Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/181

Rh other effect but to flatter the vanity of the race of Pundits by whom the change was made, as if their reputation for learning really had the effect, which it had not, of attracting foreign students to their seminaries. Of the two classes existing and recognized in this district, 136 students belong to the villages in which the schools are situated and 261 to other villages. The reasons that induce so many to leave their native villages are various. In some cases they leave the parental roof because there is no school of learning or none of sufficient repute in their native villages; but in the great majority of instances they prefer to pursue their studies at some distance from home, that they may be free from the daily distractions of domestic life, and from the requisitions often made by their fathers that they should perform some of the ceremonial observances of Hinduism in their stead in the family of some disciple at a distance. According to my information, the number is very few, although there probably are some, who have recourse to this measure from mere poverty, and with the view of gaining a livelihood at the expense of their teacher; for the large majority of students, although not wealthy, are above want, being the children either of Kulin-brahmans, Brahman-pundits, initiating or officiating priests, whose professional emoluments are comparatively considerable.

In a majority of cases the apartments used as a school-house and as a place of accommodation for the students, are separate from the dwelling-house of the teacher, but built at his expense and often also applied to the purpose of hospitality to strangers. Sometimes the building is one that has descended from a deceased father or brother to its present possessor. The cost of each building varies from ten to sixty rupees in ordinary cases; but in one extraordinary instance it amounted to two hundred rupees defrayed by a spiritual disciple of the Pundit to whom it belongs. In eleven instances the teachers are too poor to erect separate apartments and they consequently give their instructions within their own dwellings. The foreign students or those who have no home in the village are lodged and fed and pursue their studies at night either in the building erected for a school-room, in separate lodging-apartments attached to it, or in the dwelling-house of the teacher, the last-mentioned course being adopted only when there is no other resource. The separate buildings in which the students are accommodated are of the humblest description, as may be judged from the cost of their erection; huts with raised earthen floors and open either only on one side or on all sides according to the space which the owner can command for ingress and egress. That sort which is open on all sides is used only as a place of reading and study either public or private, and never as a dwelling.

It will be seen from Table III. that the period occupied by an entire course of scholastic studies is in several instances not less than twenty-two years, so that a student must often have passed