Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/236

176 conversation, of verbal instruction, and of correspondence, but it is never employed as the language of literary composition.

Second.—Vernacular instruction prevails to a greater extent in the Bengal than in the Behar districts visited. Comparing the two districts of each province that have been most thoroughly investigated. South Behar and Tirhoot are found to contain 365 common schools, and Beerbhoom and Burdwan 1,041. In the latter the proportion of scholars in each school is also greater. In Tirhoot the proportion is 6·3 to each school, in South Behar 10·8, in Beerbhoom 15·4, and in Burdwan 20·9.

Third.—Both in Bengal and Behar the business of teaching common schools is chiefly in the hands of the Kayastha or writer caste. In the Bengal districts this hereditary privilege has been largely invaded by other castes both superior and inferior to the Kayastha, but still so as to leave the latter a decided majority in the class of vernacular teachers. In the Behar districts this privilege is enjoyed in nearly its pristine completeness. The following is a comparison of the number of Kayastha teachers with those of other castes

This is not an idle fact. It is one of the tests that may be applied to judge of the comparative integrity of native institutions and of the comparative condition of the people in different districts. Both the Bengal and Behar districts need an improved system of vernacular instruction; but the former appear to have undergone a social change, partaking of the nature of a moral and intellectual discipline, which removes prejudices still to be met, and provides facilities not yet to be found in the latter.

Fourth.—The reality of this social change in the one class of districts, and its absence in the other, become further apparent by a consideration of the castes by which vernacular instruction is chiefly