Page:Reports on the State of Education in Bengal (1835 & 1838).djvu/255

Rh The teachers’ house and the school-house were built by subscription and the current expenses were defrayed by the same means. The subscriptions never amounted to more than one hundred and thirty-eight rupees per month, and at the time the school was suspended they had fallen to eighty-six rupees per month, in consequence of several friends to the institution having left the station. Even the latter amount could not be regularly realized from the nominal subscribers, the unpaid arrears amounting to 663 rupees, and a balance being due to the school-establishment of 274 rupees. The subscribers were public functionaries, indigo-planters, zemindars, and native otheers of the courts; Christians and non-Christians in nearly equal proportions.

When the school was suspended, the number of scholars was 134, of whom about two-thirds were in regular attendance. Eighty-five were learning English and forty-nine Bengali. The age of the Bengali scholars varied from five to fourteen; and that of the English scholars from eight to twenty-four. All the Bengali scholars were from Bauleah and its neighbourhood. A majority of the English scholars were not natives of Bauleah, but had relations attached to the courts there; and a few who had no relations at Bauleah had come from Pubna, Commercolly, Nattore and Moorshedabad.

The Bengali scholars were taught writing, reading, and accounts in the native way. The writing materials were at first supplied at the expense of the institution, and afterwards the scholars were required to bring them at their own expense, in consequence of which twenty-five of them discontinued their attendance. If this requisition had been made from the first, it is probable that no objection would have been made to it.

The English scholars were first taught to read and spell, and afterwards to write and to translate from English into Bengali. They were next carried on to the simplest rules of grammar and arithmetic and still further to Murray’s abridgement and the rule of three; and they were afterwards introduced by verbal instruction to some knowledge of geography and astronomy. The highest class read English History and Ancient History and an Introduction to Natural Philosophy.

I examined this school in the middle of July last, and found it in a very inefficient state, the obvious cause of which 15—1326B