Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/139

Rh In the preceding details, I have endeavoured faithfully to abstract Dr. Buchanan's account of the confusion of tongues prevailing in this district, although I am not sure that I have always caught his meaning which is sometimes obscurely expressed. The statements it contains are curious, and probably in most respects correct; but I should apprehend that in some instances he may have transformed mere provincialisms, such as are found to exist in the counties of England, into radical diversities of language.

Indigenous Elementary Schools.—In the eighteen sub-divisions of the district, Dr. Buchanan found 643 elementary schools amongst the Hindoo population, there being only one sub-division entirely destitute of such schools. These schools he considered very inadequate to the demand, and a large proportion of the children of the district are taught to read and write by their parents. A few teachers in the principal towns keep public schools attended by from 15 to 20 boys, but in general the teacher is hired by some wealthy man who gives him wages and food and commonly allows him to teach a few children belonging to his neighbours, but some refuse this accommodation. Other employers do not undertake to feed the teacher daily, and he has to go in turns to the houses of the parents of the children whom he instructs. In this district no one teaches to read the Hindee (Nagree?) characters without at the same time teaching his scholars to write them.

The number of Akhuns or inferior description of Mohomedan teachers is stated by Dr. Buchanan to have been 66, there being six districts that have none at all. The Persian or Arabic characters are taught without writing them which is made a separate study. By far the greater part of the people who in this district acquire the mystery of reading the Persian character, proceed no further, nor do they attempt to understand what they read. This character is very little used for writing Hindoostanee, which indeed is chiefly a colloquial language, and is seldom written even in the transaction of business. Many, however, study the Persian language, and it is supposed that there are about 1,000 men capable of conducting business by means of it; but in general they have confined their studies merely to the forms of correspondence and law proceedings. Few, indeed, are supposed to be elegant scholars, and none profess to teach the higher parts of Persian literature.

The results of elementary education throughout the district are given by Dr. Buchanan in a separate table, from which it appears that, according to his information, there were 18,650 men capable of keeping common, accounts, 16,550 who could sign their names, and 1,830 men and 483 women who understood the common poetry.