Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/384

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The encouragement given to the existing vernacular schools and to the Hindu schools of learning will embrace the whole of the male Hindu population, and will carry rich and poor, learned and unlearned, forward in the path of improvement with mutual good-will and co-operation, and with a common and joint feeling of attachment and gratitude to the source from which the advantage is derived. The measures requisite for the improvement and extension of instruction amongst the Mohammadan population demand separate consideration.

The first question that arises here is—What is the fit means to be employed for communicating some useful knowledge of letters to the poor and uninstructed, which is by far the most numerous portion of that population?

I have shown in another place that Persian instruction is the only substitute for vernacular instruction peculiar to the Mohammaddan population, and that the language has a strong hold on native society; but it is on the upper class of native society that it has this hold, and it has not descended, and cannot be expected to descend, to the body of the Mohammadan population. To them it is foreign and unknown, and consequently unfit for being employed as the medium of instruction to the people. To those who are instructed in it, it is the language of books, of correspondence, and of accounts; not the language of conversation in domestic life or of the general intercourse of society. It has been shown also that even those who cultivate it as the language of books of correspondence and of accounts are found in five districts in the proportion of 2,087 Hindus to 1,409 Musalmans. There can be little doubt that the official use that has been made of it by Government and its functionaries is the sole reason for its cultivation by Hindus; and as many Musalmans have the same interests to protect by the same means, the reason for its cultivation by them also must be deemed in many instances to be the same. When, therefore, the measures that have recently been adopted for the discontinuance of the Persian and the employment of the vernacular language in public business shall have full effect, it may be expected, not only that all the Hindus, but that a considerable proportion of the Musalmans, who would have otherwise had their children instructed in Persian, will have recourse to some other medium. The use of the Persian is at present in a state of transition. What the ultimate effect of the present measures may be is yet to be seen, but it cannot be deemed favorable to the cultivation of the language; and whatever