Page:Report on public instruction in the lower provinces of the Bengal presidency (1850-51).djvu/41

Rh "The replies of the Hoogbly College in Literature, are not sufficiently full and complete. A fuller development is, in most instances, required.

"The lines

are by some of the best pupils rendered into 'Look now it is morning,' which though in a manner correct, is evidently too concise and naked. The passage is stript of all its beauty and turned literally into 'plain prose.'

"Another remark which may be made, with reference to the Hooghly College, is, that there is no evidence of that decided advance in the senior scholars Cally Prossonno Chatterjee and Isser Chunder Dass, which might be expected from another year's devotion to study. The examiner is strongly inclined to think that six years is too long a period to retain a senior scholarship, and that four years, which he believes is the usual period at home, is long enough. If held for a longer period, the student is apt to relax in his diligence.

"Omes Chunder Dass, of the Dacca College, appears to have fallen off much in Literature since last year. His proficiency was then represented by the number 40, now by 27. The chief fault I found with his paper is its diffuseness. The writer wanders from the point, and says much that shows talent and is instructive, but which has no clear connection with the question. Thus in reply to the first question in Literature, simply requiring an explanation of the words 'and our vain blows malicious mockery,' he goes out of his way to take notice of the popular belief, that only 'a scholar' who knew Latin could speak to a ghost with any hope of receiving a reply. He expatiates upon this for two pages, and at the third page, comes back to the question.

"An error more or less observable in all the Colleges is, that of extracting paragraphs from books, quoted from memory, with more or less exactness, and dove-tailed into the answer without acknowledgment. An example or two may be given. Callychurn Chatterjee, in replying to the third question of the afternoon paper in Literature, says, 'here we have to carry on, along with the logical process expressed in words, another process of a far more difficult nature, that of fixing the attention upon the objects which the words we employ signify.' This is taken verbatim from Dugald Stewart. Another example may be given of a vice so common, and which perhaps is natural to young men composing in a foreign language. One of the candidates commences his