Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/332

272 precepts, examples, maxims, and illustrations of native literature as shall render the school-books both useful and attractive. For this purpose the union of European and Native agency would be necessary,—European agency aided by the best works that have been framed in Europe and America for the use of schools, and Native agency of a high order of qualification to command readily the resources and appliances of native learning.

Under the guidance of such general principles, and in the employment of such a united agency, a series of school-books in Bengali might be framed on the following plan:—

The first of the series might be made with advantage to include all that is at present taught in scattered and disjointed portions in the vernacular schools, systematically arranged and presented in the clearest, most comprehensive, and most perfect form in which it can be prepared. It would thus be a text-book for instruction in writing on the ground, on the palm-leaf, on the plantain or sal-leaf, and on paper; in reading both written and printed compositions; in accounts both commercial and agricultural as taught in the works of Subhankar and Ugra Balaram; in the correct and fluent composition of letters, petitions, grants, leases, bonds, and notes of hand according to the most popular and approved forms; in the elements of grammar and lexicology as taught in Sabda Subanta, Ashta Sabdi, Ashta Dhatu, and the vocabulary of Amara Singh; and finally, in the moral verses of Chanakya. This work would make the learners, whether teachers or scholars, thoroughly competent in the knowledge and use of the most improved forms of their own vernacular system of instruction before introducing them to any higher grades of knowledge; and the first trial in every district would thus also be disembarrassed of the prejudices which might be raised if any new and strange subjects of instruction were suddenly and generally presented to them. Those portions of the above-mentioned native school-books that are in Sanscrit should be translated into Bengali.

The second book of the series might explain the most important arts of life that contribute to comfort, improvement, and civilization, and might give elementary views of the sciences which have produced and must help to perfect them. Trade and the sub-divisions of manual labour; manufactures and the uses of machinery; and above all agriculture,—the most valuable products, the best modes and seasons of culture, the most useful implements and manures, the rotation of crops, draining, irrigation, large and small farms—all these are subjects which, in plain language and with appropriate local illustrations, might be brought home to the business and bosoms of nine-tenths of the people. The modes of applying agricultural capital are notoriously very rude and unproductive, and the quantity of land cultivated by the