Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/42

28 “(c.) Model Schools supported by Government. These give an example to natives, and to the teachers of indigenous Schools of an improved system of education.

“(d.) Grant-in-aid Schools, which are spreading through the country, the Government defraying half the expense. These Schools are not generally attended much by the agricultural classes.

“(e.) Guru Schools. These are the old indigenous Schools of the country, fragments remaining of the ancient village municipal system, the village having the guru or hedge School-master, the same as it has its barber or smith. There are more than 30,000 of these small Schools in Bengal and Behar; the teachers are very ignorant, and can only give instruction in the merest elements of reading, writing and arithmetic: they present, however, the cheapest and simplest basis for acting on the village population. Successful efforts are now being made both by Government and the Christian Vernacular Education Society to improve this humble class of Schools, by forming them into what are called Circle Schools. A circle is generally composed of three Schools situated a few miles distant from each other; the master or guru of each School receives a monthly bonus from Government or private persons, varying according to the number and proficiency of his pupils; he also receives fees from them in money or food; his defective instruction is supplemented by a superior teacher, who devotes two days a week to each School in rotation. I myself have for years worked Schools on this plan; they are now attended by 900 boys, and I believe this scheme is the most practical one at the present time for reaching the masses; it supplements without superseding indigenous effort.

“(f.) Vernacular Scholarships of the value of Rupees 4 monthly are given after a competitive examination to the best pupils of Vernacular Schools in order to give encouragement to the Schools and enable the successful candidates to pursue a higher course of study at superior Schools. There are 450 Vernacular scholarships, costing Government Rupees 28,000 annually. A class of scholarships, of the value of Rupees 2 per mensem, is requisite to encourage the boys of the Village Schools; the scholarships of Rupees 4 monthly being chiefly competed for by those who intend to prosecute their studies at English Schools.

“4. With the exception of the Guru Schools, the existing system does not tap the masses; it is adopted t Mefly by boys of the middle classes; it exhibits but a slow tendency to work downwards and expand itself towards the millions; it embraces but a fraction of the population, leaving the agricultural and working classes in the main as ignorant as ever, but it has done much good as a preparation for an onward movement, and the time seems now to have arrived when it should be extended to the masses, the 35,000,000 of Bengal, of whom two per cent. cannot read intelligently. I do trust that while in France, Prussia, and even in Russia sedulous efforts are being made for peasant education, Bengal will not in this respect be backward; and especially as the removal of popular ignorance is one of the chief means of destroying that system of popular superstition, which is so mighty an obstacle to all measures for the religious and social amelioration of the millions of Bengal.

“5. The expansions and changes I would propose in the existing system are the following:—

“(a.) The Grant-in-aid Rules to be modified, so as to require from Guru Schools only one-third the local contribution instead of one-half as at present. The peasantry do not value knowledge sufficiently to pay half the expenses of a School; repeatedly have they said to me—we are not merchants or pundits, what is the use of learning History and Geography. If in Prussia education has long been compulsory, if in Sweden a man cannot be married who can neither read nor write, and if in Christian England the question of compulsory education is looming in the distance, why should we in this land of caste, where even the educated native too often says Odi profanum vulgus et arceo, expect that the common people will pay for a knowledge of what they do not at present see the pecuniary value.