Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/309

Rh records of burglary, cattle-stealing, theft, and affrays that we perceive the excess of crime in the less instructed districts of Behar as compared with the better instructed districts of Bengal. Cases of homicide, assault, and wounding, are also much in excess in the Tirhoot district. Forgery deserves special attention. This is a description of crime which with much seeming probability has been usually supposed to be facilitated and increased by education; but we find that, in the three Bengal districts during a period of six years, there were only three convictions for forgery, while in the two Behar districts during the same period not fewer than nineteen occurred. The comparative prevalence of forgery in the less instructed, and of gang robbery in the more instructed districts shows the necessity of more extended and precise investigation into the connection between instruction and crime.

I have not attempted to show the increase or diminution of crime from year to year in the different localities, because that would have no relation to the state of instruction unless it could also be shown that education had advanced or retrograded during the same periods and in the same localities for which no data at present exist. The future inquirer into the statistics of education in this country will derive some aid in this branch of his investigation from the results recorded in this Report.

The preceding Sections embrace all the most important information I have collected respecting the state of education, omitting many details which might have embarrassed the attention of the reader and lessened the distinctness of his impressions. For the same reason I abstain at present from entering on the results of a census of castes and occupations which was included in the census of the population, on the state of native medical practice, in the extent to which the most remarkable diseases prevail, and on the peculiar institutions and practices of the respective districts—all illustrative of the physical, moral, and intellectual condition of the people, but only indirectly connected with the amount and means of general instruction.

The information now placed upon record in this and the preceding Report may be summed up in a very few words. By means of a census of the population, the amount of domestic and adult instruction has been ascertained in the city of Moorshedabad and in one thana or police sub-division of the districts of Rajshahi, Moorshedabad, BeeerbhoomBeerbhoom [sic], Burdwan, South Behar, and Tirhoot respectively; and by means of educational survey, the state of