Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/71

Rh it is possible that the aid of Government, if interference be carefully excluded, might be very usefully applied, and very gratefully received, and a still more important end might be attainable, of making their institutions subsidiary and conducive to any improved general system, which it may be hereafter thought proper to establish.

While writing this paper, there has passed, in circulation, a letter from the Government of Fort St. George, transmitting a report from the Board of Public Instruction at that Presidency, upon the present state of the Government Schools.

I collect from this document, that in 1823 there existed in the Madras Territories no less than 12,498 institutions for education, supported partly by the endowment of Native Princes, but chiefly by the voluntary contributions of the people. In addition to these, the Government of Madras have established 14 Collectorate and 67 Tehsildaree Schools. The annual expense is stated to be Rupees 24,920. I do not know when the Government introduced this measure; but if it took place in, 1823, as I conjecture, a sum, amounting to between twenty and thirty thousand pounds, seems to have been very needlessly expended.

The report describes these Government Schools to have been a failure, owing, in great measure, to the inefficiency of the teachers, in consequence of their being badly paid and badly selected; to the want of a due superintendence on the part of the local functionaries, under whom they were placed; and, as is said in paragraph 10, to errors in their original formation. A reform is proposed, in which will be found many judicious suggestions, the principal of which and one the best entitled to attention is the improving and strengthening the Central Presidency Institution. With respect to the Collectorate and Tehsildaree Schools, it appears to me that more has been attempted than was practicable, and that it would have been much better to have established a few good