Page:Calcutta Review Vol. II (Oct. - Dec. 1844).pdf/348

Rh forms, such as are found to exist in this district, has a more comprehensive character, and a more liberal tendency, than that pursued in the Bengali schools. The systematic use of books, although in manuscript, is a great step in advance, accustoming the minds of the pupil to forms of regular composition, to correct and elegant language, and to trains of consecutive thought, and thus aiding both to stimulate the intellect and to form the taste. It might be supposed that the moral bearing of some of the text-books would have a beneficial effect on the character of the pupils; but, as far as I have been able to observe or ascertain, those books are employed like all the rest solely for the purpose of conveying lessons in language—lessons in the knowledge of sounds and words, in the construction of sentences, or in anecdotical information, but not for the purpose of sharpening the moral perceptions or strengthening the moral habits. This, in general native estimation, does not belong to the business of instruction, and it never appears to be thought of or attempted. Others will judge, from their own observation and experience, whether the Musalman character, as we see it in India, has been formed or influenced by such a course of instruction. The result of my own observation is that of two classes of persons—one exclusively educated in Muhammadan and the other in Hindu literature—the former appears to me to possess an intellectual superiority, but the moral superiority does not seem to exist.”

2. Arabic Schools.—Of this description there are two sorts, which may be contradistinguished as Formal Arabic and Learned Arabic, properly so called.

The former of these institutions may be described as intended exclusively for “instruction in the formal or ceremonial reading of certain passages of the Koran.”

"“The whole time stated to be spent at school varies from one to five years. The teachers possess the lowest degree of attainment to which it is possible to assign the task of instruction. They do not pretend to be able even to sign their names; and they disclaim altogether the ability to understand that which they read and teach. The mere forms, names, and sounds of certain letters and combinations of letters they know and teach, and what they teach is all that they know of written language, without presuming, or pretending, or aiming to elicit the feeblest glimmering of meaning from these empty vocables. This whole class of schools is as consummate a burlesque upon mere forms of instruction, separate from a radical meaning and purpose, as can well be imagined. The teachers are all Kath-Mollas—that is, the lowest grade of Musalman priests, who chiefly derive their support from the ignorance and superstition of the poor classes of their co-religionists, and the scholars are in training for the same office.”"

After such a statement, we need not be surprised at Mr. Adam’s conclusion, that “no institution can be more insignificant and useless, and in every respect less worthy of notice, than those Arabic schools, viewed as places of instruction.”

The learned schools, properly so called, are of course of a higher order. They are intimately connected with the Persian, and almost imperceptibly run into each other.

“The Arabic teacher teaches Persian also in the same school and to the same pupils; and an Arabic school is sometimes known from a Persian school only by having a single Arabic scholar studying the most elementary Arabic