Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/98

38 that an average rate of five persons per house would not be too high. The entire population is thus made to stand as follows

Of this number not more than an eightieth part would appear to be Musalmans, foreigners, and casual residents, and Mr. Stirling, adopting the average suggested by the returns most to be relied on, estimates the number of children under ten years at about one-third of the whole population.

Indigenous Schools.—Mr. Stirling, in the elaborate account of this district, from which the preceding details are abridged, gives no information whatever on the state of education as conducted by Natives, either in elementary schools or schools of learning. In the description of the town of Puri Jugunnath, it is stated that “the principal street is composed almost entirely of the religious establishments called maths” a name applied in other parts of the country, both in the west and south, to convents of ascetics in which the various branches of Hindoo learning are taught. It may be inferred that they are applied to the same use in Jugunnauth Puri.

In November 1814, the Collector of Cuttack submitted to the Governor General in Council several documents, relative to a claim set up by Maulavi Abdul Karim to a pension or payment of one rupee per diem, which had been allowed by the former Government for the support of a madrasa in the village of Burbah, near Futtaspore, in the Mahratta Pergunnahs of Hidgelee. After a careful examination of the documents, the claim appearing to be valid, the Government authorised the payment of the pension with arrears. This allowance has since been paid annually, Sa. Rupees 365; but I have not been able to learn any thing of the madrasa for the support of which the grant is made.

The only other reference I have observed, connected with education in this district, is in the answer made by the local agents to Government to the inquiries of the General Committee of Public Instruction in 1824, to the effect that they knew of no endowments or funds applicable to the object of public education in the district.

Elementary Schools not Indigenous.—The Missionaries of the General Baptist Missionary Society have, under their superintendence, twelve elementary schools, supported partly by that Missionary Society, and partly by benevolent individuals, friends of education. In these schools about 219 children are taught their Native language, principally by reading the Christian scriptures