Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/321

Rh examinations and rewards; and I hope to show, in conformity with the characteristics that have been sketched of a scheme likely to be attended with success, that, while the plan will present incitements to self-exertion for the purpose of self-improvement, it will be equally simple in its details and economical in expenditure, tending to draw forth the kindly affections of the people towards the Government, and to put into the hands of the Government large powers for the good of the people.

The first proposed application of the plan is to the improvement and extension of vernacular education; and to the importance of this branch of public instruction testimony has been at different times borne by the highest authorities in the State. Of these, I shall quote two only in this place. Lord Moira in his Minute on the Judicial Administration of the Presidency of Fort William, dated the 2nd October 1815, after mentioning certain evils in the administration of the Government and in the character of the people, goes on to say—“In looking for a remedy to these evils, the moral and intellectual improvement of the natives will necessarily form a prominent feature of any plan which may arise from the above suggestions, and I have, therefore, not failed to turn my most solicitous attention to the important object of public education. The humble but valuable class of village school-masters claims the first place in this discussion. These men teach the first rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic for a trifling stipend which is within reach of any man’s means, and the instruction which they are capable of imparting suffices for the village zemindar, the village accountant, and the village shop-keeper. As the public money would be ill-appropriated in merely providing gratuitous access to that quantum of education which is already attainable, ''any intervention of Government, either by superintendence or by contribution, should be directed to the improvement of existing tuition and to the diffusion of it to places and persons now out of its reach. Improvement and diffusion may go hand in hand; yet the latter is to be considered matter of calculation, while the former should be deemed positively incumbent.''” Twenty-two years have elapsed since these wise and benevolent views were expressed by one of the ablest and most distinguished rulers that British India has possessed, and no adequate means have yet been employed to discharge a duty declared to be positively incumbent by introducing improvement into the existing system of tuition practised by the humble but valuable class of village school-masters, and to extend the improved ininstructioninstruction [sic] to persons and places which the old system does not reach. We appear to have even retrograded, for not only has vernacular instruction been overshadowed and lost sight of by the almost exclusive patronage bestowed on a foreign medium of instruction, the English language, but even some of the principal efforts to improve the village schools and school-masters have, with