Page:History, Design and Present State of the Religious, Benevolent and Charitable Institutions.djvu/187

Rh came the chief object of the Society, in the accomplishment of which they were eminently successful. It was ascertained that the Schools of this description amounted to not more than 190 Bengallee Schools, averaging 22 pupils each, or 4180 Children under instruction, from a population at the lowest estimate of 7,50,000 natives. The paucity of this number was in some degree accounted for by the circumstance, that a great part of the population of Calcutta is composed of young men, who having received a common education in their native Villages, had come to the Metropolis for employment, leaving their families behind; and also that with very few exceptions the Hindoo Girls were excluded from the number.

state of education in these Schools was found to be deplorably defective, being almost entirely confined to the writing of the Alphabet and figures, and a very imperfect knowledge of Arithmetic. Reading was not practised, nor orthography acquired; for, although a very few of the more advanced Boys were in the habit of transcribing extracts from the most popular poetical compositions of the Country,