Page:Calcutta Review Vol. II (Oct. - Dec. 1844).pdf/312

Rh face of every zillah or district, and personally to inspect and report on the state of education in every separate thana, or police subdivision—every distinct village or settlement in every thana—and every house, hamlet, hut, or building tenanted by a single family or an aggregate of families in every village? Or, was he to restrict his own personal inquiries to a thorough examination of the state of education in one of the thanas or subdivisions of each district which, with such checks, correctives, or qualifications as experience would naturally suggest, might be taken as a fair sample or specimen of the whole—not neglecting, at the same time, to ascertain the state of education generally in the other subdivisions? At first, Mr. Adam contemplated the practicability of the former, or more minute and comprehensive of these methods. But he tells us that, when he actually entered on the work, he found that “an adherence to the instructions he had received would render this impossible, or possible only with such a consumption of time and such a neglect of purposes of practical and immediate utility, as would tend to frustrate the object in view.” His instructions plainly stated, that “the general committee deemed it more important that the information obtained should be complete as far as it went, clear and specific in its details, and depending upon actual observation or undoubted authority, than that he should hurry over a large space in a short time, and be able to give only a crude and imperfect account of the state of education within that space; that, with a view to ulterior measures, it was just as necessary to know the extent of the ignorance that prevailed where education was wholly or almost wholly neglected, as to know the extent of the acquirements made where some attention was paid to it.” The soundness of these views Mr. Adam cordially admitted, but was not long in discovering that “to extend over every subdivision of every district throughout the country, the minute inquiry which they prescribed was not the work of one man or of one life, but of several devoting their whole lives to the duty.” His original purpose was accordingly abandoned; and, without attempting what it would be impossible to accomplish, he resolved to adopt the latter of the methods already indicated. In other words, he resolved to limit the more minute personal inquiries, to be conducted immediately by himself, to a single thana or police subdivision, purposely selected, on the joint recommendation of those natives and Europeans who appeared to be best acquainted with the localities, as that which promised to furnish the fairest average specimen of the educational condition of the whole district.