Page:Reports on the State of Education in Bengal (1835 & 1838).djvu/368

298 Calcutta attached to the London Missionary Society; and thirteen boys remained in connection with the institution. Of these thirteen twelve resided in the Asylum; and one, a leper, on the farm belonging to it. The parents of the orphans were, as far as is known, Hindus or Musalmans; and the orphans had been, some of them left destitute by the death of their parents, others secured from starvation during a period of famine, and one, it was stated, had been abandoned in the fields by its mother. The age of the youngest child is about four years and of the oldest about fifteen.

The orphans receive instruction both in letters and in the arts of manual industry, and to aid the Missionaries in both objects, John Gainer, a private soldier in one of the King’s regiments, was enabled, in part by means of the orphan funds, to purchase his discharge and his services have been engaged for 25 Rupees a month. Besides a sircar at 6 rupees a month, he is the only person who receives a salary from the institution. The school-instruction embraces the Bengali and English languages, and reading and writing in both. All are taught English who discover a capacity to acquire it. Three of the boys read Bengali in the Roman character, but this is in addition to, not in substitution of, the Bengali character. The ordinary school-books are employed, including the New Testament in both languages; the want of good school-books is stated to be very much felt. To teach trades and form habits of industry two arrangements have been made; a workshop has been formed and a piece of ground rented for a farm. In the workshop tape and bobbin, buggy-whips, shoes, manifold letter-writers, and snake-paper-weights are or have been made. The ground for a farm estimated at 100 bighas has been recently rented. Twenty bighas were in preparation for mulberry and it is hoped that the cultivation of the plant, the rearing of the silk-worm, and the weaving of the silk so produced will find employment and support for the orphans. There is a religious service morning and evening at which the pupils are present; and with the exception of an hour for food and bathing, they are in school from six o’clock in the morning till mid-day, and in the workshop till four in the afternoon.

Although orphans are the primary objects of the Asylum it is also proposed to receive outcasts, persons destitute by the