Page:The despatch of 1854, on General education in India.djvu/39

Rh three inspectors of the district schools, one of whom (Mahadeo Govind Shastri) is a native of India. The schools are reported to be improving, and masters trained in the Government colleges have been recently appointed to some of them with the happiest effects. These results are very creditable to the Presidency of Bombay; and we trust that each Government school will now be made a centre from which the indigenous schools of the adjacent districts may be inspected and encouraged.

95. As the new revenue settlement is extended in the Bombay Presidency, there will, we apprehend, be found an inducement precisely similar to that which has been taken advantage of by Mr. Thomason, to make it the interest of the agricultural classes to acquire so much knowledge as will enable them to check the returns of the village accountants. We have learnt with satisfaction that the subject of gradually making some educational qualification necessary to the confirmation of these hereditary officers is under the consideration of the Government of Bombay, and that a practical educational test is now insisted upon for persons employed in many offices under Government.

96. In Madras, where little has yet been done by Government to promote the education of the mass of the people, we can only remark with satisfaction that the educational efforts of Christian missionaries have been more successful among the Tamul population than in any other part of India; and that the Presidency of Madras offers a fair field for the adoption of our scheme of education in its integrity, by founding Government Anglo-vernacular institutions only where no such places of instruction at present exist, which might, by grants in aid and other assistance, adequately supply the educational wants of the people. We also perceive with satisfaction that Mr. Daniel Eliott, in a recent and most able minute upon the subject of education, has stated that Mr. Thomason’s plan for the encouragement of indigenous schools might readily be introduced into the Madras Presidency, where the settlement offers a similar practical inducement to the people for the acquisition of elementary knowledge.

97. We have now concluded the observations which we