Page:Reports on the State of Education in Bengal (1835 & 1838).djvu/366

296 Instruction for distribution were presented to these teachers and their pupils and they were not only thankfully but most greedily received. They had also a vague, but nevertheless a very strong desire to acquire a knowledge of European systems of learning, and I could reckon with confidence on receiving their co-operation in any measure which without offending their social or religious prejudices should have a tendency to gratify that desire.

These schools are generally of European origin. They are few in number and are often under the same management, and for these reasons they are noticed here under one head.

There is no English school throughout the district; and in the city the Nizamat College, in which English, as well as Persian and Arabic, is taught was by the tenor of my instructions excepted from my inquiries inasmuch as it is a Government institution or rather an institution under Government control. The duty assigned to me was to collect information regarding the state of education which Government had no other direct means of obtaining, and as regular reports are furnished of the Nizamat College, that institution did not come within my province.

The only school in the city thana in which the teaching of English is made the sole objects is one under the direction of the Revd. Mr. Paterson of the London Missionary Society. His instructions are gratuitous to the scholars, and they assemble in an out-office attached to his dwelling-house. The number of pupils is 13, of whom one is an Armenian, two are Musalmans, and ten are Hindus. Of the Hindus, six are Kayasthas, three are Brahmans, and one is a Kaivarta. Others give an irregular attendance, and are therefore not included in the list of scholars. Mr. Paterson has leisure from his other avocations to instruct