Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/144

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It was my intention after treating of Bengal to extend this view of the state of Native education to Assam, Arracan, the conquests south of Rangoon, and the Straits Settlements; to the Provinces of Behar, Allahabad, Agra, Delhi, the country between the Sutlej and the Jumna, and the Saugor and Nerbudda territories. To arrange the materials I have collected for that purpose, would occupy the time which must be employed in filling the outline now sketched of the state of education in Bengal, and my first purpose, therefore, must for some time at least be postponed.

In preparing the present sketch I have sometimes feared that I was yielding to the temptation of unnecessary diffuseness; but I am re-assured by observing that the sort of information which I have collected and placed upon record is precisely that which His Majesty’s Government at home have in two different instances sought or desired to obtain. With a view of endeavouring to ascertain the statistics of education in England, the late Government in 1833 requested returns to be made to certain questions from each town, chapelry, and extra-parochial place in England and Wales, specifying the amount of the population; the number of the schools, whether infant, daily or Sunday schools, established or dissenting, endowed or unendowed; the numbers, sexes, and ages of the scholars; the salaries and endowments of the teachers, &c., &c., &c. (See Journal of Education No. XVII. for January 1835). In a discussion which took place in the House of Lords on the 27th of February 1835, respecting the means of giving complete effect to the Act for the emancipation of slaves in the West Indies, the Secretary for the Colonies stated that “any plan of Government on the subject of education must be attended with considerable expense; but he was anxious to see what could be done by the colonies themselves, by religious and patriotic societies, and by private individuals, before he called on Parliament for aid.” It thus appears to be the deliberate and practical conviction of His Majesty’s Government, both under the present and under the late administration, and with reference to England and Wales as well as to the West Indies, that the first step towards a national system is to ascertain what has been or can be done for the promotion of education by private means. In undertaking and prosecuting, therefore, the investigation of which I now present the first-fruits, we are encouraged by the example and stimulated by the declared opinions of His Majesty’s Government, the gratifying spectacle being thus presented of similar and simultaneous efforts in England, in the West Indies, and in British India, to promote the great cause of general education.