Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/339

Rh encouragement bestowed on them by Government, there would be, it is believed, a gradual extension of instruction to the people which, even within the limits of the native system, in proportion as it became general would give the people greater protection against the impositions and exactions to which their ignorance of letters often subjects them. Others may be of opinion, as I am, that it is desirable and practicable to instruct the body of the people in the useful arts adapted to their circumstances, in the moral and social duties of life, and in a knowledge of the leading facts and principles belonging to the physical constitution of the world and to the history and condition of their own and other countries; and for this purpose their instructors must, in the first place, be rendered qualified. Accordingly the second, third, and fourth volumes of the series of school-books being prepared in succession, those school-masters who have successfully passed through the first examination will receive a copy of the second volume of the series to be the subject of examination the second year; and the third and fourth volumes will, in like manner, be distributed to the successful candidates, respectively, of the second and third years until all the volumes to which it may be deemed advisable to extend the series are exhausted. Thus within a period of four years four different classes of native teachers might be, and probably would be, produced; for some would rest contented with the distinction acquired by proficiency in the first volume; others would stop at the second; a third class would be ambitious to study the succeeding volume; and a fourth class would complete the series; no one receiving the fourth volume who had not been satisfactorily examined on the third, nor the third who had not been examined on the second, nor the second who had not been examined on the first. All would have their names registered as respectively belonging to the first, second, third, and fourth classes of approved vernacular teachers; and there would thus probably continue to be four classes of native teachers with various qualifications and attainments corresponding to the wants of the different classes and conditions of native society.

All that has yet been proposed, if carried fully into operation, will only have the effect of communicating to the body of teachers a superior degree and kind of instruction to that which they now possess; but it will have no direct, and little indirect, effect in improving their capacity to convey that instruction to others. The capacity to acquire and the capacity to communicate knowledge do not necessarily co-exist in the same person and are often found separate. The discipline and management of native common schools are in general the worst that can be conceived, for they consist in the absence of almost all regular discipline and management whatsoever; and as a teacher is only half qualified for his duties who perfectly knows all that he is expected or required to