Page:Reports on the State of Education in Bengal (1835 & 1838).djvu/530

Rh examined at the head-quarter-station of the Division in which the corps to be supplied with teachers is situated, before a Committee of three interpreters and quarter-masters, none of them being of the corps to be supplied.

Having obtained qualified teachers, the next object will be to provide that the native soldiers shall receive the full benefit of the instructions they are capable of bestowing. Government has provided the sepoy with a motive to learn in the prospect of promotion but in the enjoyment of fixed salaries the moonshee, the moolvee and the pundit have no sufficient motive to teach. If the moolvee and the pundit of a regiment are, what their designations import, really learned men, the sum of eight rupees per month to each is rather below than above their just expectations, and I would propose that a small addition should be made to it, and that the addition should be dependent on their own exertion to deserve it. If, for instance, an examination is held in a regiment every six months and a teacher produces six instructed scholars, sepoys or sons of sepoys in the regiment, capable of sustaining with credit a thorough examination in any one of the regimental school-books, then for every such scholar let the teacher receive from Government one rupee in addition to his fixed allowance and to the remuneration which the scholar may bestow. Limiting the number of scholars to be passed by one teacher every six months to six, this would give each teacher an addition of only one rupee per month throughout the year; but its effect, if paid only for the result of successful instruction, would probably be considerable. If to increase the zeal of the teachers it were deemed advisable to double the money-reward, the amount would still be moderate.

To call forth the exertions of the native soldiers and to stimulate them to self-improvement one other measure might be adopted, the establishment of an English school in each regiment to which those only should be admitted who had completed the course of native instruction prescribed in the regimental school-books. The hope of promotion held out by Government to instructed sepoys, in addition to the other aids and stimulants that have been suggested, will produce a good effect; but I am assured by officers of experience that a knowledge of English is anxiously desired and sought by intelligent native soldiers, and