Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/315

Rh Provinces and of the fact that there also it has begun to lose ground. Mr., in an account of the schools in the Bareilly Collectorship, dated 29th January 1827, which he communicated to the Committee, makes the following statement:—“A strange instance of narrow-mindedness occurs in the report of the Huzzoor Tehsil Paishkar from whom the above detail is taken. He observes (and the Canoongoes have also signed the paper) that, under the former Governments, none but ‘Ashraf,’ viz., Brahmans, Rajpoots Bukkals, Kaits, and Khutrees among the Hindus; and Sheikhs, Syeds, Moghuls, and Pathans of the Mahomedans, were permitted to study the sciences or even to learn the Persian language; but that now all sects are learning Persian, Arabic, and Sanscrit. They, therefore, suggest the abolition of some schools where the children (of) Ahus, Guddees, &c., are instructed.” The strength and prevalence of the prejudice which could dictate such a suggestion will be understood when it is borne in mind that the native officers from whom it proceeded had been employed by Mr. Boulderson to collect information respecting the state of the schools in his district with the, no doubt, avowed purpose of encouraging education. The feeling however against the instruction of the lower classes, although general, is not universal; and the above statements shows that, although strong, it is not overpowering. In any plan, therefore, that may be adopted what should be kept in view is to recognize no principle of exclusion, to keep the door open by which all classes may enter, and to abstain from enforcing what their poverty makes them unable and their prejudices unwilling generally to perform.

Without employing recommendations or enactments that would be either futile or vexatious, another mode of applying the Public resources for the advancement of education might be by the establishment of new schools under the superintendence of paid agents of Government, who should introduce improveimproved [sic] systems of instruction as models for the imitation and guidance of the general body of native teachers. It was with this view that the Chinsurah schools were patronized and the Ajmere schools established by Government, and it is on the same general plan, although with ulterior views to conversion, that most Missionary Schools are also conducted. This plan contains a sound and valuable principle inasmuch as it contemplates the practicability and importance of influencing the native community generally by improving native teachers and native systems of instruction; but the mode in which this principle is applied is liable to objection on various grounds.

The first ground of objection is that it has the direct effect of producing hostility amongst the class of native teachers, the very men through whom it is hoped to give extension to the