Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/183

Rh him, giving each pupil his turn of such an advantage in due course; and when the master of the feast bestows a gift of money on the teacher, it is always accompanied by a present to the pupil less in amount but proportioned to the respectability of the teacher’s character and the extent of his attainments. The teacher sometimes takes a favorite pupil more frequently than others, the object being to give a practical proof of the success of his instructions as well as to accustom the pupil to the intercourse of learned and respectable society. As the student is furnished with instruction, food, and lodging without cost, the only remaining sources of expense to him are his books, clothes, and minor personal expenses, all of which, exclusive of books, are estimated to cost him in no case more and often less than seven rupees per annum. His books he either inherits from some aged relative or at his own expense and with his own hands he copies those works that are used in the college as text-books. In the latter case the expense of copying includes the expense of paper, pens, ink, ochre, and oil. The ochre is mixed with the gum of the tamarind-seed extracted by boiling, and the compound is rubbed over the paper which is thus made impervious to insects and capable of bearing writing on both sides. The oil is for light, as most of the labor of copying is performed by night after the studies of the day have been brought to a close. An economical student is sometimes able, with the presents he receives when he accompanies his teacher to assemblies, both to defray these expenses and to relieve the straitened circumstances of his family at a distance. I have learned on good authority that ten and even twenty rupees per annum have been saved and remitted by a student to his family; but the majority of students require assistance from their families, although I am assured that what they receive probably never in any case exceeds four rupees per annum.

I have already mentioned that in this district, as in Bengal generally, there are three principal classes into which the teachers and schools of Hindu learning are divided, and which, therefore, may with advantage be separately considered. The acquirements of a teacher of logic in general pre-suppose those of a teacher of law, and the acquirements of the latter in general pre-suppose those of a teacher of general literature who, for the most part, has made very limited attainments beyond those of his immediate class. As these are popular and arbitrary designations, they are not always strictly applied, but it would appear that of the thirty-eight schools of learning already mentioned, there are thirteen taught by Pundits who may be described as belonging to the first class; nineteen by Pundits of the second; and two by Pundits of the third or highest class; while the remaining four belonging to none of the leading classes must be separately and individually noticed.