Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/342

282 second expedient is that those native teachers who attend the normal school shall be relieved from all anxiety respecting the means of subsistence during the period of attendance. That period I would limit to four successive years for each teacher and to three months in each year,—the month to be reckoned not by days or broken parts of months, but month by month, or entire months, in order that the instruction may, for some time at least, be continuous and systematic. The native teachers will receive travelling expenses at the rate of one to three annas per day, according to the price of grain in the district and according to the number of days’ journey in coming from and returning to their homes, and subsistence-money at the same rate during the period they remain in regular and diligent attendance at the normal school within the prescribed limits. The only object for which I recommend this allowance is to remove a probable objection against attendance at the normal school by giving the teacher who cannot afford the loss of his time and labor a bare subsistence during the period of his absence from home; but it is possible that the extreme poverty of many may cause it to operate as a direct inducement. Beyond these expedients I do not at present perceive that any others can be with advantage employed, however desirable and important to obtain the attendance of native teachers at a well-disciplined and well-instructed normal school.

Having gone thus far in the formation of a body of approved vernacular teachers, and having obtained results upon the whole satisfactory during a trial of four years, I would propose to take one step farther, with a view to connect those teachers permanently with the Government and the people, and to secure their usefulness and responsibility to both. It must be evident that the measures yet recommended are preparatory in their nature and will be uncertain and fluctuating in their effects. They will awaken increased attention to education among the natives, convince them of the desire of Government to promote it, and more or less elicit their co-operation. They will call into existence a better class of teachers and fit them for the discharge of their duty to the community. But the effect cannot be, and should not be expected to be, permanent. I have before expressed the opinion that, in the present torpid state of the national mind in this country, an education of stimulants is required; but the operation of stimulants is by their very nature temporary, and they gradually cease to produce the effects expected from them. Some means, therefore, must be sought to give a stable and enduring character to the system. What is to be desired is that, at the close of the course of public examinations and pedagogic instructions through which the teachers may be required to pass, we may be able to place before them some higher reward than any they have hitherto obtained, which will rouse them to further exertion, which when obtained will satisfy their ambition, and which will also be accompanied by such