Page:Calcutta Review Vol. II (Oct. - Dec. 1844).pdf/351

346 a certain extent, open to all respectable classes of native society. Castes, inferior to the Brahmanical, may study the more secular branches, such as “grammar and lexicology, poetical and dramatical literature, rhetoric, astrology and medicine;” but the higher and more sacred branches, such as “law, the writings of the six schools of philosophy, and the sacred mythological poems are the peculiar inheritance of the Brahman caste.” Such, in theory, is “the distinction recognised in the legal and religious economy of Hinduism; but, practically, Brahmans monopolize not only a part, but nearly the whole of Sanskrit learning.” In the Behar districts, visited by Mr. Adam, both teachers and students, without a single exception, belonged to that caste; and the exceptions in the Bengal districts were comparatively few. Indeed, the only exceptions to the Brahmanical monopoly of Sanskrit teaching were a few Vaidyas or native physicians.

In some instances, the schools are endowed; but, for the most part, they owe their origin to the voluntary efforts of single individuals. There is no combination or co-operation. Each pandit sets up a school for himself, in which he “teaches separately the branch or branches of learning which he has studied most, or for which there is the greatest demand; and the students make their selections and remove from one to another at their pleasure.” The students again are “divided into two classes, one of which consists of those who are natives of the villages in which the schools are situated, and the other of natives of the other villages—the former called natives, and the latter foreigners, corresponding respectively with the externes and internes of the Royal Colleges of France. The students of a school or college who are natives of the village, are the externes, attending it daily for the purpose of receiving instruction, and daily returning home to their parents, relatives, or friends with whom they board and lodge, while the students who are natives of other villages than that in which the school is situated are the internes, residing in the house of the teacher and receiving from him not only instruction but also lodging and food.” The majority of the teachers have separate school-houses, “either built at their own charge or at the expense of patrons and friends, or by the subscriptions of the most respectable inhabitants of the village where the school is situated. In those instances in which there is no regular school-house, the Baithakhana or Chandi-mandap of the pandit or of some wealthy friend answers the purpose.” The school-house is also frequently used as a place of accommodation for the students who have no house in the village; or these may be accommodated in separate lodging apartments attached to the school-room—apartments of the humblest