Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/221

Rh The total number of Hindu scholars is 998, of whom 18 were absent at the time the schools were visited; and the total number of Musalman scholars is 82, of whom 4 were absent. The following is an enumeration of the castes of the Hindu scholars and of the number belonging to each:—

This enumeration shows in what classes of Hindu society vernacular instruction is chiefly found, and in what classes it becomes increasingly deficient. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the latter, as compared with the former, are losing ground. The fact is quite the reverse: they are gaining ground, and are almost imperceptibly acquiring a sense of the value even of that humble instruction which is within their reach, but from which, by the customs of society, they were formerly almost wholly debarred. The time is not distant when it would have been considered contrary to all the maxims of Hindu civilization that individuals of the Mala, Chandal, Kahar, Jalia, Lahari, Bagdhi, Dhoba, and Muchi castes should learn to read, write, and keep accounts; and if some aged and venerable brahman who has passed his life removed from European contamination were told that these low castes are now raising their aspirations so high, he would deplore it as one of the many proofs of the gross and increasing degeneracy