Page:On the education of the people of India (IA oneducationofpeo00trevrich).pdf/32

18 committee. It was for the district of Dinajpoor, which is computed to contain 6,000 square miles, above 12,000 towns and villages, and a population exceeding 2,300,000; and it is a district remarkable even in Bengal for the darkness of the ignorance which prevails in it. Though many of the leading inhabitants concurred with the European authorities in desiring that some effectual steps should be taken to enlighten this part of the country, the utmost the committee was able to afford was seventy rupees a month.

As the general superintendence of the system is vested in a “general committee,” residing at Calcutta, so the management of each particular seminary is intrusted to a local committee residing on the spot. The members of these committees are appointed by the government from all classes of the community, native as well as European. Care is taken in the selection to secure for the support of the system as much zeal, influence, and information as possible, and nobody who has the cause at heart, and can really aid it, need be without a share in the management. It is the wish of the general committee to employ the government fund only in the payment of the salaries of teachers; by this means the permanence of the institutions will be secured, at the