Page:Calcutta Review Vol. II (Oct. - Dec. 1844).pdf/329

324 who are regarded by themselves as well as by others, both in respect of condition and capacity, as quite beyond the reach of the simplest forms of literary instruction.”

It next becomes a matter of peculiar interest and importance to inquire in what castes or classes of Hindu Society vernacular education is chiefly found, and in what classes it becomes increasingly deficient. The following enumeration of the castes of the Hindu scholars and of the number belonging to each, in the city and District of Moorshedabad, may, with certain unimportant variations, be viewed as an average specimen of other Districts:—

In three of the districts surveyed by Mr. Adam, the number of Brahman scholars greatly preponderates; in two of them, the Kayasthas stand next, and in a third, nearly so; while in South Behar there are three castes, and in Tirhoot not fewer than seven castes, each yielding a greater number of scholars than the Brahman caste, to which they are so greatly inferior in social estimation. And here Mr. Adam supplies us with a profound, if not original, reflection, when he suggests, that a consideration of the castes by which vernacular instruction is chiefly sought, not merely indicates the manner of its distribution among them, but also furnishes “one of the tests that may be supplied to judge of the integrity of native institutions and of the comparative condition of the people in different districts.” Respecting the division of Hindu Society, Mr. Adam thus writes:—

Hindu society, on a large scale, may be divided into three grades; first, Brahmans, who are prohibited by the laws of religion from engaging in worldly employment, for which vernacular instruction is deemed the fit and indispensable preparation; second, those castes who, though inferior to brahmans, are deemed worthy of association with them, or to whom the worldly employments requiring vernacular instruction are expressly assigned; and third, those castes who are so inferior as to be deemed unworthy both of association