Page:Calcutta Review Vol. II (Oct. - Dec. 1844).pdf/366

Rh of the Burdwan district, in which the highest proportion of juvenile instruction was found, is that also in which the highest proportion of adult instruction is found, viz., about 9 in every 100, leaving 91 of the adult population wholly uninstructed. The Bhawara thana of the Tirhoot district, in which the lowest proportion of juvenile instruction was found, is that also in which the lowest proportion of adult instruction is found, viz., 2 and 3-10ths in every 100, leaving 97 and 7-10ths of the adult population wholly uninstructed. The intermediate proportions have also a correspondence. Thus, in the comparison of one locality with another, the state of adult instruction is found to rise and fall with the state of juvenile instruction; and although this is what might have been anticipated on the most obvious grounds, yet the actual correspondence deserves to be distinctly indicated, for the sake of the confirmation which it gives to the general accuracy of the numerous details and calculations by which the conclusion has been established.”

From the preceding table and statements, it will be seen that the aggregate average for all the districts is no more than 5 per cent.! leaving 94 of every 100 adults wholly destitute of all kinds and degrees of instruction whatsoever! What, then, must be the amount of educational destitution among the adult population of Bengal and Behar with their many millions?

In order to have the mind not only penetrated but absolutely saturated with a sense of the fearful extent of the destitution, let us endeavour to form an approximate estimate of the actual numbers of the juvenile and adult population that are without any educational instruction whatever, even of the humblest description, such as simple reading and writing. In the statistical tables supplied by Mr., in his recent and most authoritative work on the subject, we find the aggregate population of Bengal and Behar estimated, in round numbers, at thirty-six millions. First, as regards the juvenile population, from the most favourable average furnished by European statists, it appears that 366 in 1000, or about eleven-thirtieths of