive ; while any attack on their faith, if successful, might be expected in theory, as is found in practice, to shake their reverence for all reli- gion and to set them free from those useful restraints which even a superstitious doctrine imposes on the passions." Mr. Elphinstone, when Governor of Bombay, reiterates the same sentiments in a Minute dated 6th April, 1821 (Revenue and Judicial Selections, vol. III. p. 695) on the Revenues and Survey of the Western Zillah north of the Myhee : " In all discussions connected with the means of improving the situation of the people, our attention is drawn to the amendment of their educa- tion. This seems to be nearly in the same state here as in the Deccan. I should rather think there were more schools, but there are no books. The same plan I recommend in the Deccan may be adopted here, the circulation of cheap editions of such native books of those already popu- lar as might have a tendency to improve the morals of the people with- out strengthening their religious prejudices. Passages remarkable for bigotry or false maxims of morality might be silently omitted, but not a syllable of attack on the religion of the country should be allowed." The late Mr. Shore in his Notes on Indian Affairs, vol. II. p. l,asks: " Is a rational attempt to educate the people of this great country to be made ? Or are they to be allowed to remain in their present state of ignorance? i. e. as far as relates to the assistance of their English mas- ters. Is one great impediment to the due administration of justice to be removed ? Or is it still to remain to the discredit of the British sys- tem of legislation ? These, I grieve to say, are the two real questions into which this subject may be resolved. What has been and what ought to have been the course pursued by the British rulers ? Certain- ly it was their duty, first, to have ordained that the language and charac- ter of the country should be that of the courts of justice ; secondly, to have established schools or at least to have encouraged those that already existed for the education of the people in their own language and cha- racter ; thirdly, to have promoted the translation of books of knowledge into the vernacular tongue ; and fourthly, to have afforded all who had [ 152 ] leisure or inclination the means of acquiring that language in which the most general information is concentrated, the English. What has been the course hitherto pursued ? We have actually imitated the example of a nation whom we affect to consider barbarians and centuries behind us in civilization, and have attempted to inflict a foreign language on a hundred millions of people ! We have even gone beyond our model. On the first conquest of India by the Muhammedans, one party at least the conquerors understood the language of the courts of justice ; but it has been the pleasure of the English to carry on business and administer justice in a language alike foreign to themselves and to their subjects." In the same volume, p. 464-, 465, Mr. Shore describes the works that he recommends to be translated into the vernacular language and cha- racter. They should not, he says, be confined to works of a religious nature, " but the selection should include books of instruction and even amusement.' History, geography, elementary works on arts and sciences would be extremely acceptable to the people." He proposes also " to prohibit any direct attempts at conversion in the schools established by Government, nor should the study of religious works be compulsory as school-books. Such books should, however, be placed within their reach for all who chose to consult them." I will add only one other authority on this subject. Mr. B. H. Hodgson, Resident in Nepal, in the preface to his letters addressed to the Editor of the Friend of India on the Pre-eminence of the Vernaculars, p. 9, has the following remarks : " In the most enlightened parts of Europe the general opinion now is that schools for teachers have in the present century created a new era in the practical science of education. Why then is Government inattentive to so noble and successful an experiment ? Especially since there is about this method of normal instruction, or teaching of teachers, just that sort of definiteness which may be com- passed by limited public funds, with yet a concomitant prospect of great and diffusive benefits to the country from the adoption of the measure. But workmen must have tools; and good workmen, good tools: where- fore, to a nursery for the regular supply of competent vernacular school- masters, should be added one for the equally regular supply of sound books in the three prime vulgar tongues of our presidency, books embodying the substance only of our really useful knowledge, with stimuli and directions for the various sorts of mental exertion ; so that in the result there might exist for the people at large, the easy and obvious bridge of the vulgar tongue leading from exotic principles to local practices, from European theory to Indian experience," In support [ 153 ] of the principle of drawing on Indian experience, of borrowing the precepts, examples, and illustrations of Indian literature, to recommend to general attention the substance of a higher knowledge, moral and social as well as physical, Mr. Hodgson urges the following consider- ations : "The elemental laws of thought, including a designation of the necessary boundaries of human inquiry and the best rules of investigation within those limits the law of population, the philosophy of wealth, the general principles of jurisprudence, of judicature, and of reformative police ! How are we to inculcate the elements of our knowledge upon these topics, which are at once infinitely more essential to the welfare of the people of India than mathematical and physical science and infinitely more liable to the adverse influence of prejudice and prepossession ? Physical science is almost unknown in India and hence there will be little for us to undo : it stands almost wholly aloof from the turmoil of the passions and interests of men and hence there will be little difficulty in removing obstructions to fair and patient at- tention. But the philosophy of life, however ill it is yet understood, has been an object of study in this land for 3,000 years, in all which the falsest interests, and the most turbulent passions, and the most fantastic opinions have contributed the warp, as nature and experience have the woof, to its net-work. To leave the woof as it is and to supply a new warp from the schools of European wisdom hoc opus, hie labor est f To attempt to remove both warp and woof were, I believe, to disorga- nize society, and to insure our own destruction in its disorganization ! Here it is certainly that the countenance and support, real or seeming, of established maxims and examples, is most needed and most readily to be had most needed because of the prejudices and passions that are indissolubly bound up with the topics most easily to be had because of that universal consciousness and almost universal experience which necessarily supply the ultimate evidence of such topics. High-dated and literary as is the character of Indian civilization, it could not be that their literature should have failed to gather ample materials for the just illustration in some way or other of most if not of all parts of the philosophy of life, and with respect to the fact, you Sir, need not be told that it has not failed to gather them." The following appears to be the substance of the views expressed by these authorities. The vernacular school-books prepared and issued under the authority of Government should embrace religious instruction as far as it can be communicated without engaging in religious controversy [ 154 ] or exciting religious prejudice, without inculcating the peculiarities of any one religion or attacking those of another. Perhaps the best way in which this might be effected would be, without employing any direct forms of religious inculcation, to cause the spirit of religion its philanthropic principles arid devotional feelings to pervade the whole body of instruction on other subjects. On these other subjects, physical science, moral truths, and the arts and philosophy of civil and social life, the aim should be, not to translate European works into the words and idioms of the native languages nor to adopt native works without the infusion of European knowledge, but so to combine the substance of European knowledge with native forms of thought and sentiment, and with the precepts, examples, maxims, and illustrations of native literature as shall render the school-books both useful and attractive. For this purpose the union of European and Native agency would be necessary, European agency aided by the best works that have been framed in Europe and America for the use of schools, and Native agency of a high order of qualification to command readily the resources and appli- ances of native learning. Under the guidance of such general principles and in the employ- ment of such a united agency, a series of school-books in Bengali might be framed on the following plan. The first of the series might be made with advantage to include all that is at present taught in scattered and disjointed portions in the verna- cular schools, systematically arranged and presented in the clearest, most comprehensive, and most perfect form in which it can be prepared. It would thus be a text-book for instruction in writing on the ground, on the palm leaf, on the plantain or sal leaf, and on paper ; in reading both written and printed compositions ; in accounts both commercial and agricultural as taught in the works of Subhankar and Ugra Balaram ; in the correct and fluent composition of letters, petitions, grants, leases, bonds, and notes of hand according to the most popular and approved forms ; in the elements of grammar and lexicology as taught in Sabda Subanta, Ashta Sabdi, Ashta Dhatu, and the vocabulary of Amara Singh; and finally in the moral verses of Chariakya. This work would make the learners, whe- ther teachers or scholars, thoroughly competent in the knowledge and use of the most improved forms of their own vernacular system of instruction before introducing them to any higher grades of knowledge ; and the first trial in every district would thus also be disembarrassed of the prejudices which might be raised if any new and strange subjects of I 155 ] instruction were suddenly and generally presented to them. Those portions of the above-mentioned native school-books that are in Sanscrit should be translated into Bengali. The second book of the series might explain the most important arts of life that contribute to comfort, improvement, and civilization, and might give elementary views of the sciences which have produced and must help to perfect them. Trade and the subdivisions of manual labour ; manufactures and the uses of machinery ; and above all agriculture, the most valuable products, the best modes and seasons of culture, the most useful implements and manures, the rotation of crops, draining, irrigation, large and small farms all these are subjects which in plain language arid with appropriate local illustrations might be brought home to the business and bosoms of nine-tenths of the people. The modes of apply- ing agricultural capital are notoriously very rude and unproductive, and the quantity of land cultivated by the ryot is generally so very small that the value of that portion of the produce which falls to him as wages or profits barely supports him and his family even in the most favour- able seasons and in times of scarcity leaves him without resource. With such a vast agricultural population upon the proper application of whose labour the entire prosperity of the country and the Government de- pends, what duty can be more imperative than to instruct them in the best use of all the circumstances of their condition ? The third book of the series might be made explanatory of the moral and legal relations, obligations, and rights, whether personal, domestic, civil, or religious, of men living in a state of society and under the existing Government. A reference should be maintained throughout to the peculiar circumstances, wants, and character of the people. Thus, the expenditure of the people is in general so profuse and ill-directed as to account for much of the wretchedness of their condition. Incul- cate therefore a prudent economy and show not only by precept, but by examples and illustrations drawn from Savings' Banks, &c. the ad- vantages of steady industry and small accumulations as contrasted with the tyranny on the one-hand, the slavery on the other, and the general distrust between man and man, arising out of the established system of money-lending and borrowing at exorbitant rates of interest. Again, the produce of their labour is often diminished by the illegal exactions of money-lenders, landlords, settlers, and the native officers of Government whether of justice, revenue, or police. Teach the people [ 156 ] their civil rights, the disposition of Government to protect them in the enjoyment of those rights, and the modes in which they may be most effectually protected. Still further, law to be obeyed, the violations of law to be shunned, and the punishments attached to those violations to be feared, should be known. But its requisitions, its prohibitions, and its sanctions are unknown to the body of the people, and law is to them for the most part the arbitrary will of the judge. In the absense of other means to make the penal laws generally known, let this school-book ex- plain their principal provisions for the protection of person and property, the equal subjection of all to their authority, and the obligation and utility of contributing each person to the defence and security of every other subject of the state. The fourth book of the series might be employed to correct, enlarge, and systematize the knowledge of the learner respecting his native coun- try, other countries, and the system of the world. If prepared for Ben- gali schools, it would explain the natural features and resources of Ben- gal, the political government of British India, the physical and political geography of the other countries of the world, and the leading facts and principles of modern astronomy. It is easy for me to sketch the principal topics of these works and the series might be still further extended ; but it would be a more difficult task to fill up the outline in such a manner that the whole would deserve the approbation of Government and be acceptable to the people. Their utility, however, would compensate for the labour, the time, and the expense bestowed, for a really good school-book is a powerful instrument of good to a country. By these and by similar works a small native standard library might be formed ; and the most important ideas they contain might, by the means I am about to recommend, be gradually worked into and embodied with the earliest impressions and the perma- nent convictions of native society. Having prepared and printed the first book of the series, the next step is to appoint a Government agent to each of the districts in which the plan is to be carried into effect. The duty to be assigned to him, as will afterwards more fully appear, is the examination of teachers and scholars, and with this view he should unite the acquirements both of a Native and English education. Without a good native education he could not with credit and efficiency act in the capacity of an examiner [ 157 ] of native teachers and scholars ; and an English education will be useful to conciliate the respect of his countrymen, to give him confidence in his own comparative attainments, and to enable him to receive and communicate to the people just views of the intentions of Government, and to the Government just views of the feelings and wishes of the peo- ple. In addition to these literary acquirements, an unimpeached character for steadiness, industry, and integrity is indispensable. Much will depend upon these Examiners and their appointment should be made with great care and discrimination. Those natives who have received an English education have in general too much neglected the ordinary branches of a Native education and some difficulty may at first be experienced in obtaining competent persons ; but a very little application on the part of the intelligent young men who have passed through the Hindoo College, the General Assembly's Institution, and other public schools will supply the requisite qualification, and the difficulty will speedily disappear. The Examiner will proceed to the district to which he has been appointed with a recommendation from the Commissioner of the Divi- sion to the Magistrate who will be instructed to aid him with counsel, influence, and co-operation, as far as they can be bestowed, without trenching on his individual responsibility or the unfettered action of the people. It will not be inconsistent with these restrictions if the Magis- trate should publish throughout the district a simple declaration or explanation of the intentions of. Government addressed to all generally, to none individually ; and if as in South Behar there is a district news- paper the notice should receive all the publicity that can be given to it by that means. The Examiner by the survey which has been already made of the district is acquainted with the names, places of residence, and qualifications of all the schoolmasters in every thana, and by means of perwannahs, letters, and personal visits he will make known to them in still greater detail the intentions of Government and the subsidiary arrangements by which he purposes to carry those intentions into effect. The subsidiary arrangements will be variously modified by the circumstances of different districts and by the judgment and experience of different Examiners. The object should be to bring the benefit as much as possible within the reach of the people with the least sacrifice on their part of time, labour, and money in travelling. For this purpose the Examiner may fix on some central point of two or three contiguous [ '58 ] thanas at which he will invite all the schoolmasters of those thanas to meet him at a certain date. He will there explain to them verbally and at length, what he had before stated to the same persons in writing, that he had in charge from Government certain copies of a book, one of which he was prepared to give to any schoolmaster, or to any person pro- posing to act as a schoolmaster, who should either by the written or verbal testimony of his neighbours appear to be of respectable character and who should engage to appear with it again at the same place six months thereafter ; that the names, ages, castes, and places of residence of the receivers and those testifying to their character would be inscrib- ed in a register; and that at the lime and place appointed an examination of the receivers would be held and rewards bestowed on those who should be found competent in the knowledge of its contents and in the capacity of explaining them. The nature of the rewards to be bestowed will require much consider- ation. Money-rewards of three or six rupees to the teachers according to their proficiency might be promised and the effect would no doubt be great and immediate, but I am inclined to recommend that in the first instance at least they should be withheld. If the plan can be made to work efficiently without money-rewards, the advantage in point of economy is obvious ; and although that is a very inferior consideration with reference to a single district or division, the effect will be far from unimportant on a large scale by leaving in the hands of Government the means of giving general extension to the plan without weighing too heavily on the resources of the State. Another advantage will be in the greater simplicity of the plan without the suspicions, the wranglings, and the opportunities and imputations of corruption and compromise between the Government Examiners and the native teachers, that may arise out of money-payments. Still further, by dispensing with those payments, the teachers will be thrown entirely on their own qualifications and on the support of parents for success in their profession ; whereas in bestowing money-rewards it will be difficult, although not impossible, to ascertain the amount that will have the effect of stimulating the zeal of teachers without checking the exertions and sacrifices of parents. An additional consideration is this that if the other forms of reward and distinction I am about to suggest are found to be ineffectual or effectual in too limit- ed a degree, we may afterwards have recourse to money-rewards, but if we begin with the latter we cannot afterwards so easily discontinue them without abandoning the whole plan. We may ascend from weaker [ 159 ] to stronger motives, not descend from stronger to weaker ones. It might be admissible however even from the first to give, according to the price of grain in the district, one, two, or three annas per day to each approved teacher as travelling expenses and subsistence-money, the amount of the former to be determined by the number of days' journey in coming from and returning to his home, and that of the latter by the number of days he remains in attendance on the Examiner. The first reward I would hold out to teachers is the gift of books. Each will receive a copy of the first book of the series already described with an engagement to return it in six months ; and he will make it his own only by studying its contents and undergoing a thorough and satis- factory examination on the subject which it treats. This examination will also entitle him to receive a copy of the second book of the series, at first on loan and for use only, but ultimately to become his own pro- perty in the same way. Still further, the same examination will entitle him to receive three, six, or twelve copies of the first book of the series for the use of his scholars to be accounted for in the manner hereafter described. That these books will be received not as mere compliments, but as substantial gifts equivalent to money, is probable because the use and possession of them will both raise the qualifications of the teacher and afford him increased facilities for the instruction of his scholars in his own increased knowledge, for which he will naturally demand and receive increased compensation from their parents. The next reward I would propose to hold out would be one tending to gratify the love of distinction, common to all and strong in them. The names and designations of those who have sustained the examination, may be enrolled in a separate register, transmitted to the General Com- mittee of Public Instruction, on the approval and recommendation of that body published in the official Gazette, and on their appearance in the Gazette proclaimed by the order of the Magistrate throughout the district as the names and designations of persons constituting an ap- proved class of native vernacular teachers. A written certificate may also be given to each, stating the extent of his qualifications and signed by the President and Secretary of the Committee of Instruction, or a gub-Committee appointed for that purpose, and by the Examiner. These distinctions will have a practical value also by raising the approved teachers in the estimation of the native community and thereby increas- ing their emoluments. [ 160 ] Other rewards to be bestowed according to the progressive qualifica- tions of the teachers and scholars, such as eligibility to a course of instruc- tion in the Normal School of the district, to a course of instruction in the English School of the district, and ultimately to the possession of a permanent endowment, will be detailed hereafter. Having with every necessary explanation and encouragement distri- buted books to all teachers of good character desirous of receiving them, the Examiner will next proceed in the beginning of the following month to some central point of some two or three other thanas of the same district. There, according to previous invitations and arrangements, he will meet the native schoolmasters of those thanas, and will go over precisely the same ground with them as in the preceding instance. Thence he will proceed in the beginning of the next month to another set of thanas so as to traverse the whole district in six months. If the district contains twelve or a smaller number of thanas, the arrangement may be made with one or two per month; if more than twelve and not more than eighteen, with two or three per month ; and if more than eighteen, an arrangement adapted to the peculiarity of the case may easily be devised. In Moorshedabad which contains in all thirty-seven thanas, it will be advisable to assign one Examiner to the city and another to the district ; and in like manner one to Calcutta and another to the 24>-Pergunnahs. If the district is too large to be traversed by the Ex- aminer, with the requisite delays, in six months ; or if the book distri- buted is too large or too difficult to be mastered by the teachers in the same period, a twelvemonth may be allowed. No good will arise from prematurely urging to completion any part of the process. The plan must be allowed to work into the minds of the native community and to obtain gradually a firm place in their confidence. I will now suppose that after the lapse of six or twelve months the Examiner has returned to the point from which he set out, having in the previous month by a formal notice reminded the schoolmasters who had received books of their engagement to attend for examination. Distrust, indolence, sickness, death will doubtless cause the absence of some. Others who do attend will be badly prepared for examination, and the best but indifferently. But under every discouragement the plan should be steadily arid kindly prosecuted, the schoolmasters being treated as grown-up children, now needing reproof and now encourage- ment. The Examiner will find that he has much to learn from them as [ 161 ] to the best modes of giving effect to the intentions of Government. The style of the book may be too high or too low ; the matter of the book may be too copious or not sufficiently explanatory ; the time allowed for preparation may be too short or unnecessarily long ; the rewards held out may require to be modified or extended. The attention of the Examiner will be alive to every circumstance likely to convey a useful hint and will place it on record for his own guidance or for suggestion to his superior authority. According to the greater or less degree of zeal excited among the body of schoolmasters will be the strictness or laxity of the examinations. If the competition is general and active, the examination will be searching and the rewards bestow- ed on those only who have made themselves thoroughly compe- tent. If the number of competitors is small and their efforts feeble, the examination will be less strict and the rewards bestowed on a lower standard of excellence in order to encourage others to appear as candidates. As the plan gains ground throughout the country in public confidence, the rewards will be gradually limited to the highest standard of excellence consisting in a perfect acquaintance with the con- tents of the work forming the subject of examination. When on these or similar principles the Examiner will have completed the examination of the schoolmasters of two or three thanas he will proceed to the next set of thanas and so on until he has a second time completed the tour of the district. At this period the Examiner should be required to make a report containing the results of his experience, as to the working of the plan, his opinion of its advantages or disadvantages, and 1 the im- provements of which it is susceptible. My expectation is that by these means judiciously employed in a given number of districts, in a period at the farthest of two years, a body of schoolmasters would be formed in- comparably better instructed in what they all at present profess more or less to teach than any equal body of schoolmasters of the same class now to be found throughout Bengal. The preceding details contemplate the employment of the first volume only of the proposed series of school-books containing complete instruction in all the branches of a native vernacular education. I assume that this instruction must be at the foundation of all real improvement, for unless the people have a competent knowledge of the forms of composition and accounts universally practised in native society, \vhatever else they may be taught, they cannot be deemed to have received a practical education, and without that knowledge no native teacher