Page:Second Report on the State of Education in Bengal (1836).djvu/40

Rh house, occasionally at that of Rammohan Sandyal, and occasionally in that of Krishna Kumar Bhaduri, the two latter being respectable inhabitants of the village whose children attend the school.

The combined study of Persian and Bengali in these schools suggests the inquiry to what extent Persian is studied in this district for its own sake, and to what extent merely as the language of the courts. The Bengali language, with a larger proportion than in some other districts of what may be called aboriginal terms, i. e. words not derived from the Sanscrit or any other known language, is the language of the Musalman as well as of the Hindu population. Even educated Musalmans speak and write the Bengali; and even several low castes of Hindus occupying entire villages in various directions and amounting to several thousand individuals, whose ancestors three or four generations ago, according to the popular explanation, emigrated from the Western Provinces and settled in the district, have found it necessary to combine the use of the Bengali with the Hindi, their mother-tongue. The Bengali, therefore, may be justly described as the universal language of the district; and it might be supposed that those who wished to give their children a knowledge of letters and accounts would seek these advantages for them through the most direct and obvious medium—the language of the district—instead of having recourse to a foreign language, such as the Persian, in which instruction is less easily obtainable and rather higher priced. In these circumstances, the considerations that lead to the use of Persian appear to be of a complex character, partly connected with the importance attached to it by Musalmans, and partly with the importance given to it in the Company’s courts.

It has been already seen that in connection with the religious and social observances of the lowest classes of the Musalman population the formal reading of the Koran in the original language is deemed indispensable; and in like manner the acquisition of a real knowledge of the language of Islam and of the learning it contains is viewed amongst the educated as the highest attainment to which they can aspire. An endowed