Page:Second Report on the State of Education in Bengal (1836).djvu/28

Rh before the establishment of the British rule in this country, and during the existence of the Musalman power, for they are full of Hindustani or Persian terms and contain references to Mahomedan usages without the remotest allusion to English practices or modes of calculation. A recent native editor has deemed it requisite to remedy this defect by a supplement.

It has been already mentioned that there are four different stages in a course of Bengali instruction. The first period seldom exceeds ten days, which are employed in teaching the young scholars to form the letters of the alphabet on the ground with a small stick or slip of bambu. The sand-board is not used in this district, probably to save expense. The second period, extending from two and a half to four years according to the capacity of the scholar, is distinguished by the use of the palm-leaf as the material on which writing is performed. Hitherto the mere form and sound of the letters have been taught without regard to their size and relative proportion; but the master with an iron-style now writes on the palm-leaf letters of a determinate size and in due proportion to each other, and the scholar is required to trace them on the same leaf with a reed-pen and with charcoal-ink which easily rubs out. This process is repeated over and over again on the same leaf until the scholar no longer requires the use of the copy to guide him in the formation of the letters of a fit size and proportion, and he is consequently next made to write them on another leaf which has no copy to direct him. He is afterwards exercised in writing and pronouncing the compound consonants, the syllables formed by the junction of vowels with consonants, and the most common names of persons. In other parts of the country, the names of castes, rivers, mountains, &c., are written as well as of persons; but here the names of persons only are employed as a school-exercise. The scholar is then taught to write and read, and by frequent repetition he commits to memory the Cowrie Table, the Numeration Table as far as 100, the Katha Table, (a land-measure table,) and the Ser Table, (a dry-measure table.) There are other tables in use elsewhere which are not taught in the schools of this district. The third stage of instruction extends from two