Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/146

86 impossible, or possible only with such a consumption of time and such a neglect of purposes of practical and immediate utility, as would tend to frustrate the object in view. My instructions state that “the General Committee deem it more important that the information obtained should be complete as far as it goes, clear and specific in its details, and depending upon actual observation or undoubted authority, than that you should hurry over a large space in a short time, and be able to give only a crude and imperfect account of the state of education within that space. With a view to ulterior measures, it is just as necessary to know the extent of the ignorance that prevails where education is wholly or almost wholly neglected, as to know the extent of the acquirements made where some attention is paid to it.” The soundness of these views will not be disputed, but to extend over every sub-division of every district throughout the country, the minute enquiry which they prescribe is not the work of one man or of one life, but of several devoting their whole lives to the duty. Without attempting, therefore, what it would be impossible to accomplish, I have sought to fulfil the instructions of the Committee by thoroughly examining the state of education in one of the sub-divisions of the district which, with such qualifications as will appear to be necessary, may be taken as a sample of the whole; while, at the same time, the state of education generally in the other sub-divisions, and of particular institutions worthy of note, has not been neglected.

Rajshahi was formerly the most extensive district of Bengal, comprehending, according to Major computation in 1784, 12,999 square miles; at which period also the population appears to have been estimated at 1,997,763. After that date several important pergunnahs were detached from it, and joined, it is believed, to the district of Moorshedabad; and in 1801 the population of Rajshahi was estimated at 1,500,000. About twenty-five years ago, two thanas, viz., those of Chapai and Rahanpur, were, in respect of police and fiscal purposes, detached from Rajshahi, and employed with two from Dinajpur and four from Purniya to form the joint magistracy and deputy collectorship of Malda. About ten years after, four other thanas of Rajshahi, viz., those of Adamdighi, Nakhila, Serpur, and Buggoorah, with two from Rangpur and three from Dinajpur, were for the same administrative purposes, employed to form the joint magistracy and deputy collectorship of Buggoorah. Still more recently within the last seven and eight years, five other thanas, viz., those of Shajatpur, Khetapara,