Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/385

Rh the natural and unforced use which the social and religious wants of the Musalman population may give it, the Persian can never be regarded in this country as a fit instrument of vernacular instruction.

For a language of instruction to the Musalman population we must turn from the Persian to some of the vernacular dialects, Bengali, Hindi, or Urdu. In Bengal the rural Musalman population speak Bengali; attend, indiscriminately with Hindus, Bengali schools; and read, write, correspond, and keep accounts in that language. With the exception, therefore, of a portion of the Musalman population of large cities in Bengal, the means that have been already described for the promotion of vernacular instruction in this province through the medium of the Bengali language, may be deemed adequate for Musalmans as well as Hindus. The rural Musalman population of Behar use the Hindi language to some, although not to an equal, extent; and when the plan for the promotion of vernacular instruction shall be applied in Behar through the medium of the Hindi language and Nagari character, it will be found to embrace a considerable proportion of the rural Musalman population; but it will leave a considerable proportion of that population, and also of the urban Musalman population who speak Urdu, unprovided with the means of vernacular instruction; and, for their benefit, it would seem desirable that distinct arrangements should be made. Those arrangements will consist merely in the preparation of a separate series of school-books in the Urdu language and Persian character, differing from the similar works prepared in Bengali and Hindi chiefly in the subject-matter of the first volume of the series, which should contain the most approved and complete course of native instruction known amongst Musalmans in India on the Persian model. Such a series of school-books will make the transition easy from the system of Persian schools at present so numerous in Behar and now ceasing to be adapted to the wants of the country, to the system of Urdu schools which the measures of Government will soon render indispensable. They will bring within the reach of the humbler classes of the Mohammadan population whatever really useful knowledge is found in the Persian school-books; and they will help to raise those classes to a community of feeling and of information with the superior classes of their co-religionists and with the general intelligence of the country.

The second question bearing on the improvement of the Mohammadan population is—What is the fit means to be employed for improving the instruction communicated in Mohammadan schools of learning and for obtaining the co-operation of the learned in the prosecution of the measures that may be adopted to extend instruction to the Mohammadan population generally?