Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/482

 138 THE BRITISH EMPIRE: — INDIA AND DEPENDENCIES

The following table embraces the principal statistics compiled up to 31st March, 1897, as to the number of the various classes of schools and the pupils : —

—

Institutions for

Scholars

Males

Females

Males 18,653

Females

Colleges ....

155

5

130

General education :

Secondary.

4,827

440

495,132

40,023

Primary

97,881

6,039

2,892,264

317,561

Special education :

Training and other

special schools.

473

66

22,327

2,292

Private institutions : Total.

Grnnd total

40,680

1,459

526,336

42,152

144,016

8,009

3,954,712

402,158

152,

025

4,356,870

Of the total number of educational institutions in India (viz., 152,025), 22,286 are public, 63,955 are aided, and' 65, 784 are private and unaided.

Since the appointment of a commission, in 1883, to investigate the whole system of education in India, the results have been to place public instruction on a broader and more popular basis, to encourage private enterprise in teach- ing, to give a more adecpiate recognition to indigenous schools, and to provide that the education of the people shall advance at a more equal pace along with the instruction of the higher classes. Female education and the instruction of certain backward classes of the community, such as Muhammadans, received special attention. Notwithstanding the progress of education, the proportion of the total population al)le to read and write is still very small. It is esti- mated that in British India only 22 '29 per cent, of the boys of a school-going age attend school ; the ]iercentage in the case of girls being 2 '34,

In 1896 there were 598 vernacular newspapers published regularly in 17 different languages. Only one daily vernacular newspa]ier circulates as many as 5,000 copies, only one weekly as many as 20,000. During the year, 7,185 books and magazines ap])eared, about seventeen -twentieths being in native languages.

Justice and Crime.

The Presidencies of Madras and Romliay, and the Lieutenant-Governorshi])s of Bengal and the N. W. Provinces have each a high court, supreme both in civil and criminal Imsiness, Init with an ultimate appeal to the Judicial Com- mittee of the Privy Council in England. Of the minor provinces, the Punjab has a chief court, with five judges; the Central Provinces, Oudh and Siiid, have each one judicial commissioner. Burma has a judicial commissioner and a recorder. For Assam, the high court at Calcutta is the highest judicial authority, except in the three hill districts, where the chief commissioner of Assam is judge without appeal in civil and criminal cases. In each district the ' collector-magistrate ' is judge both of first instance and appeal.

about

Appellate and original jurisdiction is exercised in the superior courts by ut 450 judges. During 1890, about 5,600 magistrates, of whom one -half