Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/232

172 Thus 285 teachers receive in all rupees 585-12-6, which averages to each teacher rupees 2-0-10 per month.

For school-houses the teachers in this district have recourse to the various expedients adopted in the Bengal districts, and amongst others employ shops, sugar-houses, thresholds, and verandahs of private dwellings, and vacant spaces at the sides of the roads.

In 285 schools the total number of scholars is 3,090, giving to each school an average of 10.8. The average age of the scholars at the time when the different schools were visited was 9.3 years, their average age at the time when they entered school was 7.9 years, and the average age at the time when they would probably leave school was 15.7 years. The average period passed at school would thus appear to be between seven and eight years.

Of the scholars 172 are Musalmans, and 2,918 are Hindus, of whom 14 were absent at the time when the schools were visited. The following are the castes of the latter and the number of each:—

The small number of Kayastha scholars contrasts with the almost exclusive possession by that caste of the business of vernacular teaching; and we meet here also, for the first time, with three inferior castes, each of which furnishes a larger number of scholars than the brahman caste. The very low and degraded castes, as