Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/182

122 his thirtieth year before he leaves college. This is a great deduction from the most valuable years of a man’s life, but the period actually employed in collegiate study is lessened by the length of the vacations which the students receive or take. These extend generally from the month Asarh to the month Kartik, or from the middle of June to about the beginning of November, being from four to five months in the year, besides several shorter vacations at other periods. During the principal period of vacation those who are not natives of the villages in which they have been pursuing their studies return home and in most instances probably continue them there, but with less regularity and application than when under the eye of a Pundit.

The custom of inviting learned men on the occasion of funeral obsequies, marriages, festivals, &c., and at such times of bestowing gifts on them proportioned in value and amount to the estimation in which they are held as teachers, is general amongst those Hindus who are of sufficiently pure caste to be considered worthy of the association of Brahmans. The presents bestowed consist of two parts—first, articles of consumption, principally various sorts of food; and second, gifts of money. In the distribution of the latter at the conclusion of the celebration, a distinction is made between Sabdikas, philologers or teachers of general literature; Smarttas, teachers of law; and Naiyayikas, teachers of logic, of whom the first class ranks lowest, the second next, and the third highest. The value of the gifts bestowed rises not merely with the acquirements of the individual in his own department of learning, but with the dignity of the department to which he has devoted his chief labors and in which he is most distinguished. It does not, however, follow that the professors of the most highly honored branch of learning are always on the whole the most highly rewarded; for in Rajshahi, logic which, by the admission of all, ranks highest, from whatever cause, is not extensively cultivated and has few professors, and these receive a small number of invitations and consequently of gifts in proportion to the limited number of their pupils and the practical disuse of the study. Their total receipts, therefore, are not superior and even not equal to the emoluments enjoyed by learned men of an inferior grade, who have, moreover, a source of profit in the performance of ceremonial recitations on public occasions which the pride or self-respect of the logicians will not permit them to undertake. Whatever the amount, it is from the income thus obtained that the teachers of the different classes and grades are enabled to build school-houses and to provide food and lodging for their scholars; but several have assured me that to meet these expenses they have often incurred debt from which they are relieved only by the occasional and unexpected liberality of individual benefactors.

When a teacher of learning receives such an invitation is as above described, he generally takes one or two of his pupils with