Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/197

Rh through the medium of letters and who will probably remain equally ignorant throughout life. Assuming the former estimate of the entire population of the district, and giving all the other police sub-divisions the advantage of supposing that each has an equal amount of literary cultivation to that of Nattore, it will follow that the total male adult population of Rajshahi is 476,000, of whom 48,968 know more or less of letters, leaving 427,032 who are totally destitute of the advantages of education in its very humblest forms. Of the whole adult male population the proportion of the instructed to the uninstructed is thus as 114·6 to 1,000. In other words, for every number of adult males amounting to 114 or 115 who have acquired some knowledge of letters, however superficial and imperfect, there are 1,000 who have grown up and who must remain totally ignorant of all that a knowledge of letters alone can impart.

The conclusions to which I have come on the state of ignorance both of the male and female, the adult and the juvenile, population of this district require only to be distinctly apprehended in order to impress the mind with their importance. No declamation is required for that purpose. I cannot, however, expect that the reading of this report should convey the impressions which I have received from daily witnessing the mere animal-life to which Ignorance consigns its victims, unconscious of any wants or enjoyments beyond those which they participate with the beasts of the field—unconscious of any of the higher purposes for which existence has been bestowed, soceitysociety [sic] has been constituted, and government is exercised. I am not acquainted with any facts which permit me to suppose that, in any other country subject to an enlightened Government and brought into direct and constant contact with European civilization, in an equal population there is an equal amount of ignorance with that which has been shown to exist in this district. Would that these humble representations may lead the Government of this country to consider and adopt some measures with a view to improve and elevate the condition of the lower classes of the people, and to qualify them both adequately to appreciate the rights and discharge the obligations of British subjects. In such a state of ignorance as I have found to exist, rights and obligations are almost wholly unknown, and Society and Government are destitute of the foundations on which alone they can safely and permanently rest.

The state of Native Medical Practice in the district is so intimately connected with the welfare of the people that it could not be wholly overlooked; and as the few facts that I have