Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/323

Rh pronounced that upon the character of the indigenous schools the education of the great mass of the population must ultimately depend. These sentiments and opinions are worthy of the highest authorities in the government of a great empire, and they are confirmed by the whole history of civilization. It is deeply to be regretted that they have hitherto produced no fruit in this country; and it is earnestly to be hoped that the time has now arrived to give them a practical, a systematic, and a general application.

Assuming the importance of vernacular instruction as the very foundation-stone of a sound and salutary system of national education, and assuming also that the old and established village schools and school-masters, if they can be rendered available and qualified, present the most appropriate instruments for gaining a ready access to the people and a trustful acceptance of the improvements which we are desirous of introducing and diffusing, it remains for me to show with what preliminary arrangements, in what manner, and to what extent, I would propose to employ their agency.

The first step to be taken is the selection of one or more districts in which Government shall authorize the plan to be tried. It is desirable that the experiment should be made simultaneously in several districts, for the purpose of comparing the results obtained under different circumstances. The attempt may succeed in one district and fail in another, the failure arising from local and temporary, and the success from permanent and general, causes; and if the experiment was made only in one district, it might be one in which local and temporary causes are in operation leading to failure, and thus undeserved discredit might be entailed upon the whole scheme. The number of districts usually included in a division subject to a Commissioner of Revenue and Circuit would probably afford a just criterion.

Having fixed upon the districts in which a trial is to be given to the plan, the next step will be to institute an educational survey of each district, or a survey of all the institutions of education actually found in it to determine the amount of juvenile instruction, and a census of the population of each district, to determine the amount of domestic and adult instruction. With a view to the completeness of the results, I would recommend that the census of the population should not be limited to one thana in each district, but should be co-extensive with the survey of the schools. This would undoubtedly entail much additional trouble and some additional expense, but it is by such means that the interests of humanity, the interests of a future as well as of the present age, are promoted. I have shown in the preceding chapter how such investigations have been, and may be, conducted economically, and, I hope and believe, efficiently and inoffensively; and