Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/86

26 discontinuance of elementary schools. These effects are not necessary, for the study of the two languages may be combined with advantage as the labors of the School Society show; but they are effects which are naturally produced in the circumstances of this country upon ignorance and youth, and it should be deemed an important object to counteract them. At Kidderpur, where this Society has a Missionary Station, there are five other elementary schools containing about 260 boys, whose progress in the various branches taught is stated to be encouraging and satisfactory.

Indigenous Schools of Learning.— in his work on the Hindoos has given, on the whole, a correct account of the state of indigenous learning and of the institutions by which it is preserved among the Hindoos. The principle which secures the perpetuation of these institutions, as long as the Hindoo religion subsists and is professed by the mass of the people and by a majority of the wealthy and powerful, is that it is deemed an act of religious merit to acquire a knowledge of the Hindoo shastras, or to extend the knowledge of them either by direct instruction or by pecuniary support or assistance given either to scholars or teachers. Hence the privations to which the students submit in the prosecution of the prescribed course of study; the disinterestedness of the teachers in bestowing their instructions gratuitously with the addition, always of shelter, often of food, and sometimes of clothing; and the liberality of landholders and others shown by occasional endowments of land and frequent gifts of money both to teachers and scholars on the occasion of funeral feasts, weddings, dedications, &c. The number of such institutions throughout the country is unknown, nor are sufficient data possessed on which to rest a probable conjecture. In the district of Dinajpur, Dr. Buchanan found only 16, and in that of Purniya not less than 119,—a difference between two neighbouring districts in which some mistake may be suspected. The estimates of the number in other districts, besides those reported on by Dr. Buchanan, are not the results of personal inquiries, and less dependence is, therefore, to be placed on them. If I were to hazard a conjecture founded on all the facts and statements I have met with, I should say that there are on an average probably 100 such institutions in each district of Bengal, which would give 1,800 for the whole province. An estimate of the total number of students must depend upon the approach to correctness of the conjecture respecting the total number of schools; but the following facts may help towards the formation of a correct opinion respecting the average number of students in each school. In 1818, Mr. Ward enumerated 28 schools of Hindoo learning in Calcutta, in which 173 scholars received instruction, averaging upwards of six scholars to each school. He also enumerated 31 schools of Hindoo learning at Nuddea, in which 747 scholars received