Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/30

16 to concoct evil measures, to organize conspiracy, or to contaminate those less steeped in crime and hardened in vice than themselves. To the well disposed it affords an occupation, furnishes a means of passing time that would otherwise hang heavy, and implants a taste for pursuits that will render them profitable members of society, when again let loose upon the world. To some of the prisoners I could perceive that the task was distasteful and a sore punishment, but the majority spoke in terms of unfeigned, and, I am convinced, sincere gratitude of the change for the better, which they acknowledged to have been wrought in their condition. The better feelings of their nature have been roused. They are no longer considered and treated as savage and dangerous animals, to be broken into subjection by harshness and starvation, and they exhibit many humanizing sympathies in their demeanour and acts. Not the least creditable part of the whole proceeding is the simple and inexpensive machinery by which all this has been accomplished. The prisoners themselves are the chief agents in their own amelioration, and have exhibited a docility and perseverance that are no mean tests of the success and value of the system.”

To this evidence we append the remarks of the late Lieutenant-Governor:—

"“The prevalent taste for Mathematics has been seized upon in its practical bearing on land surveying, the mechanical arts, and mercantile transactions. Euclid is already a favorite text book, the surveying compass and plane table are rapidly becoming household implements. There is not one of the 3,000,000 men, who cultivate the 100,000,000 acres in these eight Districts, who may not be taught that the field he tills is a Geometrical figure, the extent of which he ought to be able to measure.”"

In 1852, the Hulkabundi, similar to the Bengal Circle, system was begun; it was formed of Village Schools set in the midst of a cluster of villages—none of which were more than two miles distant from the school—and paid for by a cess. This cess and system now prevail in the greater part of every district in the North-West Provinces.

In 1853, the Hon’ble Mr. J. Thomason, Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, the father of Vernacular Education in North India, died; his death called forth a Minute from Lord Dalhousie on the 25th of October, in which occur the following sentiments:—

“Five years ago I had the honor of recommending to the Honorable Court of Directors a scheme prepared by the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, for the promotion of Vernacular Education, by the institution of schools in each tehseel on the part of the Government. The scheme, which was designed ultimately for the whole of the thirty-one districts within the jurisdiction of the Lieutenant-Governor, was limited by His Honor for the time to eight of these districts.

“The Honorable Court was pleased to accede to the recommendation of the Government, in the despatch No. 14, 3rd October 1849, and the scheme was thereafter carried into effect.

“Three years have since elapsed; and I now submit to my Honorable Colleagues, with feelings of genuine satisfaction, a despatch, in which the late Lieutenant-Governor announced to the Supreme Government the eminent success of this experiment, and asked that the scheme of Vernacular Education should now be extended, in its full integrity, to all the