Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/377

Rh That amongst so numerous a body none will prove hostile or indiflerent would be too much to expect; but in my own experience I have met with only one instance, that of a pundit in Rajshahi who expressed an unfriendly feeling to popular instruction. Poor and unpatronized, he asked me what advantage the extension of popular instruction would bring to him,—a question which rather confirms the view I have before presented regarding the character and expectations of the class. In another instance, that of the respectable pundit of the judge’s court at in Tirhoot, I found that all my attempts at explanation did not apparently remove from his mind the suspicion of some ulterior object, and he appears to have communicated his doubts to other learned men in that district to whom the subject was mentioned. This, however, was by no means generally the case. In conversation I have received repeated assurances from many pundits of their readiness to teach European science and learning in their schools, provided that the works put into their hands do not embrace the subject of religion on which they most distinctly intimated that they will teach, and countenance nothing but what is in their estimation strictly orthodox. In the Rajshahi, Moorshedabad, Beerbhoom, and Burdwan districts I had frequent conversations with pundits on this subject, and generally with the most satisfactory results; but it did not occur to me, till after leaving those districts, to ask any of them for their written opinions. On my return, however, to Calcutta, I put a case in writing before the pundits of the Sanscrit College, and subsequently before such pundits as I met in the districts of South Behar and Tirhoot, a translation of which, with their answer and the signatures attached to it, I subjoin. Two pundits of the Burdwan district, whom circumstances had prevented me from seeing when in their native district, followed me to Calcutta, anxious to give a full and correct account of their schools that it might be included in this report, and they took the opportunity, at the same time, of expressing their assent in writing to the opinion of the Calcutta pundits. More recently two pundits from the Jessore district and my own pundit belonging to the same district have, of their own accord, requested permission to add their names.

“I have observed that the teachers of Hindu learning in this country in their respective schools instruct their pupils Hindu learning only. There are, however, many English books of learning, in which arithmetic, mechanics, astronomy, medicine, ethics, agriculture, and commerce are treated at length. I beg to be informed whether, if such works, exclusive of those which relate to