Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/334

274 It is easy for me to sketch the principal topics of these works, and the series might be still further extended; but it would be a more difficult task to fill up the outline in such a manner that the whole would deserve the approbation of Government and be acceptable to the people. Their utility, however, would compensate for the labor, the time, and the expense bestowed, for a really good school-book is a powerful instrument of good to a country. By these and by similar works a small native standard library might be formed; and the most important ideas they contain might, by the means I am about to recommend, be gradually worked into, and embodied with, the earliest impressions and the permanent convictions of native society.

Having prepared and printed the first book of the series, the next step is to appoint a Government agent to each of the districts in which the plan is to be carried into effect. The duty to be assigned to him, as will afterwards more fully appear, is the examination of teachers and scholars, and with this view he should unite the acquirements both of a Native and English education. Without a good native education he could not, with credit and efficiency, act in the capacity of an examiner of native teachers and scholars; and an English education will be useful to conciliate the respect of his countrymen, to give him confidence in his own comparative attainments, and to enable him to receive and communicate to the people just views of the intentions of Government, and to the Government just views of the feelings and wishes of the people. In addition to these literary acquirements, an unimpeached character for steadiness, industry, and integrity is indispensable. Much will depend upon these examiners, and their appointment should be made with great care and discrimination. Those natives who have received an English education have in general too much neglected the ordinary branches of a Native education, and some difficulty may at first be experienced in obtaining competent persons; but a very little application on the part of the intelligent young men who have passed through the, the , and other public schools, will supply the requisite qualification, and the difficulty will speedily disappear.

The examiner will proceed to the district to which he has been appointed with a recommendation from the Commissioner of the division to the Magistrate who will be instructed to aid him with counsel, influence, and co-operation, as far as they can be bestowed, without trenching on his individual responsibility, or the unfettered action of the people. It will not be inconsistent with these restrictions if the magistrate should publish throughout the district a simple declaration or explanation of the intentions of Government addressed to all generally, to none individually; and if as in South Behar there is a district newspaper, the notice should receive all the publicity that can be given to it by that