should be recognized as w [ 162 ] qualified to act in such a capacity. If it should be supposed that the great body of the people do not need and cannot be expected to acquire more than this amount of instruction, and that therefore we should be contented with it in their teachers without seeking to carry them any farther, the advantage will still be great of carrying both teachers and people thus far. With the increased attainments of the teachers and with the respect and encouragement bestowed on them by Govern- ment, there would be, it is believed, a gradual extension of instruction to the people which, even within the limits of the native system, in proportion as it became general would give the people greater protection against the impositions and exactions to which their ignorance of letters often subjects them. Others may be of opinion, as I am, that it is desirable and practicable to instruct the body of the people in the useful arts adapted to their circumstances, in the moral and social duties of life, and in a knowledge of the leading facts and principles belonging to the physical constitution of the world and to the history and condition of their own and other countries; and for this purpose their instructors must in the first place be rendered qualified. Accordingly the second, third, and fourth volumes of the series of school- books being prepared in succession, those schoolmasters who have successfully passed through the first examination will receive a copy of the second volume of the series to be the subject of examination the second year ; and the third and fourth volumes will in like manner be distributed to the successful candidates respectively of the second and third years until all the volumes to which it may be deemed advisable to extend the series are exhausted. Thus within a period of four years four different classes of native teachers might be, and probably would be, produced ; for some would rest contented with the distinction acquired by proficiency in the first volume ; others would stop at the second ; a third class would be ambitious to study the succeeding volume ; and a fourth class would complete the series ; no one receiving the fourth volume who had not been satisfactorily examined on the third, nor the third who had not been examined on the second, nor the second, who had not been examined on the first. All would have their names registered as respectively belonging to the first, second, third, and fourth classes of approved vernacular teachers ; and there would thus probably continue to be four classes of native teachers with various qualifications and attainments corresponding to the wants of the different classes and conditions of native society. [ 163 .] All that has yet been proposed, if carried fully into operation, will only have the effect of communicating to the body of teachers a superior degree and kind of instruction to that which they now possess ; but it will have no direct and little indirect effect in improving their capacity to convey that instruction to others. The capacity to acquire and the capacity to communicate knowledge do not necessarily co-exist in the same person and are often found separate. The discipline and manage- ment of native common schools are in general the worst that can be conceived, for they consist in the absense of almost all regular discipline and management whatsoever ; and as a teacher is only half qualified for his duties who perfectly knows all that he is expected or required to teach and who is ignorant of the most approved modes of conveying in- struction to others, it is indispensable to devise means for communicating that description of qualification to native teachers. There are three modes in which this object may be less or more per- fectly attained, and three occasions on which each mode respectively may be usefully employed. The first mode is by written directions verbally explained. Every school-book prepared and distributed under the orders of Government will contain well-digested practical directions, clearly and simply ex- pressed, for the guidance of teachers in the use they are to make of it for the instruction of their scholars ; and the directions will be minutely and verbally explained by the Examiner when he puts the book into their hands. The second mode is by practical example. In the periodical examina- tions of teachers and of their scholars too, according to a part of the plan yet to be developed such an arrangement of details will be adopted as may present a fit example for the imitation of the whole body of native teachers. According to the plan, these examinations will probably occur once every month in the same district and twice a year in the same part of the district. It is therefore important that such arrangements should be made for these frequently recurring exhibitions as will afford a lesson of simplicity, order, quiet, promptitude, and general effici- ency ; and the attention of native teachers should be drawn to the mode of conducting them that they may derive any practical hints which good sense and experience may enable them to apply to their own in- stitutions. The spirit of these examinations also the superior import- [ 164 ] ance attached to practical knowledge and moral excellence above mere form and routine, intellectual display, or metaphysical subtilty may be reasonably expected to give some tone to the character and instruc- tions of the native teachers. The third mode is by precept and example combined in Normal Schools. I am satisfied that the two modes previously mentioned, al- though they may be partially beneficial, are inadequate, and that it is only by the third mode that teachers can be thoroughly qualified for their important functions. They have been suggested because no form or mode of useful influence directly attainable should be neglected, and because, without further experience, it may be feared that they are the only modes in which the majority of teachers will at present submit to be guided on such a subject. The attempt however should be made to employ the most efficient means, and with that view there should be a Normal School for teachers in every district in which the plan now proposed is introduced. For this purpose, adhering to the principle of building on existing institutions, whether new or old, I propose to con- nect by friendly relations the long-established vernacular schools of the country with those which have been recently formed and are every year increasing in number under the management of the General Committee of Public Instruction. For some years the plan of the Committee has been to establish an English school at the head station of every district ; and within the last two years, with the growing conviction of the importance of cultivating the language of the people, a vernacular department has been attached to each institution. The manner in which I would link the English school with the established vernacular schools will after- wards be shown. It is the vernacular department of the English school that I would propose gradually to form and mature into a Normal School for native teachers, answering every purpose which that depart- ment now does and at the same time affording both instruction and example to native teachers in the art of teaching. The qualifications of the teachers appointed to the vernacular department or Normal School should be estimated and the whole discipline framed with a distinct view to this important purpose. I am not prepared to speak with confidence of the extent to which the instruction offered in Normal Schools would be sought by native teachers. In every district there are certain months of the year in different districts and in different years the months vary when it [ J65 ] would be more convenient to the teachers to attend than in other months. A general failure of the crops of any season would have the effect of closing many schools from the inability of parents to pay for their children's schooling ; and the failure of any particular crop in a district would have a local and temporary effect of the same kind. On such occasions many teachers would probably be glad to attend the Normal School for regular practical instruction in their profession ; while at other times when crops are abundant and parents able to pay, they would be unwilling to relinquish the profits, and we should not seek to draw them from the duties, of their vocation. The Normal School there- fore should be open to native teachers throughout the year, and it should not surprise or disappoint us, if for months in succession or even for a whole year none should appear to receive instruction. To stimulate their attendance, two expedients may be legitimately adopted. One is that all native teachers shall not be permitted indiscriminately to attend the Normal School but only those who have evinced such industry and devotion to their profession, as shall have enabled them to pass success- fully through at least one of the periodical examinations. It will thus be a favour, and therefore an object of desire ; or rather a reward bestowed on merit, and therefore an object of ambition. It will probably have the double effect of stimulating a greater number of teachers to appear as candidates for examination and a greater number of successful candidates to seek the advantages of instruction in the Normal School. In other words it will both be a motive and an end ; an auxiliary to success, and in itself the success which is sought. A second expedient is that those native teachers who attend the Normal School shall be relieved from all anxiety respecting the means of subsistence during the period of atten- dance. That period I would limit to four successive years for each teacher and to three months in each year ; the month to be reckoned not by days or broken parts of months, but month by month or entire months, in order that the instruction may for some time at least be continuous and systematic. The native teachers will receive travelling expenses at the rate of one to three annas per day, according to the price of grain in the district and according to the number of clays' jour- ney in coming from and returning to their homes ; and subsistence-money at the same rate during the period they remain in regular and diligent attendance at the Normal School within the prescribed limits. The only object for which I recommend this allowance is to remove a probable objection against attendance at the Normal School by giving the teacher who cannot afford the loss of his time and labour a bare subsistence [ 166 ] during the period of his absence from home; but it is possible that the extreme poverty of many may cause it to operate as a direct inducement. Beyond these expedients, I do not at present perceive that any others can be with advantage employed, however desirable arid important to obtain the attendance of native teachers at a well-disciplined and well- instructed Normal School. Having gone thus far in the formation of a body of approved verna- cular teachers, and having obtained results upon the whole satisfactory during a trial of four years, I would propose to take one step farther with a view to connect those teachers permanently with the Government and the people and to secure their usefulness and responsibility to both. It must be evident that the measures yet recommended are preparatory in their nature and will be uncertain and fluctuating in their effects. They will awaken increased attention to education among the natives, convince them of the desire of Government to promote it, and more or less elicit their co-operation. They will call into existence a better class of teachers and fit them for the discharge of their duty to the commu- nity. But the effect cannot be, and should not be expected to be, permanent. I have before expressed the opinion that in the present torpid state of the national mind in this country an education of stimu- lants is required ; but the operation of stimulants is by their very nature temporary and they gradually cease to produce the effects expected from them. Some means therefore must be sought to give a stable and enduring character to the system. What is to be desired is that, at the close of the course of public examinations and pedagogic instruc- tions through which the teachers may be required to pass, we may be able to place before them some higher reward than any they have hitherto obtained, which will rouse them to further exertion, which when obtained will satisfy their ambition, and which will also be accompanied by such checks and guards as will secure their continued zeal, activity, and usefulness. A small endowment of land to each village school- master will answer this description. Such an endowment will be far more earnestly desired than even an assignment on the land-revenue of Government, both because the latter is open to all manner of abuse and because the former gives more consideration in native society. It will give the village schoolmaster a resting-place and a permanent means of subsistence for life or during good behaviour, and will thus produce both contentment of mind and diligence in the discharge of duty. It will fix his obligations, his interests, and his pleasures in one locality, [ 167 ] and thus surround him with the most salutary influences derived from those to whom he will be constantly responsible. It may be added that numerous authorities may be adduced to show, if it were necessary, that under the ancient Hindu village system this has been from time immemorial the mode of remunerating the village-servants. On these grounds I propose that small endowments of land should be the means employed to give permanence to the system of vernacular schools, and I will now briefly mention the conditions under which they should be grant- ed and indicate some of the sources from which they may be derived. The schoolmasters entitled to claim this endowment shall be those only who have successfully passed through the public and periodical examina- tions in the four school-books of the series already described ; who dur- ing the period in which this has been accomplished shall have instructed six scholars per annum in any one of those books in such a manner as to enable them to pass through the examinations hereinafter to be prescrib- ed for scholars ; who shall farther have passed through a course of instruction in the Normal School of the district with approved characters and attainments ; and who shall finally receive and produce the written testimony and recommendation of three-fourths of the landowners, tenants, and householders of the villages to which they belong or in which they propose to settle and in which the endowment is to be situa- ted. A lower degree of qualification cannot be required with a view to their future efficiency ; and so high a degree of qualification will for sometime prevent any considerable number of candidates for this reward from making their appearance, although in prospect it will produce its effect even upon those who may never reach the object of their ambition. The endowment is to consist of land belonging to the lands of the village in which the incumbent is to exercise his vocation, the quantity of land to be determined by the value per bigha, and the total value not to exceed one-half of the ascertained average annual income of a vernacular teacher in that district. Thus the mean rate of payment to such a teacher in the city and district of Moorshedabad, as shown at page 39, is Rs. 4-12-9, or to allow for unascertained sources of profit say Rs. 5 per month, or Rs. 60 per annum. The proposed endowment in this case should be worth thirty rupees yearly ; and it might consist of thirty bighas of land worth one rupee per bigha, or fifteen worth two rupees, or ten worth three rupees, or seven and a half worth four rupees per bigha, or of any greater or less number of bighas of one quality or of [ 168 ] different qualities of land, the entire value of which should not exceed thirty rupees per annum. The village schoolmaster would thus have one- half of his income secured to him in a form that would in general admit of considerable improvement, and in a form too the most gratifying to his self-respect and the most conducive to the respect of the little commu- nity of which he is a part ; while he would have to look to that commu- nity to supply the remaining moiety either in fees or in perquisites or in any other form which they might choose to adopt as a mode of remune- rating him for the instruction of their children. No endowment should be created, no trust should be exercised without checks against mal-appropriation and mal- administration. I therefore pro- pose that all those landowners, tenants, and householders who have peti- tioned for a school-endowment and nominated and recommended a candi- date shall constitute a village-school Association acting by a Committee tinder known regulations for the inspection, superintendence, and con- trol of the village-school, the Committee to be chosen by the general body of village-constituents and reported to the District Committee. When a vacancy occurs, three-fourths of those who constitute the village association shall have the power of nominating a successor, which nomi- nation, accompanied by the necessary proofs of the amount of support it has received, shall be reported to the District Committee, and through that Committee confirmed by the General Committee. The endowment will be held only for life or during good behaviour, and on deprivation or death it will revert to the educational fund of the State until the appointment of a successor. Deprivation will take place on complaint of not less than one-fourth of the landowners, tenants, and householders of the village, the sufficiency and validity of the complaint being ascer- tained by the actual investigation of an ameen or agent deputed by the District Committee for the purpose, and his decision being confirmed by that Committee after perusing the recorded evidence of both parties and the report of the ameen on the whole. To obtain the means of estimat- ing the utility of every school compared with the actual wants of the village population, and to keep up a general control and superintendence over the village school association, and through that association over the village school and schoolmaster, a list of children belonging to the village above five and below fourteen years of age should be required every year or every half year from the village association by the District Committee and transmitted to the General Committee, together with a list of daily attendance at the school to be signed by the master and [ 169 ] certified every month by the committee of the village association. It may perhaps be proper to mention that when I speak here of a village, I mean an Asli village with its attached Dakhili villages, together equi- valent to an English parish or French commune. The Asli village, as the name imports, is the original one from which the others have sprung. The Dakhili villages, as the name also imports, are those subdivisions of the village-lands which have been entered separately in the Revenue records, although still belonging to the village and contained within its boundaries. The Dakhili villages or hamlets are called variously in different districts, para, chak, bhag, danga, dihi, dighi, digha, khali, bati, bari, ghat, ganj, kalpa, &c. with some other name prefixed. They are generally inhabited but sometimes merely denote a proprietary distinc- tion of lands. The Asli and Dakhili villages together usually contain from 1,000 to 1,500 inhabitants ; and if, according to the calculation in page 107 founded on the population returns contained in Chapter First Section XIII. of this Report, we take the average number of children between 14 and 5 to be about 20 per cent., it follows that in such a cluster of villages and hamlets there will be from two to three hundred children of the teachable age, affording ample scope and remuneration for the labours of one teacher. I hope also that it will appear to others, as it does to me, that the village-community, wherever it can be brought to act, is the proper authority for watching over the endowment and enforcing its conditions. I am indeed by no means sanguine that it will be easy to induce the villagers to combine and to act for such a purpose when and where we please, but every facility and encourage- ment to such associations should be given, and the attempt should be steadily and unweariedly prosecuted, for upon its success would depend an incalculable amount of good to the country. Such associations ori- ginally formed for school-purposes and effectually contributing to their accomplishment would gradually and almost necessarily grow into nuclei of public spirit and organs for its expression in various ways and for various purposes ; for the purposes of municipal government, village police, local improvement, and statistical knowledge. In time of danger from without or difficulty from within they would be chains of posts intersecting the country in all directions and affording ready and faith- ful instruments of communication and co-operation. At the present moment (April 2, 1838) in the absence of such instruments how helpless both the Government and the public feel themselves to be, in their attempts to alleviate the frightful famine which afflicts the Western Provinces or even to know the extent to which it exists in the interior [ 170 ] parts of districts remote from the dwellings of public functionaries and European settlers ! Many of these details relating to the administration of village-school endowments will probably require to be modified in practice but they are mentioned here that the various bearings of the question may be better understood. I shall now attempt briefly to indicate some of the principal sources from each of which, to a greater or less extent, the means of establishing the proposed endowments may be gradually derived. The first source is the Khas Mehals of Government. In the two provinces of Bengal and Behar, in which the land-revenue is for the most part permanently settled and limited, there are in every district or in almost every district estates called by the above name belonging in full and entire propriety to Government. Government is the landlord, the sole and exclusive owner, of those estates, just as much as any nobleman in England is of the estates which he has inherited free of debt or entail from his ancestors. The farmers and cultivators of those estates are Government tenants with varying periods and conditions of lease. The managers who have to treat with the tenants are Govern- ment servants specially appointed for the purpose. The entire net pro- duce is the property of Government, and Government is consequently subject to all the liabilities and responsibilities attaching to a large and wealthy landed proprietor. It is not necessary to advert here to the modes in which Government has come to retain or assume this character in the settled provinces ; nor does my information enable me to state the number and extent of the estates so held, although it is undoubted that they are considerable in both respects, and it is believed that they are not distinguished in any way from estates held by private proprietors for improved modes of management or cultivation or for the superior character and comforts of the cultivators. All that is requisite to my present object is to bring distinctly into view the fact that such estates exist and to suggest that here, if any where, a beginning may be made in the attempt to give a permanent character by means of small endow- ments to an improved system of village-schools. If the importance of the object is admitted, the community will naturally look to Government to afford proofs of its advantages on the Government estates and to set an example of liberality. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the mode in which those estates are managed to point out the way in which such [ 171 ] an object may be most conveniently, economically, and efficiently attain- ed ; but many friends of native education are competent to furnish such information when it shall be required. The renewal of leases will afford an opportunity of setting apart for this purpose a few bighas of the lands of each village with a deduction so inconsiderable from the rent payable by the farmer as to be scarcely perceived, and to be hereafter more than compensated by the pecuniary as well as moral benefits which an improved system of instruction will bring in its train. Whatever the mode adopted of carrying it into effect, the principle I propose is that Government should make it legally obligatory on itself to establish such endowments in the villages of Khas estates subject to all the provisions, conditions, and limitations before described. This may be done not only with little cost to the state but with great administrative facility in consequence of the existence of a distinct class of public offi- cers who are charged with the management of those estates. After setting such an example, it is worthy of consideration whether Government might, not only without difficulty or offence but with honour and credit to itself, look to the endowed establishments of the country for similar arrangements on their estates and enact that they shall be in like manner legally obligatory under the provisions aforesaid. The most important of these are religious establishments with which no inter- ference for religious purposes can be justified. To prevent misappre- hension therefore and to guide to the adoption of views likely to obtain practical effect, I shall quote here the opinions which I find expressed by the Bengal Government and by the Court of Directors. In a Revenue letter from Bengal on the affairs of Cuttack, dated the 30th March 1821 and contained in the Revenue and Judicial Selections, Vol. III. pp. 68 90, the Bengal Government expresses its sentiments to the following effect : " It appears to us to be doubtful whether it be advisable for the officers of Government to interfere to give effect to endowments purely of a religious nature ; and we can scarcely consider it a matter of public interest to prevent the appropriation by individuals (Mussulman or layman) of rents designed to support the servants of a Hindoo temple or idol. The right of Government to do so is undoubted. In some cases where useful objects are combined with purposes of reli- gion, the exercise of the power may be a public duty ; and if any class or community interested in maintaining an endowment shall complain of the misappropriation, it is of course our duty to see that the wrong done is [ 172 ] redressed though the ground of complaint may be founded on prejudice and superstition. Farther than this \ve are little disposed to go ; for the misappropriations, though abusive, appear to us, in regard to most of the institutions in question, to be of rather good than ill consequence to the public, and the nature of the institution is such that it is always difficult for an European officer to touch without injuring them." p. 79, paras. 99101. The Court of Directors in a Revenue Letter to the Bengal Govern- ment dated 10th December 1823, in reply to the preceding paragraphs, thus writes : " We concur in most of the sentiments which you have expressed upon this subject. When alienated by a competent authority you doubt if they" (lands held free for the support of religious institu- tions) " could be resumed for the purposes of Government even though the revenue of them should be found to be misapplied. We think how- ever that you may justly make an exception where forfeiture has been legally incurred by neglect of the condition on which the grant was made. In other cases we agree with you that it can scarcely be regarded as a matter of public interest to interfere. * The misappropriations,' you say, * though abusive,' appear to you, and we doubt not justly, ' in regard to most of the institutions in question, to be rather of good than ill conse- quence to the public.' One thing however in such cases is always worthy of attention, and that is, the inquiry whether to objects of little or no utility which thus may have an expenditure devoted to them, might net be annexed other objects really beneficial ; WHETHER GOOD INSTITU- TIONS OF EDUCATION, for example, might not be combined with the ser- vices performed to an idol and even in some cases whether the useful objects might not quietly and without offence be substituted for the use- less. It was highly proper that you should issue orders for an accurate account of the extent and nature of the lands thus appropriated. When that is before you (and we desire its communication to us) it will be more perfectly seen in what way any endeavour can be made to derive, from such a fund some general advantage." Selections, Vol. III. p. 96, paras. 