Page:The despatch of 1854, on General education in India.djvu/29

Rh and which appears to us to be capable of easy adaptation to India. It mainly consists, as you will perceive on reference to the Minutes of the Committee of Council, copies of which we enclose, in the selection and stipend of pupil teachers (awarding a small payment to the masters of the schools in which they are employed, for their instruction out of school hours); their ultimate removal, if they prove worthy, to normal schools; the issue to them of certificates, on the completion of their training in those normal schools; and in securing to them a sufficient salary when they are afterwards employed as schoolmasters. This system should be carried out in India, both in the Government colleges and schools, and, by means of grants in aid, in all institutions which are brought under Government inspection. The amount of the stipends to pupil teachers and students at normal schools should be fixed with great care. The former should receive moderate allowances rather above the sum which they would earn if they left school, and the stipends to the latter should be regulated by the same principle which we have laid down with respect to scholarships.

69. You will be called upon, in carrying these measures into effect, to take into consideration the position and prospects of the numerous class of natives of India who are ready to undertake the important duty of educating their fellow-countrymen. The late extension of the pension regulations of 1831 to the educational service may require to be adapted to the revised regulations in this respect; and our wish is that the profession of schoolmaster may, for the future, afford inducements to the natives of India such as are held out in other branches of the public service. The provision of such a class of schoolmasters as we wish to see must be a work of time; and, in encouraging the “indigenous schools,” our present aim should be to improve the teachers whom we find in possession, and to take care not to provoke the hostility of this class of persons, whose influence is so great over the minds of the lower classes, by superseding them where it is possible to avoid it. They should, moreover, be encouraged to attend the normal schools and classes which may hereafter be instituted for this class of teachers.