Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/304

244  and prejudices of the learned make them, if not hostile, certainly indifferent, in most instances, to the spread of education among the body of the people, but with gentle and prudent handling those habits and prejudices may be easily modified. I have met with individuals among the learned who, from benevolent motives, appeared anxious to do every thing in their power to promote the instruction of their countrymen, and with numerous individuals who evidently wanted no other motive than their own interest to make them willing agents in the same undertaking. These individuals were found in that class of the learned which is engaged in the business of teaching; and those of the learned who do not teach are in general so poor that I can have little doubt most of them would readily co-operate in any measures in which their assistance should be made advantageous to themselves. We have no right to expect that men in the gripe of poverty will appreciate the advantages to society and to Government which dictate to us the duty of promoting general education. They must perceive and feel that their own individual interests are promoted, and then their aid will not be withheld.

The state of crime viewed in connection with the state of instruction is a subject of great interest, but it is one on which all the means necessary to form a sound judgment have not yet been obtained. The records of crime have not been framed with a view to derive from them data to determine the effects of instruction, and what I attempt under this head is rather to point to the importance of this branch, of the inquiry than to found conclusions on the facts which I have collected, although at the same time it will be seen that the conclusions which those facts suggest and support are not unimportant. I have been favoured with permission to examine the half-yearly returns made to Government in the Judicial Department relating to crime in the localities of which an educational survey has been made, and from that source I subjoin the following abstract statement of crimes ascertained by the Police Officers or otherwise to have been committed within the city and district of Moorshedabad, and the districts of Beerbhoom,