33, 34. Again, the Court in a Revenue letter to the Madras Government dated 29th September 1824, after referring to various recorded proceedings of the local government relating to the temples of the natives and the con- trol exercised or proper to be exercised by government, remarks : " The questions connected with this subject are both delicate and impor- [ '73 ] tant ; but we are sorry to perceive from the documents before us that so little of order has hitherto been established, and that the proceedings of government have been so little regulated by any settled principle. The difficulty is how to interfere so as to prevent the misapplication of the funds to mischievous purposes, without exciting the religious jealousies of the people. But yet we doubt not that a line of conduct may be drawn, by which, without infringing on religious liberty or interfering with the most jealous scruples of the people, not only evil where it exists may be avoided, but something useful^ ESPECIALLY IN THE SHAPE OF EDUCATION, may be connected with the expenditure of the revenues, often very large, of the native temples." Selections, Vol. III. p. 596, para. 1. It is probable from these extracts that any measure which would have the effect of peaceably drawing forth the resources of these religious establishments, to however limited an extent, for the promotion of edu- cation, would receive the sanction of the Honourable Court. The Government and the people have strong claims upon them for strenuous co-operation in prosecuting such an object, provided always that nothing shall be mixed up with that object inconsistent with their charac- ter as religious institutions. The wealthy religious communities, for example, at Kali Ghat in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, at Deoghur in Beerbhoom, at Gya and Bauddha Gya in South Behar, are bound as such, in return for the perfect religious freedom they enjoy and even in some instances for the peculiar privileges they possess, to be fellow- workers with Government in providing for the better instruc- tion of the people an object which is not only good in itself, but which is specially incumbent on them as religious communities for the main- tenance and improvement of that social order under which they live, and of which religion, its institutions, and its ministers are the proper securities and guards. It matters not whether such an obligation would at first be admitted : if it exists, it belongs to Government to make it be heard, felt, and recognized. The voice of the Government in such a matter would be responded to by that of the people whose claims on these religious bodies are no less strong. They have derived all their accumulated wealth from the offerings of the people, they profess to exist for the benefit of the people, and the people from the depths of their poverty and ignorance have a right to look to the spiritual guides whom they have enriched and raised above themselves for something more than empty forms and ceremonies, some practical knowledge and moral instruction. Such an object however must be sought not only [ 174 ] " without infringing on religious liberty," but also without " interfering with the most jealous scruples of the people." All fears on this head must be removed by the terms of the suggestion I have offered accord- ing to which a requisition of three-fourths of the householders, &c. of a village is necessary to create the legal obligation on the proprietor of the estate to establish the proposed endowment of a village schoolmaster. I have no means of ascertaining with accuracy the extent of landed property belonging to those religious establishments, but according to common report it is considerable. In Beerbhoom it was stated to me that the priesthood of Deoghur possess estates not only at Deoghur, Sarhaut, and Giddari in that district, but also in the districts of Bhaugulpore, Patna, Tirhoot, Moorshedabad, and Burdwan, and even in Nepal, a foreign country. I would apply the principle, not only to the landed estates of Hindoo temples but also to those of public endowed institutions wherever they are to be found, whether Hindoo or Buddhist, Mohammadan or Christian. The Mohammadan institution at Kusbeh Bagha in Rajshahi has 42 villages, in each of which a vernacular school might thus be established. The Calcutta Madrasa is reputed to possess landed property. At Bohar and Chaughariya in the Burdwan district and at Durbhanga in Tirhoot there are Mohammadan institutions largely endowed. Serampore College has an estate in the Sunderbuns ; and there may be other endowed Christian institutions, Protestant, Catholic, Armenian, Greek, possessing similar property in the mofussil. If any, then all without exception, should be required by law under similar circumstances to aid Government in its endeavours to extend instruction to those classes whose labour gives value to the entire property of the country, and whose improvement will be its best safe-guard and pro- tection. Another source from which such endowments may be anticipated is the voluntary contributions of wealthy Zemindars, whether called forth by a sincere desire to benefit their dependent countrymen, or by the prospect of those honours and distinctions which Government can bes- tow, or by a combination of both motives. Who can doubt that when Government shall engage with earnestness and on a large scale in the work of instructing the people, the example will light up into a flame many a generous feeling which would otherwise be smouldering in its native seat, unseen arid unknown, unblessing and unblest? I will not attempt to enumerate the benefactions that within my own recollection during the last twenty years have flowed from the liberality of native [ 175 ] gentlemen. Roads have been constructed, bridges built, and other public works executed. They are at this moment joining heart and hand with the European community for the relief of the Western Provinces ; they have established at their own expense and in some instances teach by their own labour English schools for the intellectual advancement of their countrymen ; and they have from time to time placed large sums at the disposal of the Committee of Public Instruction for the objects of that body. No one can regret that their public spirit and philan- thropy have taken these directions, but the greatest triumphs of native benevolence remain yet to be achieved in raising the body of their coun- trymen from the debasement of slaves and serfs to the knowledge, the self-respect, and the self-dependence of free men, and all that has been yet accomplished is only a pledge of what the native gentry can do, what they are ready to do, and what they will do, when the path is pointed out to them and the lead is taken by Government in the adoption of measures for the general education of the people. In the distribution of civil honours to those who deserve well of Government and of society let special regard be had to all who shall make adequate provision for the education of the ryots on their estates, and a rich harvest of good to the country may be expected to spring up. I do not anticipate the want of endowments for schoolmasters so much as of qualified school- masters to take possession of the endowments which intelligent and wealthy Zemindars will be found prepared to create for them. There are numerous small landed tenures throughout the country, neither included in the Khas Mehals of Government, nor in the estates of endowed establishments, nor in the large zemindaries, but which con- stitute in the aggregate a very large proportion of the landed property of the country. They are for the most part owned by those who in revenue language are called dependent and independent talookdars, i. e. small landed proprietors who pay the revenue due from them to Govern- ment dependency or through a large proprietor, and those who pay it in- dependently or direct to the officers of Government without the inter- vention of any other party. Most of these small proprietors are pro- bably unable without inconvenience to endow a schoolmaster in each village at their own sole expense, but they would in a majority of instances be found both able and willing to contribute their aid towards such an object, and some means must be devised for drawing it forth, some channel formed through which it may flow. What is want- ing on their part must be supplied by Government and therefore some [ '76 ] limit must be fixed to ascertain those who will be entitled to the assis- tance which it is proposed that Government should bestow. For the sake of illustration, without pretending to be able to judge what the precise limit ought to be, I will suppose that those only who pay less than 1000 rupees per annum of land revenue to Government will receive the advantage, while all above that standard will be held competent to provide for the instruction of their ryots from their own unaided resources. Having fixed this or any other standard it is proposed that any one talookdar, dependent or independent, paying revenue under the standard, or any number of talookdars, putneedars, &c. in Bengal, or of village zemindars, maliks, &c. in Behar, who shall establish a village-school en- dowment with the prescribed guaranties, shall be entitled to claim from Government a remission of one-half of the annual revenue due on ac- count of the land so endowed, it being always understood that the net produce of the total quantity of land endowed shall be equivalent to one-half only of the average income of village-schoolmasters in the district in which the village is situated. Thus, if sixty rupees per annum is the average income, one-half of that sum will continue to be provided by fees and perquisites, and one-half will be provided by en- dowment. Of the latter, one moiety will consist of revenue remitted by Government to the extent of fifteen rupees per annum and the other moiety only will be contributed by the small proprietors. I am assured by intelligent natives that this remission of revenue would prove a power- ful stimulus to the small proprietors and would inspire them with confi- dence in the good intentions of the Government and affection for those who administer it. There are various modifications under which this arrangement may take effect, but it is not necessary to my present pur- pose to do more than indicate the general principle. All these resources, even if they succeed to a great extent, may also fail in numerous instances from the apathy, the ignorance, and the poverty of those most interested ; but there will still remain means at the command of Government which cannot be applied to a more legiti- mate purpose. First : A sum of one hundred thousand rupees is by act of the Imperial Parliament devoted to the encouragement of learning in British India, but I am not aware that any portion of this sum has hitherto been employed in the education of the poor through the medium of their own language. Can it be applied to a more needful or a fitter [ 177 ] purpose ? Half the amount would annually purchase 166 endowments for qualified village schoolmasters, each worth thirty rupees per annum and bought at ten years' purchase. Second: Considerable sums of money have from time to time been placed by wealthy natives at the disposal of Government for the general purposes of public improvement or of public instruction without any more specific appropriation ; and there can be little doubt that similar sums will continue to be bestowed. May it not be hoped that the sums which have been or may be received in this way will henceforth obtain in whole or in part a destination suited to the most urgent wants of the country and be applied to the instruction of the poor and ignorant, those who are too ignorant to understand the evils of ignorance, and too poor, even if they did, to be able to remove the cause that produces them? Third: Instructions have been issued to the officers engaged in the prosecution of the measures for the resumption of Lakhiraj tenures liable to assessment, to report every case that may come under their cognizance in which lands or money have been granted for purposes connected with education, whether falling under the operation of the resumption laws or not. What the effect of these instructions which were issued in September 1836 may have been or may yet be, I have not had the means of ascertaining except in one district, that of South Behar, where according to a statement furnished by Mr. Keid, the Deputy Collector, under date the 30th January 1837, the num- ber of endowments appears to be considerable granted for the joint be- nefit of fakeers, poor travellers, and scholars, but now almost all alleged to be converted to the private uses of the heirs of the grantees or their assigns. The same state of things will probably be found to exist in, other districts. In what instances or to what extent these endowments may now be deemed applicable to the purposes of village education it is not for me to judge; but, if found legitimately applicable, the benefit would be great. Seven tenures of this description of which the details are contained in the statement above-mentioned, include an area of 4539 bighas which at the low average rate of one rupee per bigha would afford the means of establishing in one district 151 such village- school endowments as I have proposed. A remark reported to me in that district as made by a person whose Lakhiraj tenure had been assessed under the resumption-laws may help to shew the way [ 178 ] in which the subject would be regarded by the people. He lamented the loss of property he had sustained and added that even in this loss there would have been some remaining ground of satisfaction, if the amount of assessment, instead of being absorbed into the general revenue of the country, had been devoted to the purposes of edu- cation to which in part at least it had been hitherto applied. I must add however that the education which this person had pro- bably in view was not vernacular, but Persian and Arabic education. Fourth: If all other resources fail, there is still one left, the general revenue of the country on which the poor and the ignorant have a primary claim, a claim which is second to no other whatsoever, for from whence is that revenue derived but from the bones and the sinews, the toil and sweat of those whose cause I am pleading ? Shall 10,000 continue to be the sole permanent appropriation from a revenue of more than twenty millions sterling for the education of nearly a hundred mil- lions of people ? By these means and from these sources I propose to qualify a body of vernacular teachers, to raise their character and provide for their support, and to give a gradual, a permanent, and a general establishment to a system of common schools. Without competent instructors all efforts at educational improvement must be futile, and I have therefore directed my principal attention in all that has yet been advanced to the means of making and keeping them efficient. With this view, according to the plan now sketched, teachers will not only be taught but provision will be made for their subsistence. They will feel that to the extent of at least one-half of an average income they are dependent during good behaviour on Government, the common trustee of all the endowments that may be created for this purpose ; and to the extent of the remaining half upon the degree of repute and acceptance they enjoy in the village communities to which they attach themselves. The recommendation of those communities will be essential to the enjoyment even of the former moiety and their well-founded complaints should be sufficient to ensure deprivation. If, as I anticipate, the co-operation of the village com- munities in this object shall have the effect in time of eliciting public spirit and awakening and directing proper domestic and social feeling, the appointment and displacing of teachers should be vested in them, and ultimately the power of imposing a common rate upon all house- holders in substitution of unequal and uncertain school fees and perqui- [ '79 ] sites. In fine, I look to these village communities, if wisely estimated and treated by Government, as the germs from which the real prosperity of the country must spring, local and municipal improvement and efficient district and provincial administration. If I were to stop here and to obtain the sanction of Government and the co-operation of the native community to accomplish the views now propounded I should hope that a sure foundation would thus be laid for a national system of education. But something else may be done to facilitate the operation of the plan, to extend the improved instruction, and to stimulate and aid the teachers in the interval before they can be- come eligible to hold a village-school endowment. That interval will probably extend to a period of four years which will be occupied in ac- quiring a knowledge of the series of school-books, and in passing through a course of Normal instruction. But the vernacular schoolmasters are poor men, and they must teach as well as learn, nor will they learn the less successfully because their circumstances compel them to make imme- diate use from year to year of the new knowledge they acquire. What is proposed then is to devise some means of assisting and encouraging them in the exercise of their profession, some means not merely of im- proving their qualifications but of extending the utility of the in- struments thus obtained and fashioned. For this purpose I must revert to the point at which it was assumed that on the occasion of the first periodical examination a body of native teachers had established their competency in the first book which had been put into their hands six months before, and had received the second volume of the series of school-books in which they were invited to qua- lify themselves still further. I have proposed also on the same occasion to give to each approved teacher on loan and for the use of his scholars from three to twelve copies of the first book of the series, with the en- gagement on his part to produce six months thereafter from three to twelve pupils, according to the number of copies, thoroughly instructed in its contents and capable of standing a searching examination similar to that through which the teacher himself has passed. The inducements to accept and employ these copies are various. First : they are offered on loan, not to the scholars, but to the teacher who may sell the use of the books as well as his own instructions to the scholars or their parents and thus increase his emoluments. Second : they will become the abso- lute property of the teacher for future similar use only by producing an t 180 ] equal number of instructed scholars. Third : the teacher will receive a corresponding number of copies of the second book of the series on loan and for the use of scholars, only if he shall be found to have made a proper use of those copies of the first received for the same purpose. Fourth: one of the qualifications for an endowment is that the teacher shall have instructed six scholars per annum in some one of the books of the series in such a manner as shall enable them to sustain an exami- nation; and to strengthen this inducement and insure justice, the name, age, and caste of the teacher whose scholars have passed, their and his place of residence, the book in which they have qualified themselves, and the date of their examination should be recorded. Fifth: a strong addition- al motive might be presented to the teacher by offering him one rupee for every instructed scholar produced not exceeding six or twelve ; but for the reasons already assigned I would, if possible, avoid money-pay- ments. Sixth : the scholars will be attracted to the study of the book by the higher price which their parents will have to pay for their in- struction, by the curiosity and pleasure which new and useful knowledge will inspire, and by the love of display which a public examination will gratify. An honourable ambition may be still further gratified by the formal registry of their names, designations, and places of residence, as those of approved students of the first, second, third, or fourth class, according to the number of the series in which they have been examin- ed ; and, on grounds to be immediately explained, by making the fourth class eligible to a course of instruction in the English School of the district. At the second periodical examination those teachers who had in whole or ia part fulfilled the purpose for which the books were given would produce their pupils for examination. To give the Examiner time it may perhaps appear to be desirable that not more than six pupils of one teacher should be pronounced qualified ; but if one or more of the six produced shall not stand the examination, he may be permitted to bring forward one or more to the extent of six to be substituted for them. By this means not more than twelve scholars of the same teacher can be examined at the same time and not more than six of those twelve can be finally approved. If the number who shall successfully pass through the examination be less than six, for the actual number only should the teacher receive credit. If the number of the scholars and the competition of the teachers should be great, only the highest qualifications of the scholar should he recognised. If the [ 181 ] number is small and the competition feeble, a lower standard of qualifi- cation must be admitted; and according to the discretion of the Examiner some consideration should be shown for those teachers who appear to have bestowed a great deal of labour upon their scholars without any very successful result. At the next and subsequent examinations, the same course will be pursued as at the former with such modifications as increasing experi- ence will suggest and the nature of the text-book forming the subject of examination may require. If the plan should go into full operation there will ultimately be as many classes of teachers and as many classes of scholars to be examined at one time as there are kinds of books distributed, and in this state of things the Examiners will enjoy no sinecure. But the number of teachers necessary in a district will soon be filled up, and gradually the class of teachers will come to be composed of those who have already as scholars passed through the requisite examinations and whose claim on this ground to be recognised as approved teachers may be at once decided by a reference to the Examiner's own records. The old race of schoolmasters will thus gradually pass away and be succeeded by a race trained from the beginning under the operation of the new system. It will thus happen that by the operation of the system itself the expenditure on account of it will be lessened, and its efficiency at the same time increased, leaving the whole of the funds to be applied to the extension and consolidation of the plan by carrying it into new districts or provinces, by increasing the number of scholars in the same districts or provinces, by enlarging generally the course of instruction, or by establishing more numerous or more ample endowments until the various classes and grades of native society shall know all that it is important to their own welfare and to the prosperity and good order of society that they should be taught. The general effect of this training upon the face of society, if steadily pursued, will be to increase intelligence, enterprise, and morality; to make the people better acquainted with their own interests and with the legitimate means of protecting and promoting them ; and, I confi- dently believe and hope, to attach them by gratitude and affection to the European rulers of the country as their real friends and benefactors. It is not however to be denied that such a system of popular instruction will in the higher order of minds excite more ambitious aspirations [ 182 ] than it can gratify, aspirations which if not gratified may ferment into discontent or degenerate into crime. To maximize the certain good and to minimize the possible evil, an opening must be made out of the narrow circle of a native education into the wider scope for tali -nt and for ambition afforded by an English education. In the present cir- cumstances of the country the knowledge of English is for the native aspirant the grand road to distinction ; and its attainment opens to him the prospect of office, wealth, and influence. To draw therefore the best and noblest spirits into close and friendly communication with ourselves, and to employ them for the greatest good of the country, I propose that those scholars who shall successfully pass through an examination in the highest vernacular class book shall receive a special certificate declaring them entitled, whenever a vacancy may occur, to receive admission into the English School of the district. The first effect of this will be to im- prove the working of the native part of the system by stimulating the vernacular scholars to zeal and industry since a course of native instruc- tion must be completed before eligibility to the English School can be recognised. The second effect will be to improve the working of the English part of the system by furnishing a constant and abundant supply of candidates whose minds have at an early age been expanded by a libe- ral course of native instruction ; whereas at present much of the atten- tion of English teachers in district schools is frittered away in teaching the mere elements of the English language to children who are unin- structed in their own mother tongue. In suggesting this plan of vernacular instruction my chief hope is, not to obtain an unqualified assent to my views and recommendations, but to rescue the subject from mere generalities and to present something definite and tangible to Government and the public, either to approve or disapprove, to adopt, to alter, or to reject. I am far from supposing that the plan is liable to no objections, will be attended with no difficulties, and will require no modifications. The grand and primary objection is one that would apply to all pro- jects whatsoever of a similar tendency, viz. the dangerous consequence to our power in this country from imparting instruction to the natives. This objection cannot be better answered than in the words of Sir Charles Metcalfe contained in his Report on the Revenue of the Territory of Delhi dated 4th Sept. 1815. After describing and recommending a par- ticular system of revenue settlements which would have the effect of [ 183 ] improving the condition of the village zemindars and conferring benefits on them not enjoyed by the cultivators living under former or present native governments, he adds : " It is perhaps impossible to foresee all the remote effects of such a system, and there may be those who would argue that it is injudicious to establish such a system which by exciting a free and independent character may possibly lead at a future period to dangerous consequences. There does not appear to be sufficient reason to apprehend any evil consequences even at a remote period from the introduction of this system. It rather seems that the establishment of such advantages for the bulk of our subjects ought to attach them to the Government which confers the benefit. But even supposing the remote possibility of the evil consequences which may be apprehended, that would not be a sufficient reason for withholding any advantages from our subjects. Similar objections have been urged against our attempting to promote the education of our native subjects, but how unworthy it would be of a liberal Government to give weight to such objections ! The world is governed by an irresistible power which giveth and taketh away dominion, and vain would be the impotent prudence of man against the operations of its almighty influence. All that rulers can do is to merit dominion by pro- moting the happiness of those under them. If we perform our duty in this respect, the gratitude of India and the admiration of the world will accompany our name through all ages, whatever may be the revolu- tions of futurity ; but if we withhold blessings from our subjects from a selfish apprehension of possible danger at a remote period, we shall not deserve to keep our dominion, we shall merit that reverse which time has possibly in store for us, and shall fall with the mingled hatred and con- tempt, hisses and execrations of mankind. These remarks are offered in reply to objections which may be and have been urged against our conferring on our Indian subjects