Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/381

Rh in some fixed proportion to their number, say, in the proportion of one to six. Thus the 24 Sanscrit schools in the city of Moorshedabad would have four endowments distributed among them, provided that all the twenty-four teachers established their eligibility; and so with every other locality. Probably this will not be deemed too high a proportion, and if found too low to elicit the competition and co-operation of the body of pundits, the value of each endowment might be raised, or the number increased. With regard to the best mode of bestowing these endowments on the learned, it may be sufficient at present to remark that the pundits who are found by the possession, of the requisite qualifications to be eligible to them, may be examined by written queries and answers on subjects calculated to enlarge their views both of their own deficiencies and of the wants of the country and of their duty to seek self-improvement for the sake of the general good; and those whom fit judges may determine to be the most worthy should receive the reward accompanied with all the forms which may give weight and honour to the distinction. When a vacancy occurs of any of the endowments given to the learned, it may be filled up in the same way by the open competition of all who are eligible.

Fourth.—To induce teachers to communicate the improved instruction to their scholars and the latter to seek for that instruction, various motives will be presented. With regard to the teachers, the copies of the first volume of the series which they will receive for the use of their scholars will become their own property, only by producing an equal number of instructed scholars. They will further receive a corresponding number of copies of the second book of the series for the use of their scholars, only if they shall be found to have made a proper use of those copies of the first received for the same purpose; and so also with regard to the third and fourth volumes. Still, further, one of the qualifications for holding an endowment will be that the teacher shall have instructed six scholars in each of the four volumes of the series. The success also with which learned teachers pass themselves and their scholars at the periodical examinations will come to be a measure of the public repute they enjoy in their native districts, and thus increase the number of invitations and the amount of presents they receive, and perhaps in many cases induce wealthy zemindars to bestow on them endowments exclusive of those appropriated by Government to the class of the learned. With regard to students of learning, they will be attracted, as in the case of vernacular scholars, by the curiosity and pleasure which new and useful knowledge will inspire by the love of display which a public examination will gratify, by the ambition of having their names, designations, and places of residence registered as those of approved students, by the prospect of eligibility to the English school of the district after completing