Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/126

66 months were in the season of the year when the temple is most frequented. The present appropriation of the revenue after providing, I conclude, for the current expenses of the temple, is to the support of religious mendicants and devotees. The acting agent and collector also submitted two statements of the quantity of land dedicated to various religious purposes, expressing at the same time the opinion that the produce of these endowments is generally estranged from the purposes to which it was originally devoted, and enjoyed by persons who have no claim to it. He seems to have considered that these endowments also were applicable to purposes of education, but the reasons of the opinion are not given. The statements were prepared from the public registries of land and I subjoin them entire, noticing here only their general results. These are that in twenty-two pergunnahs there are 8,348 beeghas, besides 39 separate mouzahs or villages of dewottur lands; 16,331 beeghas of nazr lands; 5,086 beeghas of chiraghi lands, and 1,015 beeghas of pirottur lands. In fifteen other pergunnahs that had been then recently transferred from the district of Moorshedabad to that of Beerbhoom, there are 1,9345 beeghas of dewottur and 162 of pirottur lands, making the whole amount 32,877 beeghas of land, besides 39 villages. I have added to the statements a brief explanation of the distinctive terms employed to describe the different sorts of endowed lands; and I have recorded these endowments in this place because they were in some way connected in the mind of the acting agent and collector with the means existing in the district for the promotion of education; but I would not be understood to express a concurrence in the opinion, if it was entertained, that their application to such a purpose could be rendered legally obligatory. As far as I can ascertain from the terms employed to describe them they are religious endowments. With the voluntary consent of the holders, they are, as I understand, capable of being applied to promote education when viewed as a religious duty; but without that consent it would be unjust to employ them for such a purpose, and it would also be imprudent by the employment of questionable means in pursuit of a great public object, such as national education, to rouse the religious feelings of the country against it.

Elementary School not Indigenous.—In connection with the Baptist Missionary Society at the head station of the district, there is a Bengalee School having about 50 scholars.

Native Female School.—There were at one time several schools for Native girls in Beerbhoom, but they have all been formed into one Central School which is in connection with the Calcutta Baptist Female School Society. Until lately it contained upwards of eighty girls; but since the hurkaree employed to collect them was dismissed, and especially since the employment of Christian instead