Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/116

56 imperfect education for their children by contributing a supply of rice and other articles of consumption to a domestic teacher, from whose instructions the children of those neighbors are excluded who may either be unable or unwilling to afford their share. From these statements, and from the preceding account of the depressed state of the principal manufaturemanufacture [sic] of district, it may be inferred that popular instruction is at a very low ebb.

Elementary School not Indigenous—For more than eighteen years an extensive circle of schools has been maintained in a high state of efficiency in Dacca, under the superintendence of Missionary connected with the Serampore mission. For a considerable time the schools were supported by a local Society in correspondence with the Directors of the mission; but for some years past their expense has been met only in part by subscriptions in Dacca, and the deficiency has been supplied from Serampore. This change is ascribed to the cause already mentioned, the gradual decline of Dacca which has fallen in importance both through the loss of trade and the curtailing of the Courts of Justice. The European society is no longer either in number or circumstances what it was a few years ago. Those who compose it however still take a lively interest in the progress of education.

The schools for Native boys are eight in number, dispersed throughout the suburbs of the city, and giving instruction to about 697 scholars who receive a useful and Christian education in the Bengalee language. At first a strong prejudice existed against the schools, but now the children crowd to them and receive Christian instruction with delight. On occasion of the last annual examination in December 1834, a gentleman, who had taken an active part in eighteen previous annual examinations of the same schools, stated that the last excelled all that had gone before, although a large proportion of the children had been admitted since the examination in 1833. The entire number of boys attending the schools has been renewed at least six times since their first establishment, and thus each set of boys must have remained at school about three years.

Indigenous Schools of Learning.—Hamilton speaks of certain schools in the district in which the principles or rather the forms of Hindoo religion and law are taught, but I have not been able to trace any further details respecting them. I find not the remotest reference to Mahomedan schools in a district remarkable for a large proportion of Moslem inhabitants.

The public functionaries in 1823 reported to the general Committee that no grants or endowments of any description for the purpose of education were known to exist in the district.

Native Female Schools.—There are eight Native female schools, in which 249 girls and young women are instructed in Bengalee. After learning to read, it would appear from the