Page:Reports on the State of Education in Bengal (1835 & 1838).djvu/101

Rh a beginning has been made to teach Bengalee to the boys of the first class; and the assistant-teachers during a leisure hour every day have the advantage of attending lectures delivered by a missionary on the philosophy of the human mind.

The Church Missionary Association does not appear to have any separate English school under its care, but in the latest report (1835), it is stated that at the annual meeting which took place on the 18th February, 1834, the following resolution was passed, viz., “that it be an instruction to the committee, that they endeavour to devise a plan for the education and preparation of schoolmasters to meet the calls of the out-stations for instruments of English education.” This subject has accordingly been considered, and a course of instruction for bringing up Native teachers has been adopted, but there has not been time as yet for any particular result to attend the experiment.

The most prominent and popular English school in Calcutta among those that belong to the class I am now noticing, is the one in connection with the mission of the General Assembly of the church of Scotland. This institution does not publish periodical reports in India, and the following details have in consequence been chiefly drawn from magazine and newspaper articles. In 1823 the subject of Native education in India appears [to have been first brought before the General Assembly in a memorial from the Reverend Dr. Bryce and the gentlemen then forming the kirk session of St. Andrew’s Church of Calcutta, and the funds appropriated to this object had their origin in public subscription made at Calcutta, under the superintendence of the session, simultaneously with collections made in the different parishes in Scotland at the recommendation of the General Assembly. The institution has hitherto been maintained by the same means.

The number now under instruction at the school is not less than five hundred and fifty; and were the funds sufficient and the accommodation possessed by the institution more extensive, this number might be greatly enlarged. The branches of learning taught in this department of the school comprehend English grammar, reading, and arithmetic, geography political and physical, elementary mathematics including algebra and the use of logarithms, translation and composition in English and Bengalee, a brief survey of history ancient and modern, the