the blessings of Independence and Education. My own opinion is that the more blessings we confer on them, the better hold we shall have on their affections, and in conse- quence the greater strength and duration to our empire. It is for the wisdom of Government to decide whether this expectation is visionary or founded on reason." May these burning words produce their full effect until not an Eng- lishman shall be found in India or out of India, who will not be anxious to acknowledge that it is equally the duty and the interest of the British Government to improve and instruct its native subjects ! The political [ '84 ] power which rests on the affections of its subjects may be likened to the "wise man who built his house upon a rock, and the rain descended, and the streams came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock." The political power which rests on the ignorance of its subjects may be likened to the " foolish man who built his house on the sand, and the rains descended, and the streams came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell, and the fall of it was great." The next objection may be held to apply to the expense of the plan and on this topic various considerations may be suggested. It would be very satisfactory to me if I could state within what precise limits the expense will be confined ; but it must be evident that in a country so vast arid populous, where so very little has been done, and where so much remains to be accomplished, where so much must be hoped and so little may be obtained from the co-operation of the native community, any such estimate would be deceptive. One thing, however, is certain that, if this or any similar plan is adopted, Government must lay its account with incurring first a small, then a gradually increasing, and ultimately a considerable expenditure for the purpose, since it is in fact the creation of a new department of administration to be in time extend- ed over the whole country. Another thing next to certain is that, in proportion as the plan is extended, it will have a direct effect in advan- cing the prosperity of the country and an indirect effect in lessening the expense of governing it.. But although it is impossible to know at pre- sent the cost of the plan when it shall be in full operation yet I find it equally impossible to conceive any plan that shall afford a reasonable prospect of effecting so much good with so small an expenditure of means; for in any given district, by means of an educational survey, the appointment of an Examiner, and the distribution of a few books, it proposes to call forth and set at work an infinite complication of hopes and fears, desires, ambitions, and activities on the part of parents, teachers, and scholars, all aiming at the same object and tending to the same end, the giving and receiving of instruction. Let us endeavour, however, without pretending to strict accuracy, to ascertain the cost of the experiment continued in a single district during a period of four years, arid for this purpose we must look at every item of expense separately. The first item will consist of the Examiner's salary and allowances. I propose that for the first four years he shall have a salary of 100 [ 185 ] rupees per month and an allowance of 50 rupees per month for establish- ment, stationery, and travelling expenses. This will be an expenditure of 1,800 rupees per annum. The second item of expense will be occasioned by the survey of the district to be conducted under the direction of the Examiner. I will suppose that the district contains eighteen thanas ; that a census both of the population and of schools is to be extended over the whole district ; that five waqifkars will be requisite for each thana ; that each waqifkar will receive ten rupees per month, including salary and allowances of every kind ; and that the survey will occupy three months. The total expenditure will be 2,700 rupees, but as the benefit of the survey will be diffused over the whole period of four years, this is equivalent to an expenditure of 675 rupees per annum. The third item of expense is that of books. I have no means of judg- ing what the cost of preparation will be and I can but conjecture what will be the cost of printing since the books are not yet written. In gross, however, let us suppose that the total cost to Government will be covered by two rupees per copy ; and even this probably will be found in excess of the ultimate cost, if Government retain the copyright and stereotype the works. Suppose further that twenty-five teachers will appear as successful candidates in each thana or four hundred and fifty in the whole district and that each will receive one book for himself and six for his scholars in the year. That number will cost Government 6,300 rupees per annum. ii^liijbjLJ ... :& A fourth item of expense may be found in the advantage of having an Inspector for the number of districts included in a division to aid, advise, direct, and control the Examiners, and to see generally that no- thing is wanting to give efficiency to the plan. I would propose to give this officer a salary of 400 rupees per month and 100 rupees per month for establishment, stationery, and travelling expenses. This will amount to 6,000 rupees per annum for a division, and assuming that the division contains five districts, it will be equivalent to 1,200 rupees per annum for each district. The total expenditure for one district will thus be 9,975 rupees per annum or 831 rupees per month, and for a division containing five dis- tricts 4,155 rupees per month, a sum less than many European servants z [ 186 ] of Government derive individually from the public revenue, and yet with this small sum small in comparison of the good to be effected might a foundation be laid for infusing fresh moral and intellectual life into seven or eight millions of an impoverished, debased, and neglected population. Exclusive of fundamental objections to the principle or the cost of the measure, practical difficulties may arise some of which perhaps I do not now anticipate. Difficulty, for instance, may be experienced in conse- quence of the proposed exclusive employment of native agency which may convey the impression to the native community that the object is one in which Government feels little interested, and unless means are em- ployed to counteract such an impression it may paralyze every exertion that the Inspector and Examiners may make. One means that may be suggested would be the publication in some authentic form of the senti- ments and intentions of Government and of its expectations of native co- operation, embodied in a resolution, declaration, or address which would receive general circulation in all the English and native newspapers. The names and appointments of the Inspectors and Examiners should be published in the Gazette, giving them an official status of respectability. The Commissioner of the Division and the Magistrate of the District should be instructed to give them support and countenance in every legi- timate way, as was before suggested ; and in like manner the proposed publication in the Gazette of the results of the periodical examinations would have a beneficial effect. A practical danger to which the efficiency of the measure may be ex- posed will arise from the want of a vigilant, prompt, and efficient super- intendence exercised over the Examiners. To supply such a superinten- dence I have proposed the appointment of an Inspector for all the dis- tricts of a division. His duty would be generally to give efficiency to the plan, to counsel and guide the Examiners, to receive and transmit their reports with his own observations, and the instructions of the Gene- ral Committee for their guidance, and further to aid Collectors of Khas Mehals, zemindars on their estates, and talookdars, maliks, and ryots in villages in organizing the proposed village-institutions with the endowments for their permanent support. The Inspectors and Examiners will be placed under the authority of the General Com- mittee of Public Instruction. As the mainspring of the whole machi- nery will be found in this body, I trust that my anxiety for the success of a measure from which, if adopted, much good may arise, will [ 187 ] not be interpreted in a sense disrespectful to the Committee through which this Report is forwarded to Government, if I add that its constitution does not appear adapted to a purpose which was not contemplated when it was originally formed and since re-modelled. The number of individuals composing the Committee, the fact that with the exception of the Secretary their services are gratuitous and occasional, and that all the members without exception including the Secretary have other weighty duties to perform, must make it at least doubtful whether they can exercise a constant and systematic superin- tendence over an extended scheme of national instruction. With the most cordial co-operation on the part of Government and its functionaries, and with the most vigorous superintendence by the General Committee of Public Instruction and by Inspectors, much will depend upon the selection of Examiners. If well qualified they will make up for many deficiencies elsewhere ; but nothing will compensate for the absence of intelligence, energy, honesty, and discretion on their part. They should be competent to understand and appreciate the ob- ject of Government, and to engage in promoting it with zeal untainted by fanaticism and with calmness that shall not degenerate into apathy. They should be thoroughly instructed in the subject-matter of the series of school-books, and possessed of integrity and firmness to require, in resistance both to the reproaches and blandishments of unworthy candi- dates, the degree of qualification which shall alone entitle to reward and distinction. The emoluments of the office should be fixed at such an amount as will present an immediate object of ambition to the class from, which the Examiners will chiefly be drawn ; and they should be so gra- duated as to afford the prospect of promotion, and thus stimulate to the discharge of duty and operate as a check upon misconduct or neglect. With these views I have proposed that the Examiners should receive for the first four years of service a consolidated allowance of 150 rupees per month, and I now add that they should receive for the second four years a corresponding allowance of 200 rupees per month, and for the third four years 250 rupees per month, after which an Examiner shall be eligible to be appointed an Inspector of a Division with a consolidated allowance of 500 rupees per month. Promotion from one grade to another should of course be made to depend on good conduct in the preceding grade ; and it should always be given if possible in the same district and division. No arrangements will afford security in every case against the possibility of malversation, but those now proposed [ 188 1 will, I should hope, in most instances command the honourable and industrious exertions of qualified natives. Having noticed the objections to which the measure may be deemed liable, and the difficulties with which it may be attended, I must be permitted to advert to some of the advantages by which it is recom- mended. The primary advantage is the coincidence of the plan with all existing institutions of education. It introduces the metropolitan organ of Go- vernment, the General Committee of Public Instruction, to new and higher duties than any which have yet engaged its attention, but to none inconsistent with those which it has hitherto discharged. The district English schools or colleges and the vernacular departments attached to them will be extended, their scholars multiplied, and their efficiency increased. The native schools will have a new life infused into them, the qualifications of schoolmasters and the attainments of scholars will be raised, and a more anxious desire will be produced amongst parents that their children should enjoy this improved instruction. The plan does not come into collision with indigenous elementary schools or with the interests of the teachers. On the contrary, it enlists them all in the race of improvement and establishes the most friendly relations with them. The leading idea upon which the plan is framed is that of building on the foundations which the people themselves have laid and of employing them on the scaffolding and outworks so that when they shall see the noble superstructure rising, and finally raised complete in all its parts, they will almost, if not altogether, believe it to be the work of their own hands. The plan will thus maintain the most perfect congruity with existing national institutions and at the same time admit of the gradual expansion and improvement which European civilization demands. Another recommendation of the plan is the simplicity of the means employed. The Examiner with his books and' his public examinations is the prime agent, both giving and prolonging the impulse. For this purpose he will not as in other cases have to follow the schoolmasters and the scholars into their villages, their huts, and their school-rooms ; to reprove into order and quiet the noisy irregularity of the teacher ; to guide in detail the desultory labours of the scholar ; and to stimulate to some effort or sacrifice the stolid ignorance of the parent. If the [ 189 ] plan work at all, it will make parents, scholars, and schoolmasters all alike ambitious to earn the distinctions and rewards which it holds out. It contains within itself a self-acting principle which only requires to be directed and controlled. It is perhaps an effect of this simplicity, but still a separate and distinct advantage, that the plan, whether tried on a large or on a small scale and whether fully successful or not successful to the extent anti- cipated, can be productive only of good unmixed with evil. It may be introduced into new districts as they are found prepared for it, or it may be discontinued without injury or injustice in any district where it has been found to work unsatisfactorily, provided always that all promises and engagements shall be faithfully performed. The good done will be certain and Government may either extend, contract, or abandon the plan without embarrassing any native institution, but on the contrary leaving those who have been influenced by it with an increased power of self-dependence. Instead of considering the expense an objection, the plan will be found economical when compared with the completeness and diffu- siveness of the effect. The expense of a school is made up of various items, the cost of a school-house and its furniture, the pay of the teacher, the price of pens, ink, leaves, paper, and books, and, if the institution is a Government one, the charge for superintendence. In ordinary cases much of this apparatus produces no distinct or appre- ciable result. Of any given number of scholars, say 100, who engage in a particular course of study, perhaps not more than 50 generally ac- quire a satisfactory proficiency. The incapacity and negligence of both teachers and scholars cause a great waste of time, of labour, and of money ; and even the successful student is successful with a much greater consumption of these means than is indispensable. The economy of the plan now submitted is that, in respect of time, of labour, and of money, it throws all the expense of many of the prelimi- naries of education and of all inefficient study and instruction upon parents, teachers, and scholars ; and that it bestows the resources of Government only in reward of efficient study, for the production of the actual and perfect result of successful instruction, and for such apparatus as is necessary to prove that this result has been attained. The effect also will be more general than might at first appear. Let it be supposed [ 190 ] that in a district of eighteen thanas, twenty-five schoolmasters in each thana will annually bring forward their pupils for examination ; that each teacher can pass only six of his scholars ; and that he is at liberty to offer to the extent of twelve, if any of the first six should be rejected. They will according to this arrangement bring forward 5,4-00 of their scholars, but of these not more than 2,700 can be declared qualified, and perhaps not more than half that number will pass the examination successfully. Even 1,350 scholars in one district and within one twelvemonth thoroughly instructed in any one of the school- books I have described would be an ample return to Government for the expenditure incurred. But the benefit would not rest here. The whole number of scholars, 5,400, must be deemed by thoir teachers qualified for examination else they would not be brought forward ; and the unsuccessful candidates or those scholars whom, as it may happen, it was not necessary to examine at all, must have attained much, and many may have attained all that would have been required of them. It is by no means necessary to suppose that even the whole number produced for examination will be the whole number instructed. On the contrary they will be the very elite of the little village flocks, and those flocks will be composed of hundreds and thousands of other scholars in various degrees instructed in the same useful knowledge, all hoping one day to distinguish themselves and all stimulated by the impulse which Government will have given to the cause of public instruction. The plan will ultimately be as economical to the people as to the Government. At first the approved teachers will probably affix a higher price on the superior instruction they will be qualified to bestow ; but the facilities to acquire this superior qualification will be open to all and many new competitors with equal advantages will rapidly enter the profession, while at the same time the demand for instruction will keep constantly increasing. Under those simultaneous and counteracting influences a new rate of remuneration will come to be formed, the advantage of which, as in all improved processes that are in general demand, will be in favour of the community; and when this new rate shall be modified in any district by the general adoption of the system of endowments, the cost of educating their children will be reduced to the people to the extent of one-half. Even if the amount of fees and perquisites should remain the same without reduction, the value received from the teachers of youth will be far greater, which both to parents and scholars is the best kind of economy. It is perhaps admissible to regard as an advantage arising from the plan that it affords an opportunity of employing for the benefit of the country, the class from which I propose to draw the Inspectors and Examiners. Extraordinary efforts have been made to extend a know- ledge of the English language to the natives ; but those who have more or less profited by the opportunities presented to them do not find much scope for their new attainments which on the other hand little fit them for the ordinary pursuits of native society. They have not received a good native education, and the English education they have received finds little, if any, use. There is thus a want of sympathy between them and their countrymen, although they constitute a class from which their countrymen might derive much benefit. There is also little sympathy between them and the foreign rulers of the country, because they feel that they have been raised out of one class of society without having a recognized place in any other class. If they were employed in visiting the different districts as the agents of Government for promoting educa- tion, they would fulfil a high destination satisfactory to their own minds and would not fail to enjoy the respect and affection of their country- men. The qualifications required of them would teach them, what is so important to their own usefulness and hitherto so much neglected, to unite the acquirements of an English and a native education, since it is only by means of the latter class of acquirements that English principles and ideas can be generally transfused into and incorporated with the native character. The only other recommendation of the plan which I will now suggest is that it would be a proper complement to a measure that has been al- ready adopted. It would be worthy of the Government which has de- creed that the business of the country shall be conducted in the language of the people. This is so important a measure and bears so directly upon the present subject that I subjoin here the Resolutions of Govern- ment relating to it. The following is the Resolution of the Governor General of India in Council : RESOLUTION. " The attention of his Lordship in Council has lately been called to the Regulations of the Bengal Code which positively enjoin the use of the Persian language in Judicial and Fiscal proceedings. His Lordship in Council is sensible that it would be in the highest degree inexpedient [ 192 ] hastily to substitute any other language for that which has during a long course of years been appropriated to the transaction of public busi- ness. He is satisfied that in many parts of the country a sudden and violent change would produce serious public inconvenience and that it would reduce many old and useful servants of the public to distress such as no humane Government would willingly cause. At the same time his Lordship in Council strongly feels it to be just and reasonable that those Judicial and Fiscal proceedings on which the dearest interests of the Indian people depend should be conducted in a language which they understand. That this great reform must be gradual, that a consider- able time must necessarily elapse before it can be carried into full effect, appears to his Lordship in Council to be an additional reason for com- mencing it without delay. His Lordship in Council is therefore disposed to empower the Supreme Executive Government of India, and such subordinate authorities as may be thereunto appointed by the Supreme Government, to substitute the vernacular languages of the country for the Persian in legal proceedings and in proceedings relating to the Re- venue. .It is the intention of his Lordship in Council to delegate the powers given by this A.ct for the present only to the Governor of Bengal and to the Lieut. Governor of the N. W. Provinces, and he has no doubt that those high authorities will exercise these powers with that caution which is required at the first introduction of extensive changes, however salutary, in an old and deeply rooted system." In conformity with this Resolution Act No. XXIX of 1837 was pass- ed, making it lawful for the Governor General of India in Council by an order in Council to dispense with the provisions which enjoin the use of the Persian language and to prescribe the language and character to be used in its stead ; and further empowering him to delegate those powers to any subordinate authority. Such a delegation of powers having accordingly been made to the Deputy Governor of Bengal, that authori- ty passed the following Resolution : RESOLUTION. " The President of the Council of India in Council having been pleas- ed on the 4th ultimo, in conformity with Section 2 Act No. XXIX. of 1837, to delegate to the Deputy Governor of Bengal all the powers given to the Governor General in Council by that Act, the Deputy Governor has resolved that in the districts comprized in the Bengal division of the [ 193 ] Presidency of Fort William, the vernacular language of those districts shall be substituted for the Persian in judicial proceedings and in pro- ceedings relating to the revenue, and the period of twelve months from the 1st instant, shall be allowed for effecting the substitution. His Honor is sensible that this great and salutary reform must be introduced with caution, involving as it does the complete subversion of an old and deeply rooted system. He therefore vests the various heads of departments with a discretionary power to introduce it into their several offices and those respectively subordinate to them by such degrees as they may think judicious, only prescribing that it shall be completely carried into effect within the period above-mentioned. For his Honor's information a report of the progress made in the introduction of this measure will be required on the 1st July next, and again on the 1st January 1839. Order- ed that a copy of the above Resolution be transmitted to the General Department for the issue of instructions to the above effect in respect to the offices subject to that Department." Judicial and Revenue Department, 23d January 1838. It is scarcely possible to over-estimate the importance of this measure to the character of the Government and the welfare of the people. The object is to give the people or to enable them to acquire through their own language a knowledge of what may affect their interests what constantly, deeply, and extensively affects their interests in the judicial and fiscal departments of Government. The effect will be to bring within the reach of Government for administrative purposes a large amount of cheap and useful native agency of which it has hitherto vo- luntarily deprived itself, and to rescue the great body of the people who know only their own language from those who under the covert of a foreign tongue misrepresent and pervert the cases of prosecutors and accused, the claims of plaintiffs and defendants, the evidence of witnesses, the wishes of petitioners, and the decisions of judges, defiling the stream of justice, impeding its course, and exciting the disgust and disaffection of those who seek healing in its waters. The facility of complaint through the vernacular tongue will also deter many from the commission of crime and injustice who are now encouraged to the perpetration of them by the knowledge that the injured will be prevented from seeking redress through the difficulty, expense, and liability to abuse of the offi- cial medium of communication. But if this measure will prove impor- tant and useful, as it undoubtedly will, standing alone and by itself, its importance and utility will be incalculably increased if followed by the 2 A [ 194 ] establishment of a national system of instruction through the medium of the vernacular tongue. If the use of the language of the people will enable every man to understand the statement of his own case even when he is wholly ignorant of his mother tongue except as a spoken language, how much more complete his protection if he knows it as a written language. If the employment of a cheap Bengali writer, or pleader, or attorney, or agent instead of a dear Persian one will be econo- mical and protective to the poor man, how much more economical and protective will it be if he can make known his wishes, explain his case, prefer his complaint, or engage in his defence in his own name, or through another under his own intelligent control and superintendence. If Govern- ment by this measure even in the present state of vernacular instruction will find ampler means placed at its disposal for the cheaper and more efficient administration of local affairs, how much greater will be the scope afforded when the kind of instruction shall be improved, and when this su- perior instruction shall be generally diffused. Now then is the time for Government to step forward and provide good teachers for the people and good books for teachers. Every consideration combines to show the advan- tage of following up the measure that has been already adopted with that which is now recommended. If any other consideration were wanting, it would be found in the grateful affection with which under any circumstances, but especially in such a connection, it would be received by the people. SECTION III. Application of the Plan to the Improvement of Sanscrit Instruction. The whole of the preceding details and reasonings contemplate the application of the plan to vernacular schools only. The principle, how- ever, is to build on the foundation of native institutions generally, and wherever they are to be found to employ them as the instruments through which instruction may be most salutarily and most effectually communi- cated. I shall now consider what means may be employed to improve the system of instruction in the class of Sanscrit schools which are found in every district and of which some account is given in the Seventh and Eighth Sections of the First Chapter. I do not propose that any thing should be done to extend or multiply such institutions. All that is proposed is, since their number and influence are undoubted, to bring [ 195 ] them over to the side of true, useful, and sound knowledge. If there were no vernacular schools, it would still be desirable that there should