Page:Calcutta Review Vol. II (Oct. - Dec. 1844).pdf/365

360 this as a fair, legitimate, and inductively established average for all Bengal and Behar with their many millions, how fearful—how utterly appalling the aggregate amount of educational destitution!

In order still farther to complete and render more impressive our view of the utter inadequacy of the means of indigenous instruction, it is necessary to direct special attention to the literary condition of the adults. When the number of the juvenile population actually receiving any sort of instruction is so disproportionably small, compared with the number actually needing instruction, it might, as a necessary consequence, be anticipated, that a similar disproportion would be found in the respective numbers of the instructed and uninstructed adult population. And such a result, Mr. Adam, on entirely independent grounds, has ascertained and established, as the following table, partly extracted, and partly framed out of his materials, will abundantly verify:—

To this table we subjoin some of Mr. Adam’s appropriate remarks, both of a deductive and an explanatory character:—

“The total adult population is the population, male and female, above 14 years of age, including the students both of Hindu and Muhammadan schools of learning, as being generally above that age; and the instructed adult population is the total number of those who were ascertained to possess any kind or degree of instruction, from the lowest grade to the highest attainments of learning. The result is a natural consequence of the degree of instruction found to exist amongst the juvenile population, and is confirmatory of the proportions given in the last table. The Culna thana