Page:Reports on the State of Education in Bengal (1835 & 1838).djvu/119

Rh monitors. The school is situated in the Circular Road, and has about 50 scholars, chiefly Mahomedan, who receive Christian instruction in the Native language. About 30 of the girls read the various school-books, and 20 learn to spell, &c. The monthly expenditure is Rupees 40.

There are three schools connected with the London Missionary Society in Calcutta. In a school situated in the Thunthunnya Road there are 45 scholars; in the Creek Row school 25; and in the Mendee Bagan school 28; in all 108. In these schools the girls are taught reading, writing and arithmetic, besides plain needle-work and marking. In order to assist in supporting the schools, it is intended to receive plain work, to be charged at a very moderate rate.

It has already been mentioned that 70 orphans are lodged and educated in the Central School belonging to the Ladies’ Society for Native Female Education; and it is now proposed to build a suitable separate establishment for the reception of one hundred Native orphan girls. It is intended that these children shall receive a good plain education both in their own and in the English language, be trained to habits of industry and usefulness, and remain in the institution until they marry. A public subscription has been opened, and it is contemplated to purchase ground on the bank of the river, four or five miles north of Calcutta, where land can be bought comparatively cheap.

Infant Schools.—In the account of the Calcutta Free school it was stated that the female department included an infant school in which the rudiments of knowledge are communicated to about 50 very young children.

Another infant school was established in 1830, and in October of that year there were about 48 children in daily attendance from two years old to eight. They attended from nine in the morning till five in the afternoon, and received a meal at one o’clock. This is probably the infant school mentioned already as one of the St. James’s district schools. It appears to have been suspended until the arrival of teachers from England who re-commenced the school in December, 1834, in the neighbourhood of St. James’s church. Measures are in the progress for giving it efficiency as a school for training and preparing masters and mistresses for other schools, and for introducing the system amongst the Natives both in Bengal and the