be such schools for the instruction of the people. If there were no San- scrit schools, their existence perhaps would not be desirable merely for the purposes of public instruction which is the only subject now under consideration. But since they do exist, and since we cannot, if we would, cause them not to be, it is the plain dictate of common sense and of a wise policy not to despise and neglect them, but to conciliate, if possible, the good feelings of the learned and to employ their extensive and deep- seated influence in aid of the cause of public instruction. For the infor- mation of the reader I shall quote in this place some of the most promi- nent authorities I have met with on the encouragement to be given to native learning and the use to be made of it. In the records of the General Committee of Public Instruction I find a copy of a Minute dated 6th March 1811, ascribed to the Governor General, Lord Minto, and bearing also the signatures of the Members of Council, G. Hewett, J. Lumsden, and H. Colebrooke. This Minute pos- sesses the greater interest both because it bears Mr. Colebrooke's signa- ture and because it is believed to have suggested the provision on the same subject in the 53d of Geo. III. The following is an extract: " It is a common remark that science and literature are in a progressive state of decay among the natives of India. From every inquiry which I have been enabled to make on this interesting subject, that remark ap- pears to me but too well founded. The number of the learned is not only diminished, but the circle of learning, even among those who still devote themselves to it, appears to be considerably contracted. The abstract sciences are abandoned, polite literature neglected, and no branch of learning cultivated but what is connected with the peculiar religious doctrines of the people. The immediate consequence of this state of things is the disuse and even actual loss of many valuable books, and it is to be apprehended that, unless Government interfere with a fostering hand, the revival of letters may shortly become hopeless from a want of books or of persons capable of explaining them. The princi- pal cause of the present neglected state of literature in India is to be traced to the want of that encouragement which was formerly afforded to it by princes, chieftains, and opulent individuals under the native governments. Such encouragement must always operate as a strong incentive to study and literary exertions, but especially in India, where [ 196 ] the learned professions have little, if any other, support. The justness of these observations might be illustrated by a detailed consideration of the former and present state of science and literature at the three prin- cipal seats of Hindu learning, viz. Benares, Tirhoot, and Nudiya. Such a review would bring before us the liberal patronage which was formerly bestowed not only by princes and others in power and authority, but also by the zemeendars, on persons who had distinguished themselves by the successful cultivation of letters at those places. It would equally bring to our view the present neglected state of learning at those once celebrated places. And we should have to remark with regret that the cultivation of letters was now confined to the few surviving persons who had been patronized by the native princes and others under the former Government, or to such of the immediate descendants of those persons as had imbibed a love of science from their parents. It is seriously to be lamented that a nation particularly distinguished for its love and successful cultivation of letters in other parts of the empire should have failed to extend its fostering care to the literature of the Hindus, and to aid in opening to the learned in Europe the repositories of that literature. It is not however the credit alone of the national character which is affected by the present neglected state of learning in the east. The ignorance of the natives in the different classes of society arising from want of proper education is generally acknowledged. This defect not only excludes them as individuals from the enjoyment of all those com- forts and benefits which the cultivation of letters is naturally calculated to afford, but operating as it does throughout almost the whole mass of the population, tends materially to obstruct the measures adopted for their better government. Little doubt can be entertained that the pre- valence of the crimes of perjury and forgery so frequently noticed in the official reports is in a great measure ascribable both in the Mohamma- dans and Hindus to the want of due instruction in the moral and religi- ous tenets of their respective faiths. It has been even suggested and apparently not without foundation, that to this uncultivated state of the minds of the natives is in a great degree to be ascribed the prevalence of those crimes which were recently so great a scourge to the country. The latter offences against the peace and happiness of society have indeed for the present been materially checked by the vigilance and energy of the police, but it is probably only by the more general diffu- sion of knowledge among the great body of the people that the seeds of these evils can be effectually destroyed." [ 197 ] The Minute then proceeds to recommend certain measures consisting in the reform of the Hindu College at Benares and the Mohammadan College at Calcutta, and the establishment of two new Hindu Colleges, one at Nudiya and the other in Tirhoot, and of two new Mohammadan Colleges, one at Bhagulpore and the other at Jaunpoor. The cost of the two new Hindu Colleges was estimated at Sa. Rs. 25,618 per annum. The recommendations have been in a great measure superseded by sub- sequent arrangements, but some of them contain useful hints which may still be turned to account. One is that pensions should be granted to distinguished teachers on condition that they deliver instructions to pupils at their own houses. Another is that public disputations should be held annually at which prizes, rewards, and literary honours should be conferred on such of the students as shall have manifested the great- est proficiency. Both are judiciously adapted to Hindu usages. With apparent reference to this Minute of 1811, it was enacted in the 53d Geo. III. Cap. 155, Section 4-3, " that it shall be lawful for the Governor General in Council to direct that out of any surplus which may remain of the rents, revenues, and profits arising from the said territorial acquisitions after defraying the expenses of the military, civil, and commercial establishments, and paying the interest of the debt in manner hereinafter provided, a sum of not less than one lack of rupees in each year shall be set apart and applied to the revival and improve- ment of literature and the encouragement of the learned natives of India> and for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of the British territories in India ; and that any schools, public lectures, or other institutions for the purposes aforesaid, which shall be founded at the Presidencies of Fort William, Fort Saint George, or Bombay, or in any other part of the British territories in India in virtue of this Act, shall be governed by such regulations as may from time to time be made by the said Governor General in Coun- cil ; subject nevertheless to such powers as are herein vested in the said Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India respecting Colleges and Seminaries : Provided always that all appointments to offices in such schools, lectureships, and other institutions, shall be made by or under the authority of the Governments within which the same shall be situat- ed." It is perhaps scarcely necessary to remark that the literature to be revived and improved can only be the existing literature; that the learned natives of India to be encouraged can only be those who are already learned, not those who are to become so by the introduction and [ '98 ] promotion of a knowledge of the sciences ; and that therefore the sum thus directed to be appropriated is applicable, in part at least, to the revival, improvement, and encouragement of the existing learned insti- tutions of the country. The late Mr. J. H. Harington wrote a paper dated June 19, 1814, entitled " Observations suggested by the provision in the late Act of Parliament for the promotion of Science and Literature, amongst the inhabitants of the British possessions in India." In these observations Mr. Harington examines at some length the preliminary question whe- ther the English language should be employed as the medium of com- municating knowledge to the natives or whether the vernacular and learned languages of the country are the more appropriate instruments. The following is the conclusion at which he arrives : " My own idea, on an imperfect consideration of so extensive a subject, is that both of the plans noticed have their advantages and disadvantages ; that neither the one nor the other should be exclusively adopted; but that both should be promoted as far as circumstances may admit. To allure the learned natives of India to the study of European science and literature, we must, I think, engraft this study upon their own established methods of scientific and literary instruction ; and particularly in all the public colleges or schools maintained or encouraged by Government, good translations of the most useful European compositions on the subjects taught in them, may I conceive, be introduced with the greatest ad- vantage." The somewhat adverse views on this branch of the subject presented by Lord Moira's Minute already quoted must not be withheld : " The immediate encouragement," his Lordship says, " of the superior descrip- tions of science by any bounty to the existing colleges appears to me a project altogether delusive. I do not believe that in those retreats there remain any embers capable of being fanned into life. It is true the form of tuition is kept up in them, but the ceremony is gone through by men who are (as far as I could learn) devoid of comprehension in the very branches which they profess to teach. I was particularly curious to assure myself of the state of learning in the university of Benares, the place where one should expect that ancient acquirements would be found in the best preservation. My incompetence to judge on the subject of the answers given by the young men examined before me, did not ex- tend to the manner of their performance, which was such as inspired the [ 199 ] notion that every thing they said was wholly by rote. On following up this suspicion I learned that I had guessed accurately. I remained satis- fied that the students only got by heart certain formularies unexplained to them by professors incapable of expounding the spirit of the lessons. Of course the instruction unless where it chanced to fall on some mind uncommonly vigorous and acute would have very limited effect in future application, and if it did happen to be bestowed on a genius able to unravel it, the rational calculation was that it would only render him more dexterous in those crooked practices which the depraved habitudes of the community would offer to his imitation. I thence conceive that the revival of the liberal sciences among the natives can only be effect- ed by the previous education (beginning with the rudiments) which shall gradually give to individuals the power of observing the relations of different branches of learning with each other, of comprehending the right use of science in the business of life, and of directing their enlarge- ment of thought to the promotion of those moral observances in which rests the temporal convenience of society as well as the sublimer duty of man. Then, but not till then, such records or such traces of ancient lore as remain in the universities may be useful. Consequently to this opinion, I must think that the sum set apart by the Honourable Court for the advancement of science among the natives would be much more expediently applied in the improvement of schools than in gifts to semi- naries of higher degree." On this passage it is necessary to remark that the institution which Lord Moira describes as " the university of Benares" was most probably the Government College at that place, which there is reason to believe was about the time of his Lordship's visit in a very inefficient condition. Such at least is the only way I can account for the statement given, unless on the supposition that the Governor General and his informants may have misapprehended the real facts of the case before them. It would certainly be unjust to apply the above description to the schools of learning in Bengal and Behar that have originated with the natives themselves and are under their management, for although in the usual course of study the scholars no doubt commit a great deal to memory, it is not servilely committed but is in general thoroughly understood and digested. Teachers also of sufficient repute to attract scholars around them will seldom be found deficient in the power of explaining what they profess to understand and to teach. It is of more importance, however, to remark that Lord Moira anticipated the revival of the [ 200 ] liberal sciences among the natives from such a previous education, begin- ning with the rudiments, as should show the connection of the different branches of learning with each other, explain the right use of science in the business of life, and direct intellectual improvement to the promo- tion of personal and social morality ; and if the schools of learning as well as the common schools can be made conducive to such purposes, we may infer from the excellent sense and genuine benevolence which characterize his Minute that the design would have received his Lord- ship's cordial sanction. No one has more earnestly urged the duty of communicating European knowledge to the natives than Mr. Hodgson ; no one has more powerfully shown the importance of employing the vernacular languages as the means of accomplishing that object; and no one has more eloquently illustrated the necessity of conciliating the learned and making them our co- adjutors in this great work of national regeneration : " Two circum- stances," he says, " remarkably distinguish and designate the social system of India : one, its inseparable connection with a recondite litera- ture : the other, the universal percurrency of its divine sanctions through all the offices of life, so as to leave no corner of the field of human action as neutral ground. Can these premises be denied? And, if not denied, can it be necessary to deduce from them a demonstration of the unbounded power of the men of letters in such a society ? Or of the consequent necessity of procuring, as far as possible, their neutrality in respect to the indication of measures, the whole virtual tendency of which is to destroy that power ? Touch what spring of human action you please, you must touch at the same time the established system : touch the spring with any just and generous view of removing the pressure which that system has laid on its native elasticity, and you must at the same time challenge the hostility of that tremendous phalanx of priestly sages which wields an inscrutable literature for the express purpose of perpetuating the enthralment of the popular mind. However much the splendour of our political power may seem to have abashed these dark men, the fact is that their empire over the hearts and understandings of the people has been and is almost entirely unaffected by it. With the Saga of Pompeii they say, ' The body to Caesar, the mind to us' a profound ambition suited to the subtle genius of their whole devices, and which I fear some of us commit the lordly absurdity of misinter- preting into impotency or indifference ! Before we have set foot almost upon their empire, it is somewhat premature to question their resources [ 201 ] for its defense against intrusion. Their tactics are no vulgar ones ; nor will they commit themselves or sooner or further than is needful. We now purpose to spread our knowledge : they know it, and they know the consequence. But so have we for half a century purposed the spread of our religion ! The purpose must become act, and the act become, or seem likely to become, generally successful, ere these subtle men will confront us openly; and perhaps not then, if heaven inspire us with the prudence to conciliate, check, and awe them by the freest possible resort to that sacred literature which they dare not deny the authority of, however used ; and which assuredly is capable of being largely used for the diffusion of Truth ! Time has set its most solemn impress upon that literature : the last rays of the national integrity and glory of this land are reflected from its pages : consummate art has inter- woven with its meaner materials all those golden threads which nature liberally furnishes from the whole stock of the domestic and social affections and duties. To the people it is the very echo of their heart's sweetest music : to their pastors their dangerous and powerful pastors it is the sole efficient source of that unbounded authority which they possess. To deny the existence of that authority is mere moon-struck idiocy. To admit it, is I conceive to admit the necessity of compromise and conciliation, so far as may be." Letters p. 47, 48. To deny the existence of that authority were indeed vain, and it is equally clear that the admission involves the necessity of compromise and conciliation ; but it by no means follows that the learned whose influence it is desirable to enlist on the side of popular instruction are the " dark" and " dangerous" men they are here described to be. The ascription to them of such a character, even if it were deserved, must tend rather to defeat than to promote the object of conciliation which the writer has in view and which is so important to the success of a general system of education. But it is not deserved. The learned natives of India are what we are ourselves, the creatures of the circum- stances in which they and we have been placed. They are the spiritual, as we are the political, despots of India ; and if proper means of com- promise and conciliation are employed, unaccompanied by language or acts of fear, of distrust, or of jealousy, they will in general readily co- operate with us in measures for the improvement of their countrymen. They have too firm a belief in the sacredness of their own persons, character, and office, too firm a hold of the popular mind, to doubt for a moment of the security of their spiritual sway. The chief difficulty 2 B [ 202 ] I anticipate will not be to inspire them with the requisite sentiment of benevolence towards the poor and ignorant, but with the requisite con- viction of our sincerity in the professions we make of a desire to pro- mote their welfare. The preceding extracts exhibit opinions entitled to great consider- ation ; but a closer analysis and more detailed statement of the grounds on which I would rest the importance and necessity of adopting mea- sures for the improvement of Sanscrit instruction are desirable. First: Sanscrit schools occupy so prominent a place in the general system of instruction established throughout the country that means should be employed for their improvement, not only on account of the influence which the learned exercise or may exercise over the remaining population, but for the sake of the learned themselves as a distinct and numerous class of society. I refer to page 61 to show the extent of this class in the districts noticed in this Report. In one district alone, that of Burdvvan, there are 190 teachers, and 1,358 students, of learning ; and in the city of Moorshedabad where the number is fewer than in any of the other localities, there are 24? teachers and 153 students. If we find that a particular class of native institutions brings together in one city and in one district so many teachers and students of learning who, if proper means were employed, would readily open their minds to European knowledge, why should we not avail ourselves of the facilities which those institutions present ? Second: The language of instruction in the schools of learning is regarded with peculiar veneration. It is called the language of the gods. It is probable that in one of its most ancient and simple forms it was the original language of Brahmanism and was introduced into this country by its Hindu conquerors. Instruction communicated through this medium will be received by the learned class with a degree of respect and attention that will not otherwise be conceded to exotic knowledge. Why should we refuse to avail ourselves of this mode of gaining access for useful knowledge to the minds of a numerous and influential class ? i Third: Sanscrit is the source and origin of all the Hindu vernacular dialects spoken and written throughout India and the adjoining coun- tries, with as close an affinity in most instances as exists between Latin and Italian or between ancient and modern Greek. These dialects are [ 203 ] as numerous, are spread over as wide a surface, are employed by as populous races, and are as thoroughly nationalized among those races, as the corresponding dialects of Europe in European countries. Learn- ed Hindus refer with pride to the number of languages that have sprung from the parent Sanscrit and that derive from it their vocables, their idioms, and their structure. Just in proportion as the use of the verna- cular dialects extends for the purposes of education and administration will the value of the Sanscrit be felt. It is the great store-house from which, as intellectual improvement advances, those dialects will seek and obtain increased power, copiousness, refinement, and flexibility. " Any number of new terms," says Mr. Hodgson, applying to the Indian Pra- crits a remark made by Sir James Mackintosh respecting German, " any number of new terms, as clear to the mind and as little startling to the ear as the oldest words in the languages, may be introduced into Hindi and Bengali from Sanscrit, owing to the peculiar genius of the latter, with much more facility than we can introduce new terms into English : nor does the task of introducing such new terms into the Indian vernacu- lars imply or exact more than the most ordinary skill or labour on the part of the conductors of education, so long as they disconnect not them- selves wholly from Indian literature" Fourth : The Sanscrit langitage is the common medium of communi- cation between the learned in the different countries and provinces inhabited by the Hindu race, however differing from each other in dialect, manners, and customs. A Hindu educated in the learning pecu- liar to his faith and nation need not be, and is not, a stranger in any of them, although possessing no personal acquaintance, and although ignorant of the dialect of the country or province to which he may have proceeded. This is found to be a great practical convenience in the performance of the numerous pilgrimages which piety or supersti- tion enjoins. By the same means also the learned productions of one province or country in time become the common property of all the learned throughout India. In the Bengal schools of learning young men both from the Western and Southern provinces of India are found pursuing their studies, and Bengalees after finishing their studies in Bengal often proceed into the Western provinces for the purpose of acquiring those branches of learning which are not usually cultivated here. Sanscrit, without the secrecy, has thus all the advantages, of the masonic sign and countersign. It is a pass-word to the hearts and under- standings of the learned throughout India. In consequence of this [ 204 ] established mutual interchange of knowledge, if any improvement can be introduced into the system of instruction in the schools of learniug of Bengal and Behar, we may hope that it will gradually work its way among the entire learned body throughout the country. Fifth: A.11 the learning, divine and human, of the Hindus, is con- tained in the Sanscrit language. Religion, philosophy, law, literature, and medicine ; all the learning that enters into the daily practices of their faith and is connected with the established customs of their race ; their productions of taste and imagination, and the results of their expe- rience of life and manners all are found in the Sanscrit language and in that only as their source and repository. Doctrine, opinion, and prac- tice ; the duties of the present life and the hopes of the future ; the controversies of sects and the feuds of families, are ultimately determin- able by authorities which speak only through that medium. The infer- ence is obvious. If we would avail ourselves of this vast and various literature for the moral and intellectual regeneration of India, we must stretch out the right hand of fellowship to those who can alone effectu- ally wield its powers and by patronage and conciliation obtain their willing co-operation. Sixth : The patronage of Government bestowed on schools of learn- ing would be most gratefully received both by the learned themselves and by the native community. It would entirely coincide with the cus- toms of native society. Sanscrit schools have been frequently endowed by wealthy Hindus ; the teachers are constantly invited, feasted, and dismissed with presents on occasions of important domestic celebrations ; and both teachers and students, independent of all other considerations of caste and condition, are held in the greatest respect by the communi- ty. In the opinion of the learned themselves, an opinion which they have frequently expressed to me, it is the duty of rulers to promote learning, by which they of course mean Sanscrit learning. If common schools and their teachers are encouraged, as I have proposed, while Sanscrit schools are neglected, it may be feared that the hostility of the learned will be often incurred, and that through their all-penetrating influence they will raise serious obstacles to the spread of popular instruction. On the contrary, if their schools, as well as the ver- nacular schools, are patronized, their own interests will be identified with the success of the Government plan, and we may confident- ly rely on. their co-operation. It is not, however, on the ground [ 205 ] of expediency only that this recommendation is offered. Sanscrit schools and teachers may be made to conduce as effectually to the spread of sound and useful knowledge as vernacular schools, with only this difference that each class of institutions will operate in a field from which the other is excluded. In Sanscrit schools we shall gain access to a large and influential class which by any other means we shall be unable to reach and which it is of the utmost importance to the welfare of society should advance as the rest of society advances. There is no class of persons that exercises a greater degree of influence in giving native society the tone, the form, and the character which it actually possesses than the body of the learned, not merely as the professors of learning, but as the priests of religion ; and it is essential to the success of any means employed to aid the moral and intellectual advancement of the people that they should not only co-operate but also participate in the progress. If we leave them behind, we shall be raising obstacles to our own success and retarding the progress of the whole country. Learned Hindus will gratefully receive all the encouragement which we are willing to bestow, but it may still be made a question whether they would introduce books of useful knowledge on science and the arts into the regular course of their instruction. That amongst so numerous a body none will prove hostile or indifferent would be too much to ex- pect ; but in my own experience I have met with only one instance, that of a pundit in Rajshahi who expressed an unfriendly feeling to popular instruction. Poor and unpatronized, he asked me what advantage the extension of popular instruction would bring to him a question which rather confirms the view I have before presented regarding the charac- ter and expectations of the class. In another instance, that of the respec- table pundit of the Judge's Court at Mozufferpoor in Tirhoot, I found that all my attempts at explanation did not apparently remove from his mind the suspicion of some ulterior object, and he appears to have communicated his doubts to other learned men in that district to whom the subject was mentioned. This, however, was by no means generally the case. In conversation I have received repeated assurances from many pundits of their readiness to teach European science and learning in their schools, provided that