Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/83

Rh of education in this district, containing the metropolis of the country, than in several distant and less civilized districts of Bengal. The only reference to such schools in the Twenty-four Pergunnahs, I find in one of the reports of the Calcutta School Society, which in 1819 received applications from many school-masters beyond the Mahratta Ditch, that they also might be permitted to partake of its benefits; but it was not then deemed advisable to extend the connections of the Society, and the applications do not appear to have been subsequently renewed.

Elementary Schools not Indigenous.—Besides the indigenous elementary schools in connection with the Calcutta School Society, that Association originally established five elementary schools which it entirely controlled and supported. These schools were established on the ground that Native schools which exist by the support and under the control of Europeans or Societies, should be good of their kind rather than numerous; adapted rather to improve by serving as models than to supersede the established seminaries of the country; designed rather to educate the children of the poor than the numerous youth of this country whose parents are able and willing to pay for their instruction,—a sound and judicious rule which, it may be feared, has been often neglected. The great expenditure necessary to be incurred for these schools and the limited and irregular attendance, led to the transfer of three of them to the care of the Corresponding Committee of the Church Missionary Society. Another of these schools was situated in a quarter of the city chiefly occupied by Musalmans to whom the Bengalee is not the current medium of communication. A zealous and respectable Mahomedan member of the Committee of the Society personally superintended it, and it was placed under a teacher of Hindustani who, without excluding Bengali, gave instruction through elementary works in the Persian and Nagree characters. This school was discontinued; which is the more to be regretted as it was perhaps the only elementary public school for that portion of the inhabitants of Calcutta who speak Hindustani. The remaining school was situated at Arpuly, and was in operation under the personal superintendence of the Secretary of the School Society until the beginning of 1833, when, in consequence of the insolvency of the treasurers and the loss of many of the most valuable subscribers, it was relinquished. The house in which the school had till then been conducted, was so old that it could not be repaired, and a new one would have cost a large sum than the School Society could afford. Any attempt at that time to revive the interest of the public in the Society would probably have failed in consequence of the general distress; but it would certainly be attended with more success at the present time. According to the last report, it contained about 225 boys, who were instructed by a Pundit and four Native teachers, and were divided into eleven classes, occupied with different Bengalee studies from