Page:Reports on the State of Education in Bengal (1835 & 1838).djvu/115

Rh their various departments of labour in rotation under the direction of the head-mistress. It is made an object also that the institution should furnish its own teachers, and the orphans are so trained as to provide a succession of mistresses well qualified by previous discipline to carry on the whole business of the institution. They are made also to contribute by their manual labour to the funds of the institution in subordination to higher objects. The property of the institution is held in trust by a committee of five gentlemen, and the management is confided to a committee of ten ladies. At the date of the last report (1834), the number receiving the benefit of the asylum was 79; and the expenditure of the asylum was a little more than 1,000 rupees per month, including the board, clothing, washing, etc., of the children, and the salaries of the mistress and of the chaplain, servants, etc. The funds to meet the expenditure consist of voluntary contributions, with the exception of 191 sicca rupees per mensem, which is allowed by Government in consideration of the children being taken from the barracks. There is an annual sale of useful and fancy articles for the purpose of aiding the funds, and the work produced by the industry of the orphans in their leisure hours has averaged at the sales not less than between four or five hundred rupees each year. A considerable sum has also been gained for the asylum by needle-work taken in and executed by the wards.

The Calcutta Catholic Society was formed about five years ago, and has established two charity schools, one for boys and the other for girls. The objects of this Society are to rescue the offspring of professed Catholics in Calcutta from the corruption which ignorance and poverty always beget, to instruct that class of Christians in the doctrines and principles of Catholicism, and to purchase and disseminate such works of talented Catholic authors as afford a fair and correct view of the Catholic religion, and are calculated to raise the moral character of its followers. Both schools afford daily instruction to about 150 children, and the total expenditure does not exceed 150 rupees per month. This institution has recently been placed under the patronage of the Vicar Apostolic of Bengal, and under the management of a committee composed of ladies for the female, and gentlemen for the male, department.

There is a small school attached to the principal Roman