the works put into their hands do not em- brace the subject of religion on which they most distinctly intimated that they will teach and countenance nothing but what is in their esti- mation strictly orthodox. In the Rajshahi, Moorshedabad, Beerbhoorn, and Burdwan districts, I had frequent conversations with pundits on this [ 206 ] subject and generally with the most satisfactory results, but it did not occur to me till after leaving those districts to ask any of them for their written opinions. On my return however to Calcutta, I put a case in writing before the pundits of the Sanscrit College and subsequently before such pundits as 1 met in the districts of South Behar and Tirhoot, a translation of which with their answer and the signatures attached to it, I subjoin. Two pundits of the Burdwan district whom circumstances had prevented me from seeing when in their native district, followed me to Calcutta, anxious to give a full and correct account of their schools that it might be included in this Report ; and they took the opportunity at the same time of expressing their assent in writing to the opinion of the Calcutta pundits. More recently two pundits from the Jessore district and my own pundit belonging to the same district have of their own accord requested permission to add their names. CASE. To the Learned. " I have observed that the teachers of Hindu learning in this country in their respective schools instruct their pupils in Hindu learning only. There are however many English books of learning in which arithmetic, mechanics, astronomy, medicine, ethics, agriculture, and commerce are treated at length. I beg to be informed whether, if such works, exclu- sive of those which relate to religion, were prepared in Sanscrit, there is or is not any objection to employ them as text-books in your schools." (Signed) W. ADAM. OPINION. " English books of learning, exclusive of those which are explanatory of the religion of the English nation, containing information on astrono- my, ethics, mechanics, &c. and translated into the Sanscrit language, are of great use in the conduct of worldly affairs. In the same manner as the Rekha Ganita, the Nilakanthiya Tajaka, and other works, translated into Sanscrit from Arabic astronomical books, were found to be of much use and were employed by former teachers without blame : So there is not the least objection on the part of the professors and students of learning of the present day in this country to teach and study books of learning translated from English into the language of the gods." (Signed) RAMCHANDRA VIDYAVAGISA. SAMBHUCHANDRA VACHASPATI. HARANATHA TARKABHUSANA. [ 207 ] (Signed) NIMAICHANDRA SIROMANI. HARIPRASADA TARKAPANCHANANA. PREMCIIANDRA TARKAVAGISA. JAYA GOPALA SARMANA. GANGADHARA TARKAVAGISA. (Professors of the Sanscrit College, Calcutta.) KAMALAKANTA VIDYALANKARA. (Private Professor, Calcutta.) HARACHANDRA NYAYAVAGISA. GURUCHARANA TARKAPANCIIANANA. (Private Professors, Burdwan District,) PANCHANANA SIROMANI. BACHARAMA NYAYARATNA. GlRVANANATHA NYAYARATNA. (Private Professors, Jessore District.) The preceding case, opinion, and signatures are written in the Sanscrit language and Bengalee character. The following sig- natures are attached to a separate paper of precisely the same import in the Nagari character : (Signed) CHAKRAPANI SARMANA. CHINTAMANI SARMANA. HARI SAHAYA SARMANA. HARILAL SARMANA. BHAWANI DIN SARMANA. (Private Professors, South JBehar.) The following signatures are attached to a third paper of precisely the same purport : (Signed) PARAMANANDA SARMANA. KALANATHA SARMANA. THAKUR DATTA SARMANA. (Private Professors, Tirhoot District.) No effort has been used to obtain these signatures and in every ease they were received with such explanations as left the pundits perfectly free to -ive or withhold them. An unqualified concurrence of opinion D [ 208 ] was expressed by all those pundits to whom the subject was mentioned, with the exception of those in Tirhoot where, as the poor and ignorant are poorer and more ignorant, so the wealthy and the learned are more narrow and bigoted, than the corresponding classes in other dis- tricts. Even in Tirhoot, the three pundits who signed expressed the opinion that, if any measure was adopted for the encouragement of learning, those who now appear most timid and suspicious would be most forward to participate in the advantage. Upon the whole I entertain no doubt that the majority of the learned in Bengal and Behar will readily co-operate with Government, if they are allowed to receive a share of the general encouragement to be given to the teachers of sound and useful knowledge. The only remaining questions are to what extent their co-operation may be required and with what rewards it should be acknowledged and secured. First : The text-books employed should not be mere translations either from English or Bengali, but original works on the same sub- jects as the Bengali series, with such additions of matter and of illustra- tion as will include the substance both of European and of native know- ledge on the branches treated. The learned will thus be taught on the one hand to identify their feelings and interests with those of their countrymen in general, and encouraged on the other hand to employ their greater leisure in thoroughly studying the subjects on which the welfare of the people and the prosperity of the country depend. We may thus hope that the profound, acute, and vigorous intellects that are now laboriously employed on vicious fables and fruitless speculations will receive a practical bias from which the happiest results may be expected. Second: To every Examiner a pundit should be attached to aid him in examining those pundits who may accept books for study and after- wards offer themselves for examination, in the same manner as has been described with respect to teachers of vernacular schools. The assistant- pundit should be the most distinguished and most highly respected in the district that the weight of his talents and repute may conciliate pub- lic approbation to the measures of Government ; but he should be made subordinate to the Examiner to correct the local influences by which he may be guided or which may be ascribed to him. An allowance of SO [ 209 ] rupees per month including travelling charges will in general obtain the services of such a pundit, to be raised after periods of service of four years to 40, 50, and 60 rupees, dependent on good behaviour. After this, the assistant-pundit to an Examiner should be eligible to hold the appointment of assistant-pundit to an Inspector of a Division with a salary of 100 rupees per month, or any other appointment in the native branch of the service which he may be ambitious to attain, such as those of pundit attached to the District Court, of MoonsifF, of Sudder Ameen, &c. the purpose being to stimulate his zeal and strengthen his integrity by always placing before him a higher object of ambition than any he has yet reached. Third : The same course generally will be pursued towards teachers of schools of learning as has been proposed towards teachers of vernacu- lar schools. They will first receive books in which, after the requisite time allowed for study, they will be examined ; and after a satisfactory examination their names will be registered, transmitted to Calcutta, pub- lished in the Gazette, and proclaimed in the district as those of approved pundits, of all which a certificate will be given. When a pundit after having been satisfactorily examined receives the second volume of the series he will be entitled to claim the use of three, six, nine, or twelve copies of the first for the instruction of his pupils, and so on in the four successive stages of the course. Approved pundits, like approved verna- cular teachers, will be entitled to attend at the Normal School of the district for four years, and for three months in each year, and to receive during that period subsistence-money and travelling expenses. The modes of instruction in schools of learning are in general much superior to those practised in the vernacular schools, but the Normal Schools may be, and it is hoped will be, conducted in such a way that even pundits may derive much instruction from them in the art of teaching. When a pundit shall have passed an examination in each of the four volumes of the series ; when he shall have attended the Normal School for four years, three months in each year ; and when he shall have instructed six pupils in each of the four volumes, he will become, not entitled, but eligible, to an endowment of the same value as that proposed for the vernacular teachers of the same district. The number of endowments for vernacular teachers must be limited only by the wants of the popu- lation. The number of endowments for teachers of learning must be limited by very different considerations. They must be so few as not to 2 c [ 210 ] be a burthen to the state. They must be so many as to give a hold on the whole body of the learned in a district. These objects will pro- bably be attained by some such rule as the following, viz. that endow- ments shall be set apart for schools of learning in some fixed proportion to their number, say in the proportion of one to six. Thus the 24? Sanscrit schools in the city of Moorshedabad would have four endow- ments distributed among them, provided that all the twenty- four teach- ers established their eligibility ; and so with every other locality. Pro- bably this will not be deemed too high a proportion, and if found too low to elicit the competition and co-operation of the body of pundits, the value of each endowment might be raised or the number increased. With regard to the best mode of bestowing these endowments on the learned, it may be sufficient at present to remark that the pundits who are found by the possession of the requisite qualifications to be eligible to them, may be examined by written queries and answers on subjects calculated to enlarge their views both of their own deficiencies and of the wants of the country and of their duty to seek self-improvement for the sake of the general good ; and those whom fit judges may determine to be the most worthy should receive the reward accompanied with all the forms which may give weight and honour to the distinction. When a vacancy occurs of any of the endowments given to the learned, it may be filled up in the same way by the open competition of all who are eligible. Fourth : To induce teachers to communicate the improved instruc- tion to their scholars and the latter to seek for that instruction, various motives will be presented. With regard to the teachers, the copies of the first volume of the series which they will receive for the use of their scholars will become their own property, only by producing an equal number of instructed scholars* They will further receive a correspond- ing number of copies of the second book of the series for the use of their scholars, only if they shall be found to have made a proper use of those copies of the first received for the same purpose ; and so also with regard to the third and fourth volumes. Still further, one of the qualifications for holding an endowment will be that the teacher shall have instructed six scholars in each of the four volumes of the series- The success also with which learned teachers pass themselves and their scholars at the periodical examinations will come to be a measure of the public repute they enjoy in their native districts, and thus increase the number of invitations and the amount of presents they receive, and [ 211 ] perhaps in many cases induce wealthy Zemindars to bestow on them endowments exclusive of those appropriated by Government to the class of the learned. With regard to students of learning, they will be attracted, as in the case of vernacular scholars, by the curiosity and pleasure which new and useful knowledge will inspire, by the love of display which a public examination will gratify, by the ambition of having their names, designations, and places of residence registered as those of approved stu- dents, by the prospect of eligibility to the English School of the district after completing the series of text-books, and by the further prospect of eligibility to one of the endowments set apart for the learned when they shall have acquired all the necessary qualifications. Native opinion leads me to think it probable that these motives will prove so powerful to the majority of the students of learning that it will be proper before admitting them to examination to require them to establish by testimonials from their teachers that they have passed through a regular course of gram- matical study, lest, in their anxiety to distinguish themselves in the new course of instruction, they should neglect that indispensable preliminary to the successful cultivation of the Sanscrit language and literature. Fifth : The native medical schools rank with schools of learning ; and, keeping steadily in view the principle of turning to account all existing institutions both European and Native, it is worthy of consider- ation whether the native medical schools may not be usefully employed, in connection with the Medical College of Calcutta, in improving and extending sound medical instruction. In Rajshahi I found one medical school containing seven students taught by two professors ; in Beer- bhoom another containing six students taught by one professor; in Burdwan four medical schools containing forty-five students taught by four professors ; and in South Behar two medical schools containing two students taught by two professors. All these students were not receiving medical instruction, but in part were pursuing those literary studies which are deemed indispensable preliminaries to a course of professional study ; and some of the professors had other students besides those who were either studying or preparing to study for the medical profession. Is not this a class of institutions which it should be our object to draw out of obscurity ? When it is considered how ill provided the body of the people are with medical advice and assistance even on ordinary occasions, and much more in seasons of pestilence and disease prevailing locally or generally, is it not our duty to endeavour to increase the number of these institutions and to extend their usefulness by improving the [ 212 ] instruction which the teachers communicate ? The only answer that can be returned by a wise and humane Government will be by asking how such an object can be accomplished, and the only reply I can make is by reverting to the plans which I have already suggested and which I believe will be found of equal efficacy in their application to medical as to other schools of learning. The first step will be to prepare a separate series of text-books in Bengali, or Hindi, or Sanscrit, or both in Sanscrit and in one of the vernacular languages. They should embrace elementary views and illustrations of the most important and useful branches of medical science and practice, including, in Mr. Hodgson's language, both exotic principles and local practices, European theory and Indian experience. The next step will be to induce the medical teachers to study the text-books so prepared ; and for this purpose the course that has been already described should be adopted and the same inducements offered ; public examinations, presents of books to the teachers for themselves and for their scholars, the registry and publication of their names as those of approved medical teachers, and finally, eligibility to one of several endowments expressly appropriated in each district to the medical profession. In this way Government in a very few years might multiply approved medical teachers to any extent that the wants of the country might demand. The next step would be to extend the instructions of the approved teachers, and here again the same appliances offer themselves. To the teachers would be given books only in proportion as instructed scholars are produced, and the instruction of six scholars in each text-book would be required as an indispensable qualification for the eligibility of the teacher to an endowment. To the scholars the motives will be the pursuit of new and useful knowledge, the love of display at a public examination, the ambition of distinction by the registry and publication of their names as those of approved medical students, eligibility to the English-school of the district, eligibility to a course of instruction in the Medical Col- lege of Calcutta, and finally eligibility to a medical endowment in their native districts. The effect of all this is, I think, not to be doubted, and it would be cheaply purchased by the employment of such means. It would revive, invigorate, enlighten, and liberalize the native medical profession in the mofussil ; it would afford to the Calcutta College a perennial supply of well instructed native medical students from every district in the country ; and it would send them back to their native districts still better instructed, and both qualified and disposed to benefit their countrymen, to extend the advantages of [ 213 ] European knowledge, and to conciliate the affections of all towards their European rulers. Sixth : It should be distinctly understood that all teachers of learning who accept of the patronage of Government shall be at perfect liberty to teach their own systems of religion, philosophy, science, and literature ; and that the works prepared for their use shall contain nothing deroga- tory to their faith or recommendatory of any other. On the other hand it should be no less distinctly understood that the patronage of Govern- ment will be bestowed on the learned solely and exclusively in proportion to the degree of their proficiency in the new system of instruction and to the degree of zeal, judgment, and integrity with which they co-operate in promoting the success of the measures adopted by Government for the instruction of the whole body of the people. In other words they will neither be prohibited from teaching that which they believe, nor required to teach that which they believe not ; but they will be rewarded only for doing or promoting that which in the estimation of all has a plain and direct tendency to benefit all. SECTION IV. Application of the Plan to the Improvement and Exten- sion of Instruction amongst the Mohammadan Population. The encouragement given to the existing vernacular schools and to the Hindu schools of learning will embrace the whole of the male Hindu population, and will carry rich and poor, learned and unlearned, forward in the path of improvement with mutual good-will and co-operation, and with a common and joint feeling of attachment and gratitude to the source from which the advantage is derived. The measures requisite for the improvement and extension of instruction amongst the Moham- madan population demand separate consideration. The first question that arises here is, What is the fit means to be employed for communicating some useful knowledge of letters to the poor and uniristructed, which is by far the most numerous, portion of that population? I have shown in another place that Persian instruction is the only substitute for vernacular instruction peculiar to the Mohammadan popu- [ 214 ] lation, and that the language has a strong hold on native society ; but it is on the upper class of native society that it has this hold, and it has not descended, and cannot be expected to descend, to the body of the Mohammadan population. To them it is foreign and unknown, and consequently unfit for being employed as the medium of instruction to the people. To those who are instructed in it, it is the language of books, of correspondence, and of accounts ; not the language of conver- sation in domestic life or of the general intercourse of society. It has been shown also that even those who cultivate it as the language of books, of correspondence, and of accounts are found in five districts in the proportion of 2,087 Hindus to 1,409 Musalmans. There can be little doubt that the official use that has been made of it by Government and its functionaries is the sole reason for its cultivation by Hindus ; and as many Musalmans have the same interests to protect by the same means, the reason for its cultivation by them also must be deemed in many instances to be the same. When therefore the measures that have recently been adopted for the discontinuance of the Persian and the employment of the vernacular language in public business shall have full effect, it may be expected not only that all the Hindus, but that a considerable proportion of the Musalmans, who would have otherwise had their children instructed in Persian will have recourse to some other medium. The use of the Persian is at present in a state of transition. What the ultimate effect of the present measures may be, is yet to be seen ; but it cannot be deemed favourable to the cultivation of the lan- guage, and whatever the natural and unforced use which the social and religious wants of the Musalman population may give it, the Persian can never be regarded in this country as a fit instrument of vernacular instruction. For a language of instruction to the Musalman population we must turn from the Persian to some of the vernacular dialects, Bengali, Hindi, or Urdu. In Bengal, the rural Musalman population speak Ben- gali ; attend, indiscriminately with Hindus, Bengali schools ; and read, write, correspond, and keep accounts in that language. With the ex- ception therefore of a portion of the Musalman population of large cities in Bengal, the means that have been already described for the promotion of vernacular instruction in this province through the medium of the Bengali language, may be deemed adequate for Musalmans as well as Hindus. The rural Musalman population of Behar use the Hindi language to some, although not to an equal, extent ; and when [ 215 ] the plan for the promotion of vernacular instruction shall be applied in Behar through the medium of the Hindi language and Nagari charac- ter, it will be found to embrace a considerable proportion of the rural Musalman population; but it \vili leave a considerable proportion of that population and also of the urban Musalman population who speak Urdu unprovided with the means of vernacular instruction, and for their benefit it would seem desirable that distinct arrangements should be made. Those arrangements will consist merely in the preparation of a separate series of school-books in the Urdu language and Persian cha- racter, differing from the similar works prepared in Bengali and Hindi chiefly in the subject-matter of the first volume of the series, which should contain the most approved and complete course of native instruc- tion known amongst Musalmans in India on the Persian model. Such a series of school-books will make the transition easy from the system of Persian schools at present so numerous in Behar and now ceasing to be adapted to the wants of the country, to the system of Urdu schools which the measures of Government will soon render indispensable. They will bring within the reach of the humbler classes of the Mohammadan population whatever really useful knowledge is found in the Persian school-books ; and they will help to raise those classes to a community of feeling and of information with the superior classes of their co-religio- nists and with the general intelligence of the country. The second question bearing on the improvement of the Mohamma- dan population is, What is the fit means to be employed for improving the instruction communicated in Mohammadan schools of learning and for obtaining the co-operation of the learned in the prosecution of the measures that may be adopted to extend instruction to the Mohamma- dan population generally ? Mohammadan schools of learning are not so numerous as those of Hindus, but they are in general more amply endowed, and the teachers enjoy the same high consideration in Mohammadan society and exercise the same powerful influence that belong to the corresponding class of the learned in Hindu society. The same remarks apply to those insti- tutions that were made respecting Sanscrit schools. We have not called them into existence nor is it any part of our object to increase their number. We find Arabic schools long established in the country, possessing in several instances large resources, and taught by men in- telligent, learned, revered, influential, anxious to compare their systems [ 216 ] of knowledge with ours, and willing to aid us in the measures that may- be devised for the instruction of their countrymen. In the search of instruments with which to work out good for the country these institu- tions cannot be wisely neglected. The only question that can be raised is as to the way in which they may be made available. Without minutely repeating the same details, it is sufficient to remark that the course which has been suggested to be pursued towards Hindu schools of learning will probably be found equally applicable to those of Mohammadan origin. A series of text-books in Arabic, public examinations both of teachers and scholars, and the distinctions and rewards appropriate to each already described would, there can be little doubt, produce the desired effect. Learned Musalraans are in general much better prepared for the reception of European ideas than learned Hindus ; and when they shall have become convinced of the integrity of our purpose and of the utility of the knowledge we desire to communi- cate they will be found most valuable coadjutors. The endowed Mohammadan institutions of learning present another class of means for improving the state of instruction. I would equally deprecate the appropriation by the state of the property belonging to such institutions and its misappropriation by private individuals. The rights and duties of all institutions of this class should be defined and general rules laid down to preserve their property, purify their manage- ment, and provide for their effectual supervision and real usefulness. With these views a determinate course of study should be prescribed, a visiting power exercised, and periodical returns required. It is utterly futile to leave the visiting and controlling power over such institutions in the hands of what are called the Local Agents under the Board of Reve- nue, since the offices of Collector and Magistrate usually filled by the same persons completely absorb their time and attention. In so far as such institutions exist for educational purposes, their superintendence and direction on the part of Government should be vested in the Gene- ral Committee of Public Instruction and exercised through the officers subject to its authority. Properly regulated such institutions as those at Kusbeh Bagha, at Bohar, at Chaughariya, and at Moorshedabad, would become centres of improvement sending forth all sorts of salutary influence to the districts in which they are situated. The reform of the office of Cazy, besides other direct and collateral advantages, would furnish Government with an extensive and cheap [ 217 ] agency in every district for the improvement of Musilman institutions of education. The following extract from the revised edition of the first volume of the late Mr. Harington's Analysis of the Regulations will exhibit the rules in force for the appointment of city, town, and pergunnah Cazies, together with the nature of the duties expected to be performed by those officers: " The judicial functions which pertained to the office of Cazy ul Cuzat or Head Cazy, and in some instances to that of infe- rior Cazies, under the Mohammadan Government, have been discontinued since the establishment of the courts of justice under the superinten- dence of British judges ; and, with an exception to the law officers at- tached to the civil and criminal courts, the general duties of the present Cazies stationed at the principal cities and towns and in the pergunnahs which compose the several zillahs or districts, are confined to the pre- paration and attestation of deeds of conveyance and other legal instru- ments, the celebration of Musalman marriages, and the performance of ceremonies prescribed by the Mohammadan laws at births and funerals and other rites of a religious nature. They are eligible, however, under the Regulations to be appointed commissioners for the sale of property distrained on account of arrears of rent as well as commissioners for the trial of civil causes, and are also entrusted by Government in certain cases with the payment of public pensions. It is therefore necessary that persons of character who may be duly qualified for the subsisting office of Cazy should be appointed to that station, and encouraged to discharge the duties of it with