Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/382

322 the series of text-books, and by the further prospect of eligibility to one of the endowments set apart for the learned when they shall have acquired all the necessary qualifications. Native opinion leads me to think it probable that these motives will prove so powerful to the majority of the students of learning that it will be proper before admitting them to examination to require them to establish by testimonials from their teachers that they have passed through a regular course of grammatical study, lest, in their anxiety to distinguish themselves in the new course of instruction, they should neglect that indispensable preliminary to the successful cultivation of the Sanscrit language and literature.

Fifth.—The native medical schools rank with schools of learning; and, keeping steadily in view the principle of turning to account all existing institutions, both European and Native, it is worthy of consideration whether the native medical schools may not be usefully employed, in connection with the medical college of Calcutta, in improving and extending sound medical instruction. In Rajshahi I found one medical school containing seven students taught by two professors; in Beerbhoom another containing six students taught by one professor; in Burdwan four medical schools containing forty-five students taught by four professors; and in South Behar two medical schools containing two students taught by two professors. All these students were not receiving medical instruction, but in part were pursuing those literary studies which are deemed indispensable preliminaries to a course of professional study; and some of the professors had other students besides those who were either studying, or preparing to study, for the medical profession. Is not this a class of institutions which it should be our object to draw out of obscurity? When it is considered how ill-provided the body of the people are with medical advice and assistance even on ordinary occasions, and much more in seasons of pestilence and disease prevailing locally or generally, is it not our duty to endeavour to increase the number of these institutions and to extend their usefulness by improving the instruction which the teachers communicate? The only answer that can be returned by a wise and humane Government will be by asking how such an object can be accomplished, and the only reply I can make is by reverting to the plans which I have already suggested and which I believe will be found of equal efficacy in their application to medical as to other schools of learning. The first step will be to prepare a separate series of text-books in Bengali, or Hindi, or Sanscrit, or both in Sanscrit and in one of the vernacular languages. They should embrace elementary views and illustrations of the most important and useful branches of medical science and practice, including, in Mr. Hodgson’s language, both exotic principles and local practices, European theory, and Indian experience. The next step will be to induce the medical teachers to study the text-books so prepared; and for this purpose the