Page:Second Report on the State of Education in Bengal (1836).djvu/38

Rh The portion of the Koran which is taught is that which begins with Chapter LXXVIII. of Koran, and extends to the close of the volume. The Mollas, besides teaching a few pupils the formal reading of this portion of the Koran, perform the marriage ceremony, for which they are paid from one to eight annas according to the means of the party; and also the funeral service with prayers for the dead continued from one to forty days, for which they get from two annas to one rupee, and it is in these services that the formal reading of the Koran is deemed essential. The Mollas also often perform the office of the village butcher, killing animals for food with the usual religious forms, without which their flesh cannot be eaten by Musalmans; but for this they take no remuneration. In several cases, the teacher of the school depends for his livelihood on employment at marriages and burials, giving his instructions as a teacher gratuitously. In one instance a fixed allowance is received from the patron of the school, fees from some of the scholars, and perquisites besides, amounting in all to four rupees eight annas per month, and in this case the patron professes the intention to have the scholars hereafter taught Persian and Bengali. In another the patron merely lodges, feeds, and clothes, the teacher who receives neither fixed allowance nor fees. In three instances the only remuneration the teacher receives is a salami, or present of five or six rupees, from each scholar when he finally leaves school. In two instances the teachers have small farms from which they derive the means of subsistence in addition to their gains as Mollas. They give instruction either in their own houses, or in school-houses, which are also applied to the purposes of prayer and hospitality and of assembly on occasions of general interest.

No institutions can be more insignificant and useless, and in every respect less worthy of notice, than these Arabic schools, viewed as places of instruction; but, however worthless in themselves, they have a certain hold on the Native mind, which is proved by the increased respect and emolument as Mollas, expected and acquired by some of the teachers on account of the instruction they give; the expense incurred by others of them in erecting school-houses; and by the general employment by the