Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/43

Rh “(b.) A Director of Vernacular Education to be appointed, who, being responsible only to the Government of Bengal, should have the sole and uncontrolled management of Vernacular education, and should alone correspond direct with the Bengal Government, on all Vernacular questions. I proposed this twelve years ago to the Bengal Government, and subsequent experience and observation have only confirmed my views.

“My reasons then, as now, had no reference to the individual filling the office, but simply in relation to the obvious principle of the division of labor, which requires that one Director should have charge of the higher education, the other that of the masses; the operations of both are so different that no man, however able or industrious, can do justice to both, involving, as each of them does, a variety of new and complicated questions, very different in their bearings in a country like Bengal, where educational cannot be separated from social problems.

“Great stress is to be laid on the Vernacular Director, whose undivided attention could be given to Vernacular questions which embrace the following Sub-Divisions:—

“(a.) The education of ryots and the working classes, a sphere greater in respect of population than that of France and Scotland united.

“(b.) Female education now rapidly developing itself in Bengal, though the Punjab has gone ahead of Bengal in this branch.

“(c.) Mahomedan Education, hitherto so utterly neglected, in my previous letter I have referred to the important social and political consequence connected with it.

“(d.) The Oriental Colleges. The Sanskrit College of Calcutta has been exceedingly useful in promoting the development of Vernacular Literature, and supplying a well trained class of Pundits for teaching the Vernacular and making translations. As Philological Institutions, Oriental Colleges are of primary importance in the present condition of the Indian Vernaculars. The Calcutta and Hooghly Madrissas have long required Principals at their head, acquainted with Arabic and Persian, who could devote their entire time to the duties of those Colleges, and exercise an useful influence among the Mahomedans.

“(e.) Agricultural Instruction. This is of primary importance for rural Schools, as education in Ireland and Prussia has shewn. In Bengal, the practical measures to be adopted are the teaching it in Normal Schools, with elementary class books in Village Schools. I myself published a book on this subject, which proved very useful for the pupils of my Village Schools. A Chair of Agricultural Chemistry in the Calcutta University would be important for Bengal, as would a Minister of Agriculture in connection with the Supreme Government.

“(f.) Vernacular Literature, in correspondence with the Calcutta School Book Society in relation to Vernacular School-books.

“(g.) Vernacular School and District Libraries. The circulation of useful Vernacular books, by Book-hawkers, and the compilation of an Annual Report on Vernacular Literature in relation to its statistics, the quality, number, and circulation of books.

“6. The above mentioned seven subjects are closely connected with one another, and all bear on the interests of Vernacular education. The Vernacular Director having to work them out by a staff of subordinate Agents, would have ample occupation for his department without distracting his attention by problems relating to the higher education of the upper ten thousand.

“7. There is another subject that belongs also to the Vernacular Department referred to in the Educational Despatch of the Secretary of State for India in 1854, which directed—‘That even in lower Government situations a man who can read and write be preferred to one who cannot, if he is equally eligible in other respects.’

“This injunction has remained practically a dead letter in Bengal, but it deserves the serious attention of the authorities as one of the cheapest and most efficient means of giving a pecuniary motive to the people for learning to read and write. Certainly it might at once be carried out in the Police.