Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/152

92 this respect not an exception to the other thanas. According to the opinions I have been able to collect, the thanas of Bhawanigunge, Hariyal, Chaugaon, Bilmariya, and Bauleah, are considered to have nearly an equal proportion of Musalmans with Nattore, which latter, if any difference exist, is believed to have rather a larger proportion of Hindus than any of the five former; while in Manda, Tannore, Dubalhati, and Godagari, the proportion of Musalmans is alleged to be in excess of what it is in all the others, certainly amounting to not less that three to one Hindu. If we assume that the first-mentioned six thanas have the proportion of two Musalmans to one Hindu, and the four last-mentioned that of three to one, the aggregate average will be that of seven to three, or the proportion of 1,000 Musalmans to 450 Hindus. The returns of 1834 make the proportion to be that of 1,000 to 587, which is the highest proportion of Hindus that can be assumed. It is not difficult to perceive how a contrary impression has gained ground among the European functionaries, and from them has been transferred to the publications of the day. The Hindus, with exceptions of course, are the principal zemindars, talookdars, public officers, men of learning, money-lenders, traders, shop-keepers, &c, engaging in the most active pursuits of life, and coming directly and frequently under the notice of the rulers of the country; while the Musalmans, with exceptions also, form a very large majority of the cultivators of the ground and of day-laborers, and others engage in the very humblest forms of mechanical skill and of buying and selling, as tailors, turban-makers, makers of huqqa-snakes, dyers, wood-polishers, oil sellers, sellers of vegetables, fish, &c.,—in few instances attracting the attention of those who do not mix much with the humbler classes of the people, or make special inquiry into their occupations and circumstances.

Elementary instruction in this district is divisible into two sorts, public and private, according as it is communicated in public schools or private families. The distinction is not always strictly maintained, but it is sufficiently marked, and is in itself so important as to require that these two modes of conveying elementary instruction to the young should be separately considered.

I. Elementary Schools.—These are enumerated and described in the Tables as of two denominations, viz., Hindu and Mahomedan,—there being in Nattore, of the former, 11 schools, containing 192 scholars; and of the latter 16, containing 70 scholars, which gives an average of 17 scholars in each of the one sort, and 4 scholars in each of the other. This was the only division that occurred to me at the commencement of the inquiry; but an