Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/145



The report on the State of Education dated 1st July 1835 presented a view of the information possessed on that subject at that date with reference to all the districts of Bengal; and the object of the report, now respectfully submitted to the General Committee of Public Instruction for the information of Government, is to fill up a small portion of the outline then sketched with ampler, and it is hoped more accurate, detail.

The district to which those details exclusively relate is that of Rajshahi, to which attention was, in the first place, directed on the following grounds:—The route prescribed to Dr. in conducting the statistical investigations which he undertook by the orders of Government about 30 years ago, as quoted in the preface to the printed edition of his report on the district of Dinajpur, is described in these terms—“The Governor General in Council is of opinion that these inquiries should commence in the district of Rangpur, and that from thence you should proceed to the westward through each district on the north side of the Ganges until you reach the western boundary of the Honorable Company’s provinces. You will then proceed towards the south and east until you have examined all the districts on the south of the great river, and afterwards proceed to Dacca side and the other districts towards the eastern frontier.” In conformity with these instructions, Dr. Buchanan visited and examined the Bengal districts of Rangpur, Dinajpur, and Purniya; and when the route to be followed in the present inquiry came under consideration, it was proposed and sanctioned that the general course prescribed to Dr. Buchanan should be adopted—not retracing any of the ground already trodden by him, but beginning from the point in Bengal at which his labors appear to have been brought to a close. If his investigations had been prolonged, the district of Rajshahi, in pursuance of his instructions, would probably have received his earliest attention, and it has consequently formed the first subject of the present inquiry.

The appended tables relate only to one thana or police sub-division of that district. I at first contemplated the practicability of traversing the entire surface of every district and of reporting on the state of education in every separate thana which it contained, but when I actually entered on the work, I found that an adherence to the instructions I have received would render this