Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/93

Rh Native Female Schools.—The first attempt to instruct Native girls in Calcutta, in organized schools, was made by the Calcutta Female Juvenile Society, which has subsequently assumed the name of the Calcutta Baptist Female Society for the establishment and support of Native female schools. The thirteenth report, dated 1834, is now before me, from which it appears that there is one school in Calcutta, containing from 60 to 70 scholars; another at ', containing 110 to 120; and a third at ', in which 20 children of Native converts are instructed. The schools are superintended by a Committee of Ladies, and the teachers are Native women, formerly in some instances scholars. The girls are taught reading, spelling and geography, and much attention is given to religious instruction. In the Chitpore school writing is also taught, and in the Sibpore school six of the Christian girls have begun to learn English.

An examination of a number of Bengalee girls belonging to the school instituted by the above mentioned Society, on the occasion of a public examination of the Calcutta School Society’s schools, attracted the attention of the last-mentioned Society to the subject of female schools, and in the report of 1820 it is stated that, although attempts to promote female education are highly approved, yet as members of an Association composed jointly of Natives and Europeans, the former cannot be expected to act all at once upon the suggestions of the latter, militating against opposite sentiments of very long standing, and it was, therefore, determined that the time had not yet arrived for direct endeavors by the Society to establish Native girls’ schools under female teachers. The British and Foreign School Society, however, in consultation with the Calcutta School Society’s agent, Mr., and with Mr. Ward of the Serampore Mission, both then in England, opened a subscription for the outfit of a mistress to be sent to India, qualified to instruct females born or bred in this country in the Lancasterian method of mutual instruction, that they might afterwards diffuse the system throughout the country as opportunities offered. Miss Cooke (now Mrs. Wilson) accordingly arrived in November 1821, and as the funds of the Calcutta School Society were inadequate to her support, her services were engaged by the Corresponding Committee of the Church Missionary Society, and in connection with that Committee she gradually extended her labors until she had, in 1824, twenty-four schools under her superintendence, attended on an average by 400 pupils. In that year the Corresponding Committee relinquished the entire management and direction of their female schools to a Committee of Ladies who formed themselves into a Society called the Ladies’ Society for Native Female Education in Calcutta and its vicinity. Subsequently the number of schools was increased to 30, and that of the pupils to 600, but instead of still further multiplying the number of schools, it was deemed advisable to