Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/237

Rh sought. Hindu society on a large scale may be divided into three grades:—First, Brahmans who are prohibited by the laws of religion from engaging in worldly employments for which vernacular instruction is deemed the fit and indispensable preparation; second, those castes who, though inferior to Brahmans, are deemed worthy of association with them, or to whom the worldly employments requiring vernacular instruction are expressly assigned; and third, those castes who are so inferior as to be deemed unworthy both of association with Brahmans, and of those worldly employments for which vernacular instruction is the preparation. This would exclude the first and third grades from the benefits of such instruction, and in the Behar districts few of them do partake of it, while in the Bengal districts the proportion of both is considerable.

Fifth.—As another point of comparison, it is worthy of note that in each of the Bengal districts a greater or less number of the teachers bestow their instructions gratuitously, and even teachers who are paid instruct many scholars who pay nothing; while in the Behar districts I did not discover any instance in which instruction was given without compensation. The greater poverty of the people in Behar than in Bengal may, in part, explain this fact; but the principal reason probably is that the same religious merit and social consideration are not attached to learning, its possession and diffusion, in the former as in the latter province.

Sixth.—In the preceding details an attempt has been made to describe the various modes in which the teachers of common schools are remunerated, and to ascertain the mean rate payment in each district, reducing all the items to a monthly estimate. The mean rate is—

The returns on this subject are to be taken with some explanations. It is possible that some sources of regular profit to teachers, in themselves insignificant, but to them not unimportant, may have been overlooked; and occasional profits, such as presents from old scholars, are too fluctuating and uncertain to be known or estimated. Teachers, moreover, often add other occupations to that of giving instruction; and when a teacher does not have recourse to any other employment, his income from teaching is most frequently valued chiefly as his contribution to the means of subsistence possessed by the family to which he belongs, since by itself it would be insufficient for his support. When a teacher is wholly dependent upon his own resources, and those are limited to his income in that capacity, the rate of payment is invariably higher.