diligence and fidelity by not being liable to removal without proof of incapacity or misconduct. The Cazy ul Cuzat or Head Cazy of several provinces under this Presidency and the Cazies stationed in the cities, towns, or pergunnahs within those pro- vinces, were accordingly declared by Regulations 39, 1793, and 46, 1803, not to be removable from their offices except for incapacity or miscon- duct in the discharge of their public duties or for acts of profligacy in their private conduct ; and the rules subsequently enacted in Regulations 5, 1804?, and 8, 1809, concerning the appointment and removal of the law-officers of the courts of justice, were extended to the local Cazies by Section 10 of the former Regulation and Section 4 of the latter. At the same time the office of Cazy is declared (in Section 5 of Regu- lations 39, 1793, and 46,1803 respectively) ' not to be hereditary ;' and it is further provided in these regulations that when the office of Cazy in any pergunnah, city, or town, shall become 2 D [ 218 ] vacant, the judge within whose jurisdiction the place may be situated is ' to recommend such person as may appear to him best qua- lified for the succession from his character and legal knowledge. The name of the person so recommended is to be communicated to the head Cazy who, if he shall deem him unqualified for the office either from want of legal knowledge or the badness of his private character, is to report the same in writing.' It is likewise * the duty of the Head Cazy to report every instance in which it may appear to him that the Cazy of any city, town, or pergunnah is incapable, or in which any such Cazy may have been guilty of misconduct in the discharge of his public duty or acts of profligacy in his private conduct.' And a similar report is required to be made by the judges of the Zillah, City, and Provincial Courts to the Court of Sudder Dewanny Adawlut with whom it rests to confirm the appointment or removal of the Cazies of cities, towns, and pergunnahs under Section 4, Regulation VIII, 1809." As far as I am aware, such continues to be in all essential particulars the legal position of the office of Cazy, and I will now illustrate its prac- tical working by a brief abstract of certain documents relating to a single district, that of Tirhoot, which I have been permitted to examine in the Judicial Department. From these documents it appears that there were in 1818 in that district eighteen Cazies appointed to one hundred pergunnahs containing 8,4-31 villages, and discharging their duties by means of forty Naibs or deputies. In that year their number was reduced to fourteen and their jurisdictions equalized. Those eighteen Cazies, in virtue of their offices, held rent-free lands amounting to 352 bighas, and they received in the form of salaries or allowances from Government Sa. Rs. 4,396-1-6 per annum; but these disbursements were suspended at the time mentioned in consequence of its having been found on inquiry that they were altogether unauthorized by Govern- ment. It was, however, deemed probable that some allowance would hereafter be granted for their support. The amount of fees received by them for attesting deeds, entering them in their books, and granting copies, varied from four annas to two rupees for each deed. The infe- rior Musalman castes who employ the Cazies at marriage-ceremonies pay a fixed fee of one rupee, of which four annas are the understood perquisite of the Cazy's deputy and the remaining three-fourths are received by the Cazy himself. A similar division is probably made of the fees received by deputies for notarial acts. As the office of Cazy at present exists, considerable abuse is practised. A fee of from one [ 219 ] to five per cent, on the value of the thing transferred is exacted for affixing the seal, to deeds of consequence. At the arbitrary will of the Cazy a different rate is paid for Malguzary and Lakhiraj lands transfer- red, and it not unfrequently occurs that considerable delay and difficul- ty is made on the part of the Cazy in affixing the seal with a view to increase of emolument or from other interested motives. In practice it sometimes, perhaps often, occurs that a candidate for the Cazyship is sent to be examined by the Mufti of the Court and on his report the candidate is recommended by the judge. Evil arises from the non- residence of the Cazies. They invest the whole of their authority in deputies who generally purchase their situations and make as much of them as they can by the most unjustifiable and illegal means. The Mohamvnadan law-officers of the Sudder Dewanny Adawlut gave a formal opinion when the subject was referred to them, that the Cazies have no power to appoint deputies unless expressly permitted to do so, and such permission they never do receive. My personal inquiries in the different districts I have visited confirm many of these statements. The frauds arising out of the non-regulation of the office of Cazy were brought very earnestly to my notice and made the subject of strong representation. I happened to meet with a Mun- siff who is also the Cazy of two separate pergunnahs and who performs the duty in both by deputy ; and I was informed of two others who were only twelve and thirteen years of age respectively, one of them being still at school pursuing his studies. They were stated to be brothers, the sons of a person who was the former Cazy of both pergunnahs and whom after his death they were permitted to succeed. The point, how- ever, to which I solicit special attention is the character, in respect of learning, of the former race of Cazies compared with that of the present race. It is maintained by Mohammadans of the present day that even pergunnah Cazies under the former Government were invariably learn- ed men, and that it was indispensable that they should be so to enable them with credit to determine questions of Mohammadan law. At present they are with scarcely any exception unlearned, although the name of Maulavi is sometimes assumed where it is not deserved. In one instance only of those that came under my notice and inquiry was the Cazy a really learned man. Their usual attainments do not extend beyond a knowledge of reading, writing, and accounts in Persian. I infer from the abuses and frauds which are connected with the office, if not promoted by the office-holders ; from the case of the two boys [ 220 ] who succeeded their father, showing that the notion of hereditary suc- cession to this office is not yet eradicated ; from the case of the Moon- siff-Cazy acting by deputy, proving that the opinion of the Mohamma- dan law-officers of the Sudder Dewany Adawlut is not enforced ; and from the generally unlearned character of the Cazies, establishing that the "legal knowledge" shown by Mr. Harington to be required by the Regulations, is not possessed from these premises I infer that the office of Cazy needs reform, and what I submit is that the reform which it may receive should, in addition to other objects, be made the means of im- proving the state of learning amongst the Mohammadan population. For this purpose, in addition to the ordinary attainments of a learned Musalman, I would require that the candidate for the office of Cazy shall have passed successfully through examinations in the four Arabic text-books prepared under the orders of Government for the use of Mohammadan schools of learning ; and that he shall have instructed six pupils in each of those books in such a manner as will have enabled them also to pass through similar examinations. The office of Cazy would thus be raised from one of insignificance, uselessness, and some- times positive injury to the community, to one of great importance and direct utility. Amongst the most disaffected portion of the population, the proposed measure would raise up a body of instructed men existing solely by the will of Government, capable of appreciating and ex- plaining its measures, and exercising a powerful and undisputed influence over the whole Musalman population of their jurisdiction. Without additional expense, it would furnish Government with a ready- made body of Examiners of the Urdu teachers and scholars of the dis- trict. The effect would be an increased feeling of satisfaction and attachment to the Government, in addition to all the other advantages that may be expected from the growth of intelligence and information, of public principle and of private morality in a community. SECTION V. Application of the Plan to the Instruction of the Aboriginal Tribes. The preceding arrangements will gradually and effectually provide for the promotion of vernacular instruction and the preservation of Learning amongst the Hindu and Mohammadan divisions of the population ; but [ 221 ] within the limits of the British territories in India, there are numerous and widely spread tribes who acknowledge no affinity of race or of lan- guage, no sympathy in manners or in religion, with either. A scheme of national instruction that should leave them out of view would be essen- tially defective. The Santhals, a tribe of this description, are found in considerable number in the Beerbhoom district, and came there under my personal observation. In one thana, I found 786 Santhal families containing 4,261 persons, being considerably more numerous than the Musalmans of the same thana ; and they are found in still greater number in the north and west of the district. They are also found in the Bhagulpore district, in the Jungle Mehals or West Burdwan, and in the Midnapore district ; but in greatest abundance in Coochung, Bamanhati, and Dolbhoom in Ramghur on the western and southern frontier of Bengal. The Dhan- gars, a well known division of the Cole tribe, are also found, but in less number, in Beerbhoom; and Singhbhoom is chiefly occupied by the Coles. In Orissa three distinct mountain or forest races are found, the Coles, the Kunds, and the Sours. The inhabitants of the hills in the districts of Bhagulpore and Rajmahal are known to Europeans in connection with the name of Mr. Cleveland, " who, without bloodshed or the terrors of authority, employing only the means of conciliation, confidence, and benevolence, attempted and accomplished the entire subjection of the lawless and savage inhabitants of the jungleterry of Rajmahal who had long infested the neighbouring lands by their predatory incursions, in- spired them with a taste for the arts of civilized life, and attached them to the British Government by a conquest over their minds, the most permanent as the most rational mode of dominion." On the eastern frontier of Bengal, we find the Kookies or mountaineers of Tipera, and the Garrows occupying the mountainous country between the Kassya Hills and the Brahmaputra. The Kassya tribes occupy the country from the plains of Sylhet in Bengal to Gohatti in Assam, and there are other uncivilized hill tribes of Assam enumerated by Dr. McCosh, as the Akas, Duphlas, and Koppachors ; the Miris, the Abors, Bor-Abors, and Mishmis ; the Singhphos and the Nagas, all more or less acknowledging subjection to the British Government or living under its protection, exclusive of the Assamese, Manipuris, Cacharis, Kangtis, and Mattucks, who are either Hindus, or Buddhists, or have a written language. The space intervening between Bengal, Orissa, and Nagpoor, is the country of the Gonds, numerously divided and subdivided. Still further west and [ 222 ] along and beyond the Tuptee and Nerbudda, in Mahva, and in all the eastern quarter of Guzcrat, are the Bheels who meet the Coolies in Guzerat. In the peninsula we have the Tudas, the Erulars, the Curum- bars, and the Cohatars, and the extent to which these and similar tribes prevail may be estimated from a statement recently made by Colonel Briggs at a meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society of London that from his personal knowledge of the South of India, Brahmanism had not spread there and that most of the peninsula was inhabited by persons not Hindus. This must be received as a very loose and imperfect notice of the tribes scattered all over the face of India, but principally possessing its forest and mountain-tracts, who may be conjectured to be the remnants of the Autochthones or indigenous population existing before the occu- pation of the country by the Hindu, the Mohammadan, and the Euro- pean races. Are these tribes to be allowed to remain in the rude and bar- barous condition in which they have come under the dominion of the Bri- tish Government? The Cole insurrections and the frequent necessity for the service of troops against the Kassya tribes and against the Bheels compared with the peace which has been maintained amongst the Raj- mahal mountaineers by Mr. Cleveland's arrangements, show the advan- tage that would accrue to Government by extending that conquest over their minds which by the Bengal Government of 1784 was justly declared to be at once " the most permanent" and " the most rational mode of dominion." Since the date of this declaration an interval during which British armies have overrun and subjugated almost the whole of India what means have been employed to effect this higher and nobler species of conquest over the hill-tribes ? I am aware that much may be and has been done to civilize those tribes by promoting and protecting in- dustry, by administering justice between man and man, and by punishing crimes against society. But such moral conquests can be secured only by that knowledge and those habits which education gives, and the means of education have hitherto been very sparingly employed. The only institutions, as far as I am aware, formed under this Presidency for their benefit, are a school at Bhagulpore in which a few of the children of the Rajmahal tribes are taught English and Hindi ; a school established at Surgeemaree in Rangpur for the Garrows, some of whose children were for a while taught their own language in the Bengali cha- racter, the Bengali language, and the English language ; and an English school established for the Ramghur Coles. The two last mentioned [ 223 ] institutions no longer exist, and it would thus appear that the ground is almost wholly unoccupied. The present Government has recently expressed sentiments on this subject, to which it may be hoped that some means may be devised of giving practical effect. During the past year it was ascertained that amongst the Kunds, one of the three aboriginal races mentioned above as being found in Orissa, an extensive system of human sacrifice is prac- tised ; and when this subject was brought to the notice of the Governor of Bengal the following instructions were communicated to the Commis- sioner and Superintendent of the Tributary Mehals in Cuttack, under date 14th March, 1837 : " His Lordship has perused the details given by you of the system of human sacrifice prevalent among the Kund* with feelings no less of horror than surprise. He is well aware of the difficulty of dealing with a description of crime which, however unna- tural and revolting, has been sanctioned by long usage as a national rite and confirmed by the gross delusions of the darkest ignorance and super- stition. The working of a moral change among the people BY THE PRO- GRESS OF GENERAL INSTRUCTION AND CONSEQUENT CIVILIZATION" can alone eradicate from among them the inclination to indulge in rites so horrible. But though the entire suppression of the practice of human sacrifice among this wild and barbarous race must be the work of time, yet much may be done even now, and no proper exertion should be omitted towards checking the frequency of the crime by the terror of just punishment. His Lordship is fully prepared to sanction the use of judicious measures in aid of the power of the Raja of Duspullah when- ever that chieftain shall have discovered the commission of this crime in any of his villages. Immediate injunctions should be issued not to him only, but all other Tributary Rajas having nominal authority over a Kund population, expressive of the views of the British Government and of its determination to do all in its power for the effectual repression, of this atrocious practice. You will be pleased to report upon every instance in which in your opinion the British power in support of that of the Rajas themselves may be exerted without the hazard of serious embarrassment and disturbance. The Governor is not disposed to accord his sanction at once to your proposal for the annual progress of a mili- tary force under an officer vested with the power of summary punish- ment for the purpose of suppressing human sacrifices. This point may be considered and decided on before the commencement of the ensuing cold season. Should it appear by the failure of the contemplated I [ 224 ] measures of interference that the chiefs of the Kunds are either unable or unwilling to exert themselves effectively for the maintenance of order and repression of crime, the expediency of the occupation of the country or of some part of it by British troops may become a question for consideration." It is here announced to be the expectation of Government that, in addition to the coercive measures contemplated, the cessation of these atrocities will be effected chiefly by the progress of civilization as a con- sequence of general instruction. But general instruction, especially in the case of these fierce and unruly tribes, can be communicated only by a Government that knows its value and consults large and general interests. If without the employment of direct means for the communi- cation of general instruction, we trust to the unaided progress of civiliza- tion, centuries may elapse before it reaches them. Some specific plan then must be formed and some specific provision made to communicate that instruction which is justly regarded by Government as the necessary forerunner of civilization. In the present state of our knowledge res- pecting these tribes it seems probable that no one plan would be adapt- ed to them all ; but they have several characteristics in common. They have several distinct languages amongst them with affinities to each other, but with no affinity to the dialects that are of Sanscrit derivation and are used by the different Hindu tribes. They have no written character and consequently no instruction in letters ; no caste in a reli- gious sense, although they have numerous distinctions of tribes ; and no peculiar prejudices or jealousy respecting their women who mix freely in the ordinary intercourse of life. Their worship is Sabean, and their superstitions rude, unsystematized, and often cruel. They are in no case nomades ; many live by the produce of the bow and arrow; but in general they cultivate the soil. To attempt to teach the English lan- guage indiscriminately to these savage tribes appears one of the wildest flights of benevolence. To teach them Hindi or whatever may be the language of the contiguous district or province is somewhat more ration- al. But the most judicious course appears to have been adopted, appa- rently on Bishop Heber's recommendation, with the Surgeemaree school for the Garrows who were taught in the first place their own language in the Bengali character ; then, if practicable, the Bengali language ; and lastly, in the case only of the more intelligent boys, the English language. With respect to all the tribes bordering on Bengal, their own language in the Bengali character seems to be the proper medium of instruction : [ 225 ] with respect to all the tribes bordering on Orissa, their own language in the Ooria character ; and with respect to all the tribes in Central and Western India their own languages in the Nagari, Marathi, or Guzerathi character : in short, in every case their own language with the modification in respect of written character which convenience and utility may dictate. Having fixed upon a language and character, the next step would be to prepare some easy elementary but instructive books adapted to the comprehension of persons in a very low grade of civilization, but capable of raising them a grade higher. This would not present so great difficulties as might at first be supposed. I have understood that materials already exist for a Dictionary of the language of the Rajmahal tribes, whose friendly disposition would suggest that a beginning should be made with them, and whose language when known would probably afford facilities for the acquisition of the dialects of some of the other hill-tribes. The means of communication also are by no means wanting. These tribes in general maintain regular communi- cations with the more civilized races of the plains for the purpose of disposing of their own surplus produce and of purchasing articles which they need and do not themselves produce. In this way they acquire some knowledge of Bengali, Hindi, Ooria, &c. ; and Hindus, Musalmans, Oorias, &c. mix with them and acquire a knowledge of their dialects. In my communications with Santhals, I employed as an interpreter a Ben- gali trader of this description who had for many years trafficked with them and who appeared to possess a very good colloquial knowledge of the San- thali dialect. With the aid of these persons the necessary books might be prepared ; and the same persons or others who would be found to qualify themselves might be employed to go amongst them as teachers, and by means of the system of public examinations and rewards to teachers and scholars, modified as circumstances might suggest, the love and desire of knowledge would take root in their minds and its elevating and restraining influences be witnessed in their habits and pursuits. SECTION Ml. Application of the Plan to Female Instruction. Another extensive class of the population unprovided with the means of instruction by the natives themselves is the female sex. I need not dwell here on the necessity of female cultivation in any country to its advance in civilization. This is of course admitted, and the privacy, 2 E [ 226 ] subjection, and ignorance of the sex in this country amongst both Hindus and Musalmans are equally well known. All the established native institutions of education exist for the benefit of the male sex only ; and the whole of the female sex is systematically consigned to ignorance and left wholly without even the semblance of a provision for their instruction. The ignorance and superstition prevailing in native society, the exacting pride and jealousy of the men, the humiliating ser- vitude and inaccessibility of the women, early marriages, juvenile widow- hood, the interdiction of second marriages, and consequent vice and degradation are obstacles to amelioration which appear all but insuper- able. The only question that can arise is whether Government can with advantage interfere in the matter of female instruction, and this can be determined only by considering the actual or possible modes of interference. There are three modes in which a beginning has been made to com- municate instruction to native females. The first is by means of insti- tutions in which they are not only taught but fed, clothed, and lodged. The children are either orphans, or the daughters of native Christians, or of idolatrous parents. These institutions are exclusively under Chris- tian management and the instruction is chiefly religious, but not to the exclusion of general knowledge and the arts of domestic industry. It must be evident that they give the teachers and superintendents an ab- solute control over the minds of the pupils, and this is the object of their establishment. They also tend to break the ties between parents and children in those cases in which the former are alive, especially if they are not Christians. The second mode is by the establishment of schools such as those described in Chapter First, Section XL, and referred to in Section XII. para. 5, p. 95. The children are the offspring of the poorest classes of native society. They are paid for attendance and elderly females are employed to conduct them to and from school. This mode gives the teachers and superintendents a much less firm hold of the minds of the scholars, but it leaves the domestic tie unbroken. It is opposed to native prejudices, as it requires that the scholars should leave home to attend school, and it involves unproductive expenditure, as the matrons are paid only to secure attendance at school not attention to study ; and yet the reports of such institutions are filled with expres- sions of regret on account of irregular attendance, slow progress, with- drawal from school after marriage, &c. The third mode is that which has recently been adopted by some wealthy and respectable natives who [ 227 ] have commenced either themselves to instruct their female relatives or for that purpose to admit female teachers into their families whom they retain as domestic servants. The rich and good-caste families will pro- bably in general prefer this course, and they will be the more incited to it in proportion as the state of instruction amongst the male population is improved and in proportion as female instruction is extended to the poorer classes. Under such circumstances what can Government do without offense to promote female instruction, so essential an element of civilization and of public and private morality ? One mode not only inoffensive, but probably highly acceptable, would be the preparation of a small series of books framed of course with a cautious avoidance of religious contro- versy and with a judicious adaptation to the character, condition, circum- stances, and attainments of the sex in this country. If these books were introduced only into the two descriptions of female schools that have been described above, an important object would be gained ; for the effect would be to improve the instruction of the native female Christian population which is probably at present too narrow and which for their own sake as well as for the sake of the effect on society should be rendered more comprehensive and practical. The pupils of these schools would thus be fitted to become the native female teachers of the coun- try ; but before being recognized as such they should be required to pass through a series of examinations corresponding with what has been proposed for the male teachers of vernacular schools. When approved female teachers are thus obtained they might be encouraged, with the aid of books received in reward of their attainments, to offer their ser- vices to families on the plan of visiting the homes of their pupils or of collecting them in a common neighbourhood for instruction, with of course the consent of heads of families. A native female teacher who should thus devote five hours a day to the females of five different fami- lies, receiving two rupees a month from each family, in addition to the presents of clothes and food which would naturally flow from such a relation, might be considered well paid ; and this is an expense which many native families would willingly incur, if Government will take the first step of preparing proper books and of vouching for the qualifica- tions of teachers. In order to judge how far the teachers were entitled to the presents of books or other higher rewards as endowments, &c. which it might be deemed advisable to hold out to them, it would be impossible to subject their pupils, as in the case of common schools, [ 228 ] to public examinations ; but this might be remedied either by sending native female Examiners, always of course with the consent of heads of families, to ascertain and report the progress of the pupils of different teachers at fixed periods ; or as a check upon such reports by receiving the certificates of heads of families as to the amount of instruction com- municated by the teachers to their female relatives within the periods in question. Without going further into details it is sufficient to indicate the gene- ral views which have occurred to me on this subject, and to add that this mode of promoting female instruction is one which respectable native families have themselves shown a disposition to adopt and that the stimulus which the encouragement of Government would supply would probably give it general acceptance and prevalence. SECTION VII. Application of the Plan to the Improvement of Regimental Schools. Although it was not made a part of my duty to report on the condition of Regimental Schools, yet perceiving . that those institutions admit of improvement, I trust that no apology will be deemed necessary for briefly referring to the regulations under which they are conducted and to the changes by which their efficiency may be increased. A General Order by the Right Honourable the Governor General in Council dated Fort William 4-th March 1825 appears to constitute the basis of existing arrangements for Regimental Schools and it is here quoted entire:" No. 70 of 1825. It is hereby directed that a Pundit and Moolvee be added from the 1st proximo to the interpreter and quartermaster's establishment of every regiment of native cavalry and infantry of the line on an allowance of 8 sonat rupees per mensem each. These men, as well as the regimental Moonshee allowed to each interpreter, shall be borne upon the muster-rolls of that officer with the rest of his establishment, regularly paid and accounted for in the acquittance-rolls, and drawn for separately in the abstract, by name. The Pundit and Moolvee are expected to be well versed in the native languages, the first in the Hindee and Nagree reading and writing, the second in the Persian ; and their duties will consist in attendance at all courts martial or courts of inquiry, to swear in the members of the [ 229 ] court and the evidences according to their respective faith. They will likewise swear in all recruits previous to joining the regiment, with the usual solemnities, in front of the colours, after completing their course of drill, by which time the recruits will have acquired a stronger sense of the obligation. It will be their duty also to assist and direct all men in the corps anxious to qualify themselves for promotion by the acquisition of reading and writing in one or both languages, and generally to perform all similar duties that may be assigned to them by the commanding officer or the quartermaster of the regiment. Sixty (60) sonat rupees will be admitted for a shed as a school and for stationery, &c. &c., to be drawn by the interpreter and quartermaster annually and in advance. The instruction of the men in the essential knowledge of read- ing and writing to qualify them for non-commissioned officers should be duly encouraged by the commanding officers and the formation of schools promoted under the tuition of the Moonshee, Pundit, and Moolvee ; and while Government would wish to refrain from interference in the amount of consideration payable by the pupils to their masters for the trouble and time devoted to their instruction, it is still essential that a maximum shall be fixed to limit the demands of the latter. It is there- fore directed that no sepoy shall pay more than 2 annas per mensem to each or either of his teachers, and that no havildar or naick shall be charged more than 4 annas per mensem for the period of his instruction either in Hindee or Persian. The study or attendance is to be entirely voluntary and the details regulated by the regimental Moonshee and the interpreter and quartermaster of the corps, under the authority of the officer commanding. From and after the 1st July 1826, no sepoy will be promoted to the rank of a non-commissioned officer in any corps of the line, without a competent knowledge of reading and writing in at least one language, except for distinguished conduct or bravery in the field." The following extensions and modifications of the above order have been subsequently directed. A General Order by the Right Honourable the Governor General in Council dated 5th April 1825, extends No. 70 of 1825 to the native artillery. A General Order by the Right Honourable the Vice President in Council dated 13th September 1827, directs that when the regimental Moonshee, Pundit, or Moolvee, proceeds on leave of absence for a period exceeding a month, he shall either pro- vide an approved substitute to perform the duties of his situation in his stead, or in failure thereof forfeit all allowances during the time of his absence. It is further directed that the allowance of 60 rupees granted [ 230 ] for the provision of a shed, stationery, &c. &c. for the use of the regimental school, be drawn at the rate of 5 rupees per mensem in place of being drawn annually and in advance ; and commanding officers are desired to see that the school allowance is applied to the purposes for which it is destined. A General Order by the Honourable the Governor General in Council dated 3rd April 1828 modifies Regulation No. 70 of 1825 by restricting the'prohibition against promoting sepoys who cannot read and write to such as were enlisted since the year 1822 and by permitting special exceptions to be made to it ; and the Right Honour- able the Commander in Chief in a General Order dated 28th April 1828, referring to this modification, states that " commanding officers are at the same time expected to encourage the attendance of the men, and of the younger sepoys especially, at the regimental schools which have been provided for the native soldiers by the bounty of Government ; and inspecting officers will always notice in their reports the extent to which they are attended." Finally, A General Order by His Excellency the Commander in Chief dated 8th April 1836, announces that the Right Honourable the Governor General of India in Council had been pleased to sanction the established allowance of five rupees per mensem for the provision of a school-room, being passed to the Goorkah batta- lions stationed at Deyrah, Subathoo, and Huwaul-baugh from the 1st May, 1836. It thus appears that the strongest disposition has been evinced by the Government of the country and by the highest military authorities to promote the instruction of the native soldiers ; that commanding officers are required to promote the formation of schools and the instruction of the men in their regiments ; that for this purpose, in addition to other occasional duties, three persons are retained in every regiment of native cavalry and infantry of the line, a moonshee, a moolvee, and a pundit, to instruct those who may be desirous of acquiring a knowledge of read- ing and writing ; that an allowance of five rupees per month is granted for a school-house, stationery, and incidental expenses ; that, with spe- cial exceptions, no sepoy who has entered the service since 1822 can be promoted to the rank of a non-commissioned officer in any corps of the line without a competent knowledge of reading and writing in at least one language; and that inspecting officers are required to notice in their reports the extent to which regimental schools are attended. Here are teachers with allowances for themselves, for school-houses, and for stationery; scholars with motives for self-improvement; and [ 231 ] qualified superintendence through commanding officers, interpreters and quarter-masters, and inspecting officers ; and yet according to the accounts I have received from all those officers with whose opinions I have been favoured, the regimental schools are not in general in a very efficient condition. The defects are, I think, not difficult to be dis- covered. The first want is that of books, and the first object should be to sup- ply them. Without appropriate school-b.ooks Government may continue to issue orders and incur expense but with very little effect. The sepoys must not only have a motive for learning, but they must be guided to what they are to learn, told how they are to learn, and have the means of learning put into their hands. It may be made a question whether any of the series of school-books in Bengali, Hindi, or Urdu proposed to be prepared for vernacular schools will be adapted to regimental schools. It will probably be deemed proper that a separate series should be framed in which, with the exclusion of every thing offensive to the religious feelings or social prejudices of the sepoys, and in addition to that general knowledge which is useful to men in all conditions of life, might be embodied much information and instruction specially suited to the military profession in its various grades and relations and under various circumstances. The next point will be to provide that the regimental moonshee, moolvee, and pundit shall themselves know what they will be required to teach, and for this purpose I would propose to pass them through a series of examinations in the regimental school-books similar to those which have been recommended for the teachers of vernacular schools. The interpreter and quarter master of each corps might be made the Examiner with a small additional staff allowance, and on a vacancy occurring every candidate for the office of moonshee, moolvee, or pundit should be required by submitting to a public examination at a fixed time and place to establish his competent acquaintance with the regimental school-books. The present holders of these offices should be allowed a reasonable time to qualify themselves and should then be subjected to a similar examination, retained in their appointments if found competent, and displaced if proved to be incompetent. If these appointments are invariably given only to qualified persons, qualified persons will always be found ready to offer themselves as candidates. To secure this more effectually the candidates for these appointments might be examined at [ 232 ] the head-quarter-station of the Division in which the corps to be sup- plied with teachers is situated, before a Committee of three interpreters and quarter-masters, none of them being of the corps to be supplied. Having obtained qualified teachers, the next object will be to provide that the native soldiers shall receive the full benefit of the instructions they are capable of bestowing. Government has provided the sepoy with a motive to learn in the prospect of promotion ; but in the enjoy- ment of fixed salaries the moonshee, the moolvee, and the pundit have no sufficient motive to teach. If the moolvee and the pundit of a re- giment are, what their designations import, really learned men, the sum of eight rupees per month to each is rather below than above their just expectations, and I would propose that a small addition should be made to it, and that the addition should be dependent on their own exertion to deserve it. If, for instance, an examination is held in a regi- ment every six months and a teacher produces six instructed scholars, sepoys or sons of sepoys in the regiment, capable of sustaining with credit a thorough examination in any one of the regimental school- books, then for every such scholar let the teacher receive from Government one rupee in addition to his fixed allowance and to the remuneration which the scholar may bestow. Limiting the number of scholars to be passed by one teacher every six months to six, this would give each teacher an addition of only one rupee per month throughout the year ; but its effect, if paid only for the result of successful instruc- tion, would probably be considerable. If to increase the zeal of the teachers it were deemed advisable to double the money -re ward, the amount would still be moderate. To call forth the exertions of the native soldiers and to stimulate them to self-improvement one other measure might be adopted, the establishment of an English school in each regiment to which those only should be admitted who had completed the course of native instruction prescribed in the regimental school-books. The hope of promotion held out by Government to instructed sepoys, in addition to the other aids and stimulants that have been suggested, will produce a good effect ; but I am assured by officers of experience that a knowledge of English is anxiously desired and sought by intelligent native soldiers, and it seems obvious that such a bond of connection between them and us must be of the highest advantage to the Government. [ 233 ] The effect of all these measures, if systematically prosecuted, would be to make the native soldiers intelligent instruments of rule, wielded in proportion to their intelligence with greater ease and with greater effect. Such an education would tend to emancipate the sepoys from the sinis- ter influence of brahmans, mollas, and faqirs, and to identify them in feeling and in principle with their European officers and rulers ; and it would furnish Government with commissioned native officers a class in whom the men are well known to place their confidence whose know- ledge of our language and participation in our civilization would afford a sure guarantee for their fidelity. Finally, a native soldier thus instruct- ed, either proceeding on leave of absence to his village or retiring from the service for life, would carry with him both the feeling of attachment to his English rulers, and the will and the power to diffuse the know- ledge and the civilization of which he has been made a sharer. SECTION VIII. Houses of Industry and Experimental Farms. My chief object in this Section is to recall attention to recommenda- tions proceeding from the highest authorities which do not appear to have received all the consideration they deserve. Lord Moira, in the Minute of 1815, to which I have had occasion repeatedly to refer, speaking of the state of public tuition in the princi- pal towns, adds : " In these towns will also be found the same medium scale of education for the class of shopkeepers, artificers, and labourers as in the country villages, but in these towns and principally in the chief station of the Zillah and in the neighbourhood of our jails will be found a numerous population which seerns to call for the particular attention of Government. I allude to the offspring of mendicants and vagrants who nurtured in idleness and vice, are destined to recruit the ranks of the professional thieves infesting all great cities. Houses of industry for the education) employment, and reformation of these infant profligates appear to be particularly needed." The Court of Directors in a Revenue Letter to Bengal, dated 15th January, 1812, makes the following remarks on the means of improving the system of Indian agriculture: " To a Government taking an in- terest in the improvement of the country with a view to the increase of 2 F [ 234 ] its own revenue, it might be a farther subject of consideration whether more could not be done than has hitherto been attempted towards bettering the system of Indian agriculture. The rural economy of the Hindus we understand, generally speaking, to be wretched in the ex- treme. The rudeness of their implements, the slovenliness of their prac- tice, and their total ignorance of the most simple principles of science, are said to be equally remarkable. It has, however, been stated in a late publication that the agriculture of some parts of the Mysore, con- stitutes an exception to this remark, while it shows the Hindoo farmer in certain situations to be neither stupid nor indocile. Whether the general system of cultivation be susceptible of improvement and whether Government can successfully contribute to the accomplishment of so desirable an object, are questions, though of high moment, perhaps not easy of solution. But if an attempt at improvement is at all to be hazarded under the auspices of Government it surely cannot be made in any way with such prospect of success as when coupled with a plan for rendering it subservient to the increase of the Government revenue as well as to the prosperity of its subjects. The nature of this attempt and the mode in which it ought to be directed it would rest with those to point out whom residence in the country and an intimate acquaint- ance with the characters and manners of the natives may have qualified for giving advice upon such topics. It is of all things desirable to as- certain whether the rude implements and accustomed processes of the Indian peasant, could be advantageously supplanted by those of Europe, and whether the establishment of experimental farms in various parts of the country under the superintendence of proper persons selected by Go- vernment for the purpose might not be useful in the way of example, as a corrective of some of the vices and defects of the prevailing system. We are fully sensible that the poverty, prejudices, and indolence of the natives of India strongly operate against improvement. These are in fact the most inveterate enemies to improvement in all countries, but they are no where invincible when met with prudence, skill, and perse- verance. We do not mean that we should vexatiously interfere with the usages of the inhabitants or that we should attempt forcibly to change their habits : far from it. But on the other hand when their habits are bad, let us not plead their attachment to them as an apology perhaps for our own indolence in not endeavouring to correct them. Our efforts may for a long time be unavailing ; but if judiciously direct- ed we do not despair of their eventual success;." Selections, rol. I. p. 66, paras. 99105. [ 235 ] The Honourable Court points so directly, in the concluding part of the extract, to another cause than " the poverty, prejudices, and indo- lence of the natives of India" operating against improvement, that it is not necessary to corroborate this prescient warning except by stating with- out comment that a period of about twenty-three years has elapsed since Lord Moira's proposition was made for the establishment of houses of indus- try at the chief station of each Zillah, and a period of about twenty-six years since the Court's proposition for the establishment of experimental farms in various parts of the country ; and that there is as much necessity now for re-urging the consideration and adoption of these or similar mea- sures as there ever was. It may be hoped that the attention of Government will now be revived to both these designs with some practical result ; and when the subject shall receive full consideration it will probably appear that the Khas Mehals afford ample scope and means for experi- mental farms and houses of industry with a view both to " the increase of the Government revenue" and " the prosperity of its subjects." SECTION IX. Concluding Remarks. I have now completed the duty that was assigned to me. I have collected information respecting the state of native education, reported the results of my inquiries, and recommended those measures which observation and reflection have suggested. It is for Government to deliberate, to resolve, and to act. I am by no means sanguine that my views will be adopted ; and even if they are generally approved with the modifications which may occur to others, I would guard against the supposition that I desire or expect them to be all immediately and simultaneously carried into operation. It is only by gradual and constantly widening efforts perseveringly and consistently directed to one object that the various agencies and institutions I have indicated can be fully utilized. If I were desired to state in what direction those efforts should be first employed, I would earnestly recommend that a beginning should be forthwith made with the series of measures sug- gested for the improvement and extension of vernacular instruction. \. To whatever extent the present recommendations may be approved and in whatever direction the efforts of Government may be primarily employed, I disclaim the expectation of producing a permanent or an [ 236 ] extensive effect by education alone unaccompanied by the other appro- priate aids of civilization, or by any means whatever in a very short time. No change that shall be at the same time salutary and lasting can be suddenly produced on personal, much less national, character. The progress of individuals and of classes in intelligence and morality, to be sure and satisfactory, must be gradual, and improvement by an almost imperceptible process interwoven with the feelings, thoughts, and habits of domestic and social life. Moreover, all great results affecting the condition and character of a whole people will be found to be attain- able only by the concurrence of many causes. The effect of religion cannot be overlooked, although it is a subject with which, in reference to the native population, the Government of this country cannot justly or safely meddle. The influence of just and equal laws purely adminis- tered, security of person and property, freedom of industry and enter- prize, protection from invasion and civil war, moderate taxation, and improved internal and external communication, in one word the influ- ence of good government must also be great in moulding the character of a people. But it may be confidently affirmed that while education without these can do little, these without education cannot do all, and that even what they can accomplish will be much less complete and stable than when matured, directed, and steadied by the intelligence, the foresight, the consistency of purpose, and the morality of conduct which are the proper fruits of mental cultivation. Further, if it may be truly affirmed that education alone is inadequate to reform a people, a fortiori it will be admitted that instruction of any one kind, through any one medium, to any one division of the population, or by means of any one class of institutions must be insufficient for the purpose ; and above all must this insufficiency be maintained in a country like India more resem- bling a continent, inhabited not by a single nation or people of one language, the same religion, and similar manners, customs, and habits, but by numerous and wide-spread nations and tribes, speaking different languages, professing different religions, and existing in totally dissimilar grades of civilization. No one means, no one language, no one system of institutions, can be adequate. All means, all the languages of the country, all existing institutions should be made subservient to the object. The actual position and prevailing policy of Government demand the adoption of comprehensive measures for the promotion and right direc- tion of national education. The position of Government is that of foreigners on a strange soil among people with whom no common [ 237 ] associations exist. Every district has a single encampment of civil functionaries who administer its affairs, and who are so engrossed with details of public business while they remain in any one district and are involved in such a constant whirl of change from one district to another that it is almost impossible that any attachment can arise between them and the people, or that either can generally appreciate what is good in the other. We are among the people but not of them. We rule over them and traffick with them, but they do not understand our character and we do not penetrate theirs. The consequence is, that we have no hold on their sympathies, no seat in their affections. Under these circumstances we are constantly complaining of the want of co-ope- ration on the part of the people, while we do nothing to elicit it where it would be useful, or to make it intelligent and enlightened, if it were afforded. A wisely framed system of public instruction would, -with other means, help to draw the people closer to the Government, give the Government a stronger hold on the affections of the people, and produce a mutual and answering sympathy between the subject many and the ruling few. The prevailing policy of Government is characterized by various measures more or less directly bearing on the present question ; by the equal eligibility to office of all classes of her Majesty's natural-born subjects without distinction of religion, place of birth, descent, or colour ; by the extended and constantly extending employment of native agency for the purposes of local administration ; by the approaching general use of the languages of the people in transacting the public business of the country ; and by the legalized freedom of the press. These immu- nities and powers were equally demanded by justice and conceded by wisdom ; but it must not be forgotten by the friends of improvement in this country that just in proportion as civil and political privileges are extended is the obligation increased to bestow upon the people that instruction which can alone enable them to make a fit and salutary use of their expanding liberties. Take for instance the measure which bestowed on the country the liberty of unlicensed printing. The press is in itself simply an instrument, a power, an agency which may be employed either for good or for bad purposes. The capacity of such an instrument to subserve useful purposes is an exact measure of its liability to abuse ; and the only effectual security against the possible abuse of its power must be sought in the intelligence and morality of those who wield the instrument and in the check imposed on them by [ 238 ] the intelligence and morality of the community which they address and to which they belong. The measure therefore legalizing the free- dom of the press and all other measures tending to enlarge the civil and political rights of the natives of the country are not in themselves either erroneous in principle or necessarily injurious in their conse- quences, but without a national system of instruction they will remain essentially imperfect, since it is instruction only that can give a right direction to the use of these new powers. As yet no time has been lost ; but if we would raise an adequate safe-guard against evils which may be distant, but which are both possible and avoidable, Government will by a general system of instruction, timely established, teach the people the proper use of the mighty instrument that has been put into their hands, and of the various franchises that have been and from time to time may be bestowed. Under any circumstances our position in this country requires wary treading. In the actual case we have done and are doing little to con- ciliate and not a little to alienate the good feelings of the people. Indi- vidual cases, sometimes enlarging into classes, no doubt exist where a feeling of attachment to the English 'rule called forth by peculiar cir- cumstances is strong and decided so long as those circumstances last and so far as their effect is felt. But among certain other classes dissatis- faction is not sought to be concealed ; and the utmost that can be said of native society in general even in its most favorable aspect is that there is no hostility, but in place of it a cold, dead, apathetic indifference which would lead the people to change masters to-morrow without a struggle or a sigh. A system of national instruction, if judiciously exe- cuted, would be the commencement of a new era in the spirit and prin- ciples of our Government. Excluded as we are from much social intercourse with the natives of the country, it would be one of the most effectual means that could be employed to throw down the barrier which the pride of foreign rulers and the prejudices of native society have com- bined to raise. In proportion as the scheme was extended over the country it would place the Government in friendly relations with every city, town, and hamlet, with every head of a family, with every instruc- tor of youth, and with the entire juvenile population speedily to become the instructed adult population of the country. It would constitute a chain the links of which would be found in every village and at every hearth. It would produce men not only able to understand the measures of Government, which would be something ; but, what would be still better, morally disposed to appreciate the good intentions of Government and to co-operate in carrying them into effect. " Sovereigns and chiefs of nations !" says De Fellenberg, " the fruit- ful source of sedition, of crime, of all the blood which flows upon the scaffold, is owing to the erroneous education of the people. Landlords ! it is here you must seek the cause of all those obstacles which the idle- ness and growing vices of the labouring classes oppose to the increase of the produce of your estates." " By degrading the people we dry up the richest source of power, of wealth, and of happiness which a State can possess." " In the infancy of the British administration in this country," says Lord Moira, " it was perhaps a matter of necessity to confine our legis- lation to the primary principle of justice, 'not that nice and delicate justice, the offspring of a refined humanity, but that coarse though use- ful virtue, the guardian of contracts and promises, whose guide is the square and the rule, and whose support is the gallows.' The lapse of half a century and the operation of that principle have produced a new- state of society which calls for a more enlarged and liberal policy. The moral duties require encouragement. The arts which adorn and em- bellish life will follow in ordinary course. It is for the credit of the British name that this beneficial revolution should arise under British sway. To be the source of blessings to the immense population of In- dia, is" an ambition worthy of our country. In proportion as we have found intellect neglected and sterile here, the obligation is the stronger on us to cultivate it. The field is noble. May we till it worthily !" CALCUTTA, "> April, 1838. 5 w - ADAM. Printed at the Bengal Military Orphan Press, by G. 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