Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/222

162 of the age. The encroachment of these castes on the outskirts of learning is a spontaneous movement in native society, the effect of a strong foreign rule unshackled by native usages and prejudices, and protecting all in the enjoyment of equal rights.

It has been mentioned in former reports that there are four stages in a course of vernacular instruction; but there is this difference between Bengali and Hindi schools, that whereas in the second and third stages of the former the palm-leaf and plantain-leaf are generally used, in the same stages of the latter a wooden-board and brazen plate are employed as the materials on which lessons in writing and accounts are given. Two modes are adopted of writing on the brazen plate,—first, by dissolving chalk in water to a consistence that permits the scholar to rub it on the plate where it dries and receives the impression of a hard pin or reed-pen; and second, by writing on the plate with chalk-ink. The former is the mode chiefly employed in writing on the board, and mud is sometimes substituted for moistened chalk. The following statement exhibits the distribution of the total number of scholars into the four stages of instruction:—

It thus appears that nearly the whole number of scholars is employed in the second and fourth stages, the former embracing the commencement, and the latter the completion, of instruction in accounts.

Limited as is the utmost scope of vernacular instruction, there are several gradations in the attainments of the teachers and in the instructions which they bestow. Thus in 4 Hindi schools commercial accounts only, in 14 Bengali schools agricultural accounts only, and in 10 Bengali schools both commercial and agricultural accounts are taught. In 3 schools of which one is Hindi and two are Bengali, written works chiefly in the vernacular language are taught in addition to commercial accounts; and in 36 Bengali schools those works are taught in addition both to commercial and agricultural accounts.

In the only Hindi school in which vernacular works are used, those works are the Dan Lila and Dadhi Lila, both describing the boyish amusements of Krishna, the former his boating pleasures on the Jumna in the neighbourhood of Brindavan, and the latter the tricks he played the milkmen of that place with his youthful companions. In only one Bengali school the Guru Bandana was found in use, a doggerel composition containing an expression of the respect and devotion due from the scholar to